Bolivia: the little country that could

Could raise its cocaine production to 1980's levels again, that is. Chavista stooge Evo Morales, himself a coca farmer, vowed to fight cocaine production but is surprising no one by letting it flourish.

Officials of Bolivia's Force to Fight Crime and Narcotraffic (FELCN) have said a network of newly equipped cocaine laboratories has been discovered along Bolivia's eastern borders with Brazil, including six crystallization factories, each capable of producing 220 pounds of cocaine powder a day.

"We did not have this before," said an anti-drug analyst who thinks that Colombian and Mexican cartels have introduced new methods and technologies.

Bolivia is traditionally a source and transit country; they grow the coca, reduce it to paste, and ship it to Colombia or Brazil for processing into powder. These full-service labs are worrisome, if not at all surprising given what we've already seen of Morales' character.

Brazilian drug traffickers have bartered Cessna aircraft for drugs, according to FELCN officials who say that almost 500 clandestine airstrips are operating in Bolivia.

"We haven't seen this level of drug activity since the days of General Garcia Mesa," said Mr. Justiniano, a former anti-drug official. He was referring to a 1980-82 dictator who is serving a life sentence in the United States.

Wow, so you're saying there's almost as much cocaine business today under Evo Morales as there was under a corrupt, repressive thug dictator who was complicit in the trade? Knock me over with a feather.

Incidentally, the Wash Times piece is incorrect: General Garcia Mesa isn't serving a life sentence in the United States. He was sentenced to thirty years in frigid Chonchorro prison near La Paz. It was actually Garcia Meza's right hand man, Colonel Luis Arce Gomez, who was extradited to the United States and is serving a life sentence.

Incidentally, Arce Gomez was, I think, the inspiration for a character in Die Hard II, in which the goal of the bad guys is to spring a general from an unidentified South American country who is being extradited to the United States to face drug charges.

But that could be Noriega, you point out. Not really; Noriega was being eased out of power (January 1990) while Die Hard 2 was being shot. Besides, there is a little more indication that this is what they're talking about. Here's a screencap from this YouTube video:

That's the airplane on which the General arrived. Notice the flag decal, and then click over to the Bolivian Military Flag and tell me I'm wrong about this. (You can also see this flag when the General first walks out of the plane, on the plane's fuselage near the door just to the general's left.)

I wonder whether at some stage of production, Bolivia was mentioned explictly in the script.

Incidentally, you know who also held a high position in the Garcia Meza administration? Someone even worse.