Bolivia asks EU, UN for anti-drug helicopters, radar

(LA PAZ) - Bolivia, the world's third largest cocaine producer, will ask the European Union and United Nations to provide helicopters and radars to fight drug trafficking, President Evo Morales said Tuesday.

"We are going to make this request official soon," he said. "I would see that not as cooperation, but as an obligation, to more effectively fight drug trafficking in Bolivia."

"For the United Nations and for the European Union, six, seven or 10 helicopters, represents three times nothing," he added.

Bolivia recently acquired three light Chinese-Pakistani-built K-8 aircraft to intercept drug flights or conduct ground surveillance, and expects them to go into service soon, he said.

The Andean country, one of the poorest in South America, has an ageing fleet of 10 UH-1H Huey helicopters that it obtained from the United States in the 1980s and early 90s.

"The drug traffickers, especially the international ones, are equipped with technology that is superior to what the government has," Morales said.

Bolivia has been eagerly seeking ways to boost and diversify foreign aid for its drug trafficking programs since expelling the US Drug Enforcement Administration in 2008.

Even so, Washington still provided about $15 million to Bolivian anti-drug programs this year.

The EU has allocated $53 million (40 million euros) in aid to Bolivia for 2012, mostly for social programs or to subsidize cultivation of alternative crops to cocaine.

Brazil, the region's heavyweight, signed a bilateral agreement this year with Bolivia that would make drones and helicopters available to Bolivia, the source of 80 to 90 percent of the cocaine circulating in Rio and Sao Paulo.