|Bolivia and the United States: A Relationship in Transition?|
|Written by Ethan Earle| |Tuesday, 13 March 2012 00:10| This
past November Bolivia and the United States brought to an end a
three-year dispute set in motion when President Evo Morales
expelled the U.S. ambassador on charges ofconspiracy against his
government. With the MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo)
administration now ostensibly welcoming the U.S. back, the
question for many is what will be the nature of this renewed
relationship. To begin to answer this question, it is important
to first understand the roots of the diplomatic breakdown. The
2008 dispute, which also included the expulsion of the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the suspension of various USAID
(Agency for International Development) programs, has been
commonly described as part of an escalating conflict with a
secessionist movement that by all appearances was receiving
support from the U.S. Embassy in La Paz. While this is correct
in a narrow sense, more broadly the expulsion