Untold Stories

Bolivia: The U.N. Verdict

Shortly after winning the presidency in 2005, Evo Morales went on a whirlwind world tour and brought a few small coca leaves with him to New York. It is illegal to travel with coca leaves, so it's been said that the president stuck them inside a book he was reading at the time, to conceal them from the customs officials. During his landmark speech at the United Nations Security Council, he brought out the leaves and held them with his right hand, as he tried to make his case about coca in front of hundreds of dignitaries.

"The penalization of the coca leaf has been a historic injustice. I'm talking about the green coca leaf, not the white one that is cocaine," he said, to rousing applause. "This leaf represents Andean culture, nature, and the hope of our people."

Bolivia: La Asunta (or the Next Frontier)

La Asunta held a mysterious quality for us even before we began our project on coca. The town is considered to be a no man's land in the middle of a dense forest, where anyone looking for a patch of soil and coca plants on steroids -- that can be harvested up to five times a year -- could easily set up shop. Under the law that regulates coca cultivation in Bolivia, La Asunta is considered a "zona excedentaria", or an area outside of the legal zone where coca farming is now rapidly spreading.

La Asunta is one of a handful of coca-farming community in the Southern Yungas region that does not have a Quechua or Aymara name. "Asunto" means "issue" or "deal" in Spanish -- and in feminine form, it turns out, Asunta is the name of a Peruvian Catholic virgin. There's something about La Asunta that comes across as forward and independent and proud, and somehow the name fits this community's personality.

Bolivia: Tentación

We left Chulumani early in the morning, looking for Hernán Justo. He's the newly-elected president of the Departmental Association of Coca Producers or ADEPCOCA, an increasingly powerful organization that represents the rights of cocaleros to sell their coca in the legal market. People around town had told us that Justo was a young and charismatic farmer-turned-union leader -- just the man to talk to us about the commercialization of coca and how it's faring so far.

But when we arrived at his house in the small village of Pasto Pata, his wife emerged looking quite serious and unapologetic, and said that Justo, like everyone else in town, was nursing a hangover or "chasqui". So we decided to wait until he'd wake up. After all, we'd gone out to see him during Tentación, the last day of Carnaval when heavy drinking is more common than eating lunch or going out to tend the fields.

Bolivia: Carlos' Cocal

Out of the many cocaleros we've met in Los Yungas, Carlos is, by far, the most forthcoming of them all. He has candidly shared with us his feelings about Evo Morales' coca policy and how he believes it's benefiting farmers like him, and he's also told us stories from the time, before Evo, when cocaine production was a common business throughout the region.

But among a majority of cocaleros, there's a general mistrust of outsiders based on their experiences during 25 years of the "War on Drugs". Coca growers either fear that their farming secrets will be taken away; or that informants will attract eradication forces to their coca crops; or turn out to be DEA agents or USAID personnel keen on collecting data for their own alternative development programs. Carlos may not be your typical skeptic from Los Yungas, but he's asked us to tell coca growers that we hail from Canada, and not from the United States, to avoid being seen as a possible threat.

Bolivia: Coca Cero?

"Forced eradication" is a loaded term in Bolivia, and among cocaleros, it calls to mind the abuses and conflicts of the past few administrations. These days, the preferred word is "rationalization", used equally by government officials, military, police, and even the cocaleros themselves to refer to the limits placed on coca cultivation. Under president Evo Morales' "Coca Si, Cocaina No" plan, there's a rightful place and treatment for all kinds of coca -- whether it's grown in legal zones, in so-called "excess" areas, or in illegal zones.

The coca grown in Los Yungas can now be planted without too many restrictions -- in fact, up to twelve thousand hectares of coca can be grown in this traditional region under the law, and by the end of 2008, the government will allow up to twenty thousand hectares in this area alone. Coca from the "excess" -- or non-traditional areas of La Asunta or Caranavi is to be "rationalized" -- the cocaleros themselves must eradicate their own crops, or else, face forced eradication at the hands of the Bolivian police and military. And the illegal crops, like those in the eastern flatlands of the Chapare continue to be eradicated by force, and without any advance warning. This is what we can see today in the coca policy books under Morales. But what's actually done in practice is a whole other ballgame. An increasing number of areas have been "colonized" with coca plantations in the last five years, surpassing the area limits established by the law.

Bolivia: Chulumani, Chicaloma, Ocobaya, Irupana

The bus drops us off at the non-descript "tranca" in Chulumani -- the name given here to the place where all traffic comes to a halt, and where the trucks and buses stop to pick up passengers and unload. It's raining. The town is sleepy as always, but especially so now because it is noon-time and most villagers are either in the fields tending their crops, or they are back at home, having lunch.

We find our way to the market, the only place in this small town where business goes on as usual. Stalls of produce and meat are spilling out onto the street because the designated market building can't fit all the vendors anymore. One of the caseritas we pass is selling red and yellow mangoes that are amazingly large, sweet and juicy. At a cost of almost fifty cents of a dollar each, these mangoes are considered a pricey delicacy. We try to bargain with her, but it gets us nowhere. "These mangoes came from around Coripata, almost four hours away, so I'd be losing money if I sold them to you for less," she says. As it turns out, most of the fruit sold in Chulumani is not grown around here. And yet it could be, and once was. The valleys and mountains surrounding this part of Los Yungas are incredibly fertile, but a closer look at the land reveals that it is being exploited to produce mainly one thing these days: coca.

Bolivia: The Road to Los Yungas

Because there are no good roads and little reliable transportation between the different farming communities in Los Yungas, we had to backtrack to La Paz from the town of Coroico in order to get to Chulumani — an important center for coca production in this jungle region.

It's the middle of the rainy season, and there are quite a few landslides and muddy patches on the old dirt road. We're on the 8 a.m. bus, driving through the fog. Our driver, who appears to be in his mid-twenties, is making the sign of the cross repeatedly with his right hand, while he maneuvers the big wheel with his left. We're passing old faded graffiti in support of Evo Morales. And as the landscape turns from dark and rocky mountains to lush cloud forest, we make the four hour descent to Chulumani. People here say that daytime buses driving to Los Yungas are much safer and less prone to accidents. But those drivers who have to venture out on this road at night, can often be seen chewing massive amounts of coca leaves in order to stay awake and focused on this notoriously curvy, dangerous road.

Bolivia: The Villa Fátima Market

A block up from the Plaza del Maestro, in the middle of La Paz's red light district, is the Mercado de Villa Fátima, the largest legal coca market in Bolivia. The building is a faded and weathered green-like color and it bears no sign above the door. The only way to identify the market is by the rows of buses and pick-up trucks parked outside that are loading and unloading bags of coca around the clock.

The coca here is sold in large plastic bags weighing 23 kilograms each. All of it comes from Los Yungas -- Bolivia's traditional and legal coca region, where each farmer is allowed to grow the plant in an area no larger than 1/4 of an hectare -- what locals call a "cato". Los Yungas' coca is considered to be of the highest quality, and as we venture into the market, the sellers we talk to try to show us how good their coca really is.

Bolivia: Evo's New Year

For someone who knows little about Bolivia, everyday headlines here may seem confusing and even surreal.

Consider this recent piece of news: the autonomy movement in the lowlands -- mainly in the departments of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Cochabamba, Pando and Beni -- is gaining force. Just a few weeks ago, state governors from this region vowed to gain fiscal independence from the rest of the country.