Evo Morales approves the expansion of cocoa plants in Bolivia

2017-03-09 04:30:21

A controversial law expanding the area of ​​legal coca cultivation in Bolivia was announced this Wednesday by President Evo Morales, who is seeking re-election for a fourth term, raising serious fears that increased production will increase drug trafficking. .

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The Bolivian president, the current leader of six coca growing groups in Chapare (center), rejected these objections and announced in a public event that With the announcement of the new law, his government wants to “guarantee coca for life,” the ancient and mysterious crop of the Andean population.

“It is time to serve Law 1008 (in force since 1988 and promoted by the United States), which found the coca river in Bolivia,” Morales said in his first public appearance after returning from Cuba, where he underwent a medical examination . The review of the announcement did not come to the coca farmers from the Yungas department, they were not satisfied because they believe that Chapare is a legal privilege, saying that its coca is not suitable for traditional food.

The new law was approved by Congress, with a majority, on February 24, after strong demands from the president’s coca professionals.

He knows a total of 22,000 hectares of coca, compared to the 12,000 he has worked since 1988. Thus, Bolivia will have 14,300 hectares of coca in the area of ​​the Andean region valleys of the Yungas, where it has been cultivated since pre-Columbian times, and 7,700 in the Chapare region, in the center of the country.

Morales came to power in 2006 with indigenous, nationalist and anti-American rhetoric and reorganized the situation in two successive administrations (2010-1015 and 2015-2020), and now expects a constitutional reform that regularly for the fourth time (2020). -2025), since the current constitution prohibits.

Between the law and the coca surplus, Bolivia currently has 20,200 hectares under cultivation, and the new legal crop boundary is almost exactly the same as the existing crops. A government study of 2013, funded by the European Union, indicated that the legal demand for coca, for communion, consumption and religious ceremonies, was satisfied with the cultivation of 14,700 hectares.

Bolivia is the third largest producer of coca in the world after Colombia and Peru. countries are struggling to reduce their crops.

For the opposition, the new law will have significant side effects. The former Bolivian president Jorge Quiroga is convinced that this law “will bring shame to the world and will do great damage” to the image of the country, to the citizens, because of the stigma and drug trafficking it will do and the crime it will create in Bolivia .

According to him, “reports from institutions like the European Union or the UN point to that 90 percent of Chapare’s coca goes to drug trafficking“.

The leader of the coca growers of the Yungas, Franklin Gutiérrez, also emphasized that the production of that region “is not specific to the culture,” the legal market. “We are not from the cocaine culture,” Morales defended himself.

According to official plans, some 7,000 hectares will be processed into tea, drugs and alcohol, for export to Ecuador and Venezuela, in unspecified quantities, in addition to the fact that negotiations with Paraguay have ongoing. The export of plants as such is prohibited by the Vienna Convention of 1960. President Morales has insisted that the use of coca leaf must be legalized worldwideespecially ‘acullico’ or eating the ancestors of the peasants so that they do not suffer from hunger or fatigue during their work in the heights.

The new law will be presented by the Bolivian government next week, before the 61st session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, in Vienna, according to an official announcement.

According to opposition representative and political scientist Jimena Costa, the new law “will cause international problems,” because “it will make more than 11,000 metric tons of coca leaves available for drug trafficking every year,” resulting from the expansion of the border of the crop.

Bolivia’s anti-drug czar, Felipe Cáceres, explained that The new target of 22,000 hectares is “to be controlled by the national state.” and implement our anti-drug policy throughout the country, avoiding the excesses that lead to drug trafficking.”

Morales believes that the criticism is due to the fact that the right seeks to “confront” his friends. “Which behavior has the right to criticize when their governments have 37,000 hectares of land?”

AFP