COCA PROHIBITION A MISERABLE FAILURE: END IT

By Emma Bonino Reprint | | Print |

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BRUSSELS, May 1 2004 (IPS) - Efforts to eradicate coca production through \’\’supply reduction\’\’ and \’\’alternative development\’\’ have failed miserably, writes Emma Bonino, Member of the European Parliament and founding member of the International Anti-prohibitionist League. In this analysis, Bonino writes that the situation in the Andes has become unbearable for local communities, threatening the general development of their countries while providing a source of easy and big money for all sorts of illegal groups, from the narcos to terrorist and paramilitary networks. Comprehensive alternative development projects should address the broader economic situation of farmers, who cultivate \’\’drug crops\’\’ not only because of to \’\’rural poverty\’\’, \’\’lack of access to markets for legal products\’\’, and \’\’unsuitable soil for many other crops\’\’ as the UN claims, but also because the plants are an integral part of the cultures, traditions, and religions of the indigenous peoples living in those regions. The Permanent Forum should look into the possibility of reflecting coca-related issues in its annual report, where it issues recommendations to the ECOSOC. Ending the prohibition on coca should become a priority for all those that genuinely struggle for freedom and human rights and that are working towards the establishment of a system that functions on the force of law and not the law of force, a law that does not prohibit, but facilitates, the cohabitation of peaceful peculiarities including, ultimately, indigenous issues.

Four years ago, the Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC) established a Permanent Forum to discuss indigenous issues ”relating to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health, and human rights”.

Overwhelmed by a variety of topics ranging from the environment to social justice, the debate within the Forum has never addressed an issue that is crucial to many indigenous groups: that of coca, which is a central, if not vital, element of the very life, tradition, culture, religion, and economy of dozens of indigenous peoples that live throughout the Andean region. The main reason for this lack of attention is that, unfortunately, coca is one of the plants that have been strictly regulated, and at times systematically prohibited, by the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances.

Over the last decade, the international community has addressed coca-related issues promoting a series of projects of ”supply reduction” as well as ”alternative development” to eradicate the ”evil” plant from the face of the earth. All those efforts have proven unsuccessful in eliminating coca cultivation or substituting it with other licit crops. Many of these eradication programmes, like the aerial fumigations in Colombia, have been carried out, often through violent means, and have had a tragic impact on the health of thousands of people as well as on the environment of the concerned regions. In other eradication efforts, money has been promised to campesinos for their voluntary eradication and/or eventual substitution of coca. Despite some tentative positive results, duly documented by the UN in Bolivia and Peru in the late 1990s, in the medium-long term all these anti-coca programmes have failed miserably.

The story of ”alternative development” projects is another altogether. While in theory the idea of promoting licit crops as an alternative income source is a good one, in practice the substitution has never proven to be self-sustaining in the medium or long term. In fact, once the international community pulled out of those projects, the progress achieved disappeared in a matter of months, leaving local communities ready to go back to cultivating the illicit plant.

Furthermore, the usual alternative to coca bush has been palm hearts, which were in vogue in past years but have been overproduced since, drastically decreasing their profitability and consequently annulling the economic argument in favour of the substitution.

Finally, when it comes to agricultural products, the tariff system imposed by North American and European countries places an unfair burden on developing nations, closing rich markets to products from the ”south”.

The situation in the Andes has become unbearable for local communities, threatening the general development of their countries and the well-being of the entire Latin American continent. It has also provided an incredible source of easy and big money for all sorts of illegal groups, from the narcos to terrorist and paramilitary networks. This dramatic situation is always addressed with the same formula: prohibition, which has never produced the desired results and needs a radical revision.

In the framework of its work towards the promotion of ”alternative development”, the UN should carry out a feasibility study to assess the possibility of allowing the development of original uses of the plants that are used to produce narcotics. In fact, coca leaf can be used not only to produce medicines of different sorts, but also, as it has for hundreds of years, in the production of goods such as tea, flour, toothpaste, soap, condiments, fabrics, chewing gum as well as different dietary supplements and, last but not least, the means to alleviate the abuse of the chemical substances processed from its leaves.

If the UN is really committed to improving socio-economic conditions for targeted populations through ”sustainable development projects”, the original uses of these illicit plants should indeed be integrated in the programmes.

Comprehensive alternative development projects should address the broader economic situation of farmers, who cultivate ”drug crops” not only because of ”rural poverty”, ”lack of access to markets for legal products”, and ”unsuitable soil for many other crops” as the UN claims, but also because of the plant’s traditional importance to the indigenous peoples living in those regions where it grows.

If the Permanent Forum could look into the possibility of reflecting coca-related issues in its annual report, where it issues recommendations to the ECOSOC for its distribution to relevant UN organs, funds, programmes and agencies, it would make a substantial contribution to indigenous issues. It may be too late for this year’s session, but starting to raise the issue this spring may launch a preparatory process that could indeed include coca as an item for discussions for next year.

Ending the prohibition on coca should become a priority for all those that genuinely struggle for freedom and human rights and that are working towards the establishment of a system that functions on the force of law and not the law of force, a law that does not prohibit, but facilitates, the cohabitation of peaceful peculiarities including, ultimately, indigenous issues. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)