State Dept. Slams Brakes on Trucks-to-Bolivia Initiative

The planned delivery of 90 heavy-duty trucks to Bolivia related to the attempted escalation of U.S. counternarcotics and crop-eradication initiatives has been abruptly suspended by the State Dept. According to an amended contracting notice dated May 19, it appears that a previous agreement between the government of Bolivia and the State Dept. Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS) has been rendered null and void.

The amendment document, which State posted to the FedBizOpps contracting database on Friday, offered a simple, albeit vague, explanation: “This solicitation is cancelled.” The initial discovery of the NAS endeavor coincided with this year’s inauguration of Bolivian President Evo Morales, who supports cracking down on international drug gangs but opposes U.S. interference with local coca farmers. The termination of the truck shipment affirms, as some readers and copublishers suspected when we first reported the initiative earlier this year (NarcoSphere, Jan. 25), that an arrangement between the two governments preceded Morales’ rise to power, and likely would not be embraced by the new President.

However, it remains unknown whether it was Morales who rejected the provision of these trucks to Bolivian troops, which would have used the vehicles primarily in rural regions having little or no transportation infrastructure, or if the U.S. sanctioned the Morales Administration by withholding the vehicles.

Despite this uncertainty, NAS thus far continues to move forward with other recently unveiled initiatives in Bolivia. Among those actions is the planned recruitment of a privately contracted aviation advisor to assist the Bolivian Air Force Red Devil Task Force (NarcoSphere, March 7), in addition to the hiring of a State Dept. contractor to train Bolivian National Police internal investigators (NarcoSphere, April 25).