November 6, 2000

The Failure of Coca Eradication in Peru and Bolivia

by Garry Leech

The Clinton Administration claims that the strategy of eradicating illicit crops worked in Peru and Bolivia, therefore, the same tactics will work in Colombia. The White House uses the reduction in coca cultivation in both Peru and Bolivia as proof of the effectiveness of its eradication policies. However, overall coca production in the region remains the same today as it was five years ago. The eradication of coca crops in Peru and Bolivia forced production to move to Colombia where it more than doubled over the past five years. Meanwhile, Peruvian and Bolivian peasants who were forced to stop growing coca have been offered few economic alternatives, which has resulted in violent protests by peasant farmers in both countries.

Last week, the Peruvian government announced it is going to halt its coca eradication campaign as a result of recent peasant protests. In the 1990s the government of President Alberto Fujimori effectively cut coca cultivation by one-third through a combination of eradication and interdiction policies. During the past decade, the Peruvian Air Force shot down numerous planes it suspected of carrying coca, a tactic that forced traffickers to find alternate means of transportation or to move cultivation to Colombia.

However, it now appears that while they were effectively eradicating coca in their own country, Peru's recently-deposed intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, and the Peruvian military were undermining the eradication campaign in neighboring Colombia and profiting from the drug trade by selling arms to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It was revealed last week that Montesinos has five Swiss bank accounts containing a total of $50 million.

Meanwhile, in the coca fields of Peru, eradication was aided by an outbreak of the Fusarium fungus which devastated coca plants in the Upper Huallaga Valley in the early 1990s. The United States wants to use the same fungus to eradicate coca crops in Colombia, but environmentalists have been successful in convincing the Colombian government that the environmental consequences would be devastating (see, Washington's New Weapon in the War on Drugs). Some believe that the Peruvian fungus outbreak may have been a result of covert testing of Fusarium by the U.S. and Peru as peasants in the Upper Huallaga Valley claim the outbreak began after fumigation planes had sprayed their crops.

Last week, some 35,000 Peruvian coca growers protested the government's eradication campaign by blockading major highways. They called for an end to eradication until the government provides economic incentives for alternative crops. The low market value of alternative crops and the difficulty in getting them to markets has resulted in a desperate struggle for survival for many farmers forced to abandon coca cultivation.

Coca growers in the Upper Huallaga Valley receive $2.74 per kilogram of coca leaves, while the going market price for legal crops grown in the region is markedly lower: $1.05 for coffee, $0.77 for cacao and $0.11 for cassava (see, The Plight of the Peasant Coca Grower). Consequently, the desperate economic situation faced by former and current coca growers resulted in last week's protests that now threaten to undermine the "success" of Peru's coca eradication campaign.

Coca eradication has had an even greater destabilizing effect in Bolivia. Eradication has dramatically cut coca cultivation, but the economic impact on Bolivian peasants has been devastating. It is estimated that coca eradication has removed more than $250 million from the economy of South America's poorest nation and investments in alternative crop programs have failed to offset this economic loss. Consequently, there has been a further militarization of the Chaparé region in Bolivia to prevent peasants from returning to coca cultivation as a means of survival.

Thousands of Bolivian farmers recently blockaded the country's major highways for over a month to protest the government's coca eradication campaign. Two weeks ago, the protestors and the government agreed to a 30-day truce while they discuss the issues. The government has agreed to negotiate an end to the construction of three U.S.-financed military bases in the Chaparé region, but adamantly refuses to halt its eradication campaign. During the protests, repeated clashes between the military and the farmers left at least 10 people dead and more than 100 injured.

It is evident that the coca eradication campaigns in Peru and Bolivia have resulted in political and economic destabilization, especially in rural areas. And yet, the $1.3 billion U.S. aid package for coca eradication in southern Colombia mimics the strategy employed in both Peru and Bolivia: a militaristic eradication campaign that offers few economic alternatives to peasant farmers (see, Plan Colombia: A Closer Look). However, it will be far more difficult to implement the coca eradication campaign in Colombia as neither Peru nor Bolivia possessed a guerrilla force with the military capabilities of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

There is little reason to believe that, even if the campaign is initially successful, it will prove to be effective in the long run. As was the case in both Peru and Bolivia, coca cultivation will simply move to another area, such as Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, Brazil or other parts of Colombia. And unless the economic problems that have resulted from coca eradication in Peru and Bolivia are effectively addressed, extensive coca cultivation may well return to those countries.

This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).

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