Peasants in the world system: coca economy

1
Peasants in the world system coca economy

• 24.03.2004

2
Readings

• Allen (1995 1988) The Hold Life Has. (in
  Starn, Degregori, and Kirk)
• Kawell (1995) The Cocaine Economy. (in Starn,
  Degregori, and Kirk)

3
Discussion topics

• General context
• Presentation
• Allen, C.J. 1988. The Hold Life Has Coca and
  Cultural Identity in an Andean Community
• Video Cocaine (Bolivia)

4
Coca

• Coca plant
• endemic to the Andes
• Erythroxylum coca
• E. truxillense
• more than 250 varieties of the coca plant
• only three widely used for cocaine trade
• Huanuco coca (Bolivia and Peru)
• Amazonian coca
• Colombian coca
• Cocaine alkaloid
• 0.7-1.5 of alkaloids in leaves
• first isolated and purified in the mid-1800's

5
Coca in South America

• Coca chewing in South-America
• at least from the Nazca period (around AD 500)
• religious ceremonies
• combating effects of high altitudes
• Incas
• a sacred gift from the gods
• personified as Mama Coca
• venerated in religious ceremonies
• only for aristocracy
• Other
• available to everyone

6
Coca in the West I

• 1970s and 1980s
• the emergence of the drug trade
• Europe
• first introduced by the returning conquistadors
• wildly exaggerated claims
• elixir of life
• substitute for food
• 'Vin Mariani'
• Angelo Mariani in the 1860's.

7
Coca in the West II

• US
• John S. Pemberton (Atlanta)
• a coca drink
• Mixed with wine
• a stimulant, an 'intellectual beverage'.
• prohibition in Atlanta in 1886
• wine replaced with sugar syrup,
• gt 'Coca-Cola the temperance drink'.
• After 1906
• cocaine alkaloids removed

8
Colombia

• Nowadays
• most of the worlds cocaine base and cocaine
  hydrochloride (HCl) production
• 74 percent of the worlds cocaine base
• Coca cultivation tripled to 162,000 hectares in
  recent years
• (46,000 hectares in Bolivia)

9
Bolivia

• 1970s and 80s
• rapid expansion of coca cultivation
• tropical Chapare region near Cochabamba
• not a traditional coca growing area
• Impact on US-Bolivia relations
• Various anti-drug-trafficking policies since late
  180s
• US pressure
• Drug Enforcement Administration
• Eradication of coca fields (uprooting, spraying)
• coca production fell 90 in late 1990s
• Programs offering cash compensation to farmers
• Developing and promoting alternative crops  
• Legal procedures

10
Ley 1008

• 1988 under US pressure
• Establishment of special drug courts
• In contradiction with the Bolivian Constitution,
• Presumption of innocence vs presumption of
  guilt
• Imprisonment
• without bail
• the case has to be heard in three courts (several
  years)
• gt overcrowding of Bolivian jails
• gt imprisonment of the innocent, or the poorest

11
Political implications

• In 1988-90
• the coca growers resistance movement
• strength grew in early 1990s
• Evo Morales
• Leader of
• coca growers' trade union federation
• chief opposition party, MAS (Movement Toward
  Socialism)
• second in presidential elections in June 2002
• Bush administration,
• a drug-funded leftist who threatens the
  country's wobbly democracy.
• warned against by the US ambassador to Bolivia