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Cocaine shifting bolivia peru Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030724-020507-7266rhttp://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030724-020507-7266r
Documents dispute U.S. claims on drug war
By P. Mitchell Prothero
UPI Crime and Terrorism Correspondent
Published 7/24/2003 2:31 PM
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WASHINGTON, July 24 (UPI) -- The U.S. government's Plan Colombia, the operation intended to help the Colombian government fight the drug trade, has had little effect on narcotics producers who have shifted their operations to Bolivia and Peru, an internal U.S. State Department document obtained by United Press International says.
At the same time, recent comments from U.S. lawmakers and the State Department have lauded the aerial spraying of herbicides that destroys the farms that produce cocaine in Colombia. They say this is evidence the multibillion-dollar effort by the U.S. and Colombian governments is successfully reducing the amount of cocaine grown in the region.
"Plan Colombia has been successful with the help of President (Alvaro) Uribe in Colombia; we have made traction," House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said Tuesday. "The number of acres of coca and heroin have gone down. The drug interdictions have gone up, and we have been able to squeeze down the amount of this terrible, terrible substance that comes into our country every year."
U.S. officials contend the program has been successful, though they acknowledge problems remain.
"Plan Colombia, that is now the Andean Counterdrug Initiative, has grown over the years and is now showing substantial progress in a number of fields that have been sprayed, in terms of how some of the violence has gone down, although it is still a serious problem," Secretary of State Colin Powell said at the same event.
Although there exists substantial and credible evidence that the number of hectares of coca -- the precursor to cocaine -- have been reduced due to the increase in aerial spraying, an internal State Department document obtained by UPI shows production has increased in neighboring Bolivia and Peru.
The document, "Phase IV Scenario: If spray is 50 percent effective -- Projected Coca Cultivation 2002-2006," shows that in 2001, as the number of hectares cultivated in Colombia began to fall, the hectares cultivated in Peru and Bolivia rose sharply. The document graph was provided to congressional staff this month.
The increase is significant enough to have caused a substantial jump in the region's coca production since 2001, though the State Department says overall production fell by 8 percent in the Andean region last year.
"We won't know for sure until this year's estimates come out," the State Department's International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Bureau said in an e-mailed statement. "We are wary of that possibility and remain vigilant about new cultivation outside Colombia's borders.
"Last year's Andean-wide figures were a net decline of 8 percent, so modest increases in Bolivia and Peru were offset by substantial decline in Colombia."
According to the document's projections, the overall coca cultivation in the region increased from 2000 to 2002 before dropping off somewhat through 2002. After 2003 -- when the chart relies on projections supplied by the State Department -- coca production in the Andes drops off significantly until mid-2004, when it spikes upward through 2005.
The overall increases derive from State Department estimates, which are reflected in the document, that coca cultivation will dramatically tail off in Colombia through the next three years, accompanied by a significant increase in production by Bolivia and Peru.
"This is important," said one Colombian official. "We are reducing the amount of cocaine produced in Colombia, but it's true that the narcos will just move operations out of my country and into the neighboring ones.
"We can only hope that the harassment of the coca fields disrupts the cash flow. We are not going to be able to eliminate the desire of some people to grow cocaine in the near future."
The Drug Enforcement Administration confirmed there had been no drop off in purity levels or decline in prices of cocaine in the United States, yardsticks to measure production rates.
The INL's most recent annual report on narcotics trafficking in the region -- the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report -- details the 2002 data, which show significant increases despite being characterized by the bureau as "modest" in the e-mail statement to UPI.
"Bolivia's prior success in eradicating huge swaths of coca cultivated in the Chapare is challenged by a 23 percent increase in coca cultivation as of June 2002," the 2002 report says. "Despite eradicating nearly 12,000 hectares of coca this year, constant replanting obliges the newly installed Sanchez de Lozada administration to pursue a multi-year counter-narcotics campaign in the Chapare.
"Alternative development initiatives in the Chapare continue to provide licit alternatives to coca."
The report also says coca production is up in neighboring Peru.
"Peru is the second-largest cocaine producer in the world and a major exporter of high purity cocaine and cocaine base to markets in South America, Mexico, the United States and Europe," it says. "Peru legally produces cocaine base and coca leaf for medical and commercial consumption in the U.S. and Europe. The country's production increased 8 percent in 2002 but is 36,000 hectares below the 1995 level."
Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International
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