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. @HouseForeign released strong report on weakness of US drug policy yesterday. Conclusion: eradication has been costly and ineffective at reducing coca. In Guaviare, #Colombia, the panorama on the ground is grim, with still glimmers of hope. 
https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/_cache/files/a/5/a51ee680-e339-4a1b-933f-b15e535fa103/AA2A3440265DDE42367A79D4BCBC9AA1.whdpc-final-report-2020-11.30.pdf
https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/_cache/files/a/5/a51ee680-e339-4a1b-933f-b15e535fa103/AA2A3440265DDE42367A79D4BCBC9AA1.whdpc-final-report-2020-11.30.pdf
Guaviare is a historic coca stronghold w ~5k hectares today. Many joined a substitution process after the peace accord, voluntarily eradicating. Others kept cultivating – for lack of trust, inability to access the program, or bc armed group presence didn’t invite otherwise.
As part of its goal to eradicate 130k hectares of coca this year, Colombia’s armed forces are manually pulling up crops when and where they can in Guaviare. Many farmers have small plots – 1 or fewer hectares. It is hard and dangerous work with limited pay off.
Eradication is exacerbating social tensions, without necessarily reducing crops. Farmers have learned how to replant, how to soak the coca with molasses to suck out the poison of fumigation. They borrow seeks from neighbors to restart. The crop is back in 3-4 months.
But the social damage is longer lasting. Trust between communities and state institutions is nonexistent. Neighbors blame one another for having coca, or not – for protesting the eradication, or not. Clashes between farmers and manual eradicators have left many wounded.
Why do farmers grow coca if there is so much to lose? Their plot could be eradicated. They could be arrested. Armed groups could prey upon children for recruitment. Because: one must eat. Coca provides a harvest every 3 months. It has a guaranteed buyer and price.
Coca will sustain a family, while other crops cannot. Have a look at this road and you can understand how transport costs can easily outstrip earnings from a harvest. The countryside is filled w stories of crops rotting in the sun, transport too expensive to move to market.
Substitution in Guaviare is now 4 years late. The program, farmers told us, was backward: first, they gave out cash subsidies to buy the basics. Then, they were meant to receive a livelihood project. Why did they eradicate their lifeline before having another in place?
Farmers have found their own alternative routes (like the rubber trees here), all harder than coca. Because of the difficulty, they report youth leaving the zone to look for work – on coca farms, or in armed groups, or maybe just living hand to mouth in the city.
Many families want to grow something else. They want a way out. But they need support - and not a threat. ENDS
