Is the War on Drugs Bringing "Dignity" to Bolivia? by George Ann Potter Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 20:07:18 +0200 http://www.americas.org/country/Bolivia/ Is the War on Drugs Bringing "Dignity" to Bolivia? by George Ann Potter The U.S.-promoted "War on Drugs" in Bolivia is gratefully not yet mired in a Colombia-like situation. Nonetheless, La Paz officials recently claimed to have detected the presence of Colombian guerrillas in the Chapare (Cochabamba department) coca-growing area. They are there supposedly to recruit local peasants for the rebel war in Colombia. Yet no reputable source outside of La Paz gives any credence to this allegation. Rather, in comparison to Colombia's difficulties, the Bolivian drug war is still geographically contained and limited, with the Banzer government able to justifiably report some successes for its multi-phased policy. Next year, however, La Paz has hinted that the "war" will be extended to the traditional coca growing areas in the nearby Yungas. Military strategy disadvantageous to peasants The Banzer government began in April 1998 to implement the anti-drug strategy it had announced in January of that year - the so-called "Dignity Plan," (Strategic Plan for the Fight Against Narco-Trafficking - 1998-2002). But since that time, violence has escalated in the Chapare. Some thirteen peasants and three members of the armed forces were killed in confrontations, with dozens more having been wounded. Despite the Senate's Leahy amendment, which stipulates that any human rights abuses associated with the U.S.-funded "War on Drugs" must result in a cutoff in funds for foreign military units responsible for such atrocities, no such action has been undertaken or even contemplated by either the U.S. or Bolivian authorities. U.S. Embassy officials in La Paz, while acknowledging the "probable" role of the military in several of the peasant deaths, continue to support impunity for the perpetrators, rather than assiduously applying the U.S. restriction. The Banzer government maintains that the anti-drug Dignity Plan is based on a participatory National Dialogue it began in late 1997. But evidence indicates that this is not, and has never been the case. Instead, in direct contradiction to the National Dialogue, Plan Dignidad is fundamentally a militarized strategy to eradicate legal and "illegal" coca in the Chapare. In Bolivia's case as elsewhere, eradication entails the entry of the combined armed forces into coca growing areas where they forcibly destroy everything in their path - including staple food stuffs and exotic crops like palm trees and citrus. Reports of incidents such as the pillaging of homes are commonplace. When one enters a recently eradicated area (journalists, human rights activists and other "non-combatants," in a clear violation of the constitution, are prohibited from being present in eradication areas during these exercises) it looks like a scorched earth zone out of distant Vietnam memories. Helicopters are buzzing overhead in the tropical jungle, young military recruits look as stunned as local residents, and dark sunglassed "foreign advisor observers" (DEA agents, some speculate) refuse to talk to anyone. Washington recently has funded several new permanent military bases in the Chapare to assure ongoing access. Indeed, this year's coca eradication efforts have exceeded even government expectations. While the eradication and interdiction aspects of the Dignity Plan are well funded by U.S. programs, the "compensatory" alternative development component has had problems, even though out of a more than U.S.$900 million "Dignity" budget, U.S.$700 million (about 73%) was programmed for alternative development. At a June 1999 Paris meeting, this impressive sum was to have been pledged by European, U.S. and multilateral donors. But only the UNDCP affirmed its previous commitment of U.S.$53 million. Another donors' meeting was to have taken place in November, but was canceled due to a lack of interest. Commitment to alternative development questionable Ineffective efforts at alternative development continue in the Chapare, largely funded by transfers from social items in the government's expenditure budgets, according to its IMF representative and agriculture minister who oversee such programs. La Paz apparently has decided to "rob Peter to pay Paul," and in doing so is indirectly adding to the country's debt burden. It is also not addressing other urgent poverty deficiencies throughout the country, thus perpetuating a cynical myth that official alternative development is working in the Chapare. Right now, one can buy 10 pineapples there for one peso boliviano (less than U.S. twenty cents). This hardly provides a viable economic alternative to coca growing for the area's peasants. Despite the National Dialogue's call for research into legal uses of coca, both the U.S. and Bolivian governments have summarily rejected this idea (a World Health Organization study detailing the salutary benefits of such measures has been withheld >from publication). The Dignity Plan clearly calls for the out-migration of from 5,000-15,000 (out of a total of 35,000) peasant families from the Chapare. Where they are to go is unclear, but what is certain is that there are mushrooming international oil exploration and tropical lumber interests in the area. Tourism is also touted as vital for the region's development. Yet oil, lumber and tourist-sector economies are seldom known to benefit impoverished peasants. Development along those lines would also predictably fail to take into account concerns for the environment. The Chapare peasants are cognizant of this reality and recently have succeeded in legally registering their own alternative development enterprise, CocaTropico. Thanks to the anticipated participation and support of European governments, banks and non-governmental organizations, the Six Federations of Coca Growers in the Chapare plan to launch an alternative to official alternative development efforts by focusing on marketing staple foodstuffs for local and urban consumption. The cost of this pilot project is infinitesimal compared to the millions being misspent on ill-conceived government projects. While the U.S. and Bolivian governments continue to insist on a supply-side (Bolivian coca production) rather than a demand-side (U.S. cocaine consumption) pinpointed strategy in their "War on Drugs," peasants in the coca-growing Chapare area are suffering from human rights abuses as the end result of tactics used in implementing the containment strategy. Some argue that the time has come to reassess the hemisphere's drug war and to ask some deeper questions. How might greater attention and funds be focused on stopping the major narco-traffickers and white-collar money-laundering criminals, instead of pursuing efforts that primarily harm impoverished coca-producing peasants? Where is the badly needed analysis of the structural poverty that, for example, causes ex-miners to flee the Chapare after their centuries-old traditional livelihoods are taken away? But U.S. policy continues to blame the victims, in the Andes (and the streets of the U.S. inner-cities, for that matter), while failing to adopt a realistic and viable drug strategy that deals with the problems at hand, rather than perpetuating high-cost programs that simply are not working. George Ann Potter, COHA Senior Research Fellow, is a U.S. citizen living and working in Bolivia with the Andean Information Network. -- **************** Yours in struggle, ****************