Amid moves toward peace in Colombia, the goad of the war—the country's lucrative cocaine trade—clearly remains robust. In an international operation announced June 30, Colombian police joined with US and Italian authorities to confiscate a whopping 11 tons of cocaine in refrigerated containers ostensibly shipping tropical fruits to Europe. The stuff was mostly seized in Colombia, but was bound for the US and Europe. Of the 33 arrested in the operation, 22 were popped in Colombia and the rest in Italy. (El Tiempo [13], June 30)
Earlier in June, Colombian and Argentine authorities teamed up to nab Wilmar Yuriano Valencia AKA "The Specialist" [14]—one of the country's top kingpins, said to be the inheritor of the old Cali Cartel network. "El Especialista" was popped as he arrived at Cali's airport, where he'd just arrived on a flight from Argentina. His new Cali-based network, Los Triana, is said to control exports to Europe. (EFE [15], El Espectador [16], June 7)
This May saw what was billed as the biggest cocaine bust in the country's history—although it has already been superceded by the June seizures. On May 15, authorities announced they had seized eight metric tons in Turbo, a Caribbean port in the violence-torn Urabá region. The shipment was said to be belong to "Los Urabeños [17]" paramilitary network. (Colombia Reports [18], May 15)
Just days earlier, an impressive ton and a half of coke was seized in a maritime operation off the Pacific coast of Nariño region. (El Espectador [19], May 10)
Struggles for control of cocaine production, and government coca-eradication efforts, continue to fuel violence and unrest in Colombia. In words clearly unwelcome to Washington, UN human rights commissioner Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein [20] stated June 13 that the "greatest threat to peace process in Colombia is the risk of violence and human rights violations generated by the struggle control illicit cultivation of coca and illegal mining." (Outlaw mining operations have emerged as an important sideline [21] for the narco networks.) But Bogotá's El Espectador [22] completely reversed the meaning of al Hussein's comment in its headline: "Cultivos de coca, la mayor amenaza para la paz." (Coca cultivation, the greatest threat to peace.)
The same dangerous error [23] of viewing coca itself as the root of the conflict rather than the endemic poverty that forces peasants to grow it—and the repressive measures taken by the state in a futile effort to stamp out the trade.
In the peace talks underway in Havana, the Colombia government and the FARC guerillas (who have bitterly opposed coca eradiction until now) agreed to institute a crop-substitution to wean peasants off coca cultivation in Briceño, Antioquia region. But the peasants themselves complain that they weren't consulted. (Pacifista [24], June 10).
In the Amazon jungle region of Guaviare, the self-declared peasant "peace communities" of La Paz, La Lindosa and Nueva York, who have long refused to cooperate with any armed faction in the civil war, have now also announced that they are in a state of "resistance" against coca eradication. Last month saw a tense stand-off in the area as peasants blocked roads to bar enty to army and National Police troops sent in to eradicate coca crops. (Prensa Rural [25], June 19)
Cross-post to High Times [26] and Global Ganja Report [27]
