Bolivia Vows to ‘Root Out Cocaine Producers’

The Bolivian government acknowledged publicly for the first time Thursday that a joint U.S.-Bolivian operation against clandestine cocaine laboratories is about to get under way here, saying in an official statement that it is intended to “root out the cocaine producers in their lairs.”

Minister of Interior Fernando Barthelemy, who is supervising the operation, said the armed raids are “the first step in a plan designed by Bolivian authorities to eliminate cocaine production from this country.”

Barthelemy and Minister of Information Herman Antelo said at a press conference that six U.S. Black Hawk helicopters and about 160 American military personnel involved in the operation are pilots, mechanics and communications personnel who would not actually raid the labs and “would not participate in any way in the repressive actions.”

Their announcement came as 100 U.S. troops--part of the 160-man U.S. contingent--arrived at the airfield at Trinidad, in Bolivia’s Beni province, aboard three C-130 military transports. They were in combat gear and carried rifles.

“They looked like they were ready to go into battle,” said Peter McFarran, a free-lance photographer who was on the tarmac at Trinidad.

The troops climbed into the U.S. helicopters that were flown here from Panama on Monday and were ferried to the base camp at a ranch about 30 minutes’ flying time northeast of Trinidad. The ranch was confiscated last year from a drug operator, and its long airstrip has been improved to receive the aircraft being used in the operations.

At the base camp, there are more than 100 members of the Bolivian national police’s anti-narcotics combat group, known as the “leopards,” who will carry out the raids. This unit, trained and outfitted by the United States, has 600 members working in various parts of Bolivia.

The unit in Beni was selected to attack the laboratories that have been spotted in the desolate jungle region of northeastern Bolivia by agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The leopards will be carried to the sites by the U.S. helicopters.

Barthelemy said the U.S. helicopters and support personnel were necessary for the success of the operation because the “inaccessible sites have been beyond the reach of the law because of the limited resources of the Bolivian police.”

Meanwhile, opposition to the joint U.S.-Bolivian operation surfaced in the Bolivian air force. Maj. Gen. Jorge Eduardo Rodriguez Bravo, the air force commander, heard junior officers protest the U.S. military presence here at a meeting Thursday at the El Alto Air Base, on the heights overlooking this capital, 13,000 feet high in the Andes.

An air force major who participated in the meeting said that the arrival of the U.S. aircraft here, without prior notification to the Bolivian public, was “raising a lot of questions in the air force.”

“We don’t need Marines here,” said Maj. Osvaldo Pericon, a senior pilot. “What we want from the United States is equipment, helicopters and radar so we can stop the illegal flights of the drug smugglers who come from Colombia.”

The air force commander flew to the big air force base at Santa Cruz, capital of that eastern province, where the garrison was also reported to be demanding explanations.

The operation was approved by President Victor Paz Estenssoro and his Cabinet, including the three service commanders. U.S. Embassy sources said the Bolivian air force was offered an opportunity to participate in the anti-drug offensive but had refused.

“We were expecting some rumblings,” said a U.S diplomat. “We think it will pass away with the explanations that the government is giving.”

The official explanation for the U.S. presence is that three agreements signed with the United States since 1983 provide for joint action for anti-narcotics control.

“This operation forms part of those legal instruments and it has a strictly police character,” said the official government statement. “This does not require the approval of Congress, such as would be necessary for joint military maneuvers.”

The U.S. personnel and helicopters are expected to remain here for up to two months.