Bolivian President Evo Morales has offered Sean Penn the post of honorary ambassador for coca legalization issues, but it is not clear whether the Hollywood star has accepted the offer, local media reported.
Penn, who met with Morales on Tuesday, agreed on the need to extradite Bolivia’s former president from the US, another issue that would be included in his proposed ambassadorial portfolio, Government Minister Juan Ramon Quintana said.
Penn, who is a goodwill ambassador for Haiti, was in the Bolivian capital La Paz to discuss the situation in Haiti, which was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy last week.
Morales has been a vocal advocate of legalizing the coca leaf, from which cocaine is derived. He argues that chewing coca leaves, which helps alleviate the symptoms of acute mountain sickness, is an integral part of the culture of the Andes. He has raised the legalization issue at the UN and numerous other international forums.
Morales recently organized a new holiday, the National Day of Coca Chewing, to protest the UN’s refusal to remove coca leaves from Schedule 1 of the 1961 Single Convention on narcotics.
Morales has also demanded that the US extradite former president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, whom he holds responsible for the violent dispersal of demonstrators in 2003 in which at least 60 people died.
Penn’s opinion on the third of his potential ambassadorial duties, overseeing a settlement of Bolivia’s territorial dispute with Chile, is also a question mark. The dispute stems from the war the two countries fought in 1879-1904, which resulted in Bolivia losing its outlet to the Pacific Ocean.
