The regime was also forced to agree to pay compensation to the families of coca growers killed by the Bolivian army and police during the protests and to cover medical expenses for the injured.

In one of the largest actions, some 5,000 peasants and supporters gathered in the town of Cochabamba January 14 to press their demands. Joined by factory workers, students, small merchants, and others, the crowd marched from the military garrison of Muyurina to the city's main plaza. Hundreds came in trucks from different towns of the coca-growing region, including from the town of Sacaba, just north of Cochabamba, which was the center of pitched battles between the coca growers and the army.

The next day a march of similar size attempted to take back and reopen a collection and distribution center occupied by the police under the pretext that coca leaves sold there were being used for cocaine production. The protesters were attacked by some 500 cops occupying the center. In the three days of battles that followed, seven peasants were killed, along with four soldiers and a police officer. Some 80 people were wounded. Twenty-five vehicles seized from alleged drug traffickers, parked in a government agency, were set on fire with molotov cocktails during the confrontations.

The cultivation of coca is the primary or only source of income for thousands of peasants in Bolivia, as well as for small merchants and truck drivers who transport the crop. Primarily grown for local consumption, coca leaves are chewed by thousands of workers in the countryside and in the mines for medicinal purposes or to mitigate hunger, thirst, and fatigue. In Cochabamba alone, press articles estimate that some 40,000 families consume coca leaves.

The Bolivian government has gone after the coca leaf distribution centers, claiming that they are an obstacle in the campaign it and Washington are waging to eradicate the cultivation of the plant for the production of cocaine. According to government officials, the U.S.-backed operation has destroyed 50,000 hectares of the crop since 1998. The Bolivian regime is preparing to extend the eradication campaign to other regions of the country.

The government has said it will assist peasants in cultivating and selling crops other than coca in order to make a living, but little has been done, peasants explain. In some areas the government has offered $2,500 per hectare to peasants who switch to alternative crops.

"Even if they offer us $10,000 per hectare, it would not be enough," a peasant leader told the Economist. In Yungas, an area in which coca has been grown since before the Spanish conquest, a UN alternative development program spent $32.4 million in the area between 1984 and 1993 with nothing now left to show for it, the Economist reported.

Last December, during a ceremony to celebrate the "success" of the U.S.-Bolivian campaign to eliminate coca fields in the Chapare region, hundreds of peasants protested government policies by gathering outside a nearby military base and scattering piles of coca leaves over the road. The celebration was attended by the Bolivian president and the U.S. ambassador to the country.

Peasant leaders have also demanded the government fulfill its promises for assistance and land made in previous agreements, such as providing 1,000 tractors and 3.8 million hectares land to peasants in the Pucarani region. "We will continue with the roadblocks day and night. The government has not met the Pucarani agreement," said roadblock organizer Felipe Quispe. "The communities have instructions not to let any products out to the market, because the action is also meant to be an economic blockade."

The Bolivian army and police responded to the mobilizations with fierce repression, arresting peasant and union leaders and charging them with conspiracy to commit murder and sedition. It also moved to close down the radio station "Soberanía" (Sovereignty), which supports the coca-growers movement, by seizing its equipment. Showing their complete disregard for life, cops in Cochabamba contaminated the city's drinking water by shooting tear gas at the water purification plants. The same day, students at the university were attacked by cops with tear gas and live ammunition and three people were wounded.

In the wake of these assaults peasant leaders are threatening to renew the roadblocks unless those detained are released by the government.

In nearby Ecuador, unions, peasant organizations, and small merchants have initiated protest actions against the government of Gustavo Noboa to coincide with the second anniversary of the ousting of president Jamil Mahuad in February 2000. Noboa came to power when a popular rebellion forced Mahuad to flee the country. The military quickly intervened and turned power over to Noboa, who was vice president at the time.

"This will be a mobilization to recognize the overthrow of Mahuad as a symbol of social struggle in Ecuador," said Luís Villacís, who is the president of a popular coalition of unions, peasant, student organizations, and others. He warned the Noboa government "that the same thing can happen to him if he doesn't rectify his course."

The mobilizations have been called to oppose a raise in gas prices and cuts for universities and local governments. The demonstrations are also against the government's attempt to privatize the power company.  
 
 
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