Bolivia halts U.S. agents’ anti-drug operations

Bolivian President Evo Morales suspended operations by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Saturday after accusing the agency of aiding ‘criminal groups’ that oppose his rule. Morales’ move was the latest sign of the deterioration in relations between his leftist government and Washington. ‘There were DEA agents who worked to conduct political espionage and to fund criminal groups so they could launch attacks on the lives of authorities, if not the president,’ Morales told reporters during a visit to the Chapare region, a major production zone for coca plants, from which cocaine is extracted. ‘We are obligated to defend Bolivian sovereignty.’ Bolivia is the world’s third-largest producer of cocaine, after Colombia and Peru. A sizable DEA contingent has been working on interdiction in Bolivia for decades. A senior U.S. State Department official called Morales’ accusation ‘false and absurd.’ ‘Should U.S. cooperation be ended, more narcotics will be produced and shipped from Bolivia,’ said the official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.