La Paz – Bolivian President Evo Morales said Tuesday that he will take a cake made with coca leaves to his Cuban counterpart, Fidel Castro, when he visits Havana on Aug. 13, the latter’s 80th birthday.
“Since we’ve been invited, why don’t a few of us go to the birthday (celebration) and spend a day with comrade Fidel,” Morales said in a speech in the town of Escoma to inaugurate the first of 20 rural hospitals financed by Cuba in the Andean country.
“But what can we take him as a present? We could take him a poncho, we could take him a ‘chicote,'” a whip with which to herd cattle, Morales said.
“The coca growers say, ‘Why don’t we take a coca cake to Fidel?’ So, the coca growers will … go with a coca cake,” he continued to the laughter of the crowd.
Evo called Castro “our wise grandfather,” and he asked the crowd – most of whom were Aymara Indian peasants – for a round applause for the Cuban leader.
Morales intends to undertake – with Cuban and Venezuelan backing – an international campaign to depenalize the consumption of coca, which in his country has been used for centuries for medicinal, ritualistic and nutritional purposes but which also constitutes the raw material for cocaine.
The medical clinic opened on Tuesday in Escoma, 180 kilometers (112 miles) northeast of La Paz, forms part of the medical cooperation provided to Bolivia by Havana, a program which so far has resulted in the construction of five ophthalmic centers within the framework of Operation Miracle, dedicated to treating cataracts and other vision problems among the Bolivian peasantry.
Some local doctors reject the presence of the roughly 770 Cuban physicians who are providing free medical services in Bolivia, and the former have scheduled a strike for Thursday claiming the Cuban medical personnel are engaging in unfair competition.
Havana is also providing educational aid to the poverty-stricken South American nation, in particular helping with a massive plan to wipe out illiteracy by 2009. EFE
