Thanks to Pachamama, Mother Earth, thanks for the Coca Plant.
We, Aymaras and Quechuas, original nations of the Andes, have survived the onslaught of the white man until today thanks to our coca leaf. From the moment the white man came to our land he has tried to control our leaf for his own enrichment. He has abused it here and now he is abusing it everywhere else. Since it has escaped his control he is intent on destroying it.
He has labeled our sacred plant a drug, to be prohibited and eliminated under universally binding drugs conventions. With these conventions the United Nations have offended and betrayed the Aymara and Quechua Nations.
Under the cover of these conventions and after impoverishing our people with their neoliberal policies, the United States government, foremost enemy of the Indians, has used its dollars to bribe the officials of Bolivia, corrupt its institutions and pit white Bolivians against us. Recently the United States Embassy in La Paz has funded a mercenary force with orders to eliminate the coca plant and the Indians defending it.
Coca is not a drug!
This lie has to be called. The moment has come for us to stop the menace of anihilation of the coca plant and our communal ways of living.
The coca plant has sustained us through all adversities until today and we will strive, with all our might and with her help, to thwart the white man's wicked plans.
Like other plants coca is a medicine, a holy plant. Thanks to coca we have withstood the untold sufferings brought upon us by the white man's unholy war on drugs.
Therefore, the United Nations should respect our coca leaf and take it off their prohibitive lists.
Therefore, the United States should get all their drug war personel and equipment out of Bolivia. They have abused their stay. Let them go home to fight their own drug war.
Therefore, the white men should stop their war on drugs and accept that we live peacefully with the coca plant. They should consider reports from Harvard University, their most cherished academic institution, about the beneficial uses of our plant.
But this will not come about without our active intervention. We have to rise to the occasion.
The moment has come for the original nations to take power in our own hands.
The moment has come for us to redeem the coca plant.
We have learned to treat the plant with respect and she has generously rewarded us
From now on we will no longer tolerate any foreign powers harming our plant. We will be her sovereign guardians.
Those nations that accept this will be our friends. We will help them treat its abuse.
Those that will continue to repress our plant will be our enemies and the predictions of sickness and misery proferred by our yaquiris, as recorded by legend, will certainly befall them.
As long as the American invader fights us, we, the original nations, won't forget our war cry, born from the pain of our people:
Causachun coca! Wañuchun yanquis!
Long live coca! Yankee go home!
http://www.evomorales.net/English/index.htm (Archiv-Version vom 16.01.2006)
