PERUVIAN COCA GROWERS MOVE FROM JOY TO ANGER AS MEETING WITH PRESIDENT
YIELDS FALSE ACCORD

Peruvian cocaleros (coca growers) and their sympathizers, who only
last week hailed a meeting with President Alejandro Toledo and a
resulting set of proposed agreements as a "partial victory," have seen
their elation turn to ashes this week. Leaders of the Confederation of
Peruvian Coca Growers (Confederacion Nacional de Productores
Agropecuarios de las Cuencas Cocaleras del Peru, or CONCPACCP) had led
thousands of cocaleros on a two-week march to Lima to protest forced
eradication policies, corruption and debility in alternative
development programs, and the arrest of imprisoned leader Nelson
Palomino, thought they had won a victory after Toledo took an offering
of coca leaf from them and pronounced it "sacred," but the accords
they thought they had negotiated with the government did not appear in
the Supreme Decree published by the government the following day. The
discovery came only as the thousands of cocaleros were already on
their way back to the coca fields of the Apurimac, the Ene and the
Upper Huallaga river valleys.

Now the cocaleros are rejecting the agreement, and the government is
calling them "deal breakers." But while the deal was supposed to
address the demands of the cocaleros, the decree published Friday
instead called for forced eradication of new coca crops.

"It was a cruel and premeditated trick," said Peruvian academic and
cocalero adviser Baldomero Caceres (http://www.cocachasqui.org). "This
decree represents the interests of the political elite before the
Americans, not the national interest," he told DRCNet. "The Law of
Coca, the origin of the problems for the cocaleros and of the
corruption in the country, still stands. Its repeal is a key demand
not only of the cocaleros, but the academic community."

"The cocaleros are furious and feel tricked and lied to once again by
DEVIDA [Peruvian anti-drug agency] and Prime Minister Solari," said
former DEVIDA adviser turned critic Hugo Cabieses. "The Supreme Decree
published last week is not the product of an agreement, as Solari and
[DEVIDA director Nils] Ericsson portrayed it, but a manipulative and
authoritarian imposition," he told DRCNet. "We all thought the Supreme
Decree would have the agreements reached with the cocalero leaders,
but that is not the case."

But in an attitude akin to that of feudal peasants petitioning the
king to overrule his cruel ministers, the cocaleros still retain faith
in their "Cholo [Indian] Toledo," Cabieses said. "They believe that
President Toledo will address their Platform of Struggle because 'he
has been poor and he is in the presidency thanks to us.'" Still, that
faith is tempered with a bit of political hardball, said Cabieses.
"They are asking for a direct dialogue with Toledo, and they are
giving him 30 days before they renew their protests."

Some aren't waiting that long. On Tuesday, confederation leader
Marisella Guillen held a Lima press conference to criticize the
Supreme Decree as "benefiting only the non-governmental organizations
[who administer alternative development programs]" and to announce
that supporters will introduce two bills in the Peruvian parliament to
address cocalero demands. And according to Cabieses, coca growers in
other regions are already rejecting the decree and preparing to
mobilize again. In Monzon, Cabieses reported, cocaleros are preparing
a new "march of sacrifice" to Lima, while in Quillabamba, angry
cocaleros Wednesday rejected the confederation's leadership for having
been taken in by the government.

For its part, DEVIDA rejected any questioning of the decree and issued
a statement calling Guillen's press conference "an attempt to break
the agreement that both parties had arrived at." The DEVIDA statement
did not address the discrepancy between the agreements reached through
negotiations and the text of the published decree.

"Solari and DEVIDA are regrettably trying to divide the masses by
trying to negotiate separate regional agreements -- for 'technical
reasons,' they say -- and are trying to de-legitimize their proposals
by saying they are being manipulated by politicians, terrorists and
narcos," said Cabieses.

"If President Toledo does not open the doors and have a dialogue with
the coca growers without deceptions, he will continue falling in the
polls, the struggles of the cocaleros will continue, they will
generate their own political leadership, and their movement will grow
ever stronger," warned Cabieses. "The spirit of Bolivian cocalero
leader Evo Morales and his Movement to Socialism will run through the
coca valleys of Peru."

Morales has led Bolivian coca growers to substantial political power,
won a halt to forced eradication in the Chapare, and left the
US-supported government of President Sanchez de Lozada shaken. Indeed,
Andean governments are caught between two irreconcilable forces:
substantial numbers of their own citizens who depend on coca, and an
administration in Washington that demands its eradication. Perhaps
President Toledo was listening this week as US drug czar John Walters
issued dire warnings to Andean leaders thinking of heeding the demands
of their own people.

"Naturally, we are concerned amount political events in the Andes,"
said Walters Wednesday at a press conference presenting a Spanish
version of the US anti-drug strategy. "If the drug traffickers and
growers take power some place, that country will be converted into an
international pariah where there will be neither national nor foreign
investment, nor the creation of legal jobs," Walters warned.

See http://www.narconews.com/Issue29/article747.html for a recent
interview with Hugo Cabieses by Karine Muller.