Arquivo

There are 70 thousand families today in Bolivia whose lives depend exclusively on cultivating the ancestral coca leaf. This practice has been considered illegal now for twelve years, and the U.S. monitor applying of the law and exert economic and military pressure. The Bolivian government militarized the Chapare zone and embarked on a plan to eradicate coca plantations by force, having failed in a plan for alternative development that attempted to substitute coca for other agricultural produce. Although they were promised, the incentives to diversify the harvest were never applied. The great danger today is the Colombia-zation of the conflict with the sudden rise of a guerrilla to defend the right to plant coca, in accordance with religious, medical, and social tradition that shaped the culture of Bolivia and of neighboring countries. We must discover the real reasons for this confrontation and what interests lie hidden behind the agents involved.