Bolivia High Aims, Low Comedy

By Alessandra Stanley/Trinidad

When a U.S. Air Force C-5A transport plane landed in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz to launch the latest battle in America's war on drugs, the far-off town of Trinidad, 250 miles to the northwest, paid little heed. But the next day Trinidad Mayor Pedro Alvarez was summoned to the local Bolivian air force base for some unsettling news. The gringos are coming, he was informed; the base would need another well. Since that day, the tranquil cattle-farming community of Trinidad (pop. 40,000), capital of Bolivia's northeastern Beni region, has not been the same. "Our humble town," complains Alvarez, "is becoming internationally known as a cocaine center." Trinidad has, willy- nilly, become home to the U.S. 193rd Infantry Brigade. Transported from Panama two weeks ago, the G.I.s are embarked on an earnest mission: to help the Bolivian drug-enforcement unit, known as the Leopards, wipe out cocaine- processing factories. But "Operation Blast Furnace," which has flooded Trinidad with more than 170 soldiers, a dozen or so agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and representatives from 53 news organizations, has proved as confused an antic as in an Evelyn Waugh novel.

Few Trinidad residents have actually seen the Americans, camped out at the air base in tents. Washington officials, concerned that the sight of armed soldiers might cause problems, have ordered Trinidad off limits. When the G.I.s need fresh bread, three Hispanic-American soldiers change into civvies and sneak into town in an unmarked Chevy van. "We were ordered to stay away," says Gerald Carroll, 29, a Blackhawk helicopter pilot from Beespring, Ky. "They said it was like Tombstone, Ariz., out there -- people running around the streets with guns."

Trinidad is, in fact, a dirt-and-brickpaved town where the gravest safety threat is the street life, with its unnerving mix of horses, chickens and pickup trucks. Though dozens of drug-processing labs are scattered throughout the region's 77,220 sq. mi. of swamp and jungle, Trinidad is not a major cocaine center. Some locals are bitter that more modern cities farther south are siphoning off the side benefits of the cocaine trade. "Five years ago half the hotels and restaurants were filled year round with narco traffickers," sighs Jorge Lorgio Zambrana, 48, a hotel owner. "Now I guess they go to fancier places." Lorgio Zambrana is cynical about the operation. "We have a saying here: When you trim grass, it grows in more abundantly than before."

Some suspicious citizens think their government has more in mind than the interdiction of drug manufacturing. "We keep hearing that there might be another coup," Victor Casasola, 53, whispers conspiratorially from behind the counter of his dress shop. "I think the government called in the gringo troops to protect itself from a military coup."

The presence of U.S. soldiers would be awkward for any South American country. The Bolivian government, already beleaguered by political opponents, was stung by local press reports that condemned the support from Washington. Overwhelmed by journalists' requests to go on a real raid, the government initially resisted because it feared that TV camera crews would zoom in on American G.I.s carrying machine guns.

The first reports coming out of Trinidad proved potentially more damaging, however, as correspondents focused on the operation's shaky beginnings, including raids on vacant storage sites. Eventually the press corps was offered a field trip to a captured drug laboratory known as El Zorro. When reporters assembled at the air base last Tuesday, sputtering engine noises drowned out officials' attempts at a dignified briefing. Then DEA's DC-3 got stuck in mud up to its propellers while attempting to take off. Twenty Bolivian MPs finally had to push it out of the mire.

Reporters from all 53 news organizations had signed up for the tour, so they had to divide into two groups. The first section flew north in a battered Israelimade Arava. At El Zorro, a Bolivian official proudly pointed to sacks that appeared to contain white flour and knowingly murmured, "Cocaine." Actually, it was flour. Later the reporters piled into their plane -- then piled out when the fully loaded craft was unable to take off from the makeshift 300-foot runway. After being shuttled to a more suitable airstrip, they lifted off and returned to Trinidad. At that point, antsy members of the second group were told their trip was delayed. But when the reporters reassembled the following morning, the group learned that the Leopards had misunderstood their instructions and had burned El Zorro to the ground. The outraged reporters obtained a vague promise: if that morning's mission yielded a new site, they would be taken to inspect it.

Unfortunately, the Bolivian Fokker aircraft that had escorted the Blackhawks on the raid had got stuck on the target site's swampy runway. The Fokker finally arrived at 7 p.m., almost seven hours late. By then the journalists' patience had run thin, and they voted to return to La Paz without touring the newly seized site.

By week's end the press began to depart, but not everyone was happy. "None of you will ever come back," predicted one hotel clerk. He shook his head sorrowfully, then brightened. "That is, unless someday Communist guerrillas take over Trinidad."