Wonderful article! Mostly NOT about un-noticed U.S. assistance!
Amazing to see something like this published in the Miami Herald!
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MIAMI HERALD
Posted on Sun, Mar. 26, 2006
BOLIVIA
To Bolivians, U.S. aid often goes unnoticed
Cuba and Venezuela have received a wave of favorable publicity
for their aid to Bolivia, while much larger U.S. aid has gone virtually unnoticed.
BY TYLER BRIDGES
tbridges@MiamiHerald.com 

<http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/14184144.htm> 

MECAPACA, Bolivia - Berta Falcón's left side hurt for two years, until she received a free checkup and antibiotics from one of the Cuban doctors rushed to this poor nation just days after the inauguration of socialist President Evo Morales.

''Sometimes we don't get any medical help. . . . The Cuban doctors are here to help us,'' said Falcón, a 43-year-old Aymara Indian and mother of three.

Cuba's aid, a response to damaging floods in this Andean nation, and other assistance sent by Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chávez have sparked hugely favorable media coverage for Havana, Caracas and Morales, a friend of Castro and Chávez and harsh critic of the Bush administration.

Washington also sent flood aid and has pumped in $655 million in development aid from 2000 to 2004 alone -- five to 10 times more than any other country. But the lack of publicity for its help has left U.S. Embassy officials here grinding their teeth.

While Venezuela and Cuba's aid is nimble and visible down to Bolivia's streets, the U.S. aid goes mainly to the government here and remains largely unnoticed despite an ideological battle over Bolivia that has echoes of the Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union.

U.S. CONCERNS

U.S. officials have expressed deep concerns that Morales will lead his nation closer to Cuba and Venezuela and carry out his promise to ease restrictions on the growing of coca, the raw material for cocaine.

And it's not just in Bolivia where U.S. aid is under-appreciated. Two 2002 polls in Haiti -- which received more than $800 million in U.S. aid since 1994 -- showed 36 and 41 percent of respondents said Cuba -- which has some 525 medical personnel based there -- was the one country that helped them the most. The United States was favored by 27 and 23 percent, respectively. The placings switched after U.S. troops intervened in the wake of an armed revolt in 2004, with 48 percent favoring Washington and 6 percent Havana.

The United States has been a close ally of Bolivia for years. But with 65 percent of the country's eight million people living on $2 or less per day, Bolivians in December elected Morales, an Aymara Indian who opposes the free-market policies favored by Washington. The first two countries that he visited after his election were Venezuela and Cuba.

Vice President Alvaro García dismisses concerns over the publicity given to the Cuban and Venezuelan aid.

''What we're doing is diversifying our collaborators. . . . We don't want to depend on just one,'' he said. ``We're very thankful for what Cuba and Venezuela are doing. But it's clear that that help has limits -- mostly in health and education. That we receive help from Cuba and Venezuela doesn't mean we don't want help from the United States.''

Indeed, Morales is asking for more U.S. anti-drug aid and an extension of a trade agreement due to expire at the end of the year that allows many goods from Bolivia to enter the U.S. market duty-free.

`GOOD RELATIONS'

''We want to have good relations with the United States,'' García said.

But Morales, sworn in Jan. 22, already has complained about Bush administration proposals to reduce anti-drug aid next fiscal year to $67 million, from $80 million in the previous year, and slash military assistance to $70,000 from $1.7 million in the same period.

U.S. officials blame the cuts on budgetary constraints caused in part by the Iraq war. But new aid from leftist governments while Washington makes cuts has underlined the different donors' approaches to the assistance.

NOTHING AT RISK

''Venezuela and Cuba don't have anything at risk in Bolivia,'' said Dennis Jett, a former U.S. ambassador to Peru who is now dean of the University of Florida's International Center.

Each of those two countries gave a total of less than $6 million to Bolivia from 2000 to 2004, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

But their type of aid is highly visible.

Cuba has sent nearly 37,000 health, sports and education professionals to 108 nations, Foreign Investment and Economic Collaboration Deputy Minister Ricardo Guerrero has stated. And Castro has said that Cuba and Venezuela have agreed to train 150,000 doctors over a 10-year period.

Chávez offered to give 5,000 scholarships for Bolivians to study in Venezuela, cut a trade deal that sends Venezuelan diesel oil to Bolivia in exchange for Bolivian chicken and soybeans and said he would build a $1.5 million rural radio network that will broadcast literacy lessons part of the time.

TEACHERS SENT

Castro also has sent 24 teachers to oversee an anti-illiteracy program in Bolivia and offered free eye care to Bolivians in Cuba. The Cuban doctors in Bolivia do not receive a salary from the health ministry, a Bolivian government spokesman said, but the government here covers their housing, food and transportation costs.

In comparison, Washington has offered Bolivia nearly $600 million under the Millennium Challenge Account, designed to reward poor countries with larger-than-normal amounts of aid. But the money is tied to promises by the receiving country to follow economic and political policies favored by Washington. It remains unclear whether Morales will accept the conditions.

Asked about the extensive media coverage of the Cuban doctors, Health Minister Nilda Heredia Heredia said their presence here ``is more evident because we have warm relations with Venezuela and Cuba. George Bush's image isn't the best.''

Berta Falcón, who tends a small vegetable farm near this village outside the Bolivian capital of La Paz, doesn't get caught up in those kinds of politics. She's just glad that four Cuban doctors in Mecapaca are offering free help to any and all comers.

''I'm feeling much better now,'' she said.

Herald staff reporters Frances Robles, Joe Mozingo and Steven Dudley contributed to this report.