Bolivia's Knot: No to Cocaine, but Yes to Coca
By JUAN FORERO - February 12, 2006
VILLA TUNARI, Bolivia — Just weeks ago, Bolivian Army troops swooped down on Seberino Marquina's farm and, one by one, ripped his coca bushes from the ground.
"The commander said, 'Cut this,' and they did," Mr. Marquina, 54, said, waving his machete on his small piece of the Chapare, a coca-growing region the size of New Jersey in central Bolivia.
But after President Evo Morales's inauguration on Jan. 22, the army conscripts assigned to eradicate coca leaves here as part of the United States-financed war on drugs instead spend their days lolling at isolated roadside bases, trying to keep cool under the blazing sun. "We're waiting for orders from the president," said Capt. César Cautín, the commander of a group of 60 soldiers.
Mr. Marquina is also waiting, and hoping that the new president will let him add to the flourishing crop of coca plants on the other side of the creek that runs through his 24-acre farm.
Just how likely that is remains surprisingly unclear.
Mr. Morales, 46, an Aymara Indian who grew up in poverty in the highlands and became a coca grower in this verdant jungle region, has not yet provided many details on his coca policy, except to say that his government will "depenalize" coca cultivation and show zero tolerance toward trafficking: in other words, "yes to coca, no to cocaine."
He has long opposed American eradication efforts and championed the coca leaf, which without significant processing has no mind-altering effects and is chewed here to mitigate hunger and increase stamina. He has pledged to push the foreign governments to open their markets to the many legal products that can be made from coca, like soap, shampoo, toothpaste and flour. He also wants to open markets to coca tea, which is legal and popular in the Andes. All forms of coca, which has a mild stimulating effect, have been blacklisted by the United Nations since 1961.
Mr. Morales has also said that 23,000 farmers in the Chapare could continue to plant coca on a third of an acre of their land, as permitted under a 2004 agreement with Carlos Mesa, then the president, that was never endorsed by Washington. He is waiting for the results of a study financed by the European Union to determine just how much coca Bolivians need for traditional, legal uses, before deciding whether coca cultivation could increase.
However, to be able to maintain good international relations and attract investors, Mr. Morales must also find a way to reassure foreign governments and investors that Bolivia will control trafficking — particularly by neighbors like Brazil, which is, after the United States, the world's second-largest consumer of cocaine, and the United States, which spends up to $1 billion a year to battle cocaine in the Andes. As a start, Mr. Morales appointed Felipe Cáceres, a former mayor in the Chapare and a small-time coca farmer, to the new post of vice minister of coca, to, in essence, oversee the fight against trafficking, an appointment that Washington supported.
The American government, which for several administrations has contended that only aggressive eradication and interdiction will control trafficking, scoffs at Mr. Morales's "yes to coca, no to cocaine" stance.
"This idea that he's going to go after traffickers but letting the coca bloom is tough seeing as workable," says a high-ranking Congressional aide in Washington who helps shape anti-drug policy, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to give statements. "It's a naïve, pie-in-the-sky approach to let the flower bloom but interdict the bouquet."
American policy makers fear that the progress made against coca in Colombia — where cultivation has been significantly reduced — could be offset by a burst of cultivation in Bolivia, and an accompanying surge in smuggling. There are now an estimated 65,400 acres of coca being cultivated in Bolivia, nearly half of it grown legally for traditional uses.
"The $64,000 question with Morales is, Will all the problems drift south to Bolivia and will we have to start all over again?" the aide said.
And American officials are deeply concerned that a central part of their expensive Andean campaign — eradication — has been suspended in Bolivia.
The American ambassador, David N. Greenlee, is carrying out an understated policy of not publicly challenging the government, but he lamented the situation. "There is no eradication, and at this moment, that's my concern," he said recently before meeting with the new foreign minister, David Choquehuanca, who has called coca "a sacred leaf."
Bolivia, which many in Washington see as a symbol of success in the war on drugs, was a pariah nation just 15 years ago, with 123,000 acres of coca under cultivation. In 1988, the country criminalized coca, and American-sponsored eradication began. Production fell to a low of 48,000 acres in 2000. Bolivia went from being the No. 2 producer of coca, shipping much of its cocaine to the United States, to a distant third after Colombia and Peru, with most of the drug headed to Brazil.
The eradication of so lucrative a crop, however, had serious social and political repercussions for a desperately poor country where coca and cocaine had become a leading industry. With their losses rising into the hundreds of millions of dollars, Chapare's coca farmers, often led by Mr. Morales, protested, blocked roads and battled security forces, sometimes with fatal consequences.
The unrest so weakened the central state that two presidents were forced to resign in the 20 months ending in June 2005. The Americans responded to Mr. Morales's increasing popularity by trying to marginalize him from politics and labeling him an ally of traffickers, though they offered little evidence. The efforts only raised his stock among Bolivians, and he won the election with more than 52 percent of the vote, the biggest victory since Bolivia emerged from dictatorship in 1982.
Now, in deference to Mr. Morales, a president who has a 74 percent approval rating, some hardened Bolivian drug warriors are conceding that he must be given a chance. "In his speeches, Evo Morales handles some variables that are very interesting," said Gen. Luis Caballero, who until last month led a 1,500-man special Bolivian police antinarcotics team. "I think it can work, if there is a coherent strategy."
And some drug policy specialists are calling for foreign governments and investors to consider Mr. Morales's plan, even if it is an uphill battle that goes against anti-drug sentiments ingrained in the West.
"If there's one thing the international community should do, if only out of deference because he won the election, is to take seriously his arguments that coca products have a place in the international commodities market," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, an independent policy group that says the war on drugs has been counterproductive.
At a recent coca fair in La Paz, two dozen small Bolivian and Peruvian companies displayed coca-based products they said they hopeed would one day be accepted worldwide. Besides the soap, shampoo and toothpaste, there were digestive potions pitched as calcium and iron supplements, or, alternatively, a cure for balding or as a diet aid. And there was a light green flour, for making bread.
"One of our most important products is granola, fortified with coca," said Marco Alarcón, in a dapper vest and tie, said of his four-year-old company, Caranavi. "Right now, we are selling everything in Bolivia, but the hope is to sell in China."
A couple of booths over, Angélica Quisberth, 25, sold cookies and bread made with coca. "What we want to show is that the coca leaf is not just for cocaine," she said, "but that you can do many things with it, and generate work."
In contrast to the Chapare, the epicenter of eradication efforts in Bolivia, coca grows legally in the vast Yungas region, where farmers plant on centuries-old terraces in the foothills of the Andes and sell their crop at the government-supervised market in La Paz, just to the south. On a recent trip through Yungas, where three-quarters of Bolivia's coca is raised, it was common to see farmers harvesting in droves, wearing long-sleeved shirts to protect them from the sun.
Stripping the small, shiny leaves from a branch, Pasquale Quispe, 53, owner of a 7.4-acre farm, explained that she and other peasants saw coca in almost spiritual terms. "Coca is our daily bread, what gives us work, what gives us our livelihood," she said. "In other countries, they say coca is drugs, but we don't use drugs. It's the gringos who use drugs."
But with so much coca being produced in Yungas, the authorities say they believe that much of it winds up as cocaine. On a narrow mountain pass shadowed by craggy peaks, Lt. Col. Julio Cruz and his police unit stop vehicles leaving Yungas, checking the 50-pound sacks of coca leaves and making sure they are headed to the legal market. On some days, 500 vehicles carrying more than 150,000 pounds of coca pass through the checkpoint, Colonel Cruz said.
But after this checkpoint, the police say, they have no way to know how much is diverted for illegal purposes. "The leaf comes out legally," Colonel Cruz said. "But once out, it goes to labs for cocaine. We cannot escort every truck to market."
Pacífico Olivares, 49, a regional leader of coca farmers, said farmers knew that coca was made into cocaine, but he added that they should not be to held responsible. "What blame do we have when we don't make cocaine?" he said. "They should chase down the people who make cocaine." :thumbsup:
By JUAN FORERO - February 12, 2006
VILLA TUNARI, Bolivia — Just weeks ago, Bolivian Army troops swooped down on Seberino Marquina's farm and, one by one, ripped his coca bushes from the ground.
"The commander said, 'Cut this,' and they did," Mr. Marquina, 54, said, waving his machete on his small piece of the Chapare, a coca-growing region the size of New Jersey in central Bolivia.
But after President Evo Morales's inauguration on Jan. 22, the army conscripts assigned to eradicate coca leaves here as part of the United States-financed war on drugs instead spend their days lolling at isolated roadside bases, trying to keep cool under the blazing sun. "We're waiting for orders from the president," said Capt. César Cautín, the commander of a group of 60 soldiers.
Mr. Marquina is also waiting, and hoping that the new president will let him add to the flourishing crop of coca plants on the other side of the creek that runs through his 24-acre farm.
Just how likely that is remains surprisingly unclear.
Mr. Morales, 46, an Aymara Indian who grew up in poverty in the highlands and became a coca grower in this verdant jungle region, has not yet provided many details on his coca policy, except to say that his government will "depenalize" coca cultivation and show zero tolerance toward trafficking: in other words, "yes to coca, no to cocaine."
He has long opposed American eradication efforts and championed the coca leaf, which without significant processing has no mind-altering effects and is chewed here to mitigate hunger and increase stamina. He has pledged to push the foreign governments to open their markets to the many legal products that can be made from coca, like soap, shampoo, toothpaste and flour. He also wants to open markets to coca tea, which is legal and popular in the Andes. All forms of coca, which has a mild stimulating effect, have been blacklisted by the United Nations since 1961.
Mr. Morales has also said that 23,000 farmers in the Chapare could continue to plant coca on a third of an acre of their land, as permitted under a 2004 agreement with Carlos Mesa, then the president, that was never endorsed by Washington. He is waiting for the results of a study financed by the European Union to determine just how much coca Bolivians need for traditional, legal uses, before deciding whether coca cultivation could increase.
However, to be able to maintain good international relations and attract investors, Mr. Morales must also find a way to reassure foreign governments and investors that Bolivia will control trafficking — particularly by neighbors like Brazil, which is, after the United States, the world's second-largest consumer of cocaine, and the United States, which spends up to $1 billion a year to battle cocaine in the Andes. As a start, Mr. Morales appointed Felipe Cáceres, a former mayor in the Chapare and a small-time coca farmer, to the new post of vice minister of coca, to, in essence, oversee the fight against trafficking, an appointment that Washington supported.
The American government, which for several administrations has contended that only aggressive eradication and interdiction will control trafficking, scoffs at Mr. Morales's "yes to coca, no to cocaine" stance.
"This idea that he's going to go after traffickers but letting the coca bloom is tough seeing as workable," says a high-ranking Congressional aide in Washington who helps shape anti-drug policy, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to give statements. "It's a naïve, pie-in-the-sky approach to let the flower bloom but interdict the bouquet."
American policy makers fear that the progress made against coca in Colombia — where cultivation has been significantly reduced — could be offset by a burst of cultivation in Bolivia, and an accompanying surge in smuggling. There are now an estimated 65,400 acres of coca being cultivated in Bolivia, nearly half of it grown legally for traditional uses.
"The $64,000 question with Morales is, Will all the problems drift south to Bolivia and will we have to start all over again?" the aide said.
And American officials are deeply concerned that a central part of their expensive Andean campaign — eradication — has been suspended in Bolivia.
The American ambassador, David N. Greenlee, is carrying out an understated policy of not publicly challenging the government, but he lamented the situation. "There is no eradication, and at this moment, that's my concern," he said recently before meeting with the new foreign minister, David Choquehuanca, who has called coca "a sacred leaf."
Bolivia, which many in Washington see as a symbol of success in the war on drugs, was a pariah nation just 15 years ago, with 123,000 acres of coca under cultivation. In 1988, the country criminalized coca, and American-sponsored eradication began. Production fell to a low of 48,000 acres in 2000. Bolivia went from being the No. 2 producer of coca, shipping much of its cocaine to the United States, to a distant third after Colombia and Peru, with most of the drug headed to Brazil.
The eradication of so lucrative a crop, however, had serious social and political repercussions for a desperately poor country where coca and cocaine had become a leading industry. With their losses rising into the hundreds of millions of dollars, Chapare's coca farmers, often led by Mr. Morales, protested, blocked roads and battled security forces, sometimes with fatal consequences.
The unrest so weakened the central state that two presidents were forced to resign in the 20 months ending in June 2005. The Americans responded to Mr. Morales's increasing popularity by trying to marginalize him from politics and labeling him an ally of traffickers, though they offered little evidence. The efforts only raised his stock among Bolivians, and he won the election with more than 52 percent of the vote, the biggest victory since Bolivia emerged from dictatorship in 1982.
Now, in deference to Mr. Morales, a president who has a 74 percent approval rating, some hardened Bolivian drug warriors are conceding that he must be given a chance. "In his speeches, Evo Morales handles some variables that are very interesting," said Gen. Luis Caballero, who until last month led a 1,500-man special Bolivian police antinarcotics team. "I think it can work, if there is a coherent strategy."
And some drug policy specialists are calling for foreign governments and investors to consider Mr. Morales's plan, even if it is an uphill battle that goes against anti-drug sentiments ingrained in the West.
"If there's one thing the international community should do, if only out of deference because he won the election, is to take seriously his arguments that coca products have a place in the international commodities market," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, an independent policy group that says the war on drugs has been counterproductive.
At a recent coca fair in La Paz, two dozen small Bolivian and Peruvian companies displayed coca-based products they said they hopeed would one day be accepted worldwide. Besides the soap, shampoo and toothpaste, there were digestive potions pitched as calcium and iron supplements, or, alternatively, a cure for balding or as a diet aid. And there was a light green flour, for making bread.
"One of our most important products is granola, fortified with coca," said Marco Alarcón, in a dapper vest and tie, said of his four-year-old company, Caranavi. "Right now, we are selling everything in Bolivia, but the hope is to sell in China."
A couple of booths over, Angélica Quisberth, 25, sold cookies and bread made with coca. "What we want to show is that the coca leaf is not just for cocaine," she said, "but that you can do many things with it, and generate work."
In contrast to the Chapare, the epicenter of eradication efforts in Bolivia, coca grows legally in the vast Yungas region, where farmers plant on centuries-old terraces in the foothills of the Andes and sell their crop at the government-supervised market in La Paz, just to the south. On a recent trip through Yungas, where three-quarters of Bolivia's coca is raised, it was common to see farmers harvesting in droves, wearing long-sleeved shirts to protect them from the sun.
Stripping the small, shiny leaves from a branch, Pasquale Quispe, 53, owner of a 7.4-acre farm, explained that she and other peasants saw coca in almost spiritual terms. "Coca is our daily bread, what gives us work, what gives us our livelihood," she said. "In other countries, they say coca is drugs, but we don't use drugs. It's the gringos who use drugs."
But with so much coca being produced in Yungas, the authorities say they believe that much of it winds up as cocaine. On a narrow mountain pass shadowed by craggy peaks, Lt. Col. Julio Cruz and his police unit stop vehicles leaving Yungas, checking the 50-pound sacks of coca leaves and making sure they are headed to the legal market. On some days, 500 vehicles carrying more than 150,000 pounds of coca pass through the checkpoint, Colonel Cruz said.
But after this checkpoint, the police say, they have no way to know how much is diverted for illegal purposes. "The leaf comes out legally," Colonel Cruz said. "But once out, it goes to labs for cocaine. We cannot escort every truck to market."
Pacífico Olivares, 49, a regional leader of coca farmers, said farmers knew that coca was made into cocaine, but he added that they should not be to held responsible. "What blame do we have when we don't make cocaine?" he said. "They should chase down the people who make cocaine." :thumbsup:
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