In the lands of “San Coca”: a journey into Colombia’s thriving illegal economy

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Deep in the Cauca mountains, in the southwest of the world’s main cocaine-producing country, are the “San Coca” territories, thus named because of the devotion to the crop that provides everything there.

Some 10,000 people have turned to the forbidden crop after reaping losses with yucca, corn, coffee and sugar cane. “We don’t consider ourselves part of the State, because for the State we don’t exist or else we are a hindrance,” says community leader Reinaldo Bolaños.

In these villages along the Patía River the “coca economy” was established: a network of activities surrounding the cultivation and processing of the leaf from which cocaine is extracted and which is controlled by armed groups.

For decades the guerrillas were the de facto authority. In 2016, when they signed the peace agreement, they left Cauca for disarmament. The state, which in theory was supposed to fill the void, never came and the rebels are back.

“Coca was born as a result of institutional abandonment (…) and has allowed the whole population in these localities to achieve minimum dignity,” explains Azael Cabrera, spokesman for Agropatía, which comprises 12 rural communities or townships that make up the first link in the illegal business.

After half a century in the war on drugs, the white powder continues to be shipped by the ton, mainly to the United States and Europe. Over this time, 10 governments have unsuccessfully tried to put an end to the business that finances armed rebels and armies created by the drug trade, at a high cost in terms of lives.

THE REAL POWER

When the military is not on the scene, rebel forces are in charge. Their presence can be seen on billboards and posters of Carlos Patiño, a Cauca guerrilla commander killed in combat in 2013, whose bearded face is the image of the new armed movement.

Coca growers know where the “Lords” are and how they move, mostly young men who camp out in the mountains or roam the city centers.

Although the bulk of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) disarmed in 2017 – a year after signing the agreement that was to end a half-century conflict – hundreds of dissidents remained active.

Lured by the coca boom, they “returned towards the end of 2019” to the Patía mountain range, peasants say in resignation.

They returned with new rifles but with the same revolutionary beliefs as always, to mediate between drug traffickers and peasants, and to charge their own tax for each gram of coca paste processed in these territories.

One coca harvest follows another. There are 4 a year, compared to 2 for coffee, for instance, which is the flagship of Colombian agriculture. Cauca jumped from 5,900 hectares of coca crops in 2010 to 16,544 last year, according to annual UN monitoring.

“The Havana (peace) agreements passed and the army never showed its face here. Today this area is once again under the control of illegal armed groups (…) We have learned that we have to respect whoever has weapons,” Reinaldo Bolaños concedes.

The dissidents impose their own criminal code. “The peasant has no authority over them, he cannot tell them to leave, he can only allow them to come. But that doesn’t mean we are guerrillas or drug traffickers,” emphasizes “Professor Azael.”

FAMILY ECONOMY

Whole families, the elderly, single mothers with their children, people who arrived impoverished from the cities and Venezuelans who wandered for months to get there are seen among the illegal crops.

“Students who do not have classes or are on school break also go to the farms to harvest and with that they contribute to their studies and to support their homes,” says community leader Abel Solarte.

While still a minor, Karen Palacios migrated from Bogotá to Cauca with her partner, a man from the region. Today she is 20 years old and has a 2-year-old daughter.

She traveled through El Plateado, on the other side of the mountain range, where she learned to “scrape coca with her bare hands” before separating and being left in charge of Dana. She crossed the mountains and arrived in the enclaves of Patía, expelled by the violence of the groups fighting for control of the plantations and their processing into cocaine paste.

“I was alone with my daughter, I took her to the fields and carried a tent or a hammock for her to sleep in while I worked.” Karen managed to get daycare for Dana, but with the pandemic everything closed down and again she had to take the little girl to the harvest.

After the virus ruined the family shoe business, Karen’s father, stepmother and brother also migrated to Cauca. They all became harvesters.

Lorena Guevara, 28 years old and with 4 children, also goes “to scrape” with her 1-year-old baby and before them, Miriam, 34 years old and widowed for 5 years, experienced the same.

“Many of us don’t have husbands and we have our children, and if we go scraping we do so to feed and clothe them,” says Dora Meneses, spokeswoman for a group of 60 women harvesters.

THE BOOM

Between 2016 and 2018 the United Nations estimated that up to 201,000 families were dedicated to cultivation, just over 1 million people, which to date would represent 2% of the 50 million Colombians.

The coca boom came in those years hand in hand with the FARC peace agreement, which offered growers economic compensation and an end to legal prosecution if they voluntarily destroyed their illegal crops.

Authorities and experts agree: farmers interpreted the pact as an incentive to plant more and receive greater benefits from eradication. There was also greater demand for cocaine and the dollar strengthened against the Colombian peso, driving up the price of cocaine paste.

In 2017 coca cultivation soared to a record 171,000 hectares. Although officially some 100,000 families agreed to destroy their crops, voluntary eradication did not take hold in Cauca due to distrust of the government’s word, and production continued with the labor of settlers and migrants.

From bankrupt Venezuela, Yeison Enriquez came with his wife and 3 children. He believed that coca was an “illegal crop,” but now claims it is “a source of work” for him and his brother, who also migrated to cultivate. “In the city we don’t have that opportunity, in the countryside there is always work and if they eradicate coca I would be forced to migrate again,” Enriquez says.

In 2020 Colombia managed to reduce crops to 143,000 hectares after the 2017 record. However, that year cocaine hydrochloride production remained stable (1,228 tons) due to a better crop yield, according to the UN.

Convinced that drug trafficking can be defeated, President Iván Duque embarked on an aggressive crop eradication policy that he intends to reinforce with aerial spraying of glyphosate, suspended since 2015 due to suspicions that the herbicide is harmful to human health and the ecosystem.

“We do not want to be left destitute. We are organizing ourselves to resist, to march, to protest, to go on strike,” Solarte warns.

The coca growers boast of having expelled the military and eradicators. Defense Minister Diego Molano concedes that the government intervened “with less intensity” in Cauca due to the risk of violence against the security forces. “We are not going to allow these groups to continue this criminal dynamic,” he said.

Some 11% of the 96,893 prisoners in Colombia are either accused or convicted of drug trafficking, manufacturing or carrying drugs, according to the penitentiary system.

UNPARALLELED

The Patía mountains are a hotbed of scrapers. “Anyone who grows and processes the leaf has a guaranteed purchase in advance,” says Antonio Tamayo, a 40-year-old leader.

Who? “The middlemen of drug traffickers,” answers Tamayo, who arrived in Cauca from Antioquia, 700 km away, after the area was eradicated.

On the same farm where it is grown, the leaf is chopped and processed with lime, cement, gasoline and ammonium sulfate to obtain the base paste. Every week the “intermediaries” collect the hard, whitish paste to take it to the clandestine laboratories or “crystallizers” nearby, where the “chemists” process it into high purity cocaine.

The peasants disassociate themselves from the most lucrative part of the business. “They categorize us as drug traffickers (…), but those who commercialize the excess are someone else. Most of the peasants do not participate in the trade,” emphasizes leader Azael Cabrera.

Nevertheless, their share of the business is enough to keep them out of poverty. A “well sown” hectare can yield up to 400 arrobas of leaf, and each one can yield between 23 and 27 grams of coca paste, explains Antonio. They receive an average of 2,800 pesos per gram (seventy cents on the dollar).

A farmer can earn the equivalent of US$6,500 per hectare in each harvest (4r per year), while a scraper or expert harvester earns up to US$37 a day, in a country with a minimum wage of US$8 a day.

“Intermediaries look for farmers, buy the product and take it away, they don’t have to pay any kind of freight,” Antonio says. The market looks for farmers and not the other way around.

PROSPERITY

The “San Coca” territories are interconnected by roads that rain turns into mud flats. Traffic is relentless. Vans authorized by the guerrillas pass one after another selling gasoline, ice cream, bread, clothes.

The coca economy has created a community of consumers. Zigzagging through the trails leads to urban centers. There are workers paving the access roads or perched on scaffolding beautifying the facades of houses. Trade is bustling.

Along with the coca boom, there was a “construction boom,” explains leader Reinaldo Bolaños. Coca growers claim that they have improved roads and provided schools through donations. “The big difference coca has made is that it gives us enough to feed ourselves and it also gives us enough to cover what the government is failing to do,” Bolaños says.

In the mountain range, everyone fears the return of glyphosate. The shared memory is of villages in ruins, displaced people and abandoned houses with padlocks surrounded by dead nature. The planes sprayed the herbicide in 1984, and returned in the 1990s and 2008.

“Aerial spraying is virtually a killer for these people,” Reinaldo summarizes. The communities of Patía are also preparing to fight it.