Coca market conflict in Bolivia: How is the crop grown and what is it used for?

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Thousands of coca growers from Bolivia’s Yungas region, opposed to the government, took control of a coca market in La Paz on Monday (4), after violent clashes with the police that left several people injured and caused anxiety among residents.

To the shouts of “the Yungas united, will never be defeated!”, “the Yungas stand, never on their knees”, and “yes we could! yes we could!” the farmers entered, carrying the red, yellow, and green national flag. This market sells coca legally, in the neighborhood of Villa Fatima, gateway to the sub-Andean valleys of Yungas, where coca has been planted since before the Inca empire.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Bolivia

Dozens of uniformed officers guarding the market tried to repel the peasants with tear gas. Still, they had to retreat several blocks in the face of massive pressure from the farmers, who responded with stones, sticks and firecrackers, while burning tires and mattresses. The clashes left at least two policemen and two peasants injured, reported AFP. The riot police retreated to a nearby square, from where they were carrying out surveillance.

WHY THE ESCALATION?

The incidents began at midday, when the peasants organized to take control of the market from the Coca Leaf Producers Association of La Paz (Adepcoca), after complaining that another group, supported by the government of President Luis Arce, took over the management, amid political and economic differences over control of the market.

The conflict, which has provoked street clashes since last week causing anxiety among the residents of Villa Fatima, originated in the dispute for the leadership of Adepcoca between three sectors of coca growers: Armin Lluta, opposed to the government; Fernando Calle; and Arnold Alanes, the latter two of whom support the government.

A week ago, Alanes displaced Lluta from the presidency of Adepcoca, and was recognized by the government, which ignited the fury of the opposition sector. Lluta even denounced that his adversaries kidnapped him for hours, at the beginning of the conflict, and gave him a ferocious beating. His group showed photographs of him with his face bloodied.

How does the coca leaf trade work in the country?

The Adepcoca market is coveted, because some 48,000 kilos of coca are traded there every day, under a regulation that allows its consumption for traditional purposes, such as infusion, chewing and Andean religious rituals.

Ninety percent of the legal trade in the leaf passes through this building: 173 million dollars a year, at ten dollars per kilo, the average legal sale price in 2020, according to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released last August. Adepcoca’s management grants permits for the commercialization of the millenary plant.

In 2017, the country passed a controversial Coca Law that increased the legal extent of cultivation from the permitted 12,000 hectares to 22,000. However, a good part of the production of that leaf is diverted to cocaine, of which Bolivia is the world’s third largest producer after Colombia and Peru.

According to a report presented by UNODC representative Thierry Rostan, coca fields increased from 25,500 hectares in 2019 to 29,400 in 2020, the largest increase in recent years, according to data published by AP.

According to the United Nations office figures, the coca trade generates between US$365 million and US$449 million each year, just over 1.4% of Bolivia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). According to experts consulted by the same agency, more than 100,000 families live from this crop, and the loss of income during the pandemic pushed its expansion.

WHAT CAN HAPPEN NOW?

“Today is a historic day for the Yungas, where the coca leaf producing partner has recovered its house, which the government wanted to take away from us,” said coca growers’ leader Wilder Vargas, from inside the facilities. “From here we want to tell the government not to interfere in a private institution,” he asserted.

Vargas, a member of the self-styled emergency committee that commanded the seizure of the market, anticipated that an electoral commission will be formed as soon as possible to organize elections for a new Adepcoca leadership.

The pro-government coca growers’ leader Arnold Alanes, who was president of Adepcoca, asked the government for an investigation into the serious incidents, for which he blamed the right-wing and center opposition.

“We demand that the Ministry of Government (Interior) disrupt this criminal terrorist organization that came to intimidate our society with dynamites,” Alanes told the state television channel. He also blamed sectors “outside” the coca growers for taking control of their offices. The government did not comment on the incidents.