Weekly Report - 23 September 2003
COLOMBIA: UN sees coca planting shrink more
Fumigation is keeping ahead of new plantings; UN figures show a replacement
rate of 64% in known areas.
UNODC, the UN's antidrugs and anticrime office, is very excited, and by extension so is the Colombian government. In the first-ever presentation of half-yearly figures on drug production, the Colombian UNODC delegate, Klaus Nyholm, announced last week that the area planted with coca bushes had shrunk by 33%, from 102,000 hectares to 69,000ha. At this rate, he suggested, the reduction could reach 50% by the end of the year.
UNODC had previously reported a decline of 30% in 2002 — twice as much as had been calculated by the US government. As Nyholm put it, `The reduction is heavy, and it seems to be accelerating.' He attributed the decline chiefly to the fumigation of 91,000ha of coca plantations, on top of which he said UNODC knew of instances of manual eradication and abandonment of coca plantations, due to the success of alternative development projects, the fact that legal agriculture fared better than last year, or simply fear of fumigation (see next page).
Nyholm also noted that while reduction had been considerable in the established coca-growing areas of southern Colombia, cultivation has been spreading to other regions and to isolated border areas. Nonetheless, he suggested that this, and the increase in cultivation recorded in Bolivia and Peru, was being outpaced by eradication overall.
Replacement of eradicated coca
The figures produced by UNODC, based on satellite imagery plus projections, indicate that new planting is continuing at a respectable pace in the areas that are being surveyed. The fumigation of 91,000ha should have reduced the cultivated area to a mere 11,000ha between mid-2002 and mid-2003. Instead, the reported total is 69,000ha, which means that coca growers have planted 58,000ha. In other words, 64% of what is destroyed by fumigation is being replaced with new plantations.
Nyholm said that eradication gains would only be sustainable if the peasants could be enticed to stay on the land, devoted to legal farming. He suggested that one way to encourage this would be to speed up the distribution of land seized from narcos [WR-03-35]. Interior minister Fernando Londoño concurred.
To judge by the most recent army claims, the cocaine trade has also been hard hit further along the chain. On 21 September the army high command reported having located and destroyed about 100 cocaine-processing `labs' in eastern Colombia, close to the border with Venezuela. Also destroyed in the operation were five clandestine airstrips. The complex, according to General Carlos Roberto Ospina, is thought to have been run by the Farc guerrillas.
Most interesting were the army's calculations of the impact of the raids. Jointly, the army said, the processing labs were reckoned to be capable of producing as much as 5.5 tonnes of cocaine a week. Annually this would be equivalent to 40% of the 700t Colombia is estimated to be producing.
One detail, though, suggested that the labs were not working at full tilt: the troops seized only 3.5t of cocaine paste — far too little to sustain production at the estimated rate for even one week.
UNODC, the UN's antidrugs and anticrime office, is very excited, and by extension so is the Colombian government. In the first-ever presentation of half-yearly figures on drug production, the Colombian UNODC delegate, Klaus Nyholm, announced last week that the area planted with coca bushes had shrunk by 33%, from 102,000 hectares to 69,000ha. At this rate, he suggested, the reduction could reach 50% by the end of the year.
UNODC had previously reported a decline of 30% in 2002 — twice as much as had been calculated by the US government. As Nyholm put it, `The reduction is heavy, and it seems to be accelerating.' He attributed the decline chiefly to the fumigation of 91,000ha of coca plantations, on top of which he said UNODC knew of instances of manual eradication and abandonment of coca plantations, due to the success of alternative development projects, the fact that legal agriculture fared better than last year, or simply fear of fumigation (see next page).
Nyholm also noted that while reduction had been considerable in the established coca-growing areas of southern Colombia, cultivation has been spreading to other regions and to isolated border areas. Nonetheless, he suggested that this, and the increase in cultivation recorded in Bolivia and Peru, was being outpaced by eradication overall.
Replacement of eradicated coca
The figures produced by UNODC, based on satellite imagery plus projections, indicate that new planting is continuing at a respectable pace in the areas that are being surveyed. The fumigation of 91,000ha should have reduced the cultivated area to a mere 11,000ha between mid-2002 and mid-2003. Instead, the reported total is 69,000ha, which means that coca growers have planted 58,000ha. In other words, 64% of what is destroyed by fumigation is being replaced with new plantations.
Nyholm said that eradication gains would only be sustainable if the peasants could be enticed to stay on the land, devoted to legal farming. He suggested that one way to encourage this would be to speed up the distribution of land seized from narcos [WR-03-35]. Interior minister Fernando Londoño concurred.
To judge by the most recent army claims, the cocaine trade has also been hard hit further along the chain. On 21 September the army high command reported having located and destroyed about 100 cocaine-processing `labs' in eastern Colombia, close to the border with Venezuela. Also destroyed in the operation were five clandestine airstrips. The complex, according to General Carlos Roberto Ospina, is thought to have been run by the Farc guerrillas.
Most interesting were the army's calculations of the impact of the raids. Jointly, the army said, the processing labs were reckoned to be capable of producing as much as 5.5 tonnes of cocaine a week. Annually this would be equivalent to 40% of the 700t Colombia is estimated to be producing.
One detail, though, suggested that the labs were not working at full tilt: the troops seized only 3.5t of cocaine paste — far too little to sustain production at the estimated rate for even one week.
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