Bolivian Coca Growers Whip Police For Trying To Destroy Crops

Soldiers cut down coca plants with machetes on an illegal coca plantation during a government organized media trip with President of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), Hamid Ghodse, unseen, in Chimore, Bolivia, Friday Dec. 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

LA PAZ, Bolivia — Bolivian officials on Tuesday threatened to prosecute leaders of coca growers who used whips to drive away four unarmed members of a government coca eradication team.

Monday's attack was the second time this year that peasants in the town of La Asunta near this highlands capital have driven away a government-sanctioned eradication mission.

Felipe Caceres, the deputy minister in charge of eradication, said all four men escaped without injury. He told Fides radio the aggressors would be "brought to justice."

No arrests were reported, however.

A local leader from La Asunta, Pascual Mamani, claimed in a radio interview that peasants had administered "community justice" Monday. He vowed continued resistance to eradication in the Yungas region, origin of Bolivia's preferred coca variety.

Coca leaves are the basis for cocaine but also are a sacred plant among Andes natives. A mild stimulant, they have chewed for centuries.

Bolivia is the world's No. 3 coca producer behind Colombia and neighboring Peru with 120 square miles (31,000 hectares) under cultivation, according to U.N. figures.

Bolivia's government eradication force, comprised of soldiers and police, destroyed 38 square miles (10,000 hectares) of coca last year. Less than a third of a square mile (80 hectares) were in the Yungas region.

Nearly all the eradication in Bolivia last year was accomplished in the Chapare region, where President Evo Morales rose to prominence as a coca-growers union leader and still holds considerable sway.

His influence in the Yungas is weaker.

Morales expelled U.S. drug agents in 2008, claiming the Drug Enforcement Administration was seeking to undermine him and incite his political opponents.

His government has been at odds with the United States over how much of its coca crop is needed for traditional uses and thus legal.

The Morales government claims it is 76 square miles (20,000 hectares) while Washington contends Bolivia is obliged to destroy anything over 46 square miles (12,000 hectares).

The U.N. says the Yungas alone has more than 29 square miles (7,400 hectares) of excess coca, nearly all of it in La Asunta.

So far this year, Bolivia has eradicated just three-quarters of a square mile (200 hectares). Authorities say eradication will step up at the end of March when the rainy season ends.

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Comments

[wonderfullone]

12:25 AM on 02/09/2012

Sounds like the Police should carry AK47's and lets see these Coca Growers try and whip them.----------------------I just solved their problem with my computor.------Mission Accomplished.

[ramonbatt]

09:42 AM on 02/08/2012

#1 buyer is America!!! The cartel is getting bigger and bigger. If we legalized here in America? They would go out of business here in the USA.

[zenju2]

06:36 AM on 02/08/2012

Legalisation. NOW.
Treat it just like alcohol.

[ramonbatt]

09:44 AM on 02/08/2012

I been saying the same thing for years. You are so right. Look at the alcohol industry. It is one of the best in jobs and employment. People are sending their kids to good colleges!!

[kmcc895370]

05:45 AM on 02/08/2012

Legalize most drugs. The hardcore druggies will have a very short life-span, most people will be happier, organized crime will take a big hit(no pun intended) and the money used to fund the war on drugs can be spent elseware on better things.

[reality4u2]

08:39 AM on 02/08/2012

And imagine the new source of revenue with a tax on it!

[ramonbatt]

09:51 AM on 02/08/2012

You are right. War on drugs has not work at all. The cartel keeps 99.9 of all drugs sells tax free. They control all the borders and citys. They also control the flow of drugs to the USA. Washington controls the price. Also job security as well. Nixon war on drugs was a short term solution that did not work. It was also push by the tabaco industry!!! Ummmm? I wonder WHY?

[theron mote]

11:18 PM on 02/07/2012

everything that grows should be legal! if someone wants to get high, let them, its their life. the war on drugs is a big waste of money and people. think our government will ever get out of other peoples business? I doubt it.........

[nikkitytom]

03:57 AM on 02/08/2012

Good classification! I like that. If it GROWS it should be legal. Yep. I agree. Some of the most beneficial medicines in the world are plant based. We are paranoid here in America. And consequently we have the worst drug problem in the world.

In India we use tincture of opium for children ( or used to before the Americans got us all edgy about it) In Peru they chew coca as a mild stimulant so they can get through their days in the fields. Marijuana is the best remedy for nausea I can think of ... particularly the intractible nausea of chemotherapy. The best known medicine for glaucoma. Read up on it and check it out.

Meanwhile the drug companies peddle their poisons and growers of green things are hunted down and punished. Something's wrong here.

[OzzieTonto]

11:16 PM on 02/07/2012

Viva Evo! Viva Bolivia Libre!!

[darubo27usa]

09:59 PM on 02/07/2012

Unarmed members of the coca eradicating team? It sounds like sending a B-52 with confeti bombs. What are these people thinking? oops...it is Bolivia, nevermind...

[altohone]

09:27 PM on 02/07/2012

The article says America, with the UN giving a different number of regional excess. And funny as in odd, not humorous.

I guess there is some humor in America recognizing forty six square miles of legal coca though.

[altohone]

06:45 PM on 02/07/2012

Eradication is clearly the wrong word to use. The US setting a quota for Bolivian acceptable use is funny.

You guys have had enough. Snort.

[McGyver1]

08:39 PM on 02/07/2012

It's the UN and if you think thats funny look what they are doing in our neighborhoods through the ICLEI.

[irocker350]

06:02 PM on 02/07/2012

It's amazing how many resources go into erradicating something that will never go away,
same with pot.
As long as humans walk the earth they will be looking to catch a buzz off of something, time to quit throwing away money on stupidity, governments keep making the same mistakes over and over and expect a different outcome every time.

[Gregory Hinton]

05:48 PM on 02/07/2012

the dea another big government republican creation.

[sidecarman]

05:24 PM on 02/07/2012

should not be illegal.

[Bills Catz]

05:21 PM on 02/07/2012

Hey, amigo, why you wanna walk unarmed into a whip fight?

[irocker350]

05:55 PM on 02/07/2012

I had the very same thought

[cwoodphotos]

04:51 PM on 02/07/2012

Having spent some time in the high elevations of Bolivia, I can tell you a cup of coca tea in a hotel at 16,000 feet certainly eases a headache as a result of altitude sickness. The Bolivian people have to deal with the second highest poverty rate in the western hemisphere. The country has been pilfered by Euros, particularly Germans over the last century. We should just butt out.

[mk3jade]

07:38 PM on 02/07/2012

I went to Bolivia and was on Cochabamba. I was extremely weak with altitude sickness and a cup of coca tea made me feel extremely better in 10 minutes.

[k535panther]

04:35 AM on 02/08/2012

Chewing coca leaves has been part of their culture for eons... he we go again trying to tell others what to do..will we never learn or understand why we are not liked..

[CrestedSparrow]

04:44 PM on 02/07/2012

It's organic. Legalize it for its natural and intended use as a gentle stimulant with minimal recommended dosages. What's the problem? Is the Bolivian government willing to replace their cash crops with something equally profitable for them to survive? Maybe they deserved community justice if their plan was to leave destruction and starvation in their wake; otherwise, it seems any reasonable farmer would comply with the order if there was a fair and beneficial outcome for the community.