La coca nos es cocaina

O New York Times publicou um artigo assinado pela líder de uma associação de mulheres camponesas bolivianas, Leonida Zurita-Vargas, culpando a guerra americana contra as drogas pelo caos em nossos vizinhos. Se vc ainda não entendeu um dos principais motivos do conflito que deve derrubar o Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, leia o artigo inteiro.

My tribe, the Quechua, comes from the lowland jungles of the Chapare in central Bolivia. We are used to chewing coca leaves every day, much as Americans drink coffee. We sustained ourselves by growing coca for chewing and for products like shampoo, medicinal teas and toothpaste. We did not turn coca into cocaine; the chemicals needed for that are made in countries like the United States. Bolivia now allows us to grow a very small amount of coca, but it is not enough.

I am a cocalera. I owe my life to coca. My father died when I was 2 and my mother raised six children by growing coca. I was a farmer myself, growing coca for traditional purposes. But the United States says it is better for us to just forget about coca. In the early 1990's, Bolivian officials distributed American money — $300 to $2,500 per farm — and told us to try yucca and pineapples. But 60 pineapples earn us only about eight bolivianos (about $1). And unlike coca, yucca and pineapples are difficult to carry to the cities to sell, and they spoil. So many farmers returned to growing coca.

Then in 1998, the Bolivian government announced it would eradicate coca farms through a military program financed by the Americans. Soldiers came to the Chapare and destroyed our coca crops with machetes. School teachers were beaten, and some houses were burned down.