UN General Assembly
2009

the Bolivian people. There is a reference to article 56 and respect for private property. That strikes me as direct interference by the United States Government in the Constitution and other norms and standards, and I roundly reject it. What we want is diplomatic relations not of interference, but of cooperation and investment. While the new Constitution for the first time guarantees private property and State property, fundamentally it guarantees collective property — property held by associations and cooperatives, and communal lands belonging to the indigenous, native movement. In addition, an accusation is made against me in a United States report stating that current challenges include the explicit acceptance and encouragement of coca production at the highest levels of the Bolivian Government. That is to say that I encourage the cultivation of coca. It should be understood that growing the coca leaf is one thing and that cocaine is quite another. We do not defend cocaine; we shall fight it. Indeed, our proposal is zero cocaine. What I have just said does not mean having free cultivation of the