Grisaffi, T and Ledebur, K 2016 Citizenship or Repression? Coca, stability Eradication and Development in the Andes. Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 5(1): 3, pp. 1–19, DOI: http:// dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.440 RESEARCH ARTICLE Citizenship or Repression? Coca, Eradication and Development in the Andes Thomas Grisaffi* and Kathryn Ledebur† For over two decades the US has funded repressive forced coca eradication in Peru, Colombia and Bolivia to reduce the illegal cocaine trade. These policies have never met their stated goals and have generated violence and poverty. In 2006 Bolivia definitively broke with the US anti-narcotics model, replacing the militarized eradication of coca crops with a community-based coca control strategy. The program substantially reduced the coca crop while simultaneously respecting human rights and allowing farmers to diversify their livelihoods. This article outlines the elements of the Bolivian initiative that ensure its continued successful functioning. It explores to what extent this model can be translated to other Andean contexts. Successive US administrations have described Latin American leaders have begun to illicit drugs as a threat to national security openly critique the failure of present policies and have taken the battle to source regions. to achieve their goals and the high cost Over the past 30 years the US has channelled of implementing supply reduction efforts billions of dollars to South American military (in terms of violence, corruption and insti- and police forces to enable them to under- tutional instability). They have argued for take counter-narcotics operations. In the more effective and humane alternatives and Andean region the US has focused its efforts some countries have even made unilateral on the eradication of illicit crops (mostly coca changes to drugs policy (see Grisaffi 2014b). leaf – which is used to produce cocaine – As a result of pressure from Guatemala, but also opium poppy and marijuana), law Colombia and Mexico, the United Nations enforcement and the interdiction of drugs has scheduled a General Assembly Special shipments. The aim of ‘supply side enforce- Session (UNGASS) on drugs for April 2016. ment’ is to curb the flow of illicit narcotics The outcomes of the Special Session will reaching the United States. guide global drug policy cooperation for the Historically, the US has dictated the coming years. The last UNGASS regarding terms of the ‘war on drugs’, and has used drug policy in 1998 adopted the slogan ‘a its political and economic might to crush drug free world, we can do it’, but eighteen any debate on alternatives. However, some years later it has become clear that this is an unrealistic goal (Bewley Taylor 2012). This Special Session, then, provides an opportu- * University College London, GB nity for a profound shift in the global drug [email protected] policy debate. † Andean Information Network, BO This article adds to the discussion through Corresponding author: Thomas Grisaffi an analysis of illicit coca cultivation and the Art. 3, page 2 of 19 Grisaffi and Ledebur: Citizenship or Repression? Coca, Eradication and Development in the Andes Figure 1: The security forces respond to a coca grower roadblock in the Chapare (Photo cour- tesy of Godofredo Reinicke). policies to tackle it in the Andean region, with the elements of the Bolivian initiative that a specific focus on Bolivia. It draws attention permit its continued productive implementa- to the harms generated by US-backed milita- tion and explore their potential applicability rized eradication and the aerial fumigation to other Andean contexts. of coca crops, and explains why this policy This article is based on extensive long- ultimately fails to stem coca and cocaine pro- term ethnographic fieldwork and interview duction. The article then introduces Bolivia’s data.1 Grisaffi is an anthropologist who innovative model for coca control, which has spent over thirty months carrying out shifts the focus from reduced hectares of fieldwork in the Chapare (a coca-growing coca to farmer subsistence, citizenship and region of Bolivia) over several visits span- respect for human rights. The model, known ning the period 2005 to 2015. Ledebur has as ‘cooperative coca reduction’, allows regis- researched coca production in Bolivia since tered farmers to grow a limited amount of 1999 as director of the Andean Information coca while working with coca grower federa- Network. The authors carried out interviews tions and the security forces to voluntarily and participant observation with a broad reduce any excess coca production. Since range of informants, including coca farmers 2010 Bolivia has reduced coca acreage while and their families, landless labourers, simultaneously respecting human rights agricultural union leaders, low-level coca and successfully diversifying the economy paste producers, members of the security in coca-growing regions. It is argued that services and municipal officials. They have cooperative coca control represents a more also interviewed Bolivian, US and EU policy- humane, sustainable and productive alterna- makers, government officials, NGO agency tive to the forced eradication of coca crops. staff and representatives of international In the final section the authors examine organizations. Grisaffi and Ledebur: Citizenship or Repression? Coca, Art. 3, page 3 of 19 Eradication and Development in the Andes Coca Regulation leaders have started to question the sustain- Coca is a perennial shrub native to the ability of this approach. Andean region; it grows in tropical areas at In Peru coca consumption is common in elevations of between 200 to 1500 meters. highland areas but is also consumed by mid- Coca leaf has been used for millennia by dle class urban professionals, and is served indigenous peoples in the Andean countries to tourists in Cusco to help them cope with and is most commonly chewed or prepared the high altitude. Peru’s coca legislation is as a tea. The people who consume coca less rigid than Colombia’s because while the value its properties as a mild stimulant but state officially condemns coca chewing and it also serves important social, religious and prohibits private coca cultivation, it never- cultural functions (Carter & Mamani 1986). theless authorizes limited coca production Despite its many positive benefits and and commercialization for medicinal, scien- the coca trade’s historic importance to the tific and industrial purposes. Like Colombia, regional economy, the leaf has always occu- Peru receives significant US counter-drug aid pied an ambiguous position in Andean and has ambitious plans to eradicate half the society. Since the Spanish conquest, activ- country’s coca crop over the coming years ists, legislators, scholars and the clergy have (Gootenberg 2014). debated the legality of coca and its derivative Bolivia has the strongest coca culture of all products (Gootenberg 2008). In 1961 the UN the Andean countries. A recent EU-funded classified coca leaf as a restricted drug (along- study calculated that about one third of side cocaine and heroin) under the Single Bolivia’s population regularly consumes coca Convention on Narcotic Drugs. The convention – or coca-based products, including coca teas, signed by Peru, Colombia and Bolivia – skin creams and liquor (CONALTID 2013). establishes that ‘the parties shall so far as Bolivian President Evo Morales has led the possible enforce the uprooting of all coca battle for the decriminalization of coca leaf bushes which grow wild. They shall destroy at the international level, arguing that the the coca bushes if illegally cultivated,’ and, ban on traditional use is not only a historic ‘coca leaf chewing must be abolished within mistake,3 but also discriminatory towards twenty-five years’ (Metaal et al 2006). The Andean peoples. In an unprecedented move, 1961 convention thus established the legal in 2011 Bolivia withdrew from the 1961 UN framework for future US-imposed coca eradi- Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, before cation efforts. re-joining in 2013 with a reservation that Peru, Colombia and Bolivia each have permits coca consumption within its terri- unique histories, cultures and traditions tory. Bolivia thus successfully reconciled its related to coca and, as a result, each nation international commitments and its 2009 pursues a different approach to enforcement. Constitution, which declares that the state Colombia penalizes coca most severely, out- has a duty to preserve and protect coca chew- lawing all aspects of production, consump- ing as an ancestral practice. tion and commercialization. Colombia has comparatively limited traditional consump- Coca Cultivation tion2 and so unlike in Peru and Bolivia, there Peru, Colombia and Bolivia are the world’s is no widespread support for its traditional largest producers of coca leaf. The most uses (Ramirez 2011: 55). Furthermore, in recent UN coca surveys estimate that Peru Colombia revenues derived from the illegal has 42,900 hectares of coca (UNODC 2015c), coca trade have fuelled the country’s civil Colombia 69,000 hectares (UNODC 2015a) conflict (Peceny & Durnan 2006; Thoumi and Bolivia 20,400 hectares (UNODC 2015b). 2002). The Colombian state has long In each country coca cultivation is concentrated embraced US-designed and funded forced in marginal areas, characterized by minimal eradication strategies, although recently its civilian state presence, limited infrastructure Art. 3, page 4 of 19 Grisaffi and Ledebur: