PERU: The US believes that a permissive attitude towards coca cultivation will mean more cocaine, not teas and medicines, writes Monte Reel
Like the recently-elected Bolivian president Evo Morales, Ollanta Humala has campaigned against coca eradication programmes, arguing that much of it being cultivated is being used in teas and traditional medicines, not being turned into cocaine.
"We're going to protect the coca grower and we're going to stop the forced eradication of their crops," he said during a rally last month, La Republica newspaper reported. "It must be understood that there are more than 30,000 families that cultivate coca leaf and no government has ever protected them."
The United States has poured about $5 billion into an Andean anti-drug plan since 2000, including about $720 million in Peru. However, if Humala wins the decisive second-round election, to be held in May or early June, the US's main ally in its eradication efforts - Colombia - will stand as a virtual island in the Andes, surrounded by countries with governments critical of Washington's policies.
If continued breakdowns in co-operation occur in Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia or Ecuador, some US officials say they fear that progress made against coca cultivation in Colombia could evaporate as production migrates across its borders.
Recent US government estimates suggest such shifts have already begun. Despite record eradication hauls in Colombia, coca production has been on the rise in Bolivia for each of the past four years. In Peru, US government analysts detected a 23 per cent increase in the traditional cultivation zones between 2004 and 2005; when including data from new zones of cultivation, Peru's annual increase was 38 per cent.
Aggressive aerial spraying in Colombia "is forcing drug traffickers to move shop and they are on the run replanting in other parts of Colombia and crossing borders into Ecuador and Peru," congressman Dan Burton said recently in testimony before a congressional hearing about anti-drug strategies in Latin America.
Persuading neighbouring Andean leaders to co-operate is an increasingly difficult challenge as the region's elected governments call for more independence from US intervention.
In Venezuela, president Hugo Chavez last year disbanded several enforcement units supported by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, while president George Bush consequently decertified Venezuela as a co-operating partner in the drug fight.
In Ecuador, the government has refused US requests to condemn Colombian guerrilla groups suspected of widespread drug trafficking, preferring to remain neutral in the Colombian conflict.
Eradication in Bolivia has slowed since Mr Morales took office in January, though he says his government's coca agency - formerly called Coca Control, now named Coca Development - aggressively opposes cultivation of coca intended to be used in cocaine.
Humala has adopted Morales' slogan of "Zero Cocaine - Not Zero Coca," and he says he wants to strengthen the legal market- place for coca by promoting such products as coca teas and herbal medicines. To combat hunger, his campaign has proposed the daily distribution of 27 million loaves of bread made with coca to impoverished schoolchildren.
US officials in Peru and Bolivia insist that a more permissive attitude toward cultivation will mean more cocaine shipped to the United States. They contend that most of the coca grown in those countries is used for drugs, despite the denials of Morales, Humala and many of their supporters.