Ricardo Soberón, the anti-drug chief who last year briefly suspended coca eradication [2] in Peru [3], resigned under pressure from the administration of President Ollanta Humala Jan. 10. The Council of Ministers (cabinet) appointed Carmen Masías Claux, a psychologist who is an advocate of eradication, to replace Soberón as head of the National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs (DEVIDA [4]). The Council of Ministers is now led by the man who was interior minister at the time of Soberón's suspension of the program, Oscar Valdes [5]—who publicly disagreed with the suspension, and ordered the program's resumption within a week.
In October, chief of intelligence for the US Drug Enforcement Administration Rodney Benson told a Congressional hearing that "although Colombia remains the world's largest cultivator of coca, for the first time in over a decade, the US government estimates that Peru has surpassed Colombia in potential pure cocaine production." (AP [6], BBC News [7], RPP [8], Jan. 10)
The day after Soberón's resignation, elite National Police troops of the Anti-Drug Jungle Tactics Operations Group (GOATJ), a unit of the police force's Anti-Drug Directorate (DIRANDRO [9]), reported uncovering two coca labs and burning 750 kilos of coca leaf found in ten plastic sacks at a site within the borders of Tingo Maria National Park, Huánuco region. (InfoRegión [10], Jan. 11)
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