BOLIVIA'S EXPANSIVE COCA POLICY

UNCLAS LA PAZ 001644 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR INL, WHA/PPC, WHA/AND USAID FOR LAC/SA JUSTICE FOR OIA, AFMLS AND NDDS CUSTOMS FOR LA OPS, INTELLIGENCE DEA FOR OEL (STEFFICK) AND OIL (HARRINGTON) E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: SNAR EAID BL SUBJECT: BOLIVIA'S EXPANSIVE COCA POLICY REF: LA PAZ 1281 ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: The GOB's coca strategy is becoming more explicit, and its expansiveness will only complicate effective control. On June 17, President Morales celebrated the opening of a coca tea plant in the Yungas and unveiled a domestic coca leaf commercialization regime that reportedly allows cocaleros to market their leaf personally anywhere in the country; it also allows seized leaf to be recycled back into the national market. (Later, the Minister of Rural Development said the policy would not be that expansive.) Earlier, a much-touted "no expansion" agreement was partially annulled when a dissident community held its GOB author hostage. Meanwhile, although the GOB has asked for NAS support to undertake "reduction" operations (AKA eradication) in the Yungas (a historic first),it has been unable to pull together its own counterpart (most especially, prior agreement with affected cocaleros about where to begin reducing excess coca cultivation). END SUMMARY. LIBERALIZING "LICIT" LEAF -------------- ¶2. (SBU) The government of President Evo Morales has steered a circuitous route in defining its coca policy, supporting eradication (albeit using new terminology: "reduction" or "rationalization") while also dramatically redefining the controls on the domestic sale of leaf. On June 17, Morales announced a new regime governing the commercialization of the leaf, which underpins the GOB's broader efforts to "revalorize" the leaf. Under this new regime, individual producers are now permitted to seek new channels for the sale of leaf to reach new markets through a barter system (trueque). ¶3. (SBU) The announcement was made in Irupana, a Yungueno community where Morales celebrated the opening of a coca tea plant financed with US$125,000 of Venezuelan assistance provided under the auspices of the People's Trade Agreement (Tratado de Comercio de los Pueblos) signed in Havana on April 29. (The President arrived at the event in one of the Puma helicopters recently provided to the GOB by the Venezuelan government.) Morales admitted that, while initially the project would run at a loss, "it will permit us to demonstrate that the coca plant can be used for other purposes than just the production of cocaine, such as tea, soft drinks and other uses." Morales also spoke of eventually baking a cake made from coca flour for Fidel Castro. ¶4. (SBU) Morales also invited Yungueno cocaleros to attend a June 29 ceremony in the Tropico de Cochabamba where he said he would lobby Argentine President Kirchner to accept the legal import of coca leaf into Argentina. In a separate press account the Argentine Ambassador to Bolivia was reported to comment that there was a history of coca consumption among residents of Jujuy. (NOTE: Monday newspapers subsequently declared that Morales was to meet Kirchner in Buenos Aires on June 29.) ¶5. (SBU) The new commercialization regime also contemplates the recycling of seized leaf for the benefit of impoverished camposinos residing in the altiplano, who prior could not tap into the market structure for coca; it also might be provided to the elderly. (NOTE: The means for effecting this recycling before the leaf becomes unpalatable are unclear, as are the mechanisms to ensure that the leaf is not diverted to narcotrafficking. END NOTE) This recycling apparently violates the letter of Ley 1008, the Bolivian drug law that has yet to be revised to suit the GOB's new priorities. ¶6. (SBU) Hugo Salvatierra, the Minister of Rural Development, told the press that this regime had been agreed to by both producers and the retail sellers of coca. The GOB however never provided any draft text to the USG, despite repeated requests that it do so; the Embassy is still seeking the official text. ¶7. (SBU) In Irupana, President Morales reportedly balanced this expansive policy with a call for voluntary rationalization: "(Rationalization) is not an imposition; rather it is a suggestion. It is better for everyone to rationalize, to mark out the plots to a maximum of half a hectare and stop there." (NOTE: Allowing a half hectare --5,000 sq meters-- greatly exceeds the standard "cato" (1,600 sq meters) that Felipe Caceres (the Vice Minister for Social Development, Evo's apparent "drug czar") has said the GOB wants to apply countrywide. END NOTE) ¶8. (SBU) In an interview published June 19, Salvatierra apparently began to backstep from his forward-leaning pronouncements in Irupana. He said Ley 1008 was not being changed, that the controls on commercialization were actually becoming more strict, in that they were now to be the responsibility of each coca federation to administer, channeling limited shipments from each member (afiliado) through the two legal markets. "The (producers) cannot begin free cultivation ...." Control will be "coordinated with the (coca growers) associations, because you must understand, it is from there that the flow towards illegal uses begins, but outside channels, invisibly." PUSHING FOR --THEN RETREATING FROM-- "NO EXPANSION" -------------- -------------- ¶9. (SBU) In sharp contrast to this liberalizing trend is the GOB's avowed desire to assert control over coca cultivation in the Yungas, an area that has resisted such intervention. On June 9, a senior official within the GOB's Vice Minister of Coca and Integrated Development unveiled a "no expansion" agreement covering some 40,000 hectares within the traditional zone surrounding Coroico, a historic rupture with Yungueno belligerence against any form of control. Unfortunately, within days the same GOB official was held captive by a dissident community within that same zone until he signed another pronouncement that maintained the "no expansion" zone, but annulled its application to the dissident community. The GOB hopes to secure further "no expansion" agreements from other Yungueno communities in the coming weeks. LAUNCHING REDUCTION IN THE YUNGAS -------------- ¶10. (SBU) On June 8, Felipe Caceres formally requested NAS support to undertake operations to "reduce" (aka eradicate) coca cultivation in the Yungas, starting in the province of Caranavi (an area outside the traditional zone that has experienced recent growth in coca plantings). Caceres said that eventually reduction operations would be extended into La Asunta, Apolo and Larecaja. Cocaleros would be allowed no more than a cato per family (a norm being extended from the Tropico),as permitted in the recent ministerial resolution pending the completion of the EU-funded licit demand study (REFTEL). ¶11. (SBU) Prior, Caceres had described the same initiative to the press in some detail, referring to the standing up of a "mini-JTF" (a reference to the Joint Eradication Task Force that NAS supports in the Tropico). Although Caceres wanted reduction activities to begin as soon as June 20, the logistical requirements are substantial, there is no clear agreement with cocaleros yet as to which cocales will be uprooted first and the GOB's own abilities to pull the pieces together are nearly non- existent. The NAS sent experts to Caranavi to determine the requirements needed to support the mini-JTF (a small task force consisting of 100 conscripts and roughly 30 officers and civilians, to be based in a pre-existing military camp located in Caranavi). They found little evidence on the ground that prior coordination had been accomplished by GOB authorities. COMMENT -------------- ¶12. (SBU) There is a perpetual disconnect between the expansive line stated publicly by the President (now so dramatically expressed thorough the new coca commercialization regime) and what his Vice Minister of Social Defense seeks to do to reign in the cultivation of coca. If initial press accounts prove to be true, the new commercialization regime will radically loosen the already minimal controls that exist over the licit sale of coca and undoubtedly complicate the role of the police in monitoring its movement. (In fact, it might prove impossible legally for the police to seize any excess leaf at all.) It might prove to be Bolivia's "great leap backward" in its coca policy. ¶13. (SBU) Additionally, the Embassy repeatedly sees the disconnect between what Caceres says is GOB policy and what actually gets done. Caceres has consistently voiced a hard line against excess coca, purportedly mirroring the President's own views. Nowhere is this divergence more evident than in the Tropico, where reduction/eradication operations under this government have been lackluster, hindered by a lack of prior planning and coordination with cocalero leaders. It is obvious that there are few seasoned political operatives dedicated to making it all come together, especially in the sensitive area of establishing with cocaleros where reduction will occur. This weakness is most apparent in the Vice Ministry of Coca and Integrated Development, whose only explicit responsibility by law is the promotion of the "revalorization" of coca, although until now it has also been overseeing the destruction of excess leaf. GREENLEE