COCA CRISIS HANGS OVER PERU ELECTIONS

Any unannounced 'gringo' visitor to this tiny village is a dead man.
As endless coca fields spread into the forests of Peru's Apurimac
jungle, mountains of coca leaves dry in the sun of Llaruri's dirt
streets, at the heart of one of the world's largest cocaine-producing areas.

'Last time, I came here with a Canadian engineer and coca farmers
thought we wanted to eradicate their crops, so they blocked the road,
drove us away at gunpoint and threatened to shoot us,' said my driver
as we approached the village. 'A local teacher saved us at the last
minute by suggesting that they should check our identities first.'

For the United States, a key backer of Peru's anti-cocaine strategy,
today's presidential elections pose an enormous challenge to its war
against drugs. Nationalist front-runner and former military officer
Ollanta Humala has promised a radical shift in anti-narcotics policy,
echoing proposals from the recently elected Bolivian President, Evo Morales.

While Colombia remains the world's top cocaine producer, Peru - at
number two - is rapidly gaining ground, driven by the area around the
Apurimac river, where half of its cocaine is produced. The United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says that cocaine production in
Apurimac increased by 70 per cent to 53 tonnes in 2004, with up to 90
per cent of all coca production being used for cocaine. And it warns
that output could be about to increase further.

'There will be no forced coca eradication. Instead we'll offer
farmers viable alternatives, increase control over cocaine
trafficking and industrialise coca production for the legal market,'
Humala said. He claims that production of coca for medicinal and food
purposes could be increased.

To Washington's alarm, a key aspect of his plans includes the
legalisation of all coca production, a proposal winning him support
among farmers. 'Coca is like having a piggy bank, there's nothing
without it,' says Carlos Morales, 43, sitting alongside four other
Llaruri coca growers huddled inside his wooden shack. 'We know that
our production is used to make cocaine, but what are we supposed to do?'

'We'll kill anyone who comes here and tries to eradicate our crops.
After all, coca helped us to defeat the Shining Path terror,' said
another farmer, Raimundo Llaranga, 55, who lost a leg fighting the
Maoist insurgents in the Eighties and early Nineties, a resistance
financed by coca revenues.

Lacking electricity or reliable communications (the dirt track
leading to Llaruri was built by farmers themselves without using
machinery), farmers are left with little choice but to embrace coca,
the only plant that can be harvested four times a year. The situation
is made worse by the continuing low prices of other crops, such as
coffee and cocoa, and the need for larger landholdings to grow them profitably.

'Defending alternative crops is a lost battle,' said Juan Luna, head
of the US-financed Peruvian anti-drugs agency. 'But what's worse is
that we're losing the whole war against cocaine. Corruption, for
example, is so endemic that if the police or the military catch you
carrying chemical substances to produce cocaine they'll just expect a
bribe and will leave you alone.'

Only eight policemen are in charge of thwarting cocaine trafficking
in Apurimac - an area which has 100,000 inhabitants and is infested
with Colombian and Italian drug cartels. The military concentrate
only on fighting resurgent Shining Path guerrillas, afraid of any
reaction from the heavily armed local population. Villages such as
Llaruri have to grow coca to pay for schools and health clinics.

To make matters worse, cocaine is now being produced in the valley
itself before finding its way to Peru's ports, from where it is
shipped to the US and Europe.

Critics doubt that Humala's proposals will make any difference.
'Humala simply doesn't know what's going on,' said a senior Peruvian
anti-narcotics officer, who insisted on anonymity.

'There's no legal market for coca to absorb all the production, and
some of his proposals are inconsistent - why say this market exists
and then insist that his government would not allow coca production
to increase?'

Yet experts emphasise that the recent rise in Andean cocaine
production shows that America's emphasis on targeting coca growers
needs to change. The solution, they say, lies in focusing on other
links of the drugs chain, such as money-laundering and corrupt
officials. The recent plunge in coca prices in Peru following last
month's capture of gangs exporting cocaine from the ports of Chiclayo
and Trujillo demonstrates the viability of this proposal, they say.

But a senior anti-narcotics officer said that the 'missing link' of
the drugs chain has been rebuilt and coca prices would soon rise
again - and Peru would resume the race to regain its status as the
world's top coca producer, lost to Colombia a decade ago.