Contemporary Challenges to U.S. Foreign Policy

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SCUSA 63

Thinking Beyond Boundaries:

Contemporary Challenges to U.S. Foreign Policy

The Americas at a Crossroads:

Drugs, Crime, and State Fracture

The three largest producers of coca are countries in the Americas. Colombia, the world’s leading cultivator of coca and coca derivatives, supplies cocaine and heroin to the US market and the majority of other markets in the world.[1] Peru ranks second in the world in coca production, with cocaine increasingly being transported to Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia for consumption and shipment to European markets.[2] Bolivia, with an estimated potential to produce 120 metric tons of pure cocaine in 2007, comes in third.[3] Mexico is both the transit corridor for the great majority of illicit drugs from South and Central America, and is itself a major producer of heroin, ecstasy, and marijuana; it is also the largest supplier of marijuana and methamphetamine to the U.S.[4]

The Americas also include the two largest consumers of cocaine in the world. Not surprisingly, these are the two countries with the most wealth in their respective hemispheres of the Americas. Brazil, the second largest consumer of cocaine in the world, is also a center for money laundering and illicit financial activity, especially in the tri-border region.[5] The United States is the largest consumer of cocaine in the world, a money laundering center, and a producer of cannabis, marijuana, stimulants, hallucinogens, and methamphetamines.[6]

The Americas, then, include both the producers and consumers in the drug trade. There are accordingly two ways to view the general problem of drug control. First, one can focus on supply. Many in the United States, for instance, point the finger at Central and South America and ask why they cannot control drug production in their countries. The U.S. has spent billions of dollars in countries such as Colombia in attempts to eradicate the source of the drugs. On the other hand, one can focus on demand. South and Central Americans point to the U.S. and ask why we can’t control the consumption of drugs in our country. They feel that the drug producers in their countries are merely entrepreneurs filling a demand – without that demand, there would be no production.

While there is merit to both sides of this argument, neither side disputes the fact that the drug trade poses a very serious threat to the Americas. In Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, more than 3,100 people have died in clashes between rival drug gangs in 2010 alone; since these clashes began in 2006, more than 30,000 people have died.[7] There are estimated to be between 1.8 and 3.5 million Internally Displaced Persons in Colombia due to conflict between the Colombian government and drug traffickers.[8] Drug consumption, production, and trafficking are destabilizing entire countries in the Americas.

The Case of Bolivia

To analyze how the drug trade affects domestic stability and international affairs, let us look at Bolivia. This Andean country’s indigenous movement inspires populations across the globe, but critics accuse its socialist government of national retrogress. Bolivia shows how institutionalized discrimination can lead to enduring and severe inequality, today manifesting itself in multiple forms that threaten stability. Bolivia also calls our attention to the responsibilities both drug-producing and drug-consuming nations hold, and it raises a number of environmental, human rights, and law enforcement concerns, all of which are intensified because of the drug trade.

Historical Background. Like most counties in the region, Bolivia’s history includes military rule followed by a transition to civilian leadership. Bolivia stands somewhat apart from the others, though, insofar as it developed a relatively centrist political regime starting in 1989. Following this transition, the 1990s marked a short period of mostly peaceful transfers of presidential power. By 2000, Bolivia again followed broader regional trends, contributing to what many refer to as Latin America’s “left turn.”[9] That year, left-indigenous politics began gaining momentum, driven by a wave of radical mobilization, which brought down Presidents Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in 2003 and Carlos Mesa in 2005. Ultimately, Bolivia’s Presidential office seated six Heads of State in nine years. Since 2000 other mass uprisings by the working and indigenous classes further invigorated this movement’s shift of political control from the traditional elite classes to the majority indigenous and peasant population.

Inequality contributes significantly to the tension between Bolivia’s mass and elite. Bolivia is one of the most unequal countries in Latin America and Latin America is one of the most unequal regions in the world.[10] What’s more, the limitations of land as a resource and the inequality of land ownership in Bolivia exacerbate the inequality of individual and family income.

The Indigenous-Left Movement. Today’s Bolivian conflict stems from the tension between its indigenous left – poor, excluded from positions of influence, and historically without a voice in Bolivian society – and the mostly white-mestizo and privileged class of the right, who have traditionally monopolized political and economic power. A number of other factors contribute to this conflict as well: the legacy of the Spanish Conquest; the practice of uneven land distribution; disregard for indigenous populations’ well-being; the poor’s experience of abuse through labor practices; and the country’s culture of near-apartheid.

Bolivian leaders are beginning to pay attention to indigenous issues by promoting policies that challenge the traditional social and economic status quo. In 2005, Bolivians elected the nation’s first fully indigenous President, Evo Morales. He and his party, Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), or Movement Toward Socialism, appears now to prioritize indigenous issues to an extent not experienced since the Spanish Conquest. Meanwhile, some traditional elites have in past years responded to a separatist movement, and have even formulated a legislative route to regional autonomy for the eastern lowland region of the media luna, home to most of the country’s developed business and productive agriculture.

Violence has broken out on several occasions, causing some Bolivians and outside experts to warn that should the situation worsen, it could lead to civil war. Short of this extreme, there is a real risk of continued or escalated violence. A defiant separatist reaction from the traditional elite, in response to what they consider a threat to their way of life, could fracture the country. Perhaps a more plausible, but equally threatening course, is that Bolivia’s tradition of disregard for its indigenous population could endure.

Separatists and the Autonomy Movement. In the 2002 election the three neoliberal parties lost badly to the centrist Revolutionary Nationalist Movement and second place Movement Toward Socialism parties. As a result, the Bolivian elites from the lowlands felt a diminishing voice in government. The autonomy movement formed shortly afterwards. Some extremists took this idea quite seriously. The President of the Santa Cruz departmental center for Industry, Commerce, Services, and Tourism, which represents about 1,500 companies in this province, proposed “simply and smoothly” seceding from the nation in order to “protect and defend the interests of its member companies.” [11] Though the separatist movement seems now to have lost momentum, had it succeeded it would have left a Bolivia less than one half of its present size.

The rise of the separatist movement suggests that Bolivia may have difficulty remaining one unified country. As a leader from Tarija puts the point, there are “two Bolivias…that which wants a relationship with the wider world, which wants to improve economically, and that which wants the 500 years, the Bolivia of failure.”[12] It is possible to argue, however, that statements like this perpetuate an idea that the indigenous are wholly uninterested in opportunities of the rest of the world. Indigenous intellectuals in particular are very interested in the integration of the young among their communities into a changing world – one that requires the pursuit of education. Perhaps the policies of both the Bolivian masses and the elite impede this goal.

Bolivia and the Contentious Issue of Coca Cultivation

President Morales argues that rather than focusing on the Bolivian supply of cocaine Washington should devote more of its energies to reducing Americans’ demand for the drug. To those who question whether he is genuinely interested in supporting tough drug policy, Morales often refers to his own past and support for coca itself. He says, in short: “I am a coca grower, I cultivate coca leaf, which is a natural product, I do not refine [it into] cocaine.”[13] He unabashedly claims that “Coca is not Cocaine” in public opinion campaigns targeted at the UN, US, and regional neighbors, while promising “zero cocaine and zero narco-trafficking”.[14] Coca can be used, he continues, for traditional health treatments, as fillers for household products such as toothpaste and shampoos, and for traditional household staples such as teas. Throughout, Morales stresses that coca is distinctly separate from cocaine.

Morales’ critics, however, argue that the leaf’s byproducts are too challenging to control, and that the Bolivian government has yet to determine what amounts of coca meet the licit and illicit demands for it. In a 2005 article, Johann Hari claims that Bolivians he encounters “want to be allowed to grow coca without American interference, including – yes – for the huge global market in recreational drugs.”[15]

The drug trade’s influence over Bolivian national politics is so strong that some scholars have labeled Bolivia a “narcocracy.”[16] Bolivia, its neighbors, and countries driving cocaine demand in Europe and North America, are all dedicating enormous resources to counterdrug efforts, all with mixed reviews of these efforts’ effectiveness. In counterdrug programs and policy decisions, the coca growers are often regarded as criminals.[17] Coca eradication is conducted by Bolivia’s Mobile Police Unit for Rural Areas (UMOPAR), whose forces were trained and assisted by the US Drug Enforcement Administration until their expulsion by the Bolivian government in 2009.

Farmers are drawn to coca not only for its financial return, but for the characteristics that make coca such a convenient crop to tend: coca provides up to four harvests per year and it requires little attention relative to banana and pineapple. As a result, those with limited farming experience view coca as a sensible choice. On the other hand, cocaleros (coca farmers) live under the shadow of the legal system and the Mobile Rural Patrol Unit, which constantly threatens to interrupt their livelihood. They can also suffer from drug-trafficking and its related crime. Growing coca is therefore lucrative but dangerous.[18]

Coca eradication is a highly contentious issue. Not only is it at best a short-term fix, many argue that in practice eradication promotes human rights violations. Complete eradication of illegal coca crops is immensely challenging because of the ingenious strategies used by growers to hide the existence of illegal coca crops. For example, where before authorities would find coca plantations via satellite, they now must look within fields dedicated to alternative development to find large numbers of coca bushes, which have been hidden from satellite.

The very same coca eradication programs that the United States has sponsored set the stage in many ways for the migration of Morales’ family’s, his eventual involvement in local politics, and ultimately, his association with Movement Toward Socialism. A number of other drug-related incidents have shaped Morales’ career as well: violence toward farmers, loss of income without alternative crops, and beating protestors – in fact, Evo Morales himself was beaten several times in the 1990s while trying to protect farmers’ rights. Human Rights Watch reported in 1997 that though human rights violations appeared to diminish during the 1990s, they continued in the Chapare region (where most of Bolivian coca is grown) via the eradication missions, which were frequently associated with the problem of police impunity.[19]

The eradication missions also push the cocaleros into national parks – remote locations where growers are less susceptible to law enforcement attention but more of a threat to the environment. Many have suggested promoting alternatives to coca, but few crops could provide a competitive wage. According to Bolivian counter drug law enforcement officials, the transition to alternative crops is difficult because coca cultivation negatively affects soil quality. Farmers must give soil time to recover, sometimes years, before it can support other, legal crops. Though there is land available for alternative crops, many potential farmers of palm and bananas, for instance, do not shift from coca production because these alternatives sell at a low price and are more seasonal than coca.[20]

There are other negative ecological effects of cocaine manufacturing. A former UMOPAR commander explains why:

The manufacturing of cocaine is very damaging because they use up to 100 square meters to make the wells where they mix the leaf with sulfuric acid, lime, baking soda and diesel fuel. And this leaks into other lands because the laboratory is always alongside a river or riverbank. Once we find a laboratory, unfortunately, we also have to pollute the environment to destroy it: we have to burn everything that is there, and so there is pollution. The coca growers are also deforesting the rainforest….[21]

Thus, Bolivian coca production poses not only political and sociological problems, but environmental challenges as well.

Conclusion

While neighboring countries and other regions in the Americas differ in many respects, the Bolivian case offers a paradigmatic and instructive instance of how drugs, crime, and state fracture relate to one another. US policymakers must ask how, in light of challenges as multifaceted and seemingly intractable as Bolivia’s, they can promote peace and prosperity in the Americas. How should US drug policy balance attempts to reduce demand for drugs and attempts to eradicate their supply? Can the US and other international forces reduce the influence of drug traffickers on South American politicians and citizens?

Formulating prudent US policy also requires deep engagement with the particular countries US policy affects. The case of Bolivia presents a number of unique dilemmas: How are contemporary Bolivian national politics transforming indigenous access to land ownership, labor rights, educational and economic opportunities? How can the multifaceted drug-related threats to Bolivian stability – political, environmental, and social – be addressed simultaneously? Can Evo Morales deliver on his policy goals, and to what extent do US interests coincide with his policy goals? There are broader regional issues at stake as well: How does the Bolivian case compare to those of neighbors such as Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and Peru?