In the narrow cobbled streets of old La Paz, Bolivia, stands
the Museo de la Coca (Coca Museum). In it, an ancient clay
mask dates from before the birth of Christ. A telltale coca
bulge along the lower jaw of the mask shows that the artist’s
subject—real or imagined—had a cheek full. The message is
clear: everyday use of the coca leaf in Bolivia is a tradition
as old as the roots of its civilization.
Bolivians do not view coca, in its natural leaf form, as unhealthy
or criminogenic. Its effect is only mildly stronger and more
entertaining than one might experience from strong coffee.
We noted in our travels that the coca leaf is offered as a
gift, hoarded by healers, employed by the poor to curb hunger
and even substituted for coins to make change in rural areas.
From the perspective of a visiting American, the Bolivian
people are responsible and conservative in their use of it.
They do not seek to abuse coca by using the refined extract.
Not surprisingly, the U.S. government’s demand for the total
eradication of Bolivian coca crops met with more than a little
resistance there. Most Bolivians do not find it in their interest
to eradicate one of their traditional pleasures in order to
please a foreign government.
Moreover, the U.S. eradication policy had a tarnished beginning.
According to Museo de la Coca, the plan to eradicate coca
was originally hatched in a 1971 meeting of then U.S. Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger in the Nixon administration and then-unelected
Bolivian leader Hugo Banzer, previously a trainee at the infamous
School of the Americas. Both men have been widely accused
of substantial human rights violations.
On the ground in our Bolivia travels, we found only a pretense
of enforcement. The government oversees a coca-growing permit
system that allows for responsible domestic use, but most
growers we interviewed had not obtained permits. Coca is sold
in every market and grown near almost every town we visited.
Though there seems to be no shortage of police, they often
show little interest in policing. Take the steamy town of
Rurrenabaque, on the southwestern edge of the Amazon basin:
The streets there are full of aimlessly wandering uniformed
police who are openly ridiculed by the local citizenry. Likewise
we saw countless military and police checkpoints along Bolivian
highways during our journey, yet our heavily loaded Suzuki
jeep was never searched.
Meanwhile, giant government billboards inform travelers that
the transport of anything that could be used to produce cocaine
is prohibited in Bolivia. This prohibition includes common
products that many rural Bolivians transport every day due
to the absence of gas stations: gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene.
Paint thinner and masking tape are also banned from transport.
The billboards add to a surreal enforcement atmosphere, where
compliance is nearly impossible.
Many Bolivians suggested to us that the root of the drug problem
in the United States is demand, not supply. In their view,
the coca supply will never diminish much, because the scarcity
created by eradication efforts has raised its value, which
in turn encourages more planting.
Growing dismay over U.S. military activity in the Middle East,
coupled with already existing hatred of the “zero tolerance”
U.S. eradication edict, seem to have fostered a lively anti-U.S.
backlash in Bolivia. Coca growing and consumption have become,
perhaps more than ever, an exercise of national pride. Once
convinced that we were not CIA or DEA agents, Bolivians seemed
surprisingly eager to show us their local coca fields, which
can yield four crops annually, and which they are using as
an important buffer against poverty. In the larger cities,
graffiti-strewn walls often echoed a similar sentiment: “Viva
Support for cocalero advocate and activist Evo Morales rose
last year after U.S. Ambassador Manuel Rocha threatened that
his success in presidential elections would mean the loss
of U.S. economic aid to Bolivia. Morales, a Quechua campesino,
was narrowly defeated by Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada in a five-way
presidential election. Morales has become the informal leader
of a coalition of human rights advocates, socialists, educators,
indigenous campesinos and the Committee for the Defense of
the National Patrimony (CODEPANAL). But Morales’s primary
supporters are cocaleros (coca growers), a political entity
that draws from all of Bolivia’s regions and indigenous groups.
On Aug. 20, the day we were preparing to leave La Paz, the
streets fell ominously silent. Then suddenly, fireworks and
chanting replaced traffic noise, and thousands of protestors
began marching through the city’s center, held at bay by teargas-wielding,
shielded police. It was impossible to see the beginning or
end of the sprawling procession. They were protesting a range
of issues, from coca-growing rights to a proposed gas pipeline
to the U.S. war in Iraq, and as we walked alongside them,
their energy and determination were contagious.
The history of political upheaval in Bolivia is legendary.
More than 100 revolutions have taken place since the Spanish
conquistador Pizarro arrived in 1532. The Presidential residence
has been torched so often that one of its many nicknames is
“the burned palace.” Bolivians do not give up. The Bush administration
and its drug-war advocates would do well to contemplate that
lumpy cheek on the ancient mask in Museo de la Coca. Coca
will be as much a part of Bolivia’s future as it has been
a part of its past.