Bolivia reopens the door to the DEA after almost 20 years

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will resume operations in Bolivia after being expelled in 2008, along with the U.S. embassy, by the government of Evo Morales. This is one of the first decisions of Bolivia’s new president, Rodrigo Paz, which was announced by Interior Minister Marco Antonio Oviedo. “We will have the collaboration of several international agencies, including, of course, the DEA. Because drug trafficking and terrorism are not the problem of a single nation,” Oviedo said Wednesday at an official event.

Oviedo focused primarily on the coca-producing region known as the tropics of Cochabamba, or Chapare, a political stronghold of Morales and an area with minimal regulation over coca leaf production. Local coca growers have warned that they will not allow the international agency to set up operations there.

The return of DEA cooperation comes amid a surge in violence in the country due to organized crime and the reopening of diplomatic relations between Bolivia and the United States following Paz’s rise to power. The vice minister of controlled substances, Ernesto Justiniano, said that the DEA’s presence will be established “as soon as possible”: “Without the DEA, we fell behind in the fight, battling blindfolded. The problem with drug trafficking in Bolivia is that large quantities of cocaine are produced, but we don’t know how much and which organizations control it.” He added that U.S. support will be technological, logistical, and training-related.

Although the DEA has cooperated with the Andean country since the 1970s, its presence intensified during the 1980s and 1990s with the rise of drug trafficking and Washington’s “war on drugs.” During that period, coca leaf production surged dramatically in the Chapare region. Minister Oviedo maintains that everything harvested in that region is destined for illegal use, contrasting it with “legal coca” cultivated in the pre-Hispanic province of Los Yungas in the La Paz department.

The people of Chapare, particularly peasant farmers, do not have fond memories of the DEA era: forced coca field burnings, carried out under armed guard, led to violent clashes that left around 20 people dead.

The tensions and arrests of that era were recalled on Wednesday at a press conference by coca growers’ leader Aquilardo Caricari. “We are emphatic: we will not allow the establishment of any military base in the Cochabamba Tropics. If they want to bring the DEA back, let them place it at the border, where international trafficking supposedly occurs,” he stated.

The position was supported by Morales on his X account: “The Chapare region already has 13 military units […] As our Constitution dictates, the military must not take orders from foreigners nor allow them to operate in our territory,” he wrote.

The friction between Morales and the new government has been evident since Paz’s first day in office. The former president criticized Paz for failing to fulfill his campaign promise to solve, from day one, the country’s fuel shortages. He also attacked the apparent rift between the president and Vice President Edman Lara, who during the campaign had assured that Chapare’s coca would be “respected” and that DEA intervention was unnecessary.

Oviedo responded to the former president: “Evo cannot imagine life without being president […] He is psychologically affected, which is why he has tried to destabilize from day one.”

Even harsher was the president’s father and former president, Jaime Paz, who claimed that Morales “is seeking to be assassinated.” Morales used this threat on Thursday to relaunch, under a narrative of resistance, the participation of his nascent party, Evo Pueblo, in next year’s municipal elections. Morales urged his followers to “repeat” the support he claims to have secured in the first round of the presidential election on August 17, when he promoted a null vote — a choice that reached around 20%, compared to the historic average of 5%.

Minister Oviedo announced that coca cultivation in Chapare will be replaced by other economic activities. “We need to promote more attractive programs for our fellow citizens. Why not develop skills in hospitality? It’s a touristically attractive area,” he suggested. The initiative echoes the era when coca fields were eradicated with financial compensation, before the DEA’s “iron fist.” This plan failed because no other crop or activity proved as profitable as coca, which can be harvested up to four times a year.

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