U.S., Bolivian Drug Agents Forced to Flee Angry Mob After Raiding Town in Search of Cocaine

Bolivian and U.S. drug agents raided this town Friday in search of cocaine traffickers, then fled during a protest by hundreds of angry residents, some shouting, “Kill the Yankees!”

No arrests were made and no cocaine was seized. Authorities said there were no reports of injuries.

Bolivian officials, assisted by U.S. troops, have been raiding cocaine laboratories at jungle ranches in Bolivia for the last three months. Friday’s raid marked the first time a town was the target of the joint crackdown on drugs.

The raid was prompted by reports that several major cocaine traffickers were hiding in Santa Ana, a town of about 5,000 people in the Beni tropical flatlands where most of the country’s cocaine laboratories are based.

Bolivian authorities also suspected that the traffickers were hiding cocaine in Santa Ana, according to German Linarez, commander of the Leopards, a Bolivian anti-narcotics squad trained and funded by the United States.

Santa Ana’s economy is ordinarily based on cattle-raising, but many residents have prospered in recent years because of cocaine trafficking.

About 80 Leopards and 30 Americans, including agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration, took part in Friday’s raid.

Bolivian officials, armed with 20 arrest warrants, searched homes and cars and questioned residents. Two of Bolivia’s top 10 drug traffickers, Roberto Suarez Gomez and Oscar Roca, live in Santa Ana, but neither was here during the raid, officials said.

About an hour after the raid, an estimated 3,000 residents, drawn by the continual pealing of church bells, gathered at the town square to protest the raid.

‘Yankee Go Home’

Some shouted “Kill them, kill them, don’t let them leave!” and “Yankee go home, kill the Yankees!”

The protesters surrounded the Bolivian officials and chased them to an airfield on the outskirts of town.

The DEA officials had left the town proper about half an hour earlier and were already inside six Black Hawk helicopters, manned by U.S. military personnel, and a Bolivian air force troop carrier when the mob arrived at the airfield.

Bolivian authorities fired tear gas and bullets into the air to disperse the crowd but did not succeed.

The mob surrounded the troop carrier, preventing it from leaving until the town mayor, Amadeo Barbosa, was allowed on board to verify that no residents had been arrested.

A helicopter flew above the runway to scatter the crowd, enabling the plane to take off.

‘Mission Accomplished’

A DEA agent, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the raid was a success.

“Part of the mission was accomplished in that the Bolivians have shown their resolve they won’t allow this kind of thing to go on in their backyard. It was a success in the fact that the mission was accomplished at all,” he said.

Earlier raids since the U.S.-Bolivian campaign began have destroyed 17 large clandestine cocaine labs and interrupted 90% of the flow of cocaine out of Bolivia, officials have said.