U.S. Senators Visit Bolivia To Smooth Tensions

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
December 29, 2006
Six U.S. senators paid a visit to Bolivian leaders in an attempt to ease tensions with leftist leader Evo Morales.
By Dan Keane, Associated Press
LA PAZ, Bolivia - A delegation of six U.S. senators led by incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid arrived in this Andean capital Thursday seeking to smooth relations with Bolivia's left-leaning government.
Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said in fluent Spanish to Bolivian reporters that the visit could provide a ''different direction'' for U.S.-Bolivian relations, which have been strained under Bolivia's leftist leader Evo Morales.
''I believe all of us want the same thing, to help lift up the people of Latin America so that they can achieve the human dignity they deserve,'' Salazar said.
Reid, D-Nev., said that Morales, Bolivia's first Indian president, had been elected democratically.
''Not everyone was pleased with the outcome, but that's the way elections are, just like ours of Nov. 7,'' he said, referring to the vote in which Reid's Democratic Party retook both houses of Congress.
Joining Reid and Salazar are incoming Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill.; Sen. Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota; Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah.
U.S. ties to Bolivia have been tense partly due to Morales' friendship with leaders Fidel Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, as well as by Morales' background as the leader of coca growers fighting U.S. attempts to eradicate their crops.
Morales announced earlier this month that he would seek to significantly expand legal cultivation of coca, which is commonly used in Bolivia as a mild stimulant but is also the main ingredient in cocaine.
The statement drew sharp criticism from Washington, which has strenuously objected to any increase in coca production, but the two nations this month signed an agreement guaranteeing $34 million in U.S. anti-narcotics aid for next year.
Like Chávez, Morales has railed against U.S. foreign policy.
But he also sent Vice President Alvaro García Linera twice to Washington to negotiate an extension of a key trade agreement with the United States -- that President Bush eventually backed and Congress passed earlier this month.
 
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