World Cup football with signature of the President will be auctioned on ebay

At the end of March the coca farmers of Bolivia are holding a meeting. Their central demand is the removal of the coca plant from the United Nations list of addictive substances which dates from the year 1961. This demand has nothing to do with the legalising of drugs (of cocaine), but is concerned with the cultural, societal and traditional uses of the plant. The Society for Threatened Peoples International (GfbV) is auctioning through ebay a World Cup football signed by the Bolivian President Evo Morales to provide financial support for the Indian farmers‘ associations.

In a few days‘ time the farmers of the Andes region in Bolivia will be meeting to discuss the economic development of their region. The main topic is the demand that the cultivation, processing and marketing of the coca plant be legalised. This can be done by removing the coca plant from the United Nations list of addictive substances. There would here be a sharp dividing line between the traditional culture plant and the dangerous extract cocaine. The application necessary for this purpose will be handed to the Secretary General of the United Nations by Bolivia in May 2007.

Surrounding the coca plant there are many myths, misunderstandings and a lot of misleading information. While the use of the plant was always a part of the Indian culture and its handling carried out responsibly, the extraction of the active component cocaine has led to the misuse as a dangerous drug. A long and often brutal fight against cultivation of the plant has caused great misery for the local people and the suppression of cultural elements, but it has not solved the drug problem. The removal of the coca plant from the UN list of addictive substances would mean that the local people could once more safely make tea, chewing-gum, tooth-paste, soft drinks and medicine from the plant and sell these on the world market.

Alternative ways of using the plant would reduce cultivation for making drugs or even put an end to it. The GfbV supports these initiatives and thus also the fight against drug production. The world-famous Coca Cola Company is said to have used for decades non-alkaloid extracts from coca leaves in its soft drink of the same name, although the company itself denies this.

To finance the meeting of the coca farmers in Bolivia the GfbV is auctioning a World Cup football signed by the Bolivian President Evo Morales, a unique specimen on ebay, item 180095615320 purchase by auction

The auction begins on Tuesday evening, 13.03.2007. The proceeds will all go to the Farmers‘ Association (COCAMTROP) for the organisation of their meeting.

Evo Morales, who plays football himself in his free time, is with Al Gore one of the most likely candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize. He spoke in 1995 at the invitation of the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) as the representative of the coca farmers at the United Nations in Vienna to get the plant removed from the list of addictive substances.

Evo Morales is the first Indian leader of Bolivia since the rule of the Incas, a country in which two thirds of the population belong to the ancient Indian nations of the Quechua and Aymara. In the 1970s already the GfbV pointed out the suppression of the Indian majority, which has gone on for centuries and whose situation can be likened to that under the South African apartheid. In the year 1978 alone Indian delegations from Bolivia and other countries of South America provided information in Germany and other neighbouring countries on the situation of their communities at 65 discussion meetings.

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