How Peru could become America's next drug war debacle
How Peru could become America's next drug war debacle
Peru (and the US) want the country's coca eradicated. But farmers from the world's coca capital depending on the cocaine source warn there will be blood.
Simeon Tegel October 14, 2013 01:05
VRAE, Peru — For decades, locals in this isolated Andean valley have cultivated copious quantities of coca, the small bush at the heart of Washington’s “war on drugs.”
Untroubled by the level of narco-violence that’s roiled Mexico and Colombia, and beyond the reach of the Peruvian government, many poor farmers here have come to depend on coca as their only source of cash.
No wonder that, according to United Nations data, more coca now grows in the Valley of the Apurimac and Ene Rivers (VRAE by its Spanish initials) than any other region on the planet.
But that’s about to change — and many here are predicting strife.
Peru’s president, Ollanta Humala, has vowed to finally tame and control the VRAE. A key part of that strategy will be forced coca eradication — sending in heavily armed police to uproot the plants by hand.
More:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/peru/131012/united-states-aid-peru-cocaine-coca-eradication
= new reply since forum marked as read
