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