The United States uses its War on Drugs as a way to pressure and control governments in Latin America, Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Monday.
"[The U.S. government] uses its War on Drugs to pursue its own geo-political agenda and now they use it to accuse other governments and take them down," Morales said during an interview with the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, reported Telesur.
"They even named me the 'Andinean Bin Laden' and accused us of being terrorists and drug traffickers and at the same United States is the top nation that backs and benefits from drug trafficking."
Morales, a former coca leaf farmer, was elected President in 2006 and has since been one of the staunchest critics of U.S. policy in the region. In 2013, Morales expelled the Agency for International Development from Bolivia for allegedly conspiring against the country.
Despite U.S. objections, Bolivia recently obtained a special exemption from an international drug policy allowing its indigenous people to continue their thousand-plus-year tradition of using coca leaves for non-narcotic purposes.
Opposition countries objected on grounds that it would threaten the integrity of the international drug control regime, but Morales rejected such claims, saying that the U.S. is truly the country responsible for the drug trade.
"Drug trafficking seems like the big business of the capitalist system. [The United States] is a very developed country, with a lot of technology and the one who consumes the most drugs," Morales said, reported Telesur. "How is it that they cannot control drug trafficking?," asked Morales. "I think the country that drives the drug trade is the U.S., it's big business; the big, illegal business of the capitalist system."
Morales encouraged every Latin American country to unite against U.S. imperialism, concluding, "Unity is the only way to guarantee a future in Latin America."
