IPS-English BOLIVIA: Coca Leaf Defended by Growers, Scientistsà and Taxi Drivers
 
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 10:28:55 -0800

 
Bernarda Claure

LA PAZ, Mar 24   (IPS)  - ”They will have to kill us to make us stop
planting coca,” Bolivian coca grower Luis Mamani told IPS in response
to a call from the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) to
prohibit traditional uses of the plant like coca leaf chewing.

The Mamani family, who live in the village of Arapata, 120 km from
La Paz, have a theory regarding the INCB recommendation and the renewed
controversy around the cultivation of coca (the raw material used
to make cocaine) -- one that is shared by thousands of other Bolivians


Plucking leaves from a small plastic bag he holds in one hand, then
popping them in his mouth and chewing them, Mamani declares that this
is an act of ”revenge” against President Evo Morales, who began his
political career as a leader of the cocaleros (coca farmers) in the
central Bolivian region of Chapare.  

”The gringos don't respect him because he used to be a cocalero,
and now they want to make us pay,” comments Mamani's wife, Alicia.
She and Luis, along with their four children, aged nine to 16, work
together in the cultivation of coca bushes in the Yungas region of
the province of La Paz, a mountainous subtropical area where coca
has been grown since pre-Columbian times. 

The INCB, the independent monitoring body for the implementation
of United Nations international drug control conventions, noted in
its 2007 annual report, released early this month, that ”the practice
of chewing coca leaves continues in Bolivia and Peru.”

As one of its recommendations, the Board ”calls upon the Governments
of Bolivia and Peru to initiate action without delay with a view to
eliminating uses of coca leaf, including coca leaf chewing, that are
contrary to the 1961 (Single) Convention (on Narcotic Drugs).”

In protest, coca growers from the Arapata and Sud Yungas regions
gathered for a National Coca Leaf Chewing Day and plan to hold a similar
demonstration at the government headquarters in La Paz. 

Meanwhile, a Bolivian delegation made up by Deputy Foreign Minister
Hugo Fernández, Vice Minister of Social Defence Felipe Cáceres and
coca growers' representatives voiced their opposition to the INCB
report at the annual meeting of the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs
in mid-March. 

Morales himself sent a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon,
stating that ”Bolivia does not accept unilateral certifications or
impositions from foreign governments.” 

The letter makes reference to the international conventions that
defend the freedom of action of indigenous peoples and respect for
their traditions. It also invokes the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the 1988 U.N. resolution that recognised the traditional
use of coca. 

”It is a historic error to try to ban coca. We are not going to allow
it,” Mamani vehemently stated. 

Like the majority of peasant farmers in Yungas, Mamani has almost
completed the latest sowing of coca bush seedlings. The ”wachus” or
neat furrows dug to plant the seedlings create a patchwork in which
their clean geometric lines contrast with the exuberant subtropical
vegetation surrounding them. Soon these lines will be ”coloured in”
with the uniquely vibrant green of coca bushes. 

This patchwork landscape has typified the Yungas region since time immemorial.

According to British anthropologist Alison Spedding, back in 1793
coca accounted for 27 percent of the total revenue from local products
sold in the southwestern city of Potosí, the largest urban centre
in Bolivia during the Spanish colonial era. More than 90 percent of
this coca was produced in the Yungas towns of Chulumani and Irupana,
among others.

The coca plant (Erythroxylon coca) has been cultivated since long
before the arrival of the Spaniards, Spedding states in her research
report ”Kawsachun coca: Economía campesina cocalera en los Yungas
y el Chapare” (The Peasant Coca-Growing Economy in the Yungas and
the Chapare), published in Spanish in 2004. 

She made the treks as part of the research for her book of the same
name, published last year in Spanish by a leading social sciences
research institute in Bolivia. Kawsachun means ”long live” in Aymara,
one of the two main languages of the Andean indigenous people who
make up most of Bolivia's population.

Traces of an ”alkaline substance” have been detected in gourds found
in ancient store
rooms along the Peruvian coast that date back to more than 1,000
years before Christ. 

Spedding notes that the main trading centre in the southern Andes
during colonial times was the city of Potosí, and it was the Yungas
region that supplied it with coca. 

Other researchers, including William E. Carter and Mauricio Mamani,
point out that coca bushes were grown in this region and other areas
of the Andes mountains, like the southern Colombian region of Cauca,
long before Spanish colonisation. 

The subtropical valleys of Pocona in the central Bolivian department
of Cochabamba were another major coca-growing area in the 16th century,
and their main market was the city of La Plata.

Today the legal coca leaf marketing chain begins with the producers
and passes through the wholesale markets of Villa Fátima in La Paz
and the so-called ”primary markets” in the main towns of the Chapare
region. 

From there it extends to the legal coca markets in Bolivia and neighbouring
countries like Argentina and Peru.

Margarita Terán, a cocalero leader in Chapare, says that the mainstay
of the domestic coca leaf market is in the lowlands of Santa Cruz
and Tarija, where there are significant influxes of migrants from
the highlands in western Bolivia. 

Prices range from six to nine bolivianos a pound (0.78 to 1.18 dollars).
Intermediaries sell ”drums” of 22.7 kilos of coca for between 700
and 800 bolivianos (92 to 105 dollars), depending on the season, weather
conditions and quality of the leaves. 

Alberto Sosa, a taxi driver, buys a small bag of coca leaves on the
outskirts of the Villa Fátima market every three days. ”It helps me
stay alert when I work at night,” he told IPS while pulling a bag
of coca leaves from his glove compartment. 

Coca leaf chewing is a common practice among peasant farmers, miners,
labourers and night workers. Soothsayers and indigenous priests use
it in rituals passed down by their ancestors. And in many hotels in
La Paz, foreign guests are welcomed with a cup of coca leaf tea, which
helps to relieve altitude sickness. 

Ancestral beliefs, confirmed by scientific research, credit coca
leaf chewing with alleviating hunger, fatigue and sleepiness. 

Hilda Spielvogel, a professor at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés
and a researcher with the Bolivian Institute of High Altitude Biology,
is the author of a study on the effects of coca use on physical capacity.
She told IPS that her research showed that coca leaf chewing enhances
physical performance due to components that lower the production of
adrenaline and thus the consumption of oxygen. 

”This is the only study of its kind done in Bolivia and it proves,
to some extent, the theory that coca leaf chewing, in addition to
its cultural significance, also has physical benefits for those who
practice it,” she said. 

The research was conducted among 12 men of similar weight and height
from the towns of Tacachi and Ventilla in the Andean high plains south
of La Paz. The subjects were divided into two groups: the members
of the first chewed 31.5 grams of coca while the second group was
given sugarless chewing gum.  

After an hour of physical endurance tests, the subjects who had been
given chewing gum were exhausted, while the six who had chewed coca
leaves said they still felt full of energy and could easily continue
with further physical exercise.  

The Bolivian Law on Coca and Controlled Substances authorises the
legal consumption and use of coca as part of traditional practices
like chewing, as well as for medicinal and ritual uses. 

It consequently stipulates that coca can be produced to fulfil the
demand created by these forms of consumption in the ”traditional production
area,” which is primarily concentrated in Yungas. 

U.N. and U.S. government reports indicate that coca production in
Bolivia encompasses over 27,000 hectares of crops, both licit and
illicit. 

In 2007, coca producers sold around 81.5 million kilos of coca leaves
in the legal markets of Villa Fátima in La Paz and Sacaba in Cochabamba,
which represented sales of 29.2 million dollars. 


*****
+ INCB report (http://www.incb.org/incb/en/annual-report-2007.html)
+ 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (http://www.incb.org/incb/convention_1961.html)
+ BOLIVIA: Coca, Poverty and Hope (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36069)
+ BOLIVIA: Morales Takes Coca Campaign to U.N. - 2006 (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34821)
+ SOUTH AMERICA: The Business of Legal Coca - 2006 (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31952)
+ ôWachus” or furrows in Yungas. Credit: Diana Cariboni/IPS.  (http://ipsnoticias.net/fotos/foto_31.jpg)
+ Coca field. Credit: Diana Cariboni/IPS.  (http://ipsnoticias.net/fotos/foto_44.jpg)
+ Cocalero shows leaf-picking technique. Credit: Diana Cariboni/IPS.
 (http://ipsnoticias.net/fotos/foto_79.jpg)


(END/IPS/LA DV IP CR IN/TRASP-LN-SW/HM/MG-DCL/08)


 
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