Bolivia eradicates coca crops amid local grumbling

The eradication program is supported by the United States, the chief destination of cocaine trafficking, but frowned upon by the locals.

LA ASUNTA, March 25, 2010 (AFP) - "Keep moving... keep moving!" Lieutenant Wilson Santos bellowed at 50 sweaty soldiers as they hacked their way up a hillside through a sea of coca plants in Bolivia's La Asunta region.

The army's eradication campaign began earlier this month after La Paz decided to trim back the country's overproduction of coca leaf, which can be processed into illegal cocaine or used for chewing or drinking in a centuries-old local tradition.

The eradication program -- the government calls it "rationalization" -- is supported by the United States, the chief destination of cocaine trafficking, but frowned upon by the locals, who watch their livelihood being cut down amid uncertainty over their future.

The military hopes to slash 5,000 to 8,000 hectares (12,000-20,000 acres) of coca plantations per year until the world's third-biggest producer reaches the legally sanctioned level of 12,000 hectares (29,500 acres).

That's how much coca leaf the country needs for traditional use as a mild stimulant either chewed or swallowed as an infusion, according to estimates.

But harvesting coca leaf for the illegal drugs market is a lucrative, mushrooming industry. Over 30,000 hectares are currently devoted to coca cultivation, the government said.

In Sud Yungas province, at the foothills of the Andes some 200 kilometers (120 miles) east of La Paz, much of the coca cultivation is deemed superfluous.

The authorities say it is not a forced eradication campaign but one reached in agreement with coca growers who are offered substitute crops and government investment in local infrastructure, including roads and sanitation.

But the agreement is fragile and coca's bad reputation does not sit well with La Asunta's estimated 15,000 farmers, who mostly grow coca leaf for its yield of three crops a year, far more abundant than citrus fruit or coffee.

-- 'The government is all confused' --

Locals chafe when people say their coca is snorted up in foreign markets. They insist their plant has been used for thousands of years for chewing, drinking and in the religious ceremonies of the indigenous Aymara.

"This is a traditional coca-producing area. What we grow goes to the legal markets of La Paz. It's under control," said local farmers leader Emilio Mayta.

Coca grown in Yungas is reputedly the sweetest and best suited for chewing. Farmers say the leaf for cocaine is best reaped in the central region of Chapare, birthplace of President Evo Morales, who was a coca growers' union leader before taking office.

They complain Sud Yungas has seen precious little of the promised government investment: there are no bridges over the rivers, the roads are mined with potholes and the villages are powered by electric generators.

"The government is all confused," said farmer Severino Mamani. "We need development right here right now if they want us to switch from coca to growing some other crop.

"Because if the government simply continues slashing away, what are we going to live on?"

Meanwhile, Bolivia remains on Washington's black list.

The US State Department released its annual report on drugs this month, and criticized Bolivia's government control of coca growing regions as too lax, allowing illegal crops to increase by 50 percent in three years.

The Morales administration, markedly socialist and anti-American like its close ally Venezuela, dismissed the US report as politically motivated.

Morales is determined to expand the traditional market for coca leaf and wants to raise the legal cultivation ceiling to 20,000 hectares, even if it means wiping out the plant altogether from Yungas.

To prevent social unrest, however, officials said the eradication campaign would proceed at a gradual but steady pace, hand in hand with the local population.

"All the work is done in concert. We're going to eradicate in concert," said Yungas Development Union leader Porfirio Huasco.