Suchergebnisse

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.

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.

Upon his presidential election, Bolivian coca grower leader Evo Morales adopted a policy of promoting consensual coca reduction through social control, a sophisticated coca monitoring system, and economic development. That strategy is paying off. In 2011, coca cultivation decreased by 13 per cent according to the U.S. government. The Morales administration has also made significant progress facing the ongoing challenges of drug production and trafficking. Seizures of coca paste and cocaine and destruction of drug laboratories have steadily increased since President Morales took office. Despite continued tensions in bilateral relations, U.S.-Bolivian counter-drug cooperation continues and the signing of a new framework agreement in 2011 should lead to an exchange of ambassadors. Internationally, Bolivia has successfully gained acceptance of the right to the traditional use of coca within its own territory. But Bolivia's efforts must be carried out in tandem with effective demand reduction strategies to shrink the global cocaine market.

Between 2006-2019, Bolivia emerged as a world leader in formulating a participatory, non-violent model to gradually limit coca production in a safe and sustainable manner while simultaneously offering farmers realistic economic alternatives to coca. Our study finds that not only has this model reduced violence, but it has effectively expanded social and civil rights in hitherto marginal regions. In contrast, Peru has continued to conceptualise 'drugs' as a crime and security issue. This has led to U.S.-financed forced crop eradication, putting the burden onto impoverished farmers, generating violence and instability. At the request of farmers, the Peruvian government has made a tentative move towards implementing one aspect of Bolivia's community control in Peru. Could it work? We address this question by focusing on participatory development with a special emphasis on the role of local organisations and the relationship between growers and the state. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, focus group discussions and secondary research, we find that for community control to have any chance of success in Peru, grassroots organisations must be strengthened and grower trust in the state created. The study also demonstrates that successful participatory development in drug crop regions is contingent on land titling and robust state investment, which strengthens farmer resolve to participate so as to avoid a return to the repression of the past.