The Beat Goes on: The U.S. War on Coca
Ledebur, Kathryn & Farthing, Linda
IN UNGUARDED MOMENTS DURING THE MONTHlong road blockade of September and October 2000, coca growers and Bolivian security forces chatted, played soccer and ate together while they waited for...
...Washington dictates how the war on drugs will be fought in Bolivia and controls the purse strings...
...The Yungas, however, has only experienced one incursion by military eradication forces-albeit a failed one--and an ineffectual ongoing voluntary eradication program...
...I have seen more flexibility latelythis is the first time in 20 years there is a positive change...
...Although the commanders of the ETF were military officers, the rank and file was private contract employees...
...6. Kathryn Ledebur, "Coca and Conflict in the Chapare," Washington Office on Latin America, 2002...
...Embassy has provided a viable shortterm solution to the present conflict and much-needed breathing space to seek more enduring proposals...
...WAR ON COCA Thanks to Ben Kohl, Thea Luna and Megan Tatman for reviewing this article...
...But with the drop in coca production in the Chapare, Washington has placed greater focus on what it considers the Yungas' burgeoning excess coca crop...
...the head of Bolivia's Human Rights Ombudsman's office referred to them as "mercenaries...
...Competition for anti-drug resources from the United States has exacerbated the situation...
...It provided the justification and framework for the U.S...
...pressure...
...drug control objectives are an external imposition doing more harm than good...
...The government recognized pre-existing groups or facilitated the formation of almost 15,000 grassroots organizations, including urban neighborhood organizations, pre-Hispanic indigenous formations and modern campesino unions...
...In a country where coca leaves have been legally consumed and used in rituals for centuries--even soldiers chew the leaf during coca eradication missions and clashes with protesters-this strangely amicable standoff demonstrates how, to many Bolivians, U.S...
...war on drugs-militaristic intervention and alternative development-saw their maximum expression in Plan Dignidad (Plan Dignity), the forced eradication program initiated in 1998 to curry favor with the U.S...
...government trains, equips and funds all anti-drug units, providing even the salary bonuses for antinarcotics police, military eradication officials and prosecutors...
...7 Despite the significant international funding to the region, the vast majority of Chapare residents continue to live at subsistence levels...
...Well aware of the consequences of U.S...
...municipalities, however, elites have successfully appropriated these fresh resources, effectively decentralizing the country's endemic corruption and entrenching traditional power structures...
...2 8 In 2003 and 2004 district attorneys filed terrorism charges against more than 100 Chapare coca growers...
...2. Washington Office on Latin America/Andean Information Network, interview: Juan Ram6n Quintana, November 18, 2002...
...The destruction of a key bridge by floodwaters effectively blocked the highway for four months, providing a de facto road blockade that limited access for eradication missions...
...Plan Dignidad has brought to the Chapare the highest per capita military and militarized police presence in the nation...
...What made this decentralization unusual was the inclusion of mechanisms for participatory planning and fiscal oversight by community organizations...
...The emphasis has always been on violent intervention by special police and military units, rather than the economic assistance programs called "alternative development...
...purview have brought new dynamics into the alternative development mix...
...3 Mesa soon confirmed the continuation of coca eradication as official state policy Like presidents before him, Mesa recognized that his country's dependence on international aid forces it to comply with U.S...
...1 4. "Memorandum: Flawed State Department Report on Human Rights in Bolivia," Washington Office on Latin America/Andean Information Network, July 9, 2004...
...Former dictator Hugo Banzer, elected president in 1997, established the armed forces as the centerpiece of his anti-drug strategy...
...The U.S...
...In fact, official U.S...
...government has impeded since the 1998 initiation of Plan Dignidad...
...drug czar John Walters warned that "hitching Bolivia's future to coca cultivation could relegate it to permanent backwater status...
...Coca is life," reads the banner...
...3 0 Current plans, however, allow for only about a third of USAID's projects to be coordinated with the municipalities, and the projects will remain under the control of the same USAID contractors that the coca growers accuse of excessive and careless spending...
...There were unconfirmed allegations of torture by the police and security forces...
...USAID's economic development programs failed to keep pace with forced eradication during Plan Dignidad, placing 45,000 to 50,000 families in theNOVEMBER DECEMBER 2004 REPORT ON BOLIVIA Chapare in severe economic crisis...
...USAID RUNS ITS CURRENT ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT program through private subcontractors, the largest of which is Development Alternatives Inc...
...In the 2002 general elections, support for the MAS spread to other campesino communities as well as urban areas throughout the country, the party won almost a quarter of the seats in Congress and MAS presidential candidate Evo Morales finished a close second...
...This is largely due to the sustained consultation and consensus with unified, sophisticated coca grower unions that represent the vast majority of these municipalities' constituents...
...2 0 Some associations exist on paper only, and many association members maintain their ties with the coca grower unions to minimize their risks by keeping a foot in both camps.21 In other cases, campesinos drop out of the associations but their names stay on the membership rolls...
...A 1998 survey found that even among the military, 73% of personnel believed the armed forces participate in anti-drug efforts as a result of U.S...
...Beginning in the 1960s, campesino unions became the principal representatives of these communal traditions and community-based organizing...
...Yet the underlying problems in the Chapare remain unresolved, as the basic policy of militarized eradication without sufficient economic alternatives is unchanged...
...Although security force commanders in the region cite the increased sophistication of exploding booby traps, they do not accuse terrorists of operating in the region...
...General Accounting Office calls the Bolivian private sector "weak and cautious" and notes that it "did not fulfill the role envisioned by U.S.AID...
...funds unless the country is taking "effective measures to bring the responsible members of the security forces unit to justice...
...Author interviews, March 23, 2004 and May 25, 2004 29...
...With 86% of the Chapare population voting for MAS, it is clear that not only association members support the party, but also townspeople and even local police forces (author interview with Oscar Coca, advisor to the Coca Grower Federations, 2003...
...They are affiliated at a national level with the Confederation of Bolivian Campesino Workers (CSUTCB), 10...
...My whole life has been involved in this, and this awful situation has to change...
...General Accounting Office (GAD), "Drug Control Efforts to develop Altematives to Cultivating Illicit Crops in Colombia have made little Progress and face Serious Obstacles," 2002, p. 29 18...
...15364...
...To avoid having to comply with U.S...
...government has financed over the past 20 years at a cost of about $270 million dollars...
...social force in Bolivia and their political party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), consolidated in 1998, won 86% of Chapare votes in the 1999 municipal elections...
...2 9 Resistance to drug war policies is growing concomitantly with the crops in the Yungas...
...In the absence of significant income from alternative development, producers have quickly replanted in the Chapare and coca production has increased in the Yungas region as well...
...THE BEAT GoEs ON: THE U.S...
...Washington has been unwilling to back down despite the conflict generated by its policies and the tremendous cost to Bolivia's sovereignty and stability...
...have remained steady...
...In rural areas lacking local government structures, the law established new municipalities...
...In reference to the E.U...
...The government's delay in completing effective investigations and identifying and punishing those responsible for either civilian or security force deaths resulted in a perception of impunity...
...Coca growers insist that despite all the past problems, they are willing to work with USAID...
...The road maintenance work has been a great success so far...
...2 6 USAID works with 84 other municipalities throughout Bolivia, but until April 2004 it refused to collaborate with Chapare governments, except in one small road project...
...policymakers generally perceived this conditionality as the key to success...
...1 2 Soldiers accused of committing abuses receive rapid acquittals in military tribunals even though Bolivian law stipulates such cases fall within the jurisdiction of civilian courts...
...The first three months of the Mesa administration were peaceful in much of the country, but in the Chapare three security officers were killed...
...4 Ironically, heavy U.S...
...In the Chapare, the U.S...
...Control is so tight that Bolivian eradication commanders must obtain embassy permission for each flight in helicopters donated and fueled by the U.S...
...pressure to continue the so-called "Bolivian success story...
...Reality: Alternative Development in the Andes Final Report," Drug Policy Alliance, p. 23...
...1 4 Respect for human rights legislation is not the only U.S...
...I really want something else for my children...
...Interviews with Alfredo Antezana Lafuente, Director of Servicio de Desarrollo Integral (SEDEI), Carlos Hoffman, Municipal Programming, PRAEDAC and Godofredo Reinicke, Chapare Human Rights Ombudsman, Cochabamba and Villa Tunari, July 2003...
...Congress made respect for human rights and cooperation in investigations a prerequisite for disbursement of 2004 funding...
...The broad-based study is based on the survey of a representative sample of approximately 10% of the members of the armed forces with even distribution in terms of branch membership, rank, age and posting...
...Not coincidentally, this legal strategy originated in the Chapare...
...Most cocaleros [coca growers] don't understand drug trafficking and don't want to have anything to do with it, but they don't want to eradicate the little they have, because they can't afford to lose this income...
...officials have recently become less vocal regarding Morales and the growers' increasing political clout...
...This tactic mirrors attempts by Bolivian governments since the 1950s to create parallel organizations to control rural populations.19 Even politically conservative Chapare campesinos opposed to the coca unions are not optimistic about the viability of the associations as economic development organizations...
...Subsequent municipal planning in the Chapare has involved higher levels of community participation than in most of the country...
...Author interview with Carlos Hoffman, Villa Tunari, July 30, 2003 27...
...Prosecutors have not presented compelling evidence, and some has clearly been fabricated...
...war on drugs" in Bolivia and delineated which coca in what areas would be slated for eradication...
...The private sector in Bolivia has always tended to focus on quick profits, given the chronically unstable political and economic environment...
...policy has consistently forced the country's presidents to accept some U.S...
...documents rarely make this distinction...
...Xavier Alb6 et at, Para comprenderlas culturas rurales en Bolivia [La Paz: UNICEF, 1990...
...In the late 1980s, they changed strategy and tried to curb the migration of impoverished Bolivians to the Chapare...
...The Expeditionary Task Force (ETF) formed in 2001 is the most notorious U.S.-funded unit in the Chapare...
...Consequently, there is hardly a farmer in the Chapare who has not participated in one of the four major alternative development projects the U.S...
...Early development programs in the Chapare sought to directly substitute the coca-cocaine economy with other crops, but eventually administrators realized no other crop could directly compete with coca...
...Confrontations ensued, resulting in the death of one coca grower and injuries to both growers and members of the security forces...
...8 Whereas good economic development practice considers the participation of strong local organizations an enormous asset, in the Chapare, the U.S...
...The E.U.'s approach reflects recommendations made by hundreds of experts on alternative development, including USAID representatives, at an international conference held in Germany in January 2002.24 Distinguishing the E.U...
...Security forces often direct their actions at the easily accessible plots of vulnerable cocagrowing families, resulting in human rights abuses and harassment...
...The agreement contains many potential pitfalls and areas for future misunderstanding, but the greater flexibility demonstrated by the Bolivian government, coca growers and the U.S...
...If 100% of alternative development funds came through the municipality on the basis of a planning process in which the campesinos themselves decide the destination of the funds, I can assure you, excess coca would disappear...
...17 Although coca growers clearly require assistance to develop export markets, programs that favor the private sector are a poor fit in a context where wealthy business owners have abused indigenous people for centuries and where strong communal traditions emphasize cooperation over competition...
...Since 1998, security forces have killed 33 coca growers and injured 570...
...drug war policies...
...Eradication efforts have almost exclusively focused on the Chapare, because the government sanctions the 12,000 hectares (1 hectare = 2.5 acres) of coca grown in the Yungas as "legal" and "traditional" whereas the bulk of illegal coca has historically been grown in the Chapare...
...to work through the USAID-backed associations instead of the municipal governments...
...DAI), a Washington-based development contractor with $165 million dollars in annual revenues...
...Such behavior demonstrates the extent to which the military continues to challenge civilian authority The State Department report recognizes that Bolivian military tribunals promote impunity, stating they are generally "susceptible to senior-level influence" and avoid "rulings that would embarrass the military"1 3 Largely due to the efforts of human rights organizations, the U.S...
...It is implicated in the bulk of human rights violations committed during its two years of existence...
...Ambassador to Bolivia David Greenlee echoed Washington's underlying position in May 2004: "I don't talk about Evo [Morales] in public, people really look for the U.S...
...The U.S...
...The Chapare's Human Rights Ombudsman reported increased malnutrition and prostitution in the region.15 The poverty created by eradication contributes to the recurring violence against authorities, which is used in turn to justify further excessive use of force...
...In March 2004, the U.S...
...Yet, success is always measured in terms of coca eradicated and not by the well-being of the Bolivian people...
...The first is the 1994 Law of Popular Participation...
...anti-drug goals despite the social costs...
...35 no.1, 2001, pp...
...government agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS) of the embassy, share a base with local anti-drug forces in Chimore and closely supervise the Bolivian units' operations...
...These tensions, coupled with limited respect for democracy and human rights among the security forces, partly contributed to a shootout between the military and the police in February 2003 in front of the presidential palace in La Paz, leaving 33 dead...
...Still, U.S...
...Author interview Felipe C6ceres, Villa Tunari, July 31, 2003...
...almost every government publication on alternative development makes it clear that coca eradication and not economic development is the primary goal in the Chapare.10 Indeed, alternative development serves as a political tool in the war on drugs, attempting to put a friendlier face on a repressive policy designed to separate campesinos from their livelihoods without providing viable alternatives...
...government has paid for and supervised the construction and expansion of military and police installations throughout the region, despite an October 2000 agreement between the Bolivian government and coca growers prohibiting the building of new bases...
...The accord signed on October 3 represents a dramatic departure from the stilted efforts at dialogue that the U.S...
...In most areas there is no viable alternative to coca, and alternative crops promoted by USAID have failed to produce any significant income...
...Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports (INCSR) 2003, Bolivia, March 1, 2004...
...Human Rights Watch, "Bolivia under Pressure: Human Rights Violations and Coca Eradication," 1996...
...Six of those charged are still in jail and none of the cases have come to trial...
...As eradication forces eliminate their principal source of income, farmers have frequently pinned their hopes on the promise of alternative development...
...program Felipe Cdceres, the Mayor of the town of Villa Tunari, maintains, "In eight years, with one-fourth of the money, the municipalities have achieved 10 times what [USIAID has accomplished in 20 years...
...9 Despite the significant Added to these two elements- xclusion of local rep- international funding resentatives and conditionali- to the region, the vast ty-is the enormous challenge rity of Chapare of conducting development programs in a zone of recurring residents continue to conflict...
...8. USAID, "Terms of Reference, Assessment of USAID-Bolivia Alternative Development Strategy," 2003, p. 5. 9. Campesino unions, called "sindicatos"in Bolivia, exist to varying degrees throughout the country...
...Mesa told The Wall Street Journal, "Coca production has fallen, but Bolivia's income has fallen as well, and we haven't received the equivalent compensation...
...State Department reported that Yungas coca production rose by 26% and that nationwide production rose 17% beyond 2002 estimates...
...Section 568 of the U.S...
...officials continue to publicly express concerns about what they call "narco-terrorism" in the Chapare, providing additional justification for militarization...
...In 1996, women members formed their own organization.18 Both the men's and the women's federations are organizationally and ideologically linked to national worker and campesino groups...
...Considering Bolivian history, the program's reliance on the private sector for improving the economic circumstances of impoverished campesinos makes little sense...
...The Bolivian Constitutional Tribunal-the country's highest court-ruled in May 2004 that four military officers accused of killing a nurse and another civilian must be tried within the civilian court system...
...23 no...
...2 Just four days after President Carlos Mesa's inauguration in October 2003, U.S...
...Agency for International Development (USAID) has consistently demonized the tight-knit campesino unions-the principal representatives of the growers-calling their members and leaders "drug traffickers...
...Coca grower representatives won the 1995 elections in the five new municipalities and sub-municipalities created by the law...
...Both of these poorly formulated facets of the U.S...
...They have become the most powerful popular To vote for representatives at a meeting of the Yungas coca growers' federation, union members literally back their candidates by lining up behind them...
...1 "The reality is that the military," commented an ex-officer, "is conscious that eradication has created economic and social conflict...
...Despite the high social costs of the militarized forced eradication program, the price, purity and availability of cocaine entering the U.S...
...Promised changes are slow in coming...
...Embassy officials did not reject the accord outright...
...Increased coca production in Peru and Colombia has more than replaced quantities eradicated in Bolivia, demonstrating once again the validity of the balloon theory, which asserts that coca suppressed in one area expands into another in response to ongoing demand...
...5. Author interview, May 2004...
...Although the Mesa administration initially agreed to halt construction, it changed its stance a week later, citing heavy pressure from the U.S...
...Yet U.S...
...During the past 10 years, they have focused on promoting the cultivation and export of bananas, passion fruit, hearts of palm, black pepper and pineapple...
...6 Recent modifications to Law 1008, however, have addressed some of the most egregious abuses, particularly a number related to constitutional violations and due process...
...government pressure has increased popular support for the growers' leader, Evo Morales, and has helped make the Bush administration's concerns about the coca growers' political influence a reality...
...Embassy to link Bolivian coca growers to leftist Colombian guerrilla groups became explicit...
...IN UNGUARDED MOMENTS DURING THE MONTHlong road blockade of September and October 2000, coca growers and Bolivian security forces chatted, played soccer and ate together while they waited for government orders to reinitiate their confrontation...
...Bjorn Pettersson and Lesley MacKay, "Human Rights Violations Stemming from the 'War on Drugs' in Bolivia," Andean Information Network, 1993...
...Forced eradication also strengthened opposition to other U.S.-backed policies promoting economic liberalization, such as the privatization of basic services and natural resources...
...Author interview with Godofredo Reinicke, Chapare Human Rights Ombudsman, July 20, 2003...
...In 2002, Ambassador Greenlee estimated that coca production in the Chapare had increased by 30% during the previous year.1 6 A reason for the increase in production is that accelerated eradication has pushed coca prices up, providing even greater incentive for increasingly impoverished farmers to grow coca...
...to demonize him and then support for him goes up...
...3. "Bolivia's Coca Crops," The New York Times, October 22, 2003...
...Department of State, "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2003...
...Security forces killed dozens and injured hundreds of protestors during episodes of violent social unrest...
...Since the implementation of Plan Dignidad, the U.S...
...In many For many farmers in the Chapare, growing coca is a matter of survival...
...11 This is despite a 2003 State Department report disclosing: Some members of the security forces committed serious human rights abuses...
...2, pp...
...The Six Cl) o z 0 YI a z Federations represent approximately 45,000 families organized into almost 700 local unions...
...program most markedly from USAID's is its willingness to work with local organizations in the Chapare without demanding coca eradication...
...Considering the country holds the world record for coups d'etat, it is understandable that most Bolivians are leery of military involvement in domestic affairs...
...Since then, 34 0 ci z a C) 0 o (9 0 (9NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2004 REPORT ON BOLIVIA increased responsibility for internal law enforcement-beginning with counternarcotics missions and expanding into other areas-paired with the militarization of the antidrug police, UMOPAR, has provoked conflict and heightened the traditional rivalry between these forces and Bolivia's national police...
...Before the reforms, for example, arbitrary arrest and lengthy incarceration without trial meant that people lacking the means to bribe their way out of jail spent several years in prison without the opportunity to prove their innocence or be sentenced...
...2 7 0 d 0 a y oNOVEMBER DECEMBER 2004 REPORT ON BOLIVIA In spring 2003, attempts by the U.S...
...A 2003 USAID Conflict Vulnerability Assessment suggested that a strategy increasing municipal participation could de-escalate conflict and recommended expanding USAID's successful municipal strengthening and training program to the Chapare...
...government...
...Congress...
...Recognizing the adverse impact of their remarks, U.S...
...Foreign Appropriations Act...
...government has never invoked the Leahy Amendment, which stipulates that units of security forces credibly implicated in gross human rights violations 36 cannot receive U.S...
...Indeed, Bolivia's growing unrest and instability are in no small measure due to U.S...
...During the Yungas blockades, Ambassador Greenlee announced that USAID was planning to expand its working relationship with Chapare municipalities, though it still would not work directly with the unions...
...drug control policy has been largely directed at the Chapare region east of Cochabamba where most of Bolivia's coca leaf destined for transformation into cocaine is grown...
...After 20 years of unful- live at subsistence filled promises, coca-growing families are deeply distrustful of levels...
...In Bolivia, only the head of the family participates in campesino unions and this is usually a man, except in the cases of widows and older single women...
...In apparent retaliation, the armed forces burned the homes of 25 coca growers and tortured three coca growers detained on terrorism charges...
...policy goal to take a backseat to the militarized eradication program...
...The guy is a kind of godfather of coca in the Chapare...
...Eradication of coca has always been a condition for participation in these programs, and U.S...
...2 5 Nonetheless, the U.S...
...Author interview with Oscar Sotomayor, President of the Board of Directors of AMVI (Road Maintenance Association), Villa Tunari, July 31, 2003...
...In instances where local organizations are strong and/or backed by nongovernmental organizations able to provide technical expertise while supporting grassroots leadership, the Law of Popular Participation has, to a limited degree, succeeded in providing benefits to underserved populations...
...net...
...authorities have been unwilling to support prosecution of military officers in civilian courts even though they helped write and implement the legal code requiring this condition...
...government...
...The escalating violence against campesinos led to retaliatory attacks on security forces, resulting in the deaths of 27 security officers between 1998 and 2004, primarily from gunshots or explosive booby traps (cazabobos...
...Observers generally agree that municipalities function better and more honestly in the Chapare than anywhere else in the country 2 3 38 The other initiative that influenced the Chapare's alternative development dynamic began in 1998, when the European Union (E.U...
...35-41...
...Eduardo Gamarra et al, "Conflict Vulnerability Assessment, produced for USAID/Bolivia" (Washington, DC: Management Systems International, 2003...
...Uncharacteristically, U.S...
...Embassy...
...2 2 More positively, however, the law provided coca growers the opportunity to participate in formal government structures for the first time...
...See, for example, General Accounting Office (GAO), "Drug Control Efforts to Develop Alternatives to Cultivating Illicit Crops in Colombia have made little Progress and face Serious Obstacles," 2002...
...3 1 Nonetheless, Bolivian governments face strong and ongoing U.S...
...Coca growers agreed to voluntarily eradicate approximately 3,000 hectares of coca by the end of the year to meet an 8,000-hectare eradication quota...
...In the Yungas coca-growing region, for example, USAID has worked with various municipalities, among them some controlled by the MAS, training municipal government employees, building potable water systems, funding college scholarships and strengthening coffee production...
...Touted by U.S...
...Back in the Chapare, where coca leaves are openly sold even at anti-drug checkpoints, coca growers and soldiers alike catch their breath and await the inevitable renewal of conflict and violence...
...Embassy placed substantial pressure on the E.U...
...The unions assigned land, resolved disputes and undertook community projects such as building schools or roads...
...Department of State, "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2003," February 25, 2004, <http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27887.htm...
...Alert, Cochabamba Bolivia," Andean Information Network, May 20, 2003...
...Before the drug war, when the national government's presence was virtually non-existent in the Chapare, they also assumed the role of local government...
...After almost three weeks of tension, the Bolivian government signed a landmark agreement with coca growers permitting 3,200 hectares of coca to remain in the region for one year...
...congressional requirements, the State Department misrepresented facts in an April 2004 report by stating that the Bolivian military had cooperated in civilian investigations of human rights violations when they had categorically refused to do so...
...37NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS REPORT ON BOLIVIA For the first time in history, 20% of national tax revenues went to municipal governments along with responsibility for local public infrastructure and services...
...drug policy, coalescing into a regional consortium called the "Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba...
...G. A. Potter, "Rhetoric vs...
...Although the U.S...
...the United States and are not likely to differentiate between U.S.-funded military and police actions and U.S.-funded development programs...
...Calm returned during the first half of 2004, largely as a result of the growers' strategic focus on the December 2004 municipal elections and their decision to give the Mesa administration some breathing room...
...4. "Bolivian Leader Seeks More Money to Quell Unrest," The Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2003...
...Washington cut funding to the ETF in mid-2002 because of negative press coverage and pressure from members of the U.S...
...5 Since the mid-1980s, U.S...
...and I'm not going to deal with a godfather...
...officials as a huge victory, accelerated forced eradication steeply increased human rights violations and contributed to one of the country's worst economic crises...
...Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports (INCSR) 2002...
...German Enterprise for Technical Cooperation and UNDCP, "The role of alternative development in drug and development cooperation," 2002, <wwwalternativedevelopment...
...One program component-widely considered its most successful-aims to strengthen municipal administrative capacity and provides the municipalities with an average of 30% of their budget...
...The Bolivian Congress adopted the law as part of an administrative decentralization package similar to those promoted elsewhere by international financial institutions...
...Over the past 20 years they have grown stronger as they have organized to resist U.S...
...They are generally found where strong traditional organizations have been destroyed or undermined...
...and domestic military participation in the "drug war," without regard for the congressional approval required by Bolivian law...
...1. Encuesta de Opinidn: Fuerzas armadas: Realidad y perspectiva institucional, Ministerio de Defensa Nacional, Unidad de Andlisis de Polfticas de Defensa, 1998, p. 21...
...Ben Kohl and Linda Farthing, "The Price of Success: Bolivia's War against Drugs and the Poor," NACLA Report on the Americas, vol...
...BOLIVIA'S OTHER MAIN COCA-GROWING ZONE IS EAST OF La Paz in the Yungas region...
...Felipe CAceres recently stated: It would be wonderful if IUSIAID operated through the municipalities like they are supposed to under Bolivian law...
...undertook its Chapare Alternative Development Program, or PRAEDAC by its Spanish initials...
...The day of the ruling, dressed in their battle fatigues the commanders of all branches of the armed forces met with the President and later with the media to declare their refusal to abide by the court's ruling...
...government funds human rights initiatives and facilitates related training for anti-drug forces, pressure to maintain eradication has trumped respect for human rights...
...In 1988, the Bolivian government passed Law 1008, a draconian anti-drug law developed by the U.S...
...policy in the Chapare, coca growers blocked the sole road into the Yungas, as their counterparts had done in the Chapare, for three days to protest the U.S.-financed construction of a drug control base at La Rinconada...
...Two initiatives largely outside the U.S...
...Author interview with Felipe C~ceres, Villa Tunari, July 31, 2003...
...The implementation of the law has been especially harmful to cocagrowing families and those occupying the lower rungs of the cocaine industry, while having little lasting impact on high-level trafficking...
...Ben Kohl, "Democratizing Decentralization in Bolivia: The Law of Popular Participation," Journal of Planning Education and Research, vol...
...USAID has purposely circumvented the participation of established coca growers' organizations in its programs by creating alternative organizational structures, called "associations," which have generated considerable suspicion among campesinos...
...Coca growers began vigils around eradication camps last September, protesting the failure to implement the proposed alternative development strategy...
...In the Chapare, DAI emphasizes agribusiness marketing, private sector investment, agricultural technology transfer, road maintenance and the strengthening of alternative development organizations...
...Embassy BAnzer used the military to eradicate a record 45,000 hectares of coca35NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS REPORT ON BOLIVIA most of the Chapare's production-by 2000...
...Ironically, ongoing eradication has actually helped boost coca production...
...7. "In US Drug War, Ally Bolivia Loses Ground to Coca Farmers," The Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2003...
Vol. 38 • November 2004 • No. 3
