Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela to Sign Integration Accord
Havana, April 26 (ACN) Bolivia will sign an accord with Cuba and Venezuela next Saturday, in Havana, to join the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) and launch the PeoplesÍ Trade Treaty (TCP).
At a public rally, held in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba on Tuesday, Bolivian President Evo Morales said that the initiative will allow a free-of-tariff flow of goods between the three countries.
President Morales said that Bolivia’s soy-bean production, whose sales were largely affected by the signing of a Free Trade Agreement between Colombia and the United States, has secured its market in Venezuela.
He added that there was an interest in the purchase of quinua, a fat free highly nutritious plant and the trade of coca-leaf with Cuba and Venezuela for medicinal purposes.
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La Coca: An Indigenous Perspective
Don Justico is one of thousands of campesinos who live in the uplands of the Andes. When I ask him about coca, he tells me:
“In the last ten years its cost has skyrocketed from 10 loaves per pound to 50. This hurts me deeply because these little leaves, I see them each time moving farther away from my family. I chew my coca to guide me in the planning of the dates for sowing my land. I chew my coca to begin the harvest, and its sweet or bitter taste is a microcosmic prediction of the success or failure of my efforts.
“The relationship between coca and myself (which cannot be said the other way around) is a companionship that’s almost biological and magical. It is biological in the sense that each leaf I lift to my mouth is intertwined with an intimate need whose purpose only it, in communion with humans, can comprehend. It is magical in the sense that it guides me to plan the fiestas of happiness or sadness of my community.