Posted on 07/21/2002 12:41:56 AM PDT by HAL9000
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Despite spending billions of dollars to train police forces, whip soldiers into shape, spray crops with defoliants and teach farmers how to grow anything but coca plants, the United States is losing ground in the South American drug war.
In Peru, coca eradication efforts stopped July 2. In Bolivia, where by last year authorities had nearly ended the growing of coca leaves that are refined to make cocaine, farmers are back at it. In Colombia, the president-elect's vow to eliminate the nation's burgeoning coca crop has shrunk to a pledge to attack only industrial-sized plots. The three Andean countries produce virtually all the world's cocaine.
At a time when market prices for coffee and other substitute crops are at record lows, the political will to carry on the unpopular pursuit of coca farmers in all three countries is questionable. To make matters worse, government opponents and insurgents in all three countries are siding with the cocaine industry.
"I think what it shows is that we cannot put our guard down, that this war against traffickers and narco-terrorists is never over," said Otto J. Reich, the State Department's undersecretary for Latin America and the Caribbean. "We have to support these governments."
White House drug czar John P. Walters said he is "concerned about the recent developments in Bolivia and Peru." But Walters said Colombian president-elect Alvaro Uribe Velez has a "historic opportunity" to curb production in the cocaine capital of the world.
If Uribe doesn't act, Americans could soon be coping with a flood of cheap, high-purity cocaine. Here's why: While Bolivia and Peru cut their coca leaf crops sharply beginning in the mid-90s, Colombia's farmers picked up the slack, according to figures reported in a United Nations' survey titled "Global Illicit Drug Trends 2002."
Were Peru and Bolivia to abandon their restraints, Andean cocaine production could easily rise to unprecedented levels.
The main incentive spurring coca production is the sorry state of prices for coffee, the most popular substitute crop. In Peru's Apurimac Valley, a 25-pound sack of coca leaves brings a farmer $45 these days, almost four times what coffee pays. What's more, coca plants produce four crops a year to coffee's one. They need no fertilizer and are easier to grow and pick.
Unpopular President Alejandro Toledo halted Peru's eradication and substitution programs - temporarily, he said - amidst mounting civil unrest and the resurgence of a Maoist rural guerrilla movement that protects coca shipments.
Toledo's action angered the U.S. government, which had budgeted $65 million in alternative-development efforts in Peru this year.
"President Toledo has stated publicly that Peru must eliminate at least 54,000 acres of coca to bring an end to Peru's role in the global drug trade. We welcome President Toledo's stated commitment to that goal and hope the current obstacles to achieving it can be overcome soon," said a U.S. official in Peru, speaking on condition that he not be identified.
Bolivia, once the world's coca leaf king, eradicated more than 90,000 acres of coca between 1998 and this year, nearly putting itself out of the drug business. Now, fast-growing coca bushes are sprouting again in the New Jersey-sized Chapare region.
For peasants in South America's poorest country, money is the motive.
In last month's national elections, Evo Morales, an obscure Indian agitator who campaigned in favor of growing coca and vowed to shut down Drug Enforcement Administration operations, placed second and almost won the popular vote. He will control about one-third of Bolivia's congress and vows to overturn laws that allow for coca eradication.
Today, Colombia leads the world in coca growing and cocaine production. But President-elect Uribe was elected on a pledge to go to war in the coca zones controlled by Marxist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries, who collect "war taxes" from drug traffickers.
Thus far, however, more than $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid intended to curb coca and cocaine in Colombia has failed to curb either.
Now, Colombia's eradication efforts face new hurdles that President-elect Uribe may not want to clear. To avoid uprisings, Uribe's designated agriculture secretary has said Colombia's eradication efforts will be limited to industrial-sized plots of coca, but will leave small plots untouched. The U.S. government wants to eradicate coca completely.
In at least one respect, Congress also is newly hesitant about eradication. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is insisting in an appropriations amendment that the defoliant sprayed from planes onto Colombia's coca leaves - basically the same one used by home gardeners - be sprayed with the caution that the Environmental Protection Agency calls for. Leahy fears U.S. spraying will poison Andean farmers and their families.
Copyright 2002 Knight Ridder
Maybe we should redirect these resources towards a war we can WIN... terrorism comes to mind.
While Bolivia and Peru cut their coca leaf crops sharply beginning in the mid-90s, Colombia's farmers picked up the slack...
The law of supply and demand at work. Economic principle is pretty dependable.
I see. You thought they were serious about stopping drugs. Well, now you know.
Capitalism rocks!
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