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Reporter's Notebook: Stephen Peacock

State Dept. Awarding Contracts to Bolster Bolivia Counterdrug Operations

Posted by Stephen Peacock - June 11, 2007 at 5:29 am
The U.S. State Dept. is taking steps to continue counterdrug operations in Bolivia, where it is arranging -- and will pay for -- the annual delivery of more than a quarter-million liters of fuel to the Government of Bolivia. According to a contracting document located via a routine search of the FedBizOpps database, this foreign-assistance program will enable the Morales Administration to carry out air-based operations executed in conjunction with the U.S. Embassy's Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS). State intends to award a sole-source contract for the fuel to the La Paz unit of the Coquimbo, Chile-based PETROPAC, LLC. PETROPAC is an affiliate of the energy/steel/shipping conglomerate Compania Minera del Pacifico S.A. (CMP) (home page in English and Espanol).

In addition to annually providing 250,000 liters of unleaded gasoline to Bolivia, PETROPAC additionally will deliver 22,000 liters of diesel fuel and 15,000 liters of liquid petroleum gas to Bolivian authorities, according to the document.

Meanwhile, State also is recruiting a privately contracted Counternarcotics Advisor. The contractor will provide to NAS-La Paz "critical analysis, advice, and recommendations on program directions, activity development, and tactical approaches to achieving" the goals of U.S.-led initiatives via Bolivia and Washington.

Likewise, State is seeking to recruit a Law Enforcement Training and Development Advisor] (LETDA) who will "develop and implement basic and advanced training programs that improve the capacity of the Government of Bolivia (GOB), the Bolivian National Police (BNP) and the counternarcotics police (Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotrafico, FELCN) to respond to the threat of drug trafficking and other forms of transnational crime, including trafficking in persons."

It remains unknown whether these personnel-procurement actions will create new positions in Bolivia or will simply provide successors to existing ones.

About Stephen Peacock

Biography
I'm a former Washington, DC, journalist (1998-2003) who most recently worked for Communications Daily and Washington Internet Daily (WID), investigative newsletters that cover the telecommunications, broadcast and Internet industries. Following the 9/11 attacks, my news beat expanded beyond Capitol Hill telecom/TV/IT policy and began to include technology-policy coverage at the Pentagon and Dept. of Homeland Security. I've written over a thousand articles about government and industry affairs, and I'm pleased to say that I was the reporter who broke the story about the Total Information Awareness surveillance/data-collection initiative of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. I've written articles for publications including NACLA Report on the Americas, Drug Enforcement Report, Corrections Journal, SoJo Mail (Sojourners), and the Tampa Tribune. I've also written a memoir about my former career as a plainclothes security officer of the Helmsley Palace hotel in New York City, Hotel Dick: Harlots, Starlets, Thieves & Sleaze. I look forward to contributing to the fine work being done here at NarcoSphere.

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Animal Farm...

Submitted June 11, 2007 - 3:34 pm by Gregory Berger
Did someone say "Four legs good, two legs better?"

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