Pubdate: Wed, 11 Nov 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Nick Miroff

A COCAINE COMEBACK?

Despite U.S. Efforts to Cut Off the Drug at the Source, Colombia Is 
Again the World's Top Coca Producer

Tierradentro, Colombia - Illegal coca cultivation is surging in 
Colombia, erasing one of the showcase achievements of U.S. 
counternarcotics policy and threatening to send a burst of cheap 
cocaine through the smuggling pipeline to the United States.

Just two years after it ceased to be the world's largest producer, 
falling behind Peru, Colombia now grows more illegal coca than Peru 
and third-place Bolivia combined. In 2014, the last year for which 
statistics are available, Colombians planted 44 percent more coca 
than in 2013, and U.S. drug agents say this year's crop is probably 
even larger.

The coca boom comes at an especially sensitive time for the Colombian 
government, which is in the final stages of peace negotiations with 
leftist FARC rebels, who have long profited from the illegal drug 
trade. Last month the government halted aerial spraying of the crop, 
citing concerns that the herbicides used may cause cancer. That 
program had been a pillar of Plan Colombia, under which the United 
States has provided more than $9 billion to this country since 2000.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, a key U.S. ally, said his 
administration is ready to launch a massive crop substitution 
campaign if a deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, 
or FARC, is reached and areas under rebel control become safe enough 
for government workers. The guerrillas and the government have 
already agreed in principle on a sweeping new development plan for 
Colombia's struggling rural areas, with the FARC pledging to help 
persuade farmers to rip out their coca in favor of lawful crops.

U.S. and Colombian officials say the biggest reason for the current 
bumper crop is that the FARC, along with other armed groups, has 
encouraged farmers to plant more coca in anticipation of the peace 
deal and the new government aid.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Santos said his government 
will seek U.S. support for the huge new crop substitution plan. With 
the FARC off the battlefield, such a program could succeed where past 
initiatives have fallen short, he said.

"We have a golden opportunity," Santos said. "But if we don't give 
the farmers an alternative, they're going to keep growing coca."

Cocaine consumption in the United States fell in the past decade 
while methamphetamine and heroin use soared. But a glut of cheap 
product could bring a new cocaine rush. It could also unleash new 
cycles of violence along trafficking routes through Central America and Mexico.

The FARC, whose formidable guerrillas initially "taxed" farmers' coca 
production and went on to dominate trafficking in the areas under 
their control, has vowed to leave the drug trade if the peace deal is 
reached. But Colombia's other armed groups - including ELN 
guerrillas, paramilitary gangs and the rural bands known as "bacrim" 
- - will be looking to muscle into the business in areas where the FARC 
pulls out.

U.S.-funded aerial spraying played a huge role in reducing Colombia's 
coca crop from an estimated 400,000 acres in 2000 to fewer than 
120,000 acres in 2012. The tactic was bitterly resented in rural 
communities, though, and it provided diminishing returns as drug 
growers moved their crops to national parks, indigenous reserves, 
border areas and other places off limits to spraying.

Two-thirds of the country's 170,000 acres of coca fields are now in 
such areas, according to the government, and the new coca boom was 
well underway before the ban on aerial spraying took effect Oct. 1.

Jorgan Andrews, director of the State Department's International 
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs section at the U.S. Embassy in 
Bogota, said the growth in coca production appears to be linked to 
the peace talks with the FARC and expectations about the substitution 
programs that may follow.

"The government programs will be in areas where there is coca, so one 
interpretation is that those who grow the most coca will get the most 
government benefits," he said.

"And if the peace process with FARC falls apart," he said, "they'll 
already have more coca in the ground."

Andrews said Colombia's 2015 coca output is projected to go "way up." 
Many of the plants added last year have since matured, "so what 
you'll see is a big cocaine production spike as those plants come online."

Once the coca leaves are stripped from the plant, they are soaked in 
solvents such as kerosene to leech out the naturally occurring 
alkaloids, then processed with sulfuric acid, ammonia and other 
chemicals to make cocaine base and eventually white powder.

Because mature plants yield more of the leaves used to make cocaine 
hydrochloride, the street-level version of the drug, a 44 percent 
increase in the amount of land planted with coca translates to a 
projected 52 percent increase this year in cocaine production, 
according to U.N. estimates.

Even if the Santos government and the FARC agree on a truce by their 
March 23 deadline, it won't mean social workers with cacao seeds and 
fish-farm projects will be able to fan out across Colombia's jungles 
and mountains. Some of the country's coca strongholds are likely to 
remain no-go zones for years- Colombia has more deaths and injuries 
from anti-personnel mines than anywhere outside Afghanistan.

"What happens if the coca numbers keep going up? It's going to put a 
lot of pressure on the government from the international community," 
said Bo Mathiasen, the Colombia director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

Still, he pointed out, coca is not lucrative for small farmers - even 
if it pays more than traditional crops. "And that's the good news for 
us, because it makes it easier to succeed with alternatives," Mathiasen said.

As many as 1 million of Colombia's 50 million citizens are linked to 
the coca business directly or indirectly, according to Eduardo Diaz, 
the economist and former health minister in charge of the crop 
substitution program. Diaz said the government has learned critical 
lessons over the years about what works and does not.

"It can't be, 'Here, try these seeds, see you later,' " Diaz said. 
"We have to establish the presence of the state in these conflict zones."

Cash payments to individual families in exchange for voluntary 
eradication do not work either, Diaz said, because the possibility of 
earning money simply encourages everyone to grow coca. Instead, the 
government wants entire communities to opt for crop substitution in 
the hope it will bring state-building investments in infrastructure, 
health and education. Holdouts would face forced eradication and 
criminal penalties.

Diaz said asking farmers to gradually phase out coca also does not 
work. As long as there are illegal crops in the community, there will 
be armed groups attracted to it, he said, like flies swarming food.

Here in Tierradentro, a tiny village in the foothills of the Nudo de 
Paramillo range in the northern state of Cordoba, a crop substitution 
program supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development is 
encouraging former coca growers to try bananas and cacao instead.

FARC units remain active farther up the mountain, protecting coca 
fields in a national park.

The area is one of Colombia's most war-torn, fought over by 
right-wing paramilitaries and the FARC for the past 20 years. But 
with a unilateral cease-fire in effect, Tierradentro is quieter now 
than at any time in recent memory.

Farmers here say they are proud to grow food again, returning to a 
simpler and more innocent era. Sure, they said, the coca brought more 
money, but also wanton killing, prostitution and benefits that did not last.

"Most of the money went to alcohol," said Darwis Tarifa, 42, who said 
he lost two brothers to drug deals gone bad.

Cacao seemed the most promising alternative for Tierradentro's 
farmers, but the trees planted here will take several years to bear 
fruit. Bananas are the only option in the meantime, and many farmers 
here confessed they were losing patience, earning as little as $175 a 
month, well below minimum wage and less than a third of what they 
made growing coca. Selling bricks of cocaine base was a lot easier 
than arranging for truckloads of bananas to reach markets several 
hours away along a rough dirt road.

"Today we live in peace," said Alexis Fernandez, 63. "But there's no 
coca and no money."

Farther up the mountain and a canoe ride across the muddy San Jorge 
River, Jacinto Tapia showed off the fields where he grew coca until 
switching to bananas last year. In the rich alluvial soils, his 
mature coca plants could be harvested every 40 days, virtually 
year-round, almost as good as a monthly paycheck.

Soldiers arrived last year and ripped them out. Tapia signed up for 
the crop substitution program.

"Once you start getting old, you get tired of having these problems," 
said the sun-worn Tapia, 69. "You don't make as much money, but you 
sleep better at night."

A few vestigial coca plants poked through the ground between the 
bananas and empty cans of glyphosate herbicide. Their leaves were a 
radiant shade of green. Tapia chopped at their roots with his machete 
but said the only way to finish them off was with heavy doses of the 
weedkiller.

All it takes is a few severed roots left in the ground, he said, and 
the plant comes roaring back.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom