Overview of Land and History 31When former dictator General Hugo Bánzer was elected
president, he scrapped the failed coca policy and pledged
total eradication of excess Chapare coca by 2002.
By 2001, most coca was eradicated. But promises of
markets for alternative products had failed to materialise, and
peasants were left with no other viable remunerative activity.
Meanwhile, cocaine traffi c in the US had not declined, since
coca production had merely shifted to Colombia. Before
his death from cancer, Bánzer warned the international
community that his eradication programme with no parallel
economic aid would result in peasants drifting back into
coca-growing.
“How can they not understand this phenomenon?” asked
former Senator López, referring to both the Bolivian and US
governments. “After all, they are pushing for free market
economics. Is this not the way the free market functions, on
the basis of supply and demand?”
Former senator López
agreed with the coca growers’
associations that alternative
agricultural products with
assured markets would greatly
reduce the problem.
Throughout the war on drugs in Bolivia, the Western
countries that brandished the slogan of ‘alternative
production’ were unwilling to consider removing their own
agricultural subsidies so that poor Bolivian peasants could
export their farm exports within a framework of fair trade.
Coca or Cocaine?
Bolivians differentiate between coca leaves and cocaine.
The coca plant is considered sacred by indigenous Bolivian
cultures. To this very day, Indians and highland miners chew
a wad of coca leaves in order to combat hunger and fatigue,
a custom sometimes adopted by foreign backpackers and
aid workers.
The most exotic tea salons in La Paz serve coca tea
with pastries. The medicinal benefi ts of coca leaves are
heralded. Coca tea is prescribed for visitors to help combat
Bolivians would love to get the
drug monkey off their backs.
Statistics prove that benefi ts from
the cocaine trade reach only a
small, tightly-knit clan