Bolivia Turns to Other Suitors

[Judi Lynn]

Bolivia Turns to Other Suitors

By JUAN FORERO
Published: May 14, 2006

EL PALOMAR, Bolivia, May 7 — For decades, the United States has given hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Bolivia, spending on everything from roads to rural health care. But these days, to Washington's dismay, it is Cuba and Venezuela that Bolivians in places like this small farming community are embracing because of new assistance programs from those countries.

Aid from Havana and Caracas has been flowing into Bolivia since a Socialist union leader, Evo Morales, became president in January, and it signals a deepening partnership with the Bush administration's most prominent regional antagonists.

It also highlights Washington's seeming inability, despite its formidable spending, to win over Bolivians. Many Bolivians have come to associate American aid almost exclusively with a generation-old anti-drug policy to wipe out coca, the raw material for cocaine, which has led to years of political unrest here.

"The United States just subordinates Latin America and Bolivia, and it bothers me, it really bothers me," said Enrique de la Cruz, 25, a medical student who was waiting for a bus in El Palomar, where many people live in simple adobe homes. "The alliances with Venezuela and Cuba are super."
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/world/americas/14bolivia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin