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Coca
By
Eamonn McGuinness
"Coca is not cocaine. Coca is good and it is ours. Cocaine is bad; it is a substance that came from elsewhere" was the constant refrain of Bolivia’s President Jaime Paz Zamora during his four year tenure from 1989 to 1993. But despite this, and the ever present coca leaf pinned to his lapel, it was a message that never found much favour in the United States. What did find favour in the U.S., however, was the derivative of the humble coca leaf, cocaine hydrochloride, or cocaine for short. Unfortunately, for Andean nations such as Bolivia, U.S. drugs policy has never been able to differentiate between the leaf and the powder. Bolivia’s current premier (and ex-military dictator between 1971 and 1978), Hugo Banzer, seems much more in accord with Washington’s policy makers than his predecessor. soon after he took office in August of 1996, the United States demanded that he destroy all the coca plantations used for drug production during his five year term. Accordingly, Banzer announced that he would rid Bolivia of all illegal coca by the year 2002. However, increasingly, Banzer is finding himself at odds with his fellow countrymen who see the ex-general as a pawn of U.S. policy engaged in a concerted attack against what many Bolivians consider to be a center stone of Andean culture.
The conflict between the government and the coca growers, or cocaleros, came to a head in May of 1997 when talks broke down over the government’s refusal to pull troops out of the important coca growing region of Chapare. Soon after, thousands of campesinos blocked highways in the region and clashes broke out which left a dozen dead and hundreds injured. "Our constitution establishes the right to protest, the right to strike....but General Banzer is acting as he did when he was dictator in the 1970’s" according to Mateo Laura, secretary general of the campesino federation. Marcelino Portillo, leader of the Central Workers’ Union (COB) goes further, "Hugo Banzer hasn’t forgotten his old ways. He is preparing for a bloody massacre in the Chapare." Coca growers were not just angry at the military presence but at a reduction in the amount of compensation that they would receive for eradicating coca from their land. Previously campesinos received $2,500 for every hectare cleared. Some 50,000 Bolivian families rely on coca production for survival. Banzer proposed an immediate cut of 40% leading to a later complete abolition of any compensation. the government not only fears that such payments distort the fragile rural economy but the campesinos were taking the compensations and simply setting plantations up elsewhere. His fears seem well founded. Despite compensation schemes for crop eradication coca production in Bolivia rose some 27% between 1986 and 1996. In the last ten years some 40,000 hectares of coca plantations have been destroyed. But this is offset by the over 50,000 new hectares of coca that have been planted in the same period. Bolivia now grows enough coca to produce 240 tons of cocaine a year.
Rene Bastiaans, head of the UN Drugs Control Programme (UNCDP) in La Paz, sees the new approach as encouraging, "for the first time ever, a Bolivian government has a clear plan at the start of its mandate and the intention to apply the law" and apply the law it will as government minister Guido Nayer makes ominously clear, "the force of the law will be applied vigorously against people who don’t adhere to law and order." However, David Herrera, special secretary of the Tropical Federation of Cochabamba (the largest union of coca growers in Bolivia), had previously sounded a warning against any military action against the growers. "Before we only resisted with demonstrations and mobilizations, with roadblocks and other forms or pressure. But now we’re thinking that if 500 or 600 well armed troops attack with tear gas and bullets, then the coca growers won’t be able to defend themselves with just sticks." Roberto Laserna, director of CERES, an independent research organization, believes that Banzer’s policies are "incubation the conditions for conflict."
In response to the threat to their livelihood the cocaleros are moving increasingly into the political arena. Four coca growers have seats in Congress including Evo Morales, a former leader of the coca growers federation, who was elected in 1997 under the campaign slogan of "Viva Coca!" Though foreign diplomats point to his other well known motto, "Long live Coca, death to the gringos" as an incitement to violence. His election to Congress bestows on him immunity from any prosecution for his continued cultivation of coca and he points a finger towards the United States for the current situation. "It’s US-inspired neo-liberal economic policies, putting farmers out of work, that make the traditional production of coca leaf vital to their survival. They have no choice."
Banzer hopes to give these growers a choice via his five year program dubbed the "Dignity Plan". Costing $952 million (573 million) almost three quarters of the total will go into looking for alternative crops for the coca growers. In addition, 1997 saw a deal between the Bolivian government and the European Union which promised $105 million of aid for poverty reduction and alternative crop strategies. Suggestions have included bananas and pineapples. David Herrera is less than impressed, "We cannot make a living any other way, so we continue to grow coca. For example, those who replaced coca with pineapple have found that they have been tricked; the local market for pineapple is saturated and there is no real access to the external market." In addition to this only a quarter of the 2 million hectares that make up man coca growing area of Chapare are suitable for legal agriculture. The coca leaf is able to grow from seed to bush in only two years, has the ability to survive on sub standard soils and can be harvested up to three or four times a year. Any alternative crops seem unlikely to be able to match these statistics.
The coca growers block in Congress has begun a campaign for the decriminalization of the coca leaf abroad. A 1961 UN convention makes the consumption of the leaf legal n Bolivia and Peru but illegal elsewhere. The same convention also gave the two countries 25 years to rid themselves of all coca but this deadline has long passed. ‘Coca is not a crime’ T-shirts can be bought easily in Bolivia and the campaign is gathering pace. "Throughout history, this natural leaf has enjoyed widespread circulation," says one of the movements supporters in Congress, "in recent years, however, in the name of a mistaken war to eradicate the plant, attempts have been made to restrict its use, comparing it to a narcotic, which it is not." the campaign came to the streets of the capital, La Paz, in September when more than 1,000 coca growers arrived after a three week march from the Chapare region. President Banzer refused to meet the marchers and dubbed the demonstration a ‘drugs march’. However, Evo Morales was not discouraged, "We have received a show of solidarity from the people when we got to La Paz. That is a sign that the government’s campaign to describe our protest as a ‘drugs march’ has had no effect."
So does the legalization of the coca leaf offer a viable alternative future for he coca growing regions? Hugo Cabieses Cubas, a Peruvian economist and consultant in rural development, certainly thinks so. In a 1996 study, he estimated that "the potential short and medium term market for the coca leaf and its derivatives would be in the region of $1.63 billion a year." Coca leaf products range from teabags to potential treatment for cocaine addiction. According to the Catholic Institute of International Affairs, the legalization of the coca leaf would lead to an influx of foreign currency for hard-up Andean nations. Furthermore, they add, it would also "give farmers an escape route from the dilemma they face at present, which is the risk of repression if they grow coca for the cocaine trade and the certainty of greater poverty if they do not." However, in order for a legal trade in coca leaf to begin, it would have to be removed from UN Schedule No. 1, which lists the world’s most dangerous drugs. This does not look like it will happen any time in the near future.
However, it does seem that the United States stance towards the so-called ‘War on Drugs’ is shifting somewhat. Previously, Washington had placed emphasis on the Andean nations themselves, taking increasingly military based options which yielded few results. Indeed, luminaries such as Javier Perez de Cuellar, former UN secretary-general, George Shultz, former US secretary of State and international financier, George Soros published a two page advertisement in the New York Times in June to coincide with a special session of the UN General Assembly on drugs policy. In the advertisement, they announced that "We believe that the war on drugs is now causing more harm that drug abuse itself." Yet it should be borne in mind that with the end of the Cold War, the ‘War on Drugs’ has provided an opportune justification for a continued US military presence in Latin America. Furthermore, Capitol Hill’s politicians have always found it easier, a more politically advantageous, to blame foreign nations and Noreiga-like strongmen for the influx of drugs than domestic problems of poverty and inequality.
However, the United States does seem to be beginning to realize that it will have to deal with drug users at home if it hopes to reduce the glow of narcotics from South America. The main rationale for the current policy towards Bolivia is that eradication of coca will force the price up on the street and thus discourage cocaine use. What in fact happens is that higher cocaine prices act as an incentive so that producers of coca for traditional uses enter the market. An increase in the export price of cocaine does not have much effect on the street price. Former Rand economist Peter Reuter estimates that doubling the export price would add no more than 5% to the street price. It does seem odd that a country which has spent so much time in previous years singing the praises of the free market throughout the continent has only recently realized that such rules apply to the drugs trade too. That is, demand will provoke supply.
Eamonn McGuinness is a freelance writer based out of England. He specializes in Latin America.