CHEMICAL SOLUTIONS AND HUMAN RESISTANCE: THE FIGHT AGAINST COCA

ERADICATION IN THE ANDES

by

KENNETH ROUNDY

(Under the Direction of Shane Hamilton)

ABSTRACT

This thesis seeks to examine the development of rural mobilization in Peru and Bolivia

during the 1980s and 1990s. It attempts to trace this development, and define its influence on

U.S. foreign policy concerning the war on drugs through a collection of documents from many

different U.S. government agencies. The dialogue in these official documents observed this

resistance on the ground and was forced to adapt. Specifically, it addresses the rise of chemical

solutions such as aerial herbicide eradication in Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley and Bolivia’s

Chapare, and the opposition presented by various resistances. It contends that the pivotal point of

resistance to these aggressive programs was the organization of these peasant farmers in both

countries, exhibited in Bolivian sindicatos and Peruvian anti-eradication committees.

INDEX WORDS: coca eradication, coca, Peru, Bolivia, foreign policy, aerial herbicide

eradication, herbicides, Upper Huallaga Valley, Chapare, crop

substitution, voluntary eradication, resistance, rural, mobilization,

environmental organizations

CHEMICAL SOLUTIONS AND HUMAN RESISTANCE: THE FIGHT AGAINST COCA

ERADICATION IN THE ANDES

by

KENNETH ROUNDY

BA, Florida State University, 2013

A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

MASTER OF ARTS

ATHENS, GEORGIA

2015

© 2015

Kenneth Roundy

All Rights Reserved

CHEMICAL SOLUTIONS AND HUMAN RESISTANCE: THE FIGHT AGAINST COCA

ERADICATION IN THE ANDES

by

KENNETH ROUNDY

Major Professor: Shane Hamilton Committee: Pamela Voekel Oscar Chamosa Electronic Version Approved: Julie Coffield Interim Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2015

iv

DEDICATION

To my fiancée Lindsey, for her constant support throughout this project, and for lending a

patient and understanding ear to my difficult days of writer’s block. To my mother, who believed

in me all this time, even when I had no belief in myself.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION: INTO THE FRAY .......................................................................................... 1

CHAPTER

1 THE TURBULENT ‘80S AND EARLY FORMS OF RESISTANCE ...................... 12

Bolivian Sindicatos and the Fight over the Chapare ............................................. 12

Diplomatic Dealings and Escalating Violence in Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley 22

Militant Violence and the Problems of Manual Eradication Efficiency ............... 26

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Increases in Aid and Chemical Possibilities . 30

Consequences of Peasant Mobilization Against Eradication Expansion .............. 38

The Turning Point: Destabilization and Lack of Security in the Upper Huallaga 40

The Dawn of a New Decade and New Strategies ................................................. 49

2 A MEDIA FIRESTORM AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF ANTI-COCA

STRATEGIES ............................................................................................................. 51

Herbicides and the Consequences of Resistance in America Media .................... 51

Policy Changes in the 1990s and the End of Herbicides in Peru and Bolivia ...... 58

A Rural Legacy: Peru and Bolivia’s Unique Advantage in the War on Drugs .... 70

CONCLUSION: COLD WAR POLITICS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF RURAL SOCIAL

MOVEMENTS ............................................................................................................................. 72

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 78

1

INTRODUCTION

INTO THE FRAY

Reports of civil unrest throughout the Upper Huallaga Valley had unsettled the

men stationed at Tingo Maria. On April 24, 1986, large crowds of farmers began demonstrating

in San Martin to the north of Tingo Maria. Protesting the recent escalation of coca eradication in

the region, they conducted large strikes, blocked major highways, and destroyed several bridges

to prevent access to coca fields. Officials estimated roughly 1,000 Peruvians joined together in

these massive demonstrations, “wielding placards and flags…within [a half] kilometer of the

eradication camp” near San Martin. This growing pressure in the rural countryside halted

eradication efforts as early as April 23, after roughly 1,680 acres of coca fields had been

eradicated manually over the past 16 days. In response to these demonstrations, the motor pool

of five vehicles manned by 57 eradication workers–including one unarmed prosecutor–was

organized on April 24 to aid in clearing a highway at Ramal Aspuzana. The company consisted

of various Peruvian security forces “attending a USG-financed narcotics training course at

UMOPAR Headquarters in [Tingo Maria].” Their presence on the narrow mountain road did not

go unnoticed. Such a precarious position made it all too easy for the unidentified guerrillas to

strike out at the motor pool that day, in yet another instance of violence in the Upper Huallaga

Valley.1

A loud explosion separated the lead car from the other vehicles in the motor pool. They

triggered a trap set along the road to San Martin. The lead car unknowingly activated a 1 U.S. Ambassador to Peru David C. Jordan, “Violence and Strife in the Upper Huallaga,” April 25, 1986, document PE00208 digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

2

dynamite-explosive that erupted at the rear of the vehicle, momentarily severing its connection to

the motor pool and leaving it vulnerable to further attack. Moments later, a barrage of bullets

sprayed the lead car. Gunfire assaulted the convoy from all sides. The assailants killed six men

and wounded six others, who needed immediate evacuation to Lima for medical treatment. The

remaining forces were unable to capture any assailants, leaving the identity of these rural

guerrillas lost in the formidable terrain of Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley. Responding to this

violent ambush, Peruvian Vice Minister Augustin Mantilla assured American Embassy officials

soon after the attack that eradication forces in the region would not withdraw in the face of

increasing violence and civil unrest. Rather than appease the desires of rural protestors, or wave

the white flag to the mystery guerrillas who assaulted the motor pool, Mantilla insisted that the

Peruvian government remained committed to coca eradication.2

Alarmed by the continued and escalating violence throughout the Upper Huallaga Valley,

U.S. Ambassador David C. Jordan informed Washington of the extreme difficulties in traversing

the region for eradication workers on the ground. The recent ambush, according to Jordan,

“[underscored] strongly the extreme vulnerability of police and eradication forces,” and

necessitated a change in strategy. Emphasizing this fact, he noted how much of the targeted coca

fields for eradication were only accessible by helicopter, or few narrow and often dangerous

mountain highways that facilitated attacks like the April 24 assault that left several dead. The

vulnerability of eradication forces was a critical weakness in U.S. foreign policy strategy against

illicit coca cultivation and cocaine production in Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley. With manual

eradication suffering continued setbacks from rural demonstrations and increased guerrilla

violence, U.S. and Peruvian officials recognized the need to change their approach. On April 29,

2 Ibid

3

Jordan reported that Peru’s Interior Minister, Abel Salinas, favored the use of herbicides, both on

the ground and by air, to more effectively eliminate illicit coca cultivation in the Upper Huallaga.

Mantilla agreed, stressing that herbicidal sprays be kept “away from centers of population.”

“Estamos en guerra” (“We are at war”), he explained, and the country could not risk fomenting

further unrest. Along with this warning, he informed Jordan of the necessity to establish a police

emergency zone in the region, administered by a Civil Guard general and police forces

“[exercising] politico-military command.” Triggered by a violent ambush near Pucayacu, this

rapid escalation of coca eradication strategies would define the relationship between U.S.

officials and coca growing nations such as Peru and Bolivia for the remainder of the 1980s and

1990s, leading to further diplomatic debate and domestic pressures–both in the U.S. and Peru–

over the use of herbicides in the war on drugs.3

The broader social, political, and environmental consequences of coca eradication in the

drug war branched from this escalation. The attempted replacement of ground forces with the

chemical dusting of the countryside illustrated how the evolution, and growth of eradication

programs trended toward larger issues of native defoliation, growing fears of compromised

public and environmental health, and the increase of violent resistance in response to such

programs. Examining Peru and Bolivia’s resistance to these programs provides a clear contrast

with more successful spray campaigns during the late 20th and early 21st century. These two

nations contain substantially large, rural, indigenous populations that represented their respective

agricultural sectors. These peasant farmers represented a vital source of resistance to coca

eradication policies throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Following the paper trail left by various

U.S. government agencies and officials, it becomes evident that the development–intensification 3 U.S. Ambassador to Peru David C. Jordan, “GOP Considers Establishing Police Zone of Emergency in Upper Huallaga,” April 29, 1986, document PE00209, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

4

and subsidence–of coca eradication was predicated on the influence of this growing rural

domestic resistance and larger international reactions. Using Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley and

Bolivia’s Chapare in the Cochabamba as case studies for the fluctuations of coca eradication, it is

possible to illustrate the factors leading to aerial herbicide sprays, and the political consequences

that followed from organized resistance to them.

Large rural indigenous populations characterized the base of this growing opposition in

Peru and Bolivia. This particular characteristic is noted as one of the most significant markers

pointing to these countries’ effective and sustained resistance against developing aerial herbicide

eradication in the war on drugs throughout Latin America. Since the 1950s, the U.S. had injected

financial and technological aid into Colombian, Chilean, and Argentinian agricultural

development, which entailed the mass introduction of fertilizers and other chemicals to both

modernize and expand crop production.4 These development programs minimized the number of

small holding, rural agricultural producers in favor of industrial agriculture, thus forcing many

farmers to find work in fledgling urban centers. In comparison with these more heavily

developed neighbors, Peru and Bolivia maintained largely agrarian populations during the late

20th century, populations that relied upon the integrity of arable land, resilient local ties, and who

looked with considerable skepticism at the prospect of aerial herbicide eradication dusting the

countryside. Farmers in both Peru and Bolivia were legally allowed to produce coca for domestic

consumption, and many of them organized into farming unions and coca lobbies to ensure their

4 David Kinkela, DDT and the American Century: Global Health, Environmental Politics, and the Pesticide That Changed the World (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 82 and 129; David Kinkela’s work provides more depth on the Green Revolution and its global consequences. His study also provides a synthesized examination of the long history of DDT, a pesticide whose success, and successive controversies have defined how governments utilize, and how populations react to the use of chemical compounds within both domestic and foreign policy.

5

right to continue this licit production.5 These organizations would provide the necessary

framework for rural mobilization against developing herbicide-spraying campaigns in Peru’s

Upper Huallaga Valley and Bolivia’s Chapare in the Cochabamba. This prospect of chemical

spraying was not a radical innovation in U.S. foreign policy, however. The push for these

chemical solutions can be placed along a much deeper historical thread that has its roots in the

early 20th century, where similar compounds had a familiar role in eradicating other foes from

the natural world: disease-carrying parasites and invasive species.6

U.S. Government policy, both domestic and foreign, has consistently buffeted against

particular undesirables in nature. Whether it is a plant, parasite, or potentially harmful, invasive

species, American political strategies in the 20th century have trended toward an increasing

reliance on chemical solutions in the form of pesticides and herbicides to control and, more

often, eliminate it. In World War II, U.S. troops were suffering from a constant plague of

malaria-carrying mosquitos with seemingly no way to combat them. With the advent of DDT, a

pesticide rediscovered for agricultural pests by Swiss scientist Paul Müller in 1939, the U.S.

military found its answer to confront the expansive swarms of disease-carrying parasites.7 Its

substantial success in the war allowed for DDT to be adopted for domestic agricultural

production as a miracle pesticide that could ensure large crop yields with little disturbance from

nature’s pests. Soon after the war, many former military pilots transitioned easily into the role of

crop dusters, combing the American heartland with pesticides, including DDT and toxaphene.

Though some heralded these pesticides as harmless and revolutionary for agricultural

5 Francisco E. Thoumi, Political Economy and Illegal Drugs in Colombia (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995), 135 and 279; Thoumi writes on the drug war in Colombia, but his studies present a comprehensive theoretical breakdown of how various South American nations experienced the conflict. Such comparative analyses have corroborated the significance of Peru and Bolivia as case studies for successful resistance against, and influence on U.S. foreign policy initiatives during the 1980s and 1990s. 6 Thoumi, Political Economy and Illegal Drugs in Colombia, 78-79 7 Kinkela, DDT and the American Century, 15-20

6

productivity, many pilots noted the negative consequences of their expansive use on domestic

wildlife and public health.8 Similar controversies would arise at the use of insecticides to control

the spread of fire ants throughout the American South.

As with mosquitos during World War II and agricultural pests in the years following, the

fight against fire ants in the South stemmed from this notion that through chemical compounds,

U.S. domestic and foreign policy could eradicate obstacles within nature. Joshua Blu Buhs’ The

Fire Ant Wars provides an example of U.S. domestic policy that met similar concerns and

protests from a wide audience of dissenters that included not only scientists, but individual

citizens–hunters and outdoors enthusiasts–all of whom, through their grievances, influenced how

U.S. policy would approach the fire ant question. This domestic influence mirrors later

international influences on U.S. foreign policy and chemical herbicides in Peru and Bolivia,

whose politicians, drug cartels, and farmers presented a similarly influential resistance. During

the 1950s, USDA officials within the Plant Pest Control division were continuously urged by

Southern farmers to confront the growing threat that fire ants posed to their crops, livestock, and

livelihood. As the insecticides were introduced to eradicate the fire ants, a sizeable opposition to

their use grew out of both academic and recreational sources, including entomologists,

biologists, hunters, and environmentalists. This opposition noted the potency of these new

insecticides, their ability to kill almost all kinds of wildlife, and the seemingly excessive levels

proposed for use by the USDA. This opposition, from scientists, academics, and recreational

hunters, exerted considerable influence on the progress of insecticide use against fire ants and the

8 Pete Daniel, Toxic Drift: Pesticides and Health in the Post-World War II South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005), 54-55

7

responsibility of government officials to ensure not only public health safety, but also

environmental and agricultural safety.9

This trend of resistance–from crop duster pilots, entomologists, hunters, and biologists in

the U.S., to peasant farmers, farmers unions and lobbies, cartels, and guerilla movements in Peru

and Bolivia–defined how U.S. political policy developed throughout the late 20th century. This

study focuses on the diplomatic dialogue between American, Peruvian, and Bolivian officials

between 1980 and 1999, stressing the tumultuous nature of these decades in the context of the

war on drugs. It contends that this diplomatic dialogue was directly predicated on the various

levels of resistance on the ground, both peaceful and violent. Official documents such as

embassy cables, state department cables, field reports on eradication efforts and heavily redacted

CIA documents, take considerable close reading to uncover the particular influences from rural

Peruvians and Bolivians within. Obvious biases remain throughout the documents, and the

motivations that are present clearly bend toward a U.S.-centric view of policy goals. This can be

limiting since it presents only one official line and an overall blurred sense of the complete story.

However, blurred within these official reports is an indisputable influence that continuously

shakes American foreign policy decisions in Peru and Bolivia, impeding the implementation of

aerial herbicide eradication as a strategy, and creating new social and political obstacles for such

programs to contend with.

I emphasize Peru and Bolivia’s peculiarity due to their stark contrast with their heavily

urbanized neighbors, such as Colombia. Aerial eradication programs have continued in

Colombia as late as 2008, with operation Plan Colombia implemented eight years earlier at the

turn of the century. What these two countries possessed that allowed them to accomplish this

9 Joshua Blu Buhs, The Fire Ant Wars: Nature, Science, and Public Policy in Twentieth-Century America (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), 4-5, 48-49, 92-95

8

successful resistance is the subject of this project, though I have indirectly accessed it through

primary government documents and secondary analyses. Peru and Bolivia both have rather large

rural, indigenous populations that form the basis of their agricultural production. These

populations are consistently present within American diplomatic cables. Mass demonstrations

against intensified spraying campaigns, the violent encounters between peasant communities and

anti-drug enforcement, and the political lobbies that represent them all appear as prominent

hindrances to the efficiency and legitimacy of eradication programs pushed by American and

domestic officials. Through these official documents, I will trace these influences through the

diplomatic record. Tracing these influences reveals their significance to the development of U.S.

foreign policy, notions of social justice, and increasing debates on the efficacy of chemical

eradication programs and their environmental impact. American officials concerned with anti-

drug and anti-communist policies during much of the 20th century needed to adjust their

strategies to avoid losing support of the rural populations in Peru and Bolivia, who were

bombarded by competing economic and political ideologies from radical revolutionary

movements such as the Sendero Luminoso. Peasant farmers in both countries sought social and

political organization, a movement that would define their position in Peruvian and Bolivian

politics for years to come.

This study will break down these social and political developments into two chapters.

Chapter 1 will center on the 1980s in both Peru and Bolivia, charting each experience with coca

eradication programs during the decade. The testing of herbicides such as 2, 4-D in the early

1980s provided cartels, coca lobbies, and peasant farmers with a collective enemy, one that

threatened illicit profits, community livelihoods, and the licit production of coca for traditional

domestic consumption. This collective resistance would halt the testing, and any future use, of

9

herbicides in coca eradication efforts throughout the Chapare in Cochabamba, leading instead to

a different kind of economic and social struggle in the voluntary eradication programs that

persisted into the 1990s. The sindicatos provide an example of how rural Bolivians began to

organize during this decade and how they continued to oppose the intensification of coca

eradication efforts pushed by the Bolivian government and U.S. foreign policy. For Peru,

increased violence from Sendero Luminoso, along with mass peasant resistance throughout the

Upper Huallaga tabled political discussions on the efficacy of herbicide-spraying campaigns

even through the 1990s. Renewed efforts were met with swift and increasingly organized

resistance in the rural highlands. Though not in the same long-standing organization as the

Bolivian sindicatos, Peru’s rural resistance–both violent and peaceful–presented a consistent

impediment for U.S. officials, and a hindrance for the compliance and cooperation of chemical

corporations in the war on drugs. Militant violence confronted eradication forces throughout the

valley, while peasant farmers formed anti-eradication committees to resist intensified coca

eradication and to negotiate their position between their own government and the Sendero

Luminoso. These committees would push for alternative development and crop substitution

programs, much like rural Bolivians and their respective coca lobbies had in the 1980s. Their

demands would steadily transform U.S. foreign policy in the war on drugs, forcing American

officials to restructure anti-coca policies throughout the Andes.

The second and final chapter will open with a brief look at American periodical sources–

newspapers, magazines, and trade journals–reacting to the resistance in Peru and Bolivia in 1988

and 1989. They note the inability of American chemical companies to commit their products to

the fight against coca in the Andes. Companies such as Eli Lily and Dow Chemical both

developed herbicides that could, in theory, target and destroy vast swaths of illicit coca in the

10

Upper Huallaga and Chapare. However, the threat of violence from Sendero Luminoso guerrillas,

rural peasant protests, and looming lawsuits from international environmental organizations

forced these companies to refuse their herbicides to the U.S. government. Dow had recently

suffered heavy financial costs due to lawsuits filed over its involvement in developing chemicals

for use in the Vietnam War and could not afford to risk further suits over its chemical products.10

The remainder of this chapter revolves around the drastic shift in coca eradication efforts in Peru

during the 1990s. The steady decline of herbicides as a possible solution to the eradication

question continued with a turn toward aggressive interdiction and the development programs in

the 1990s long sought by peasant farmers for years past. The final rejection of aerial herbicide

eradication programs in Peru came at the end of the decade, coincidentally with the rise of Plan

Colombia in 2000. This moment demonstrated the contrast between successful rural resistance in

Peru and Bolivia and the consequences of industrial, agricultural, and urban development in

neighboring Colombia, underscoring the importance of these countries’ rural, indigenous

populations, their organized resistance to these chemical programs, and the influence they

exerted on U.S. foreign policy from 1980 to 1999.

This study’s goal is to convey the relationship between these forms of social resistance

and the rise of herbicides in U.S. foreign policy in the late 20th century. The impact of social

resistance and grassroots movements on U.S. foreign policy is clearly evident in the collections

of embassy cables, field reports, and state department communications that inform this study.

More importantly, the politicking that promoted these policies and influenced their development

reveal far more than a diplomatic review. The goals, plans, failures, and frustrations that are

expressed throughout the documents underscore the growth of violence in the Andes in response

10 Mark Day, Reginald Rhein, Jr., and Jeffrey Ryser, “Are Chemical Makers AWOL in the War on Drugs?” Business Week, September 5, 1988

11

to economic, social, environmental, and public health concerns predicated on the fears of

unrestrained herbicide spraying over sizeable portions of the arable countryside. Farmers and

domestic coca lobbyists were equally concerned, and angered over the possibility of a chemical

offensive against their crop. These policies though narrowly focused on illicit coca production

and containing the growth of drug cartels, had wide-ranging implications that extended beyond

the war on drugs. For peasant farmers, coca had become their only reliable source of income.

With domestic and international officials pushing for expanded coca eradication efforts, their

livelihoods would be devastated with little support for alternative options. Their fight against

such programs, and for substantial assistance in shifting from coca cultivation, proved to be a

defining conflict. This study will address how this massive rural and eventual international

resistance impacted these chemical eradication strategies, and its various consequences.

12

CHAPTER 1

THE TURBULENT ‘80S AND EARLY FORMS OF RESISTANCE

Bolivian Sindicatos and the Fight over the Chapare

The ambush outside of Pucayacu served to fuel the debate over the use of herbicides in

coca eradication programs throughout principal Andean growing and processing countries. These

included Bolivia and Peru as the primary sources for the world’s coca, with cultivation in

Bolivia’s Chapare and Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley expanding rapidly beyond traditional,

domestic use during the 1980s. With mounting resistance from rural peasants, hesitation from

local government officials, and the concern growing about environmental consequences, coca

eradication programs began to contract in both scale and intensity from their introduction in the

early 1980s, to their final suspension by 2000. Bolivia led the way. Its brief, yet tumultuous trial

with herbicidal spray campaigns–beginning in 1982 and officially ending in 1988–was

concentrated in the Chapare region of Cochabamba. This was a multifaceted resistance,

stemming from Bolivian peasants, government officials, drug traffickers, and domestic coca

lobbyists seeking to protect their collective interests. Bolivia’s experience with aerial herbicide

eradication programs provides an early example for the diplomatic debate over these

controversial, chemical solutions, demonstrating the impact of rural mobilization and resistance

on the development of U.S. foreign policy during the war on drugs. Rural Bolivians moving into

the Chapare maintained a legacy of communal organization. This organization would become the

13

foundation of their collective resistance toward aerial herbicide eradication programs, forcing

U.S. policy in the war on drugs to adapt and fundamentally transform in scale and focus.11

Herbicidal sprays were first used in Bolivia in May 1982, under the authority of Celso

Torrelio’s military regime, which had recently supplanted the previous military dictatorship

under Luis García Meza Tejado. Torrelio supported herbicidal spraying in order to appeal to U.S.

officials and secure military and economic aid that had ceased under the Meza regime. The

Yapacani region, located in the department of Santa Cruz, was the targeted location for these test

sprays, due to its status as a “nontraditional and apparently illegal growing area” for coca. The

primary herbicide used in this operation, designated as Operation Yapacani, was 2,4-D. This

particular herbicide had a complicated past, being used to aid agricultural efforts and intended

for military campaigns.

Developed as an herbicide in 1944, 2, 4-D was marketed to farmers after World War II as

a “growth regulator herbicide” that would mimic normal growth cells within targeted weeds, and

kill them by over-stimulating growth.12 In many cases, the success of 2,4-D as a weed killer led

to significant over use of the herbicide, including aerial spraying over long tracts of railway

ditches causing extensive, and harmful drift.13 In a more controversial setting, 2, 4-D was

combined in a more complex, and significantly more toxic compound for massive defoliation

11 I rely on a broad selection of published primary sources and secondary literature to inform this section, due to the limited availability of primary sources addressing the situation in Bolivia during the 1980s. Many of these studies include a vast wealth of personal interviews conducted by the authors with political officials directly involved with eradication programs throughout the Chapare and the Yungas in Bolivia. These include Clare Hargreaves, Snowfields: The War on Cocaine in the Andes (New York: Holmes & Meir Publishers, 1992); Harry Sanabria, The Coca Boom and Rural Social Change in Bolivia (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1993); Madeline Barbara Léons and Harry Sanabria, ed. Coca, Cocaine, and the Bolivian Reality (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997); James Painter, Bolivia & Coca: A Study in Dependency, Studies on the Impact of the Illegal Drug Trade, Vol. 1, series ed. LaMond Tullis, project of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development and the United Nations University (Boulder: Lynne Reinner Publihsers, 1994); Rensselaer W. Lee III, The White Labyrinth: Cocaine and Political Power (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1989) 12 J.L. Anderson, Industrializing the Corn Belt: Agriculture, Technology, and Environment, 1945-1972 (DeKlab: Northern Illinois University Press, 2009), 33-35 13 Anderson, Industrializing the Corn Belt, 39-41

14

during the Vietnam War, known commonly as Agent Orange. But its military origins extended

even further back to World War II. One of the earliest military strategies that sought the potential

of this herbicide was a plan to target Japanese rice crops during the war, though the war had

ended before the plan could be implemented.14 Though many scholars note that 2,4-D alone did

not have the potency of this infamous chemical compound, its controversial heritage provided

drug traffickers, Bolivian coca lobbyists, and many other opponents of chemical eradication

programs with a powerful rhetorical weapon to contest their enactment and stall their

operations.15

Coca lobbyists, such as the COB (Bolivian Workers Confederation), and the CSUTCB

(Unified Syndical Confederation of Rural Workers of Bolivia), and drug traffickers utilized

media outlets to sway public opinion against expansive herbicidal spray campaigns like

Operation Yapacani. Roberto Suarez, a prominent narco-trafficker for example, publicly

expressed great apprehension at the thought of using an herbicide once integral to the creation of

Agent Orange throughout the Chapare in the Cochabamba. The Bolivian military, church

officials, the media, and the domestic scientific community shared this anti-herbicide sentiment.

The Bolivian government’s handling of these various pressures and the reactionary measures

taken by rural Bolivians in response to the government’s cooperation with American officials on

expanded coca eradication sealed the fate of initial efforts to implement herbicidal sprays in the

Chapare of Cochabamba.16

14 Jack Doyle, Trespass Against Us: Dow Chemical and the Toxic Century (Monroe: Common Courage Press, 2004), 131; for more discussion on the development of chemical weapons associated with herbicides like 2,4-D, and their commercial growth after war, see David Zierler’s The Invention of Ecocide: Agent Orange, Vietnam, and the Scientists Who Changed the Way We Think About the Environment (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011), 11 15 Rensselaer W. Lee III, The White Labyrinth: Cocaine and Political Power (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1989), 66 16 Lee III, The White Labyrinth, 66-67

15

Influenced by the growing pressures against herbicidal spraying in the Yapacani, the

Bolivian government publicly rejected any future use of chemical herbicides in the eradication of

illegal coca in both the Yapacani and the Chapare. Along with being widely unpopular,

herbicidal spraying in Operation Yapacani was completely ineffective. Approximately 250 acres

of land was manually sprayed during the early campaigns under Torrelio, but many peasants

simply cut off the more valuable portions of the plants before the herbicides could destroy the

entire crop, rendering the project useless. These failures only intensified eradication’s opposition,

with many pointing to the chemical’s broader health and environmental consequences as far too

risky for consideration. Such concerns would continue to plague U.S. efforts to utilize herbicides

in coca eradication, as seen later in the decade. With the arrival of a new civilian government

under Hernán Siles Zuazo, the government suspended aerial herbicide eradication, indefinitely

ending herbicide test sprays as a strategy for coca eradication in 1982. Nonetheless, the United

States continued to push for more strict enforcement of antidrug policies and for a significant

reduction in the level of illegal coca cultivation. This pressure would keep herbicidal spray

campaigns in the discussion for coca eradication in Bolivia’s Chapare for the next four years,

during which multiple sources of resistance would strain these efforts and break the Bolivian

government’s resolve to uphold them by 1986.17

The agreements reached during a series of talks from October 1982 to the summer of

1983 between U.S. and Bolivian officials sparked further outrage among rural Bolivians, the

COB, CSUTB, and drug traffickers. The promises made by the Zuazo administration to limit the

illegal cultivation of coca were met by a massive, national strike led by the CSUTCB. This strike

targeted major highways, and sought to cut off major cities, limiting food supplies and other

17 Lee III, The White Labyrinth, ibid; Daniel Weimar, Seeing Drugs: Modernization, Counterinsurgency, and U.S Narcotics Control in the Third World, 1969-1976 (Kent: The Kent State University Press, 2011), 222

16

necessities to large urban populations. This large-scale resistance to the intensification of coca

eradication contrasted with the more successful eradication campaigns in Colombia from as early

as the 1970s to the present. Crisis continued to erupt in Bolivia throughout the 1980s, leading to

armed confrontations between rural Bolivians and antidrug forces stationed throughout coca

growing regions such as Chapare. In 1988, at Villa Tunari–located in Chapare–thousands of

peasants targeted DIRECO (Dirección de la Reconversión de la Coca) offices in protest of yet

another anti-coca bill titled the Three Year Plan, which explicitly defined coca as “a narcotic and

a controlled substance.” Another factor spurring the farmer’s outrage was rumors of continued

herbicide testing in the Chapare, undoubtedly spread by drug traffickers opposed to the new

antidrug legislation, since, in reality, the government had rejected chemical eradication in 1986.18

In response, the Bolivian government drafted a new bill titled Law 1008, that limited legal coca

cultivation to just under 30,000 acres while still maintaining the illegality of expansive coca

cultivation in the Chapare. It also promised compensation for farmers who voluntarily limited

their coca production, though this clause would be heavily contested. The considerable influence

exerted by Bolivian peasants on the government’s antidrug policies was increasingly evident in

their response to the variable development of eradication legislation in the late 1980s, in which

support for renewed herbicidal sprays continued to wane.19

Peasant farmers mobilized this resistance through a system of communal institutions

known as sindicatos. These were initially formed after the revolution of 1952, and were defined

as “civil organizations” whose membership was based on physical location and crop cultivation,

meaning several different families farming in a particular area within the Chapare would

comprise one sindicato. These organizations would administer and maintain boundaries between

18 Lee III, The White Lanrynth, 74-76; Weimar, Seeing Drugs, 222 19 Lee III, The White Labyrinth, ibid

17

members, while also mediating grievances between their members and the actions of the

Bolivian government. Individual sindicatos would join together in “federations that [formed

larger] confederations,” which would politically represent peasant interests concerning such

programs as voluntary eradication. This program entailed financial compensation to peasant

farmers for destroyed crops from either the Bolivian government or from foreign financial aid.

These organizations, and their leadership, were highly influential at organizing the Bolivian

peasantry, providing a political and social platform for indigenous farmers to contest their

grievances against potentially harmful programs such as herbicidal eradication of illicit coca

production in the Chapare. Evo Morales, one such sindicato leader, would later gain a seat in the

Bolivian Congress, and prove to be highly consequential for rural, indigenous Bolivians. Yet,

even with these organizational institutions, Bolivian peasants continued to face pressure from

government officials, though not without exerting a great deal of their own.20

The newly established system of compensation for peasants who voluntarily eradicated

their excess coca in the Chapare was, in reality, heavily coercive, and it provoked further peasant

resistance. This agreement, or more accurately, this “negotiated standoff between peasants and

DIRECO teams,” as one historian described it, compensated peasants for the labor it took to

destroy their coca crops. The compensation, however, was mediated through lengthy

bureaucratic channels of distribution provided by U.S. aid directly to Bolivia in the form of

Economic Support Funds. Many sindicatos argued that these funds did not cover the cost for

farmers to destroy their crop, and due to this sindicatos opposition–along with reports of physical

violence against farmers and their land–many rural Bolivians refused to participate in the

20 Francisco Thoumi, Illegal Drugs, Economy, and Society in the Andes (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 112-115; Thoumi’s more recent study conveys a greater understanding of peasant organizational structures on the ground, though with a stronger focus on economic aspects of coca production and eradication rather than the policy that dictated them; Patrick L. Clawson and Rensselaer W. Lee III, The Andean Cocaine Industry (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 221-222

18

voluntary eradication program. Another obstacle that helped to limit this voluntary eradication

program was the severe lack in alternative development programs provided as a substitute for

illicit coca production. Many Bolivian farmers had begun to rely heavily on coca cultivation

during the 1980s due to the increase in prices. By the 1990s, the economies of Bolivia and Peru

were in dire straits, thus further emphasizing the need for farmers to rely on illicit coca

production, rather than participating in the voluntary program that did not offer sufficient

compensation.21

This peculiar situation developed alongside the growing trend of peasant communities

forming “‘defense committees’ (comités de defense)” to prevent compulsory coca eradication

imposed by armed DIRECO teams, known as Leopardos. Confrontations between these groups–

one makeshift and ill equipped to handle an intense firefight, while the other was highly armed

and well trained–were normally characterized by guerilla warfare and ambush tactics on the part

of the peasant defense committees. These tactics proved to be highly successful, and massive in

overall scale within the Chapare region. Peasant groups harassed government eradication forces

and limited their ability to conduct thorough sweeps for coca fields throughout targeted areas.

The introduction of large-scale resistance to coca eradication, from the Bolivian peasantry as

well as the coca lobby and drug traffickers, expanded the rhetoric against chemical eradication to

ethical concerns and environmental implications of the uses of herbicides in the war on drugs.

Environmental consequences were examined from both those who opposed these chemicals’ use

21 Clawson and Lee, The Andean Cocaine Industry, 220-222; Carlos F. Toranzo Roca, “Informal and Illicit Economies and the Role of Narcotrafficking,” Madeline Barbara Leóns, Harry Sanabria, and Flora Calderón-Steck, ed. Coca, Cocaine, and the Bolivian Reality (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 208-209

19

in the Bolivian countryside and those who saw the expansion of coca cultivation itself in the

Chapare as a more tangible environmental degradation.22

The explosion of coca cultivation outside of Bolivia’s traditional growing areas led to

increased environmental concerns about eradication strategies, along with the consequences of

increased coca cultivation and processing into cocaine. These traditional growing areas included

the Yungas, a region situated on the eastern slopes of the Andes near the vast basin of the

Amazon Rainforest, where farmers followed sustainable practices that often aided in the

prevention of land erosion and the recovery of soil fertility. This style of cultivation differed

from that in areas like the Chapare, where new farmers would rely heavily on pesticides that

proved to be far more harmful in this more fragile environment. These new farmers carved out

plots of land by removing vast tracts of tropical forests. This destruction was mirrored in Peru’s

Upper Huallaga Valley, where approximately 1,750,000 acres of forest were cleared to grow

some 500,000 acres of coca. This trend of massive deforestation continued in Bolivia, where

national parks were also at risk. A USAID review of Bolivian development estimated that

roughly 37,000 acres of “virgin forest” in the park had been lost to the expansion of coca

cultivation throughout the region. Coupled with this massive deforestation, the Bolivian

government’s use of colonists to implement different economic endeavors in the Chapare equally

strained the environment.23

Loggers and ranchers flooded into the region, sponsored by funds from the World Bank,

which was promoting the soy and wheat cultivation as part of an agro-export project known as

Tierras Bajas (lowlands). These economic developments, coupled with the expansion of coca

22 Harry Sanabria, The Coca Boom and Rural Social Change in Bolivia (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1993), 186-188; Clawson and Lee, The Andean Cocaine Industry, 220-222 23 James Painter, Bolivia & Coca: A Study in Dependency, (Boulder: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1994), 65-66; For comparative numbers on deforestation in Peru, see Coca and Cocaine: An Andean Perspective, ed. Felipe E. Mac Gregor, trans. Jonathan Cavanagh and Rosemary Underhay, (Wesport: Greenwood Press, 1993), 117-118

20

production, put an unprecedented strain on the region. The Tierras Bajas project required

approximately 741,000 acres of cleared land to establish the necessary fields for its agricultural

development. These activities worked in concert with the expansion in coca cultivation and

processing, to produce negative environmental consequences that attracted further opposition to

both the cultivation and possible chemical eradication of coca in the Chapare.24

The processing of coca required a potent cocktail of toxic chemicals including lime,

sodium carbonate, sulfuric acid, and kerosene. The use and disposal of these chemical agents

also had severe environmental consequences that drew the attention of various environmental

organizations. According to LIDEMA (La Liga de Defensa del Medio Ambiente), one of the

largest environmental groups in Bolivia, in 1988 over 66 million pounds of these chemicals were

possibly dumped into local rivers and streams for the production of approximately 280 million

pounds of coca into cocaine. Moreover, when eradication forces descended on local farms and

processing plants, they often dumped confiscated chemicals directly into rivers and streams,

further exacerbating the environmental impact of these toxic agents. The environmental

consequences of coca, whether through its cultivation, processing, or eradication, provided

further fuel for the debate over herbicidal spray projects and for domestic resistance in Bolivia

and Peru. Such environmental concerns extended to the seemingly organic process of manual

eradication, which also created considerable ecological damage to the Chapare region.25

The Bolivian government’s funding of the colonization of the Chapare region, which

subsequently led to the explosion in commercial development that produced unparalleled

deforestation, as well severe soil erosion, also underscored the harmful effects of manual

eradication that sought to limit this expanded coca cultivation. Manual eradication would expose

24 Painter, Bolivia and Coca, 67 25 Painter, Bolivia and Coca, ibid

21

fragile soil to destructive rainfall and intense sunlight that intensified soil erosion and overall

degradation. These interconnected environmental concerns continued in the debate over

herbicidal spray campaigns in Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley, leading to further opposition from

rural farmers and hesitation on the part of Peruvian officials who feared their environmental and

economic consequences. It also inspired U.S. officials to reexamine their current eradication

strategies, leading to the development of new plans focusing on more substantial financial and

human investment.26

In 1989, President George H.W. Bush initiated his Andean Strategy, a five-year plan that

would dedicate substantial amounts of financial aid to target Andean nations like Bolivia, Peru,

and Colombia. The plan revolved around three main objectives, including the strengthening of

law enforcement on the ground to combat illicit narcotics, the extending of economic aid to these

countries to assist in the larger war on drugs, and to implement more extensive eradication

strategies. These objectives entailed American personnel on the ground, training domestic

eradication forces in new methods of ground and aerial interdiction. In this plan, U.S. officials

renewed their efforts for the implementation of aerial herbicide eradication in Peru’s Upper

Huallaga. The increasing violence against eradication workers between 1983 and 1988, in which

thirty-two Peruvians died and coca eradication efforts faced continuous delays, greatly

influenced the direction of U.S. foreign policy concerning the use of herbicide sprays. Yet with

the commitment of American personnel on the ground, eradication forces would remain

vulnerable to guerrilla attacks, solving no logistical problems they had been facing for much of

26 Máximo Liberman and Hans Salm, “Environmental Problems of Coca Cultivation,” Madeline Barbara Leóns and Harry Sanabria, ed. Coca, Cocaine, and the Bolivian Reality, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 213 and 224

22

the decade.27 Responding to these dangers, American officials pushed for the use of an herbicide

known as Spike, or tebuthiron, as a means of safety for eradication workers and a means to

counter the rapid expansion of coca cultivation throughout the valley. This development was

evident through the evolution of eradication policies in various correspondences between

American and Peruvian officials in Lima from 1980 to 1989. Rural Peruvians would confront

these policies with similar forms of resistance, mirroring the Bolivian sindicatos by forming

communal organizations of their own that would work collectively on a national stage. This

continued rural mobilization greatly influenced U.S. foreign policy, further limiting its insistence

on chemical coca eradication.

Diplomatic Dealings and Escalating Violence in Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley

In 1981, Ambassador Edwin Corr relayed the Peruvian government’s goals to

Washington for the two countries’ mutual program to eradicate illicit coca production throughout

the Upper Huallaga Valley. The Peruvian government expressed the need for economic

stabilization before they could fully commit to combatting drug trafficking and illegal coca

cultivation, emphasizing the continuation of U.S. aid for the success of future eradication

programs. However, U.S. officials restricted this aid from any region that contained coca

cultivation, cutting off traditional growing regions, such as Cuzco and La Libertad, and

undermining Peruvian efforts to effectively administer and regulate pre-existing operations in

these regions. Rather ambitiously, the Peruvian government insisted that their completion date

for securing and eliminating all illicit coca production in the Upper Huallaga Valley would be no

later than the end of 1983. Even with the early limitations on U.S. aid, Peruvian officials fully

promoted and stressed the significance of coca eradication as a central component of the

27 Clare Hargreaves, Snowfields: The War on Cocaine in the Andes, (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1992), 159

23

country’s development. Progress against illicit coca would garner more substantial funds from

American officials, allowing the Peruvian government to address their persistent, internal

economic crisis. Sustained rural resistance, and increasing violent encounter with the Sendero

Luminoso, however, delayed this deadline throughout the 1980s, into the early 1990s. This

resistance grew out of the national climate of economic despair, one that required economic aid

to implement any possible coca eradication programs.28

Financial aid reached Peru that same year. USAID allocated $18 million to develop

alternate economic activities to compete with the exponential growth of coca cultivation in the

Upper Huallaga Valley. This aid reflected larger U.S. interests in limiting drug trafficking at the

source–in this case, Peru represented a source country as a main grower of coca alongside

Bolivia–while also aiming to reduce the amount of coca produced in Peru to adequately supply

domestic demand. Other funds, not explicitly accounted for, were directed toward the training of

security and eradication forces, both in Peru and in the U.S., totaling 809 individuals–a small

number, but significant in the investment of funds for specialized training in counternarcotic

strategies on the ground and across borders. Unexpectedly, U.S. officials detailed a new

completion date for the complete control and eradication of illicit coca cultivation in the Upper

Huallaga to 1986, three years later than the bold claims by the Peruvian government in 1981,

despite the increased investment. It is unclear during these first two years what was causing these

expectations to slip steadily, but the overall state of economic desperation of the country at the

time clearly exerted pressure on both the Peruvian government to deliver, and on the people who

were pushed to alternative means of economic survival and political protest. Peruvian Foreign

28 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Edwin Corr, “Peru’s Policy Toward Narcotics,” October, 7, 1981, document PE00046, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

24

Minister Arias Stella stressed this economic desperation, noting to Ambassador Frank V. Ortiz

the extreme cost of expanding eradication efforts in the Upper Huallaga. The Peruvian

government did not have the necessary funds to support the training of counternarcotic forces,

and the aid offered by U.S. officials in 1981 and 1982 would not supplement their own

expectations for the progress of coca eradication throughout the region. More money, and more

time would be necessary to organize sufficient forces to counter the growing strength of

narcotics traffickers and guerrilla forces entering the Upper Huallaga.29

To support the recent influx of $18 million in funds for alternate agricultural practices in

the Upper Huallaga, the U.S. State Department issued another 15 million in 1982 aimed at

further anti-narcotics assistance, which would be parceled out over a five-year period.30 This

entailed the establishment of UMOPAR, “a semi-autonomous anti-narcotics unit” stationed at

Tingo Maria, strategically the economic and demographic core of the Upper Huallaga Valley.31

With this influx of aid, it was assumed that a portion of the funds would assist the struggling

Peruvian economy and curb the growing unrest among the rural indigenous population. In

actuality, the funds were singularly focused on anti-narcotics assistance while U.S. officials

would continue to stress further commitment from the Peruvian government toward these

narrowly focused programs that neglected the larger economic struggles of the nation, and

further enraged the populace. The Peruvian government lacked the necessary funds to support

escalated coca eradication, while battling various insurgent groups and critical reforms. Rural

29 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Frank V. Ortiz, “Annual Narcotics Status Report,” April 29, 1982, document PE00058, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; U.S. Ambassador to Peru Frank V. Ortiz, “Conversation with the Foreign Minister: The Narcotics Problem,” August 20, 1982, document PE00065, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University 30 “U.S.–Peru Narcotics Control Efforts,” U.S. Department of State briefing paper, October 25, 1982, document PE00073, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University 31 Ibid

25

Peruvians bore the brunt of this economic crisis, resorting to coca cultivation to make a living

and support their families. In many ways, U.S. and Peruvian officials’ insistence on escalating

coca eradication served to alienate peasant farmers, leading to greater resistance to their own

desired programs each successive year. Coupled with this neglect of the country’s economic

stagnation and crippling inflation, growing international pressures–often directed by U.S. anti-

narcotics goals–on blocking drug trafficker access to processing chemicals ignited a new wave of

violence in the Upper Huallaga Valley.32

Efforts for coca eradication during these early years remained pedestrian in comparison

to the yearly expansions of illicit coca cultivation. Under constant pressure from the U.S. to

tighten its grip on these illegal activities, the Peruvian government under General Francisco

Morales-Bermúdez and President Fernando Belaúnde-Terry established the Special Coca Control

and Eradication Project in the Upper Huallaga (CORAH) to incorporate peasant laborers in

manual eradication programs. Along with this, the Peruvian government established the Special

Upper Huallaga Project the following year, to promote crop substitution to indigenous farmers

who began to rely on the high prices and demand of expanded coca cultivation throughout the

region. These programs would produce rather slim results in their first few years of operation.

From 1983 to 1985, just over 21,000 acres of illicit coca were manually eradicated–this was a

paltry sum considering that illicit production expanded to roughly 178,000 acres by the end of

the decade, outpacing eradication efforts and leading many government officials, both Peruvian

and American, to begin calling for herbicide-spraying campaigns to curb such a rapid expansion.

Rural peasants caught up in either cooperative or forced eradication of local coca fields faced

increasing pressure from their own government. Resentment and unrest steadily grew during the 32 Central Intelligence Agency, “Narcotics Review,” Directorate of Intelligence, March 1985, document PE00158, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

26

early 1980s, allowing for the rise of guerrilla movements such as Sendero Luminoso and Puka

Llacta, organizations that contributed to the massive increase in violence throughout the Upper

Huallaga Valley. Their presence was often welcomed by rural farmers who felt betrayed by their

own government, which seemed all too ready to take orders from Washington rather than

alleviate their own internal economic hardship.33

Militant Violence and the Problems of Manual Eradication Efficiency

Thirty-five murders in ten months stained the valley in 1984. The first sixteen were killed

on February 11, though their assailants were not identified, while the following nineteen were

killed by narco-traffickers on November 16, presumably for their eradication work throughout

the valley.34 This new concentrated focus on the Upper Huallaga by narcotics traffickers centered

on this international effort to limit access to processing chemicals, along with renewed chemical

eradication efforts in Colombia under President Julio César Turbay Ayala in the late 1970s and

early 1980s. President Ayala implemented the use of the herbicide paraquat to eradicate

marijuana, and though it was not very effective in limiting the cartels’ growth, it certainly

influenced their move to the more lucrative coca crop to the south.35 With the loss of these

eradication workers in November, efforts in the Upper Huallaga were stalled for over two

months. The Peruvian government, in contrast, was not impeded in its anti-narcotics efforts. The

removal of the head of the Civil Guard on corruption charges, the imprisonment of an elite

socialite involved in trafficking, and the limited resumption of eradication operations in the

33 Thoumi, Illegal Drugs, Economy, and Society in the Andes, 126-130; Thoumi provides greater insight into the role of peasant resistance, noting on the willingness of rural Peruvians–and the advantageous presence of Puka Llacta, another communist organization in the region–to allow for the eventual dominance of the Sendero Luminoso throughout the Upper Huallaga for much of the 1980s; Clawson and Lee, The Andean Cocaine Industry, 215-217 34 Central Intelligence Agency, “Narcotics Review,” Directorate of Intelligence, March 1985, document PE00158, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University 35 Sue Branford and Hugh O’Shaughnessy, Chemical Warfare in Colombia: The Costs of Coca Fumigation, (London: Latin American Bureau, 2005), 22-23

27

valley all demonstrated the Peruvian government’s steadfast commitment to anti-narcotics

policies, along with its continued struggles to gain firm control over internal impediments to

such policies.36 Such strong responses in favor of pro-eradication–pro-U.S.–policies served to

further enrage traffickers, farmers, and the increasingly violent organization Sendero Luminoso

(Shining Path), which sought the complete removal of U.S. influences on Peruvian policy and

presented a possible ally of circumstance to drug traffickers in the Upper Huallaga.

The killings continued on July 15, 1985. A “16 gauge shotgun slug to the head” executed

an eradication worker stationed at Aucayacu, as he ventured ahead of his work crew near Alto

Chimbote at the start of their operations in that area. The assailant was not identified, and their

efforts were suspended for the day. Alejandro Costa, Chief of CORAH operations, relayed news

of the killing and detailed recent judicial developments that further hindered eradication efforts

throughout the region, citing an explicit ban from thirty-five fields located at Alto Pacae.

Peruvian farmers had filed various complaints with a judge in Tingo Maria, which–as protocol

dictated–required a detailed investigation that would last between six and eight months time, to

sort out the complaints and determine their legitimacy. This peasant resistance in the courts was

complemented by what Costa described as “diversionary tactics” from July 18th to the 23rd,

which sought to draw security forces away from key eradication sites, leaving them vulnerable to

guerrilla attacks.37

The strains on eradication operations caused by these coordinated resistance strategies

were further amplified by threats of violence from leading drug traffickers in the region. Catalino

36 Central Intelligence Agency, “Narcotics Review,” Directorate of Intelligence, March 1985, document PE00158, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University 37 U.S. Ambassador to Peru David C. Jordan, “Upper Huallaga Eradication and Security Update,” July 26, 1985, document PE00164, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

28

Escalante, head narcotics trafficker in Uchiza, issued threats of violence against CORAH

workers’ families and the destruction of supplies and equipment provided by the U.S. In

response, military officials in Tingo Maria ceased eradication operations for the end of July,

further hindering the progress of CORAH workers in the Upper Huallaga. Consistent resistance

from farmers and drug traffickers forced the hesitation of military and government officials to

continue with manual eradication efforts. Further influenced by a lack of steadily working

equipment for these ground operations, U.S. and Peruvian officials began to look for alternative

measures that would avoid lethal attacks on the ground and access more fields from the air.38

Ambassador Jordan’s urgent warnings of the vulnerability of ground forces after the

ambush at Pucayacu in 1986 were one of the earliest influences in the push for chemical

eradication in Peru. The expansion of ground forces in 1985 did little to increase efficiency or

minimize the growing risks presented by the violence in the Upper Huallaga. Intelligence agents

recorded approximately 3,200 acres of coca had been successfully eradicated by July 1985,

representing only half of the expected amount detailed in earlier estimates. Peru’s new president,

Alan Garcia, continued to express a strong commitment to cooperatively established eradication

goals by his government and the U.S., but the growth of rural resistance, guerrilla violence, and

the rise of Sendero Luminoso provided a staunch bulwark against the intensification of programs

throughout the region. A series of attacks in 1986 directly stalled eradication efforts in various

regions throughout the Upper Huallaga–these included Progreso, Uchiza, and Tocache–

demonstrating the influence of social and physical resistance on U.S. and Peruvian anti-drug

policy.39

38 Ibid 39 Central Intelligence Agency, “Narcotics Review,” Directorate of Intelligence, August 1985, document PE00166, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

29

The debate raged on as to whether the Peruvian government could maintain CORAH

forces in Progreso, weeks after the ambush on April 24. Vice Minister Mantilla and Interior

Minister Salinas weighed the possibility of withdrawing forces from the region in an effort to

alleviate the ongoing strikes in Uchiza and Tocache, but such an option seemed fruitless. Facing

yet another obstacle, eradication efforts were redirected by the Civil Guard on May 5,

withdrawing from Progreso to concentrate on the La Florida zone, a former center of violent

activity northwest of their base of operations at Tingo Maria. As early as 1984, 19 eradication

workers were killed in this area. Once secured, ground forces would be moved further north to

Paraiso, which was situated adjacent to Uchiza and Tocache. This long-term strategy was meant

to reconfigure the ground forces’ position for a favorable reentry into the center of the Upper

Huallaga, while also maintaining some form of eradication to reach the goal of 14,800 acres by

the end of 1986. Their movements were met by strong, and often fatal, resistance, leading many

U.S. officials to question the validity of maintaining eradication programs under the authority of

non-military, or police, administration.40

Late morning on July 16, an armed force of 50 men and women unleashed a hail of

bullets and explosives on 150 CORAH workers a couple hours north of Huangana-Pampa, in

Locro. Some of the assailants were clad in army uniforms, wielding grenades and light automatic

weapons. There were five confirmed casualties, four dead and one wounded, while six workers

were unaccounted for at the end of the assault. None of the assailants were identified, and

subsequent helicopter sweeps produced few leads. This attack produced a starkly different

reaction from U.S. officials. Whereas much of the violence preceding this attack halted

operations on the ground, this attack would legitimize American doubts on Peruvian leadership 40 U.S. Ambassador to Peru David C. Jordan, “Update on Eradication Impasse in Central Huallaga,” May 2, 1986, document PE00210, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

30

over coca eradication programs throughout the valley. Deputy Chief of Mission John Youle

urged officials in Washington to pressure their Peruvian counterparts for a shift in the

administration of future eradication efforts, from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of

the Interior and direct police control. This shift would bring the valley under more stringent

police control, allowing for the emergency zone desired by many U.S. and Peruvian officials to

encompass the entirety of the Upper Huallaga Valley. This would soon allow unrestricted levels

of violence carried out by police and military forces, violence that would do little to distinguish

between militants, narco-traffickers, and peasant farmers. Rather than halting coca eradication

efforts, much like other acts of violent resistance, this attack provided U.S. officials the rhetoric

to press changes on Peruvian anti-narcotics policy. However, this desired expansion in

aggressive eradication and counter insurgency policies would continue to alienate peasant

farmers, leading to their mass organization against such policies. This ebb and flow between

intensification and subsidence largely defined the nature and fate of chemical eradication in Peru.

Whereas Bolivia’s experience was brief and volatile, Peru’s contention with these controversial

programs endured various waves of resistance, ranging from armed conflict to massive,

nonviolent demonstrations such as the nationwide strikes throughout the Upper Huallaga.41

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Increases in Aid and Chemical Possibilities

U.S. aid and involvement in Peru’s anti-narcotics campaign escalated substantially in

1987, with the implementation of Operation Snowcap and Condor. The Peruvian government

designated the entirety of the Upper Huallaga Valley as a police and military emergency zone–a

designation sought since the ambush in April 1986–allowing autonomy for the Civil Guard in

their eradication efforts. By July of 1987, much of the Upper Huallaga was under the control of 41 Deputy Chief of Mission John Youle, “Upper Huallaga,” July 17, 1986, document PE00242, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

31

various narco-traffickers and the increasingly violent Sendero Luminoso. Their presence made

the designation of the region as an emergency zone all the more necessary for eradication forces

to have the unlimited freedom to act, with equal aggression. The former base of operations at

Tingo Maria was shifted to Santa Lucia, where construction for a new eradication base was

underway. With the expansion of police authority in the Upper Huallaga, U.S. officials pushed

for an escalation of manual eradication, the completion of an aerial interdiction campaign

targeting smuggler planes used by traffickers, and the opening of another plot of land for

herbicidal spray tests. A major aspect of Operation Snowcap that would aid these efforts was the

introduction of helicopter support, for cover and transportation of eradication forces. Helicopters

would allow CORAH forces to access more remote coca fields that had previously been sealed

off by dangerous, narrow highways that were frequently watched by traffickers, Sendero

Luminoso militants, and mobilized peasants. However, violent resistance was not avoided by air

transportation, and lack of cooperation between police forces and military personal left

eradication forces in a continued state of vulnerability.42

Moving operations to Santa Lucia was predicated on perceived threats from Sendero

Luminoso militants who, according to intelligence reports, were planning a possible attack on

DEA and Evergreen agents. These agents were housed in a hotel at Tingo Maria, under constant

threat by not only these militants, but also the growing presence of Movimiento Revolucionario

Tupac Amaru militants within the area–possible members of this movement had been arrested

near Tingo Maria. Throughout August in 1987, a series of attacks targeted at Civil Guard

personnel confirmed this concern, and the necessity to move the base of operations from the

42 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “Anti-narcotics Operations Continue in Upper Huallaga Valley,” December 3, 1987, document PE00362, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; Central Intelligence Agency, “International Narcotics Situation Report #3”, July 1987, document PE00323, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

32

increasingly volatile surroundings near Tingo Maria. August 18 saw a string of violence over the

course of several hours from the late evening into the night. Armed militants killed 4 Civil Guard

officials at a bar in Aguaytia around 6:00pm. Two hours later, a Civil Guard patrol south of

Puerto Pizana was ambushed, leaving two dead after the firefight. Later that night, approximately

90 militants laid siege to a combined force of Civil Guard and Operation Condor forces at a post

in Rio Uchiza. The following day, helicopters spotted significant debris along major mountain

highways north of Tingo Maria, blocking several important routes and decorating the

obstructions with banners and flags attributed to the Sendero Luminoso. These same reports

noted on the prevalence of similar regalia within nearby towns throughout the region, reaffirming

rural peasant incorporation–both coerced and voluntary–within these larger insurgency

movements. This growing resistance would further limit any progress of eradication efforts.43

Even with increased aid and an influx of equipment, eradication efforts had stalled in

early 1987, still in recovery from an ambush targeting CORAH forces near the new base of

operations at Santa Lucia back in July 1986.44 Resistance, in various forms, continued to wear on

the success of eradication efforts, further influencing U.S. and Peruvian responses for either the

intensification or suspension of operations in the Upper Huallaga. Not until the end of 1987 did

operations resume, but with new strategies and methods of accessing coca cultivation and

production, counter narcotics forces saw renewed success with two seizures of coca paste in

November and December. These two seizures confiscated approximately 4,354 pounds of coca

43 Counselor to the Embassy in Lima Douglas L. Langan, “Possible Threats Against DEA and Evergreen Contract Personnel in UHV,” September 2, 1987, document PE00340, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; Drug Enforcement Administration, “Report of Investigation: After Action Report,” August, 25, 1987, document PE00336, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University 44 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “Anti-narcotics Efforts in Peru,” December 14, 1987, document PE00366, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

33

paste and base, destroying two processing labs and disabling airstrips for smugglers, in an effort

to minimize both the price and demand of coca. These successes were short lived. Calls for

herbicidal sprays of remote coca fields grew increasingly more urgent from both U.S. and

Peruvian officials in 1988, but these desires were once again delayed by the legacy of violence in

the Upper Huallaga Valley.45

Vice Minister Mantilla received various probes from regional political leaders concerning

the possible use of herbicides in the countryside in June 1988. He informed DEA officials that

many of these inquiries were not hostile or critical of the proposed plans, and that many were

more concerned with the methods of utilizing the chemicals and delivering them to targeted coca

fields. Following this topic of discussion, Mantilla broached the subject of receiving tebuthiuron

from the U.S. to begin chemical eradication work in the Upper Huallaga. Tebuthiuron, also

known as Spike, was developed by Ely Lily & Company, an American chemical company that

would prove to have a decisive influence on the progress of herbicidal spray campaigns in Peru.

Their reaction to the violence in the valley and growing national opposition to aerial herbicide

eradication will be discussed in greater detail in the following chapter. The seeming delay of this

crucial herbicide was compounded by continued attacks on eradication forces and the newly

delivered helicopters used for their transportation, attacks that would influence chemical

companies like Eli Lilly and Dow to rethink their participation in U.S. and Peruvian anti-

narcotics strategy.46

Despite the insistence of U.S. officials on the environmentally safe and viable option

provided by chemicals such as tebuthiuron and hexazinone, Ely Lilly hesitated to provide their

45 Ibid 46 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “DEA Discussions with Vice Minister Augustin Mantilla,” June 24, 1988, document PE00404, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

34

leading herbicide, Spike, for coca eradication in Peru in 1988. In response, the United States

Information Service for Lima conducted a campaign to expose the environmentally hazardous

consequences of expanded, illicit coca cultivation and processing, similar to those explicated by

pro-eradication officials in Bolivia. Though marginally successful, this counter narrative

campaign ignored the fact that expanded coca cultivation was predicated on more than simply

narco-traffickers’ desires to process the crop into cocaine. Peasant farmers relied on coca as a

means of substantial income, with increasing prices throughout the decade. Many did not process

the plant, but utilized it to support themselves and their families, since the Peruvian government

neglected increased calls for alternative development programs that could substitute this risky

venture. The American counter narrative against environmental concerns centered on herbicides

also struggled to persuade American chemical companies, whose motivations will be considered

in the following chapter. With the fate of herbicidal spray campaigns hinging on the cooperation

of American chemical companies, further escalations of violence in the Upper Huallaga would

cripple efforts to promote and successfully implement chemical eradication.47

In July 1988, 28 villagers were killed in Ayacucho for their presumed connection to the

Sendero Luminoso. President Garcia was forced to defend the actions of those involved in this

massacre, many of which were members of the Peruvian military working alongside anti-

narcotics forces within the Upper Huallaga. Lack of military support would be fatal to Garcia’s

rule, leading to the possibility of a military coup. With the continued economic despair

throughout the country, his defense of this military aggression alienated rural Peruvians and

fomented further organized resistance against intensified coca eradication programs. Peasant

farmers were caught in the middle of this cauldron of violence between narco-traffickers, 47 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “FY 1989 Goals and Work Plans: Peru,” October 19, 1988, document PE00442, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

35

revolutionary militants, and coca eradication forces, leading many to mobilize for collective

defense. Overlooking this pivotal development, U.S. officials saw this precarious political

instability as a possible aid in pushing Garcia toward the use of herbicides in coca eradication in

the Upper Huallaga, though no concrete plan was implemented at this point to propose such an

option. Instead, Peruvian and American officials were sidetracked by a series of attacks against

eradication forces by unidentified assailants and guerrilla forces during their various operations

near Uchiza.48

CORAH Executive Director Hugo Samanez confirmed an attack on eradication forces on

the morning of September 13, 1988. Helicopters had delivered 160 eradication workers–

including CORAH and Civil Guard forces–to a 25-acre coca field near Uchiza that morning.

They were greeted with sustained gunfire from semi-automatic and automatic weapons, though

they suffered no casualties. The assailants were unidentified, and operations were stalled as

eradication forces were redirected to Santa Lucia to reinforce the main base of operations. A few

days later on September 16, eradication workers continued operations in a 50-acre area known as

“La Esperanza,” just west of their previously compromised position at Uchiza. They were

utilizing new string trimmers that would presumably increase the efficiency of manual

eradication efforts. The success of these machines had been a growing concern to coca growers–

licit and illicit–due to their speed at dispensing large swaths of coca fields. Ambassador Watson

reported that “one man armed with one machine [could] eradicate [over 2 acres of coca] every 4

hours,” a marked improvement over manually pulling the plant up from its roots. The team at

“La Esperanza” had 25 of these new machines, and were set on a rather extensive eradication

operation, until they were met with sniper fire, leading to further delays and questions on how to 48 Counselor to the Embassy in Lima Douglass L. Langan, “General Woerner’s Visit to Peru: Issues Paper,” August 9, 1988, document PE00419, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

36

efficiently remove illicit coca while minimizing the possibility of casualties on the ground.

Peasant farmers utilized this conflict to protest coca eradication escalation, directly confronting

CORAH workers and their base of operations in Santa Lucia.49

Demonstrations broke out later that September against U.S. promoted eradication policies

carried out with escalating intensity. Ambassador Watson relayed a report to DEA headquarters

in Washington concerning a sighting of approximately 125 demonstrators spotted brandishing

sticks for possible hand-to-hand combat near the central base of operations at Santa Lucia. They

were protesting any and all “U.S. sponsored eradication [programs],” and one protestor allegedly

fired a shot at helicopters that were positioned as security for trucks along the road transporting

eradication forces that could not be airlifted to Tocache for further transport to targeted coca

fields in Tingo Maria. No major conflict ensued at this encounter, but the sustained presence of

eradication workers in the area had enticed aggression against the vulnerable ground forces being

dropped in and picked up by helicopters throughout the region. Burst fire targeted the helicopters

as they attempted to retrieve up to 160 eradication workers. In the end, they were able to pick up

130 workers, while the others were directed to an alternative pick up point away from the

gunmen. Eradication efforts throughout the Upper Huallaga were consistently hindered by such

attacks. These constant setbacks were exacerbated by the continued economic collapse of the

country as a whole.50

49 Counselor to the Embassy in Lima Douglass L. Langan, “Shots Fired at CORAH Workers,” September 14, 1988, document PE00428, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “New CORAH Initiative,” September 20, 1988, document PE00431, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University 50 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “Incident Involving DEA Agents and INM Helicopters,” October 7, 1988, document PE00437, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

37

President Garcia was faced with constant financial uncertainty during the late 1980s. In

discussions with Ambassador Watson, the two noted the necessity of securing external funding

from the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank for economic stability and for

the maintenance of eradication and interdiction efforts in the Upper Huallaga Valley. Peru’s

struggling economy continued to create hostility toward Garcia’s regime, allowing for militant

groups to maintain their foothold in the valley while also alienating both the rural populace and

the military. In this discussion, Ambassador Watson continued his press for the allocation of land

for herbicide testing to legitimize aerial spraying as a strategy for coca eradication efforts.

President Garcia expressed confidence that such testing would be underway soon, though no

initiative had been put forward to ensure it–he did mention a decree that would establish an

herbicide advisory board, though he had yet to sign it. In lieu of the aforementioned external

financial aid needed for these programs, Ambassador Watson confirmed 480 shipments of food

from the U.S. to combat inevitable shortages caused by Peru’s continued economic collapse.

These would arrive some time in October, and would include up to 120,000 tons of food,

including corn, wheat, and rice. This commitment of food, however, would not supplement

Peru’s dire need for substantial financial assistance. As such, budget adjustments for 1988 were

drawn by Congress to include $15 million in new aircraft to be sent to both Peru and Bolivia to

support eradication and interdiction efforts, though the priority was clearly set on Peru’s Upper

Huallaga Valley. As the decade drew to a close, this priority on the Upper Huallaga would prove

necessary to confront escalated attacks on CORAH workers and increasing public unrest from a

rural population facing violence from both militant organizations and government eradication

forces. Pinched in the middle, rural communities sought new methods of organization to combat

the growing pressure from all sides. Their mobilization would dictate how U.S. foreign policy

38

concerning the drug war evolved in the late 1980s, shifting from an insistence on chemical

solutions to increased interdiction and voluntary cooperation from peasant farmers, whose

collective voices they could no longer ignore.51

Consequences of Peasant Mobilization Against Eradication Expansion

In October 1988, CORAH workers faced similar instances of violence and public

demonstrations throughout the valley. On 20 October, 150 CORAH workers were working in

Nueva Esperanza when approximately 60 or 70 presumed “narco-terrorists”–the number was

never confirmed–attacked the company. The skirmish carried on for roughly two hours, with

minimal assailant casualties recovered by Civil Guard forces. CORAH and Civil Guard forces

listed no casualties after the ambush, though this omission could be seen as tactical for the

purposes of political morale. Assistant Director of Manual Eradication Santiago Trujillo reported

the incident to Ambassador Watson on October 24, noting the troubling revelation that the

assailants were clad in Civil Guard issued anti-drug camouflage uniforms. The militants’

presence forced CORAH forces to once again relocate to another section of the Upper Huallaga

Valley, limiting desired progress of coca eradication and reaffirming the necessity of a new

strategy to address the growing resistance to said programs throughout the valley. Ambassador

Watson noted on one such strategy, the implementation of mechanical string trimmers that would

exponentially increase the volume and efficiency of manual coca eradication. His pleas to

Washington for more trimmers expressed desperation at the lack of substantial progress with

manual eradication. Its slow advances throughout the valley remained a testament to the extreme

51 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “Ambassador Discusses Economic, Aid, Democracy and Human Rights Issues with President Garcia,” October 7, 1988, document PE00437, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; “PRG Meeting on Peru, Tuesday, October 25 at 3:30pm,” State Department briefing memorandum, document PE00443, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

39

vulnerability of ground forces to both violent attacks from militant groups and mass

demonstrations carried out by rural farmers.52

Soon after the ambush at Nueva Esperanza, a group of 250 farmers–identified as coca

growers–challenged CORAH workers recently transported by helicopter to Uchiza for

eradication operations on October 26. These farmers “[waved Peruvian flags and machetes” in

protest of continued manual coca eradication efforts throughout the region. Men, women, and

children filled the protesters’ ranks. They represented an expanding network of local, rural “anti-

eradication committees.” They accused CORAH workers–and eradication programs overall–of

removing the only available source of a living income by targeting all coca production in the

Upper Huallaga Valley. After a brief standoff, CORAH and Civil Guard forces evacuated the

area. Ambassador Watson viewed the added pressure from Peruvian farmers as a sign of success,

making no distinction between rural peasants and narco-traffickers with regards to the different

kinds of resistance presented by each. This anti-eradication committee represented a trend of

development within rural Peruvian communities during the 1980s, one that responded to both

government eradication forces and militant groups like the Sendero Luminoso. Roughly 175 such

committees grouped together to establish the Defense Front Against Coca Eradication in the

Upper Huallaga (FEDECAH) and the Agrarian Federation of the Selva Maestra (FASMA).

These federations defended peasant communities against the increasingly violent acts of the

Sendero Luminoso, while also providing a platform for the social and political voice of peasant

communities to challenge the intensification of eradication programs and the desire–from both

domestic and American officials–to move toward herbicide-spraying. This chemical option

would come to the forefront of political discussions in 1989, with an increasingly unstable 52 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “CORAH Workers Ambushed on October 20,” October 24, 1988, document PE00444, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

40

situation in the Upper Huallaga threatening to halt–and even remove–U.S. support for

interdiction and eradication programs.53

The Turning Point: Destabilization and Lack of Security in the Upper Huallaga

Operation Snowcap and Condor stalled significantly in 1989, with almost no interdiction

operations carried out in January. This lack of U.S. aid and airpower was predicated on the lack

of guaranteed security on the ground from Peruvian police and Civil Guard forces, which

allowed for sporadic attacks throughout the Upper Huallaga. Sendero Luminoso militants

maintained a firm grip on much of the valley. Continued efforts to expand and enforce coca

eradication programs eliminated nearly all rural support of the Peruvian government, creating

greater hostility and vulnerability throughout the region. On January 13, CORAH workers

sustained gunfire, but with no casualties on either side, forcing helicopters to move supplies to a

new site as a precaution. Another small-scale attack confronted CORAH workers several days

later, on January 18. The workers were being dropped into Uchiza when gunfire assaulted them

on the landing zone. Once again, there were no casualties, but one of the helicopters sustained

damage to the main rotor and was forced to stay overnight at Tingo Maria for maintenance.

These minor attacks still heightened the urgency among U.S. officials for a more stable security

situation in the Upper Huallaga, one that would ensure the success of their coca eradication

policies and the safety of their equipment, investments, and advisors on the ground. To achieve

this security, however, they would have to fundamentally transform their strategies against illicit

coca cultivation. They needed to answer to the long neglected demands of peasant farmers

throughout the Upper Huallaga Valley for alternative development and crop substitution

53 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “Increasing Organized Harassment of CORAH Workers in the UHV,” October 28, 1988, document PE00446, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; Thoumi, Illegal Drugs, Economy, and Society in the Andes, 295

41

programs that could supplement their shift away from coca. These alternative solutions were not

fully considered until the end of the year. More attacks, along with increased social and political

instability, would cement their necessity, and force U.S. officials to rethink their anti-coca

policies.54

February 4, 1989, two helicopters sustained heavy damage during an emergency

extraction of eradication forces just south of Santa Lucia. The hull of one of the helicopters

fractured due to the onslaught from automatic weapons, with debris puncturing the leg of one of

the co-pilots, while the overall damage sustained from the attack forced both crews to return to

Santa Lucia for repairs and safety, rather than continue on their flight back to Tingo Maria.

Ambassador Watson determined that even with increased mobility provided by helicopters, the

process of dropping off and retrieving eradication workers still left operations too vulnerable to

ambush attacks. Responding to this damaging attack, U.S. officials ordered a temporary

shutdown of their air fleet being used to support eradication and interdiction efforts throughout

the region. Ambassador Watson noted that the shutdown was necessary due to the extreme lack

of security and proper support for these programs within the progressively unstable surroundings

of the Upper Huallaga Valley. Though eradication forces had experienced no serious casualties

in recent skirmishes, Watson felt that the risk remained too high, especially with attacks

becoming more frequent at landing zones–such attacks threatened both the lives of the workers

and the multi-million dollar choppers that provided them the necessary mobility to target remote

coca fields. As a result of this shutdown, U.S. officials redirected all remaining helicopters and

aircraft to the final construction of the eradication base at Santa Lucia, and to support herbicide

spray testing scheduled the following month, on March 6. This scheduled test garnered 54 Drug Enforcement Administration, “After Action Report – Upper Huallaga Valley – January 16-20, 1989,” January 24, 1989, document PE00470, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

42

significant support from U.S. officials, becoming a top priority issue in the months to come as a

possible solution to alleviate the inherent risks of manual eradication. Herbicide spraying,

however, would not be met without substantial controversy, and without counter measures taken

by growers–both licit and illicit–to limit its feasibility.55

Ambassador Watson stressed the importance of this spray test in the context of the

increasing instability of the Upper Huallaga as a whole. The valley had devolved into a hotbed of

violence, with Sendero Luminoso militants–along with other revolutionary movements–harassing

CORAH workers on the ground and in the air, while peasant farmers protested any eradication

developments that could harm their livelihood, demonstrating in the streets. For Watson, aerial

eradication presented a solution to this growing risk of retaliation and the recent shutdown of

U.S. air support for expanded projects throughout the valley. Though extensive casualties were

avoided for quite some time, 1988 had witnessed an increase in violence and deaths throughout

the country. Therefore, he still believed that the risk was far too high to rely on manual

eradication on the ground. Aerial eradication would provide a means of reducing the cost of

trimming equipment and personnel, while providing more focused security for a concentrated

fleet of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Still, this was not a perfect plan, and many obstacles–

besides the ones already discussed–remained in the way of its implementation.56

Watson noted to Washington that the first obstacle to this test spray was highly political.

Any plans or programs labeled with American influences were always met with public outrage

55 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “Ground-fire Against Eradication RW Aircraft in UHV,” February 6, 1989, document PE00475, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; U.S Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “Narcotics Security: Temporary Shutdown of U.S. Support of Interdiction/Eradication,” February 11, 1989, document PE00478, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University 56 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “Need for Immediate Narcotics Policy Review,” February 16, 1989, document PE00481, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

43

and intensified attacks throughout the valley. As he aptly stated, this test spray “must be seen in

Peru as a Peruvian initiative” to ensure the possibility of moving forward with aerial eradication.

However vital, the scheduled test was a month out, and even after testing, adequate results could

take a series of more tests to confirm the safety and efficacy of aerial eradication. Not only

would these tests be time-consuming, but they would also prove to be inadequate to address the

growing trend of illicit coca growers who sought refuge in national forests and jungles,

ecosystems that could be devastatingly vulnerable to the introduction of herbicides in aerial

eradication. Under secretary of State for Political Affairs Michael Armacost echoed these

concerns in a report to the Embassy in Lima, in which he acknowledged the necessity of

Ambassador Watson’s shutdown to help with “regrouping” Peruvian and American efforts.

Armacost emphasized the need for more accurate intelligence gathering to combat guerrilla

movements, improved clarity between American and Peruvian officials to improve cooperative

efforts, and the implementation of DEA Operation San Andreas. This plan would focus on

paramilitary methods of interdiction in the Upper Huallaga, relying on aggressive force to

combat both revolutionary movements and narco-traffickers. More cooperation between

Peruvian police and military forces was also desperately required to ensure the success of these

goals. The violence had grown too extensive for police forces and the Civil Guard to combat

alone. Military manpower and firepower were needed to defend eradication efforts from the

threat of violence that was now spreading from the Upper Huallaga to even the capital, Lima.57

57 Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Michael Armacost, State Department, “NSC Review of UHV Counternarcotics Operations,” February, 25, 1989, document PE00485, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “Need for Immediate Narcotics Policy Review,” February 16, 1989, document PE00481, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

44

Militants from Sendero Luminoso and Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru began

to target Lima and various other cities outside of the Upper Huallaga Valley in the late 1980s.

The death toll had risen drastically since the earliest skirmishes in 1986. Estimates were as high

as 2,000 dead in 1988, with 400 total deaths in November alone. Along with the rising death toll,

the Peruvian economy continued to struggle under the weight of counterinsurgency programs

and expectations. U.S. pressure remained on coca eradication as the primary, cooperative goal–

much of U.S. aid hinged on the Peruvian government’s continued support of such programs. The

level of danger was clearly evident to both Peruvian and U.S. officials, as Ambassador Watson

noted prior to the Attorney General’s visit to the country to assess the progression of eradication

operations. Herbicide spraying remained the prime objective for Watson and other U.S. officials

to minimize the risk of direct violence on the ground, though the testing of suitable herbicides for

this program were delayed to some time between March 15 and 17. In reality, no concrete time

was given at this point, therefore signifying a growing hesitation on the part of the Peruvian

government, which had seen a deteriorating support base in both the rural peasant communities

and the military to support such programs. This hesitation continued to delay the return of full

U.S. air support to interdiction and manual eradication campaigns throughout the valley. The

violence would continue unchallenged, damaging more helicopters and bases of operation,

further crippling the efficiency of these strategies. It would be another month before U.S.

officials reconsidered renewed air support to the Upper Huallaga Valley.58

By April, U.S. officials were debating the reinstatement of air support and financial

investment for eradication projects throughout the valley. Secretary of State James Baker

58 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “Attorney General Visit: Threat Assessment,” March 1, 1989, document PE00486, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “Narcotics: Criteria for Operations Startup,” March 23, 1989, document PE00499, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

45

informed Ambassador Watson of the necessity expressed by other U.S. officials for the arming

of the eradication base of operations at Santa Lucia. The base needed to install proper defenses to

combat increasing violence from militant organizations and provide adequate security to ensure

the return of American air support to the Upper Huallaga. These possible defenses included “M-

60 machine guns, mines, 60mm mortars, flares, and night vision devices,” along with new

helopads to provide the necessary infrastructure to house and maintain American aircraft. Along

with this overhaul of Santa Lucia, Baker insisted on a greater cooperation with the Peruvian

military, which would provide the necessary forces to successfully defend CORAH workers out

in the field. Much of this restructuring of the security infrastructure at Santa Lucia was in

response to contracted jet companies who saw the violence and social unrest in the valley as

detrimental to their planes and pilots. In response to Baker’s message and series of questions

concerning the restart of U.S. air support, Ambassador Watson addressed these companies’

hesitation to continue supplying equipment for air support, which necessitated the shutdown, and

influenced these demands for more developed security in the valley. The companies are

regrettably not named, but their involvement was clearly vital to U.S. coca eradication efforts

and their withdrawal of support clearly damaged cooperative relations with Peruvian officials,

Civil Guard forces, and CORAH workers. Also pushing this reinstatement of U.S. air support

was newly appointed Commander of the emergency zone in the Upper Huallaga, General

Alberto Arciniega. Arciniega approached the need for greater U.S. support through a different

perception on the unrest in the valley, providing a clear contrast with the black-and-white

perception held by most American officials.59

59 Secretary of State James Baker, “NSC Review of UHV Operations,” April 11, 1989, document PE00511, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “NSC Review of UHV Operations: Embassy Response to ad hoc Peru UHV Ops Review Committee,” April 14, 1989, document PE00514, digital

46

General Arciniega immediately requested renewed American support for interdiction

projects and the fight against Sendero Luminoso militants throughout the valley upon taking

command of the emergency zone. On April 18, Ambassador Watson met with Arciniega to

discuss the feasibility of American military support–equipment and training primarily–and to

address the General’s interests on crop substitution programs. Once a dominant feature of U.S.

and Peruvian anti-coca policy, crop substitution fell as a secondary objective in the face of

increasing unrest in the valley. Crop substitution would focus on providing peasant farmers with

the means to grow alternative crops that could remove the focus on coca cultivation. This

included providing seeds, new tools, and, of course, subsidizing these new crops by removing

coca. Arciniega recognized that many peasant farmers were being pinched throughout the Upper

Huallaga. On one side, government officials labeled them as guilty, along with narco-traffickers

and guerrilla militants, for the expansion in illicit coca production and the ensuing violence. On

the other, militant organizations coercively incorporated their labor to rely solely on coca

production and processing, leaving them with the choice of either cooperation or death. As

discussed earlier, many peasant communities developed defense committees to combat these

pressures, and it appears that Arciniega recognized not only their opposition, but also their

position between such competing forces. Coca was highly profitable, however, during the boom

of the 1980s, and many peasants would not earn a livable income without it. Due to this,

Arciniega requested substantial economic and technological aid to assist peasant farmers’

transition from coca to alternative crops. It must be noted, however, that Arciniega shared a

developmental ideology echoed by many U.S. officials, noting that the end goal for this aid

would be to transform the Upper Huallaga into an “Agro-Industrial complex,” which would

collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

47

inevitably remove many peasant farmers from the land and cause significant ecological

consequences for the valley. Still, Arciniega saw the benefit in aiding rural Peruvians in their

fight against these outside pressures, something that Watson categorically opposed. The

Ambassador reminded the General that due to Peruvian law, all coca in the valley was illicit, and

thus subject to destruction rather than substitution, aid, or subsidization. In the comment report

on the meeting, Watson jeered the General’s seemingly gullible naivety toward the plight of

peasant farmers, a perception that fomented further rural unrest against U.S.-backed eradication

policies throughout the valley.60

Up to this point, eradication remained the dominant feature of U.S. and Peruvian anti-

coca strategy. Years of violence, coupled with social unrest among the farmers, inspired an

abrupt change in Peruvian officials, one that would define future anti-drug policies in the Upper

Huallaga, and even neighboring Bolivia who, years before, rejected U.S. backed eradication

policies and herbicide spraying strategies.

President Alan Garcia demonstrated this shift in policy during a surprise three-day trip

throughout the valley in May 1989. He addressed many peasant farmers in troubled areas like

Tocache and Uchiza, who desired renewed efforts for crop substitution programs. He insisted

that crop substitution–not eradication–was the real solution to illicit coca production in the

valley, as well as the economic struggle of farmers to find new substantial means of living.

Eradication, according to Garcia, merely served to drive peasant farmers toward militant

organizations and into dependency on the crop itself. He also condemned the use of herbicides

such as Spike–a prospect that many rural farmers had protested for years. This condemnation

was in light of the possible environmental damage the chemicals could cause on arable farmland 60 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “New UHV Commander Requests U.S. Assistance,” April 18, 1989, document PE00516, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

48

and the surrounding ecosystem. It is important to note, however, that in spite of this opposition to

these environmental hazards, many farmers supported increases in land clearance to develop

more farmland for alternative crops. Such clearances substantially reduced native jungles

throughout the Upper Huallaga, causing severe ecological damage. Contradictions aside,

Garcia’s support of crop substitution over eradication, and his public rejection of herbicide

spraying marked a shift in Peruvian anti-drug policy. This shift was made clearer later that

month, in which conversations between American and Peruvian officials revealed a wholesale

rejection of involuntary coca eradication from the Peruvian military that reflected Garcia’s

message to peasant farmers in Uchiza and Tocache. This shift centered on the military’s and the

government’s goal of directly addressing the growing threat of militant forces throughout the

valley. The military suggested this “de-emphasizing” of eradication would garner the support of

peasant farmers long disillusioned by destructive government policies, and split the perceived

alliance between narco-traffickers and militant organizations like the Sendero Luminoso. Clearly,

this new strategy alarmed U.S. officials. Ambassador Watson noted that this plan would enable

coca production to continue to grow, thus nullifying years of eradication work and undermining

the war on drugs. Though a commitment to interdiction seemed to be shared by both the

Peruvian military and American officials, there remained an uneasy tension between the two that

would threaten U.S. support and aid in the valley.61

This initial rejection of eradication was soon challenged, both from Peruvian domestic

pressures and U.S. insistence on the necessity of such programs. But its implications for anti-

drug policy in the future cannot be understated. Resulting from the demonstrations of thousands

61 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “Garcia Visits the UHV,” May 3, 1989, document PE00525, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “GOP/Military to De-emphasize Eradication,” May 13, 1989, document PE00532, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

49

of Peruvian farmers, an unstoppable shift in anti-drug policy would overtake eradication in the

1990s and dictate how U.S. foreign policy would react to preserve its objectives in the Upper

Huallaga.

The Dawn of a New Decade and New Strategies

Closing out the tumultuous 1980s, Peruvian officials continued their mixed message–to

farmers and American officials–concerning their proposed strategies for addressing illicit coca in

the Upper Huallaga Valley in the 1990s. Debates raged on the legitimacy of rural coca growers

throughout the region, many of which had moved to the region to capitalize on the increased

prices of the crop during the boom of the 1980s. Their presence in the valley provided pro-

eradication officials, such as Police Drug Chief General Juan Zarate Gambini, with a means of

discrediting General Arciniega’s emphasis on the legitimacy of indigenous coca growers and

their protests against manual and chemical eradication strategies. Zarate insisted that Arciniega’s

plan to help these illegitimate growers would lead to greater environmental degradation of the

Upper Huallaga through massive deforestation for phony crop alternative projects that would

merely provide more acreage for coca cultivation expansion. To combat this possible expansion

while avoiding causing public unrest, Zarate suggested the eradication of young seedbeds,

therefore directing coca eradication not toward mature plants, but toward “increases in coca

production.” With the completion of improved defenses at Santa Lucia, and this altered

eradication strategy, pro-eradication officials on both sides could prolong their aggressive

strategies and keep pushing for further expansion in the 1990s. This, however, would not remove

the specter of rural unrest. That unrest set in motion the idea of interdiction and crop substitution

as more suitable solutions to the coca problem, solutions that favored rural growers and shifted

aggressive policies from the fields to the air. Trafficker planes would become the center of

50

concern for U.S. and Peruvian policy makers, and their adjustments in strategies would directly

reflect the influence of these farmers.62

Demonstrations, protests, and militant violence caused increasing hesitation on the part of

Peruvian officials to commit to aggressive coca eradication. They minimized the possibility of

the successful implementation of chemical eradication in Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley,

angering pro-eradication officials on either side. This subject was featured across a wide

spectrum of media sources, reflecting the deep influence of this concentrated resistance to

intensified coca eradication in Bolivia and Peru during the 1980s. Magazines, newspapers,

business and trade journals all underscored the importance of this resistance in shaping U.S.

foreign policy strategy on coca eradication, and hindering its cooperation with key, vital allies in

its war on drugs. Their coverage and commentary further reflected this growing need for an

overhaul of anti-coca strategies, an overhaul that would further impede the use of herbicides in

the 1990s, and lead to their final rejection by the end of the decade. The sindicatos in Bolivia’s

Chapare provided a model for peasant mobilization against these chemical solutions. This model

of communal organization was reflected in Peruvian anti-eradication committees, and in mass

demonstrations throughout the Upper Huallaga. Such efforts were the key to successively

resisting aerial herbicide eradication programs, and these two countries’ rural populations were

the vital component to this resistance.

62 Chargé d’affaires Mark Dion, U.S. Embassy in Lima, “Santa Lucia Forward Base Update,” November 14, 1989, document PE00601, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; U.S. Ambassador to Peru Alexander F. Watson, “Indications of GOP “Softening” on Anti-Eradication Stance,” June 10, 1989, document PE00549, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

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CHAPTER 2

A MEDIA FIRESTORM AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF ANTI-COCA STRATEGIES

Herbicides and the Consequences of Resistance in American Media

Various American news outlets and trade publications during the mid and late 1980s

echoed the growing limitations of chemical eradication seen within this long series of

correspondence between U.S. and Peruvian officials. Conrad B. MacKerron, a writer for

Chemical Week, illustrated the reasoning behind Eli Lilly and Dow’s refusal to provide

herbicides, such as Spike, for spray campaigns in Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley. The companies

saw their prospective involvement in the U.S. war on drugs as a possible invitation for cartels

and Sendero Luminoso militants to target their personnel and various operations in South

America. Concerns over liability for possibly negative environmental consequences of the use of

Spike and other herbicides for coca eradication also plagued the companies, since at the time

many of these chemicals had not been sufficiently tested and cleared for aerial sprays.

These fears were corroborated by the resignation of Walter Gentner, a senior member of

the U.S. Department of Agriculture. His actions protested the U.S. State Department and

Department of Agriculture’s lack of further testing of Spike and other herbicides to ensure a

thorough understanding of their environmental impact. Preliminary tests, according to Gentner,

had demonstrated Spike’s long-term potency in the soil, killing all plants that were introduced to

the poisoned sample. The Upper Huallaga’s terrain and wet climate also presented the possibility

for chemical run-off, which Gentner stressed could contaminate streams, rivers, and even

groundwater. Greenpeace Information Coordinator Sandra Marquardt echoed this concern,

52

noting the failure of the State Department’s recent tests and their complete lack of consideration

concerning the local environment in the valley. She claimed further that Eli Lilly had not yet

conducted necessary “long-term health studies” on their herbicides, such as Spike, to allow for

continued domestic agricultural use of their chemical compounds in the U.S. through EPA

approval. Reinforcing this opposition, Gentner insisted on further “environmental and health

testing of the herbicides” to avoid such contaminations. These environmental consequences

would assuredly damage U.S. relations with not only Peru, but neighboring countries as well

who remained undecided on the use of these chemicals against illicit coca eradication. Gentner’s

opposition presented one of many instances of American domestic resistance to the

implementation of herbicide sprays in Peru’s Upper Huallaga, further pressuring U.S. and

Peruvian officials to reconsider the feasibility of pushing for these chemical solutions. The added

pressure from growing international environmental organizations corroborated the fears

presented by U.S. officials, like Gentner, who remained skeptical of the efficacy and viability of

using herbicides for coca eradication in Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley.63

The New York Times highlighted this pressure in 1988, addressing the desires of

companies like Dow and Lilly to receive indemnity from possible lawsuits, should their products

prove harmful to the environment in Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley. Eli Lilly & Company had

sustained mounting pressure from environmental groups, such as Greenpeace International, to

withdraw its herbicides entirely from U.S. anti-narcotics strategy, undoubtedly increasing the

company’s fears over impending litigation. Recent lawsuits against Dow, and the larger Midland

chemical conglomerate, over the long-term effects of Agent Orange had forced these companies

to reconsider their involvement in the drug war. Dow had recently committed two shipments of

63 Conrad B. MacKerron, “Lilly and Dow Won’t Fight, For Safety’s Sake,” Chemical Week, June 22, 1988, http://search.proquest.com/docview/222440747?accountid=14537 Accessed 10/17/2014

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its herbicide, Garlon-4, for testing on coca, but the heavy financial losses in these previous

settlements pushed the company to balk on its commitment to U.S. eradication efforts. The U.S.

government continued their insistence on these chemical compounds’ necessity in coca

eradication, however, stressing the ongoing testing of various herbicides on a patch of coca

grown near Washington D.C. in a secret compound. These tests demonstrated the resilience of

coca to most commercial herbicides, with many plants simply responding to treatment by

budding new leaves shortly after the withering of the former. Spike tebuthiuron proved to be the

most effective at killing the tough plant, though this potency did little to sway the fears of the

potentiall environmental and health risks it presented to rural communities and the local

environment. In response to these concerns, Eric Rosenquist, program officer for the Bureau of

International Narcotics Matters in the State Department, insisted that safety testing of herbicides

like Spike fell under the EPA’s responsibility, and therefore was a separate matter. The EPA

publicly rejected such responsibility claims, creating further ambiguity on the use of herbicides

for coca eradication projects throughout the Andes.64

These environmental contestations were equally prevalent within Peru and Bolivia, as

demonstrated by various domestic environmental groups. LIDEMA, previously discussed in

chapter, provided rural Bolivians with an invaluable ally and advocate against the adverse effects

of coca processing and the use of herbicides in aerial eradication. The organization presented

their environmental and economic concerns on a greater national scale, ensuring the

government’s rejection of herbicides in aerial eradication in the Chapare. In Peru, the Peruvian

Federation for Nature Conservation stationed in Lima ramped up its opposition to such

64 Clifford D. May, “U.S. Secretly Grows Coca to Find Ways to Destroy Cocaine’s Source,” The New York Times, June 12, 1988, http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/12/us/us-secretly-grows-coca-to-find-way-to-destroy-cocaine-s-source.html?pagewanted=all Accessed 11/25/2014; Mark Day, Reginald Rhein, Jr., and Jeffrey Ryser, “Are Chemical Makers AWOL in the War on Drugs?” Business Week, September 5, 1988

54

programs, providing another source of resistance that influenced President Garcia’s growing

hesitation toward their implementation, and any further cooperation with the U.S. Other

organizations strengthened this opposition, such as the National Environmental Health Council.

Livia Benavides, a member of the council, noted that most Peruvian ecologists rejected the use

of Spike tebuthiuron in the valley, citing the need for the Peruvian government to conduct “an

environmental impact study.” Pro-eradication officials in Congress would not take this

opposition lightly, providing a counter narrative to demonstrate the pre-existing environmental

consequences caused by processing coca, a factor that they believed far outweighed these other

environmental and public health concerns.65

In response to this rhetoric framing the use of herbicides as a possible environmental

catastrophe, American government officials cited the present environmental damage induced by

expansive coca cultivation and processing in the Upper Huallaga Valley. Ann Wrobleski,

Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics, expounded this counter narrative, citing

figures drawn from the Peruvian government highlighting narco-traffickers’ “[dumping] some

100 million liters of harmful chemicals into the [Upper Huallaga’s] rivers” in 1986. The EPA

complicated these assertions by explaining Spike’s possibly harmful effects on cropland and

native vegetation, hurting local food sources and presenting a public health crisis if the herbicide

“[leached] into the groundwater.” These concerns reflected objections by U.S. officials such as

Gentner, and environmental organizations, who remained fundamentally opposed to the use of

herbicides in the fragile ecosystem of the Upper Huallaga, a wet environment that further

increased the possibility of chemical runoff into local river networks and groundwater.

Wrobleski rejected such concerns, claiming that farmers in the region were there for one reason,

65 Mark Day, Reginald Rhein, Jr., and Jeffrey Ryser, “Are Chemical Makers AWOL in the War on Drugs?” Business Week, September 5, 1988

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and one reason only: to grow coca for profit and processing. She lumped peasants, who moved to

the region either by economic necessity or government programs, with narco-traffickers,

ignoring the economic disparity that drew many growers to the profits from the decade’s coca

boom, while ambiguously claiming that the valley “[was] not suitable for crops.” Providing

further evidence for her dismissal of the case against the use of herbicides in coca eradication,

she cited a recent visit to an illicit coca farm occupied by eradication and interdiction forces in

Peru–the precise location was not disclosed, either by Wrobleski or the Business Week article. In

this visit she witnessed, “large containers of herbicides used to clear vegetation” were held in a

shed on the farm. This finding, according to Wrobleski, supported her claim that expanded coca

cultivation and processing were the real threats to the Upper Huallaga Valley’s environment,

leaving eradication by any means as the only comprehensive response. This line of thought

dominated U.S. foreign policy in Peru and Bolivia for much of the decade, as seen in the

previous chapter. However, the insistence on escalating and expanding eradication efforts proved

to magnify coca’s presence throughout the valley, creating new problems for American and

Peruvian officials.66

Peter Andreas reported on these newly developing issues in an article for The Nation.

Returning from a three-month trip to Peru, Andreas discussed many of the issues laid out in other

contemporary reports, by both pro-eradication and anti-eradication sources. He corroborated the

fact that many growers throughout the Upper Huallaga were indeed “colonists,” who were not

just enticed by coca, but also by government programs that proposed agrarian development

during the 1960s and 1970s. The failure of these programs, according to Andreas, was a major

factor driving many of these farmers toward coca cultivation. The boom of the 1980s provided a 66 Mark Day, Reginald Rhein, Jr., and Jeffrey Ryser, “Are Chemical Makers AWOL in the War on Drugs?” Business Week, September 5, 1988; Richard Stengel, “To Spike or Not to Spike: Targeting Peru’s coca crop,” Time, June 27, 1988

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substantial profit, one that could sustain the farmers and their families. Andreas noted that steady

increases each year in financial aid, equipment, and personnel for coca eradication from the U.S.

during this period, which were met by expanding coca cultivation in the valley, supporting

concerns expressed by American officials in the previous chapter. However, rather than support

further escalations of eradication efforts, Andreas insisted that many expansions to such

programs throughout the decade served to drive growers to plant in more environmentally fragile

areas in an effort to evade eradication forces. These new areas would include native jungles and

national parks, presenting a host of new problems for both sides to consider. New areas of

cultivation would mean more defoliation and destruction of native habitats by new fields.

Moving to aerial eradication with herbicides, however, would expose native foliage and animals

to potentially harmful chemicals, inciting legal action from the various organizations discussed

earlier. Lastly, this escalation in eradication would incite further social unrest among peasant

farmers, revolutionary militants, and narco-traffickers, whose resistance continued to shape

future policy.67

Michael Massing, a writer for The New Republic, complimented much of the information

discussed throughout these various journals, papers, and magazines, adding key details

supporting the inevitable policy shift to come in the 1990s. Massing used his recent trip to

Colombia’s Guaviare region to demonstrate the precarious nature of using herbicides, such as

Spike, against agriculturally diverse fields. The farm he visited only maintained roughly five of

its one hundred acres dedicated to coca, while banana and cocoa took up the remaining space.

Assuming that the Colombian government were to accept Spike as a viable option to eradicate

this coca, he posited–quite aptly considering the herbicide’s potency–that not only would the

67 Peter Andreas, “The U.S. Drug War in Peru,” The Nation, 247, no. 4, (August 13, 1988): 127-130, Academic Search Complete, EBSCO host, (accessed October 21, 2014)

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coca be successfully destroyed, but also the entire field as a whole. It is important to note that

Colombia would in fact utilize herbicides during the war on drugs well into the 21st century. Still,

Massing’s example does support the growing concern among environmental groups and native

coca growers in Peru and Bolivia. In Bolivia, the government completely banned the use of

herbicides during the mid-1980s, influenced significantly by rural growers and the National

Association of Coca Growers, one of the lobbies that politically represented them–approximately

70,000 farmers were represented by such organizations. Massing concluded that any escalation

toward this chemical solution to the coca problem would serve to cultivate greater unrest, and

social upheaval among rural communities, whose economic struggles were long ignored by their

own government, and U.S. officials narrowly focused on providing aid for coca eradication

expansion.68

By presenting these competing environmental concerns, these various news outlets

provided a public exposé underscoring the social and political resistance, both domestic and

international that pushed against the intensification of eradication efforts by U.S. officials, who

had hoped to implement large-scale test spraying by 1989. Rather than its successful

implementation, U.S. officials saw the possibility of herbicides slip away with the new decade,

as interdiction efforts expanded, shifting the focus away from farmers growing coca to the

traffickers processing and shipping the finished product abroad. The new focus of escalating

drug war efforts would center on both these traffickers and the persistent presence of

revolutionary militants throughout the Upper Huallaga Valley. For rural peasant communities in

Peru and Bolivia, their collective organization and resistance would dictate the growth of crop

68 Michael Massing, “The air war on drugs: Coke Dusters,” The New Republic 200, no. 5 (January 30, 1989): 21-23, Academic Search Complete, EBSCO host, (accessed October 21, 2014)

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alternative and voluntary eradication programs, both of which they would work to mediate, and

negotiate with their respective governments.

Policy Changes in the 1990s and the End of Herbicides in Peru and Bolivia

By 1989, American and Peruvian officials faced seemingly endless pressure against the

escalation of coca eradication efforts throughout target Andean nations. Bolivia suspended the

use of herbicides, such as Spike, as early as 1986. By 1988, they officially outlawed any future

use of herbicides in the war on drugs, permanently scrapping U.S. eradication strategies and

forcing a drastic shift toward crop substitution and voluntary eradication programs, discussed in

chapter 1. The sindicatos provided Bolivian peasants, and indigenous communities throughout

neighboring Peru, with an effective model for social organization and collective resistance.

These organizations confronted coca eradication forces on the ground and on a larger national

stage, through public demonstrations, lawsuits, and national coca lobbies that placed increasing

pressure on the Bolivian government to protect peasant farmers. Following this mode of

organization, Peruvian peasant farmers established the numerous defense committees that

formed national fronts against their government’s compliance with American coca eradication

strategies, both manual and aerial. This collective resistance exerted considerable influence on

U.S. foreign policy throughout the 1980s. Coupled with the rise in revolutionary militant

violence from groups like the Sendero Luminoso, this combative front reshaped American

strategies for the war on drugs by 1990, pushing aerial eradication steadily toward their

neighbors to the north and introducing new policies that would increasingly shift aggressive

focus away from peasant farmers.

With the incoming Bush Administration in January 1989, strategies against illicit coca

began a slow, but steady, transformation through a new five-year plan known initially as NSD-

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18, or the “International Narcotics Strategy.” President Bush signed the plan on August 21, 1989,

hoping to expand anti-narcotics efforts throughout target countries such as Colombia, Peru, and

Bolivia. This expansion, however, would not mirror the constant escalations of coca eradication

efforts seen throughout the 1980s. It adjusted the fiscal year budget for 1990 to supply necessary

funds to jumpstart the overall plan’s $2 billion price tag. This included $119 million–originally

the entire budget for that fiscal year–plus $142 million that would be split to fund military aid,

law enforcement training, and the development of improved intelligence programs. These funds

would primarily come from the Department of Defense, though the DEA would contribute

exclusively to shoring up law enforcement on the ground. The interesting development with this

massive overhaul in funding was the inclusion of economic aid for Peru and Bolivia, increasing

each year of the five-year plan. As seen in chapter 1, Peruvian and Bolivian farmers mobilized

against coca eradication efforts, decrying such efforts as an attack on their livelihoods and their

way of life. The weak economic state of both countries made coca cultivation the only profitable

option, leading many farmers to urge their governments to focus more on crop substitution

programs and financial aid for more stable agricultural development throughout the Chapare and

the Upper Huallaga Valley, rather than uproot and destroy their fields. Their protests evidently

pushed both their own governments, and U.S. foreign policy, towards a much different solution

to coca than the aggressive measures relied upon during the latter half of the 1980s.69

This is not to say that these funds did not continue support for offensive strategies against

narco-trafficker compounds, processing laboratories, and hidden airstrips, but that the aggressive

stance toward coca was fundamentally shifted away from peasant farmers. Funding for economic

aid and internal development projects corroborated this shift, with economic aid nearly twice that 69 Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Robert Michael Kimmitt, “Official–Informal,” August 28, 1989, document PE00576, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

60

of military assistance in Bolivia and Peru by 1992. For 1993 and 1994, funding for economic

relief and development programs would outpace all other sectors of financial assistance, capping

at $100 million of the total respective budgets for Bolivia and Peru. Bolivia was projected to

receive $146 million in aid during these peak years while Peru would receive $461 million;

therefore this appropriation of economic aid was truly substantial. Much of this initial economic

assistance listed in the preliminary budget did not include non-drug programs, which would be

added later, significantly increasing financial aid for overall economic stabilization and relief to

peasant farmers. Overall, this aid would work toward three central objectives: 1.) To stabilize the

political and infrastructural conditions of participating countries; 2.) Provide improved training

and equipment for military and law enforcement to better combat narco-traffickers and militants;

3.) and to specifically target trafficking organizations in each country, while also targeting their

shipments and finances internationally. These objectives did not exclude the possibility of

utilizing herbicides in aerial eradication projects wherever possible, though there is a clear

indication that no definitive campaigns were scheduled at this time. American commitment to

such strategies would remain for much of the decade, though with little progression and

increased compromise. By 1990, this five-year plan was presented as the Andean Counterdrug

Implementation Plan, and its primary objectives would demonstrate this shift in U.S. foreign

policy. This shift was thoroughly dictated by militant violence, narco-traffickers, and most

importantly, large-scale peasant mobilization in Peru and Bolivia during the previous decade.70

The Andean Counterdrug Implementation Plan was formally approved in December

1989. Two months later, the presidents of Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and the U.S. met for an

Andean Drug Summit at Cartagena. They signed the Declaration of Cartagena on February 15,

70 Ibid

61

1990, agreeing on two conditions concerning their cooperative efforts against drug trafficking

throughout the region. First, the countries agreed that any future U.S. economic assistance would

be contingent upon each country’s anti-drug efforts and economic reforms, conditions that would

presumably maintain American expectations for anti-drug policies in each country. Second, all

four signees agreed to expand interdiction efforts that would target coca demand, supply, and

overall economic development to ensure political and economic stability in each nation. For Peru

and Bolivia, this measure was vital, since social unrest throughout each nation fomented from

continued economic collapse and the growing divided between government officials and rural

populations who grew to distrust them. Much of the objectives remained the same in this formal

declaration, with an emphasis on maintaining political stability and strength in each participating

country, while also intensifying efforts against trafficker operations, personnel, and finances.

Eradication, however, would carry a specific stipulation for its continued use as an anti-coca

strategy. Any eradication efforts carried out in Peru and Bolivia would be directly coupled with

alternative development programs, such as crop substitution and financial compensation to

peasant farmers for voluntary, or involuntary, coca eradication. As aerial eradication moved

forward in Colombia, the possibility of this chemical solution slipped further away as Bolivian

officials remained staunchly opposed to herbicides, while the prospect of a new government in

Peru gave little promise for a different stance on the subject.71

Due to the economic and social conditions in each country, Peru and Bolivia presented a

challenging case for American officials to continue pressing for aerial herbicide eradication

programs. Pressuring the Bolivian government proved fruitless, since peasant farmers were

recognized as legal growers of coca supplying traditional, domestic demand for the crop. Illicit

71 Andean Counterdrug Implementation Plan, March 1990, document PE00625, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University, 1-4

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growers were offered various options of financial compensation for voluntarily eradicating their

coca crop, or by planting substitute crops. Those farmers who did not comply would be faced

with forced, manual eradication by government forces, though the presence of incentives proved

that mass demonstrations and protests by sindicatos held a lasting effect on domestic and U.S.

anti-drug policies. U.S. economic aid would supply this compensation, since international

demand for cocaine had driven expanded cultivation efforts in the Chapare. Domestic demand

for cocaine in the U.S. still remained a secondary objective to American officials, however,

regardless of this fact. In Peru, herbicides maintained their precarious position similar to the late

1980s, with test sprays confirming the potency of select herbicides against coca, and continued

hesitation by the Peruvian government to utilize them. Peasant defense committees demonstrated

that such projects would be met with continued social unrest, which the Peruvian government

could not afford considering its escalating war with the Sendero Luminoso and revolutionary

movements throughout the Upper Huallaga. President Garcia’s government was nearing an end,

and any new regime would not likely act on aerial herbicide eradication until 1991. Areas

throughout the Upper Huallaga recovered from militant control would face manual eradication in

an altered form. Rather than target growing coca fields, and costing peasant farmers significant

financial losses, coca eradication efforts would center on seedbeds. This would bypass direct

confrontation with farmers’ already planted crops, limiting social unrest and providing greater

opportunities for crop substitution once seedbeds had been neutralized. U.S. economic aid

would, again, help supplement Peruvian officials in their efforts to supply financial

compensation to peasant farmers and to implement alternative programs. To supplement the lack

of herbicide-spraying campaigns in the Chapare and the Upper Huallaga, U.S. officials proposed

a containment plan to secure airways, river networks, and the Peruvian coast, while also

63

disrupting ground operations such as processing and illicit cultivation. This containment policy

would prompt American officials to present the necessity of expanded eradication efforts, though

strictly based on the unique conditions presented by participating countries.72

Yet again, American officials presented test results for effective and environmentally safe

herbicides that could be used in aerial eradication efforts throughout prime coca cultivation

zones, such as Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley which was not yet cut off from the possibility of

such chemical solutions. Early in 1991, such strategies were considered on an individual basis,

based on the possible political and social consequences of their implementation in each

participating country. Bolivia remained focused on voluntary eradication with financial

compensation, along with expanded interdiction efforts targeting trafficking organizations.

Sindicatos and domestic coca lobbies ensured a staunch, collective resistance to aerial herbicide

eradication, making it nearly impossible to negotiate. Coca eradication efforts continued to favor

voluntary eradication with compensation, providing opportunities for peasant farmers, while also

targeting seedbeds and avoiding more mature crops. In Peru, the new administration under

President Alberto Fujimori presented an intriguing development for peasant farmers throughout

the Upper Huallaga Valley, one that could serve to either help or hinder American efforts to

implement aerial herbicide eradication programs in the region.73

President Fujimori’s new administration presented, for the first time, a comprehensive,

official agreement signed with the U.S. to address anti-drug and alternative development policies

72 “FY 91 Andean Implementation Plan: Objective II Sub-plan; Air, Ground, Riverine, and Coca Containment,” March, 1990, document PE00626, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; Andean Counterdrug Implementation Plan, March 1990, document PE00625, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University, 41-42 73 Secretary of State James Baker, “Coca Containment Sub-Plan,” February 28, 1991, document PE00731, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

64

for the Upper Huallaga Valley. Previous negotiations with President Garcia were mostly verbal,

and highly variable, as seen in the late 1980s with his administrations flip-flopping between

staunch eradication and anti-eradication positions. The agreement proposed various aspects of

mutual cooperation between Peru and the U.S., revolving around expanded interdiction against

narco-traffickers and coca seedbed eradication. It also stipulated levels of U.S. military

assistance given to Peru in order to combat the Sendero Luminoso and other militant

organizations which had maintained control over much of the Upper Huallaga during the 1980s.

Of particular importance, the agreement’s characterization of peasant farmers involved in coca

cultivation demonstrated the long-term effects of mass rural mobilization, and the new

administration’s understanding of it. The agreement noted that those peasants who turned to coca

cultivation were driven primarily by poverty, due to the ongoing economic struggles of the

country as a whole. As such, these farmers could not simply be lumped together with narco-

traffickers actively seeking to process the crop for international drug demand. Their needs

required a concentration of economic aid and crop alternative programs to aid in reducing the

expanded coca cultivation throughout the valley. Scholars have labeled this characterization as

the ‘Fujimori Doctrine,’ and attribute it to President Fujimori’s advisor, Hernando De Soto, who

characterized the coca issue as one dictated by poor conditions among rural Peruvians, rather

than simply massive criminal behavior previously assumed by many officials, including

Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Ann Wrobleski. This characterization

would complicate American efforts to revitalize coca eradication efforts, leaving most operations

centered on seedbeds rather than mature crops.74

74 “An Agreement Between the United States of America and Peru on Drug Control and Alternative Development Policy,” May 14, 1991, document PE00757, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; Thoumi, Illegal Drugs, Economy, and Society in the Andes, 133-134

65

Such limitations would not shake American resolve for the implementation of aerial

herbicide eradication in Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley. To pave the way for such programs,

increases in military aid and personnel training for Peruvian anti-drug forces were vital. As

detailed in the budgetary breakdown of President Bush’s five-year Andean Counterdrug

Implementation Plane, American official began ramping up efforts to strengthen intelligence

gathering, alongside a complete overhaul in training anti-coca forces and reinforcement of

eradication bases throughout the valley, such as the hub of operations at Santa Lucia. This

expansion in aid was complemented by an expanded police presence in the valley beginning in

1991. Around 1,750 police forces were stationed in the region for the sole purpose of anti-

narcotics work, and increased interdiction operations that sought to secure rivers, airways, and

various ground operations. As for coca eradication, American officials pressed for a new and

expanded aerial eradication test program that would target anywhere from 12,000 acres to 25,000

acres. Keeping in line with eradication expectations expressed by Peruvian officials, this

proposal included an extensive plan targeting seedbeds as well. Such seedbeds would include

various plots spotted near Uchiza, though not too close to former conflict areas, according to

U.S. officials. These seedbeds were characterized as too young and recently planted, therefore

presumably not intended for rural peasants’ financial sustenance. Targeting these seedbeds,

however, would reignite militant violence against coca eradication forces in valley.75

Attacks on June 16 and 20 destabilized the area around Uchiza soon after seedbed

eradication operations commenced in the summer of 1991. Seizures of 250,000 ounces of

cocaine along with a processing laboratory on June 8 and 13 attracted increased interdiction and

eradication efforts, keeping CORAH forces concentrated in the area and vulnerable to possible 75 Secretary of State James Baker, “Peru Objective II FY-91 Implementation Plan,” June 8, 1991, document PE00768, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

66

attack from resurgent militant forces. Much of the Upper Huallaga Valley was under Sendero

Luminoso control during the late 1980s, but increases in military and police funding for training

and equipment allowed for the slow recovery of strategic points throughout the region. Uchiza

would be another site of confrontation in this back and forth struggle for control over the valley.

On June 20, Peruvian military and police forces cooperatively targeted vital trafficker sites

around Uchiza, neutralizing their operations and seizing more cocaine base in a joint offensive.

Though the mission to restore order was a success, the attacks did not cease. On July 18 guerrilla

forces targeted CORAH workers yet again, presumably from Sendero Luminoso, while working

seedbeds in an undisclosed location in the valley. These attacks ensured the Upper Huallaga’s

continued classification as a military and police emergency zone, a label that would entail

unrestricted force on the part of Peruvian authorities to quell rebellious movements and narco-

traffickers at whatever cost.76

The Upper Huallaga Valley’s classification as an emergency zone allowed for an

unprecedented amount of violence against not just narco-traffickers and Sendero Luminoso

militants, but also peasant communities caught in between. The violence prompted serious

concern from U.S. officials at home and the international community. These official began to

question the legitimacy of such a classification, and the inherent human rights violations that

occurred due to its existence. Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, Chairmen of the

Committee on Foreign Relations, expressed this growing concern to Deputy Secretary of State

Lawrence Eagleburger, noting the persistent instability of the valley resulting from such wanton

violence from all sides. Eagleburger assured Senator Pell of the progress being made in Peru, and

the necessity for such emergency zones in the seemingly endless battle against narcotics

76 “Recent Counterdrug Operations in Peru,” July 31, 1991, document PE00788, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

67

trafficking. He noted the economic gains made under President Fujimori, and the expansive

political and civil rights provided to Peruvians outside of the emergency zone. This comment

clearly ignored the devastating effect of the Aries offensive in 1994, which bombed many

villages that did not necessarily contain narco-traffickers or militant guerrillas. As noted before,

the economic state of the country under Garcia, and for much of the1980s, was complete

disarray. Any economic improvement was appreciable, and Fujimori’s emphasis on alternative

crop and development programs provided some means of recovery. Other than this progress,

much of Eagleburger’s response to Senator Pell remained narrowly focused on legitimizing

continued U.S. funding to the Peruvian government for coca eradication, interdiction, and

development expansion in the Upper Huallaga Valley. This funding would go to training and

equipping more police and military forces, to ensure that Peruvian officials could sustain

pressure against traffickers and militant guerillas, as well as provide support for alternative crop

programs for peasant farmers. Air power once again was the focal point, with new helicopters

and fixed-wing C-130s brought in to provide aerial transportation for seedbed eradication

workers and supplies to farmers to implement crop substitution and other alternative

development programs. Mobilization of Peruvian farmers in the 1980s directly influenced these

policies. Their organization against revolutionary militants and aggressive, government coca

eradication programs dictated the terms of future anti-drug policy, evident in the policy

transformations in the early 1990s.77

77 Richard Kernaghan, Coca’s Gone: Of Might and Right in the Huallaga Post-Boom (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009) 90-91; U.S. Ambassador to Peru Anthony C.E. Quainton, “Request for C-130 Aircraft,” March 20, 1992, document PE00890, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; Chargé d’affaires Charles Brayshaw, “Helicopter Support of Counternarcotics Operations in Peru,” February 6, 1992, document PE00876, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, Response to Senator Claiborne Pell, August 28, 1991, document PE00811, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

68

This influence was clear in President Fujimori’s dealings with U.S. officials concerning

different anti-coca measures for much of the decade. Fujimori pressed the U.S. for financial aid

increases for alternative development and crop substitution programs, insisting that no mature

coca would be considered for eradication with the necessary aid. Peasant farmers throughout the

valley turned to the Sendero Luminoso and other militant groups during the 1980s, when the

economy was in shambles and the Garcia regime–under constant pressure from the U.S.–pushed

intensified coca eradication until 1989. They were alienated, and criminalized by their own

government, and by American officials who saw little difference between peasant growers and

narco-traffickers. Fujimori understood this connection and would not risk losing rural support for

the sake of unrestricted coca eradication that would not provide proper compensation and

alternative options for peasants to utilize. These alternative programs would grow in necessity as

the coca boom began to wane, with prices steadily falling and many peasant farmers needing

more stable crops for income. Overproduction reduced the price of coca grown throughout the

valley, limiting the cultivation of new fields and consequently limiting the need for more

expansive coca eradication measures. Participation in voluntary eradication drastically increased

beyond previous expectations from both American and Peruvian officials, much like in Bolivia’s

Chapare during the late 1980s. However, the specter of aerial herbicide eradication lingered on.

On November 4, 1996, an article in El Comercio exhibited an interview with Roger Rumrrill, a

specialist on the drug trade and the Amazon basin, who claimed that aerial herbicide eradication

projects were conducted a month earlier in several locations throughout including: Neuvo

Portugal, Alto and Bajo Porongo, San Juan, Huicte, Pueblo Libre, and Cerro Verde. Rumrrill’s

allegations were swiftly investigated, though with no confirmation of any alleged damage to

alternative crops in the targeted areas. Though this incident presented the persistence of

69

herbicides as a key strategy for U.S. foreign policy against coca, it would soon be overshadowed

by the substantial progress made through alternative development programs, crop substitution,

and the growing trend of farmers to participate in voluntary eradication for much of the late

1990s.78

By 1998, U.S. and Peruvian efforts to strengthen interdiction programs directly against

narco-traffickers had limited the price of coca low enough to remove it as a profitable crop for

peasant farmers to rely upon. As such, many farmers adopted various crops provided by the

Peruvian government, through significant American aid. Between 1997 and 1998, coca

cultivation was successfully reduced by 40%. Alternative development programs helped plant

32,000 acres of legal crops in 1997, and maintained a prospective goal of 99,000 acres planted

by over 1998 and 1999. The downside of this success was the growing willingness of President

Fujimori to allow for a renewal of manual coca eradication targeting mature fields away from

populated areas, and within any national preserves and parks. Such expanded coca eradication

efforts were met again by continued guerrilla and narco-trafficker attacks. Some intelligence

reports suspected growing alliances between the two forces, since many rural populations had

long rejected the violent, coercive tactics of the Sendero Luminoso, openly opposing them and

any unfavorable government actions through the foundation of the defense committees and their

larger national federations. This alliance would further reinforce the need for U.S. and Peruvian

anti-drug policy to continue its focus on drug traffickers directly, targeting their international

finances, shutting down processing laboratories, controlling the air and river ways, and

neutralizing the violence on the ground. The chemicals in question for any future eradication and

78 Department of International Affairs, “Peru Monthly Narcotics Report November 1996,” January 13, 1997, document PE01588, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; “International Narcotics Review, March 1995,” March, 1995, document PE01449, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University

70

interdiction efforts would center on limiting the trade of precursor chemicals in coca processing

from entering cultivation zones, like the Upper Huallaga and the Chapare. Manual coca

eradication, as a strategy, would indeed persist up to the end of 1999, but in a greatly limited

capacity due to peasant organization against such aggressive policies in Peru and Bolivia. Their

influence would officially end the possibility of a chemical solution to the coca problem in 2000,

though in reality, such a solution was clearly unfeasible a decade earlier.79

A Rural Legacy: Peru and Bolivia’s Unique Advantage in the War on Drugs

Peru and Bolivia’s large, rural, indigenous populations presented a social and political

front, one that would command national and international attention. The sindicatos in Bolivia

represented decades long communal organization in Bolivia’s rural countryside. These groups

would openly challenge aggressive coca eradication efforts, decrying the relentless urge of

American officials to implement aerial herbicide eradication over their fields and their homes.

They negotiated the implementation of more favorable programs that would aid many farmers in

their transition from coca to alternative crops. Though this was certainly not a perfect process, it

demonstrated the influence of rural, indigenous populations on larger issues of international

policy, directly limiting U.S. foreign policy strategies in the war on drugs. For Peru, the rural

communities throughout the Upper Huallaga Valley were faced with extreme conflict on all

sides. The organization of defense committees, and conglomerate national federations,

highlighted the integral role of such populations in the shaping of anti-drug policy, both in Peru

and the U.S. Such influence was consistently exerted throughout the 1980s and 1990s, while also 79 U.S. Ambassador to Peru Dennis C. Jett, “Counternarcotics Roundtable Meeting,” March 6, 1999, document PE01762, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; U.S. Ambassador to Peru Dennis C. Jett, “Counternarcotics Scenesetter for ONDCP Director McCaffrey’s Visit to Peru,” March 30, 1998, document PE01718, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; U.S. Ambassador to Peru John Randle Hamilton, “Meeting with Vladimiro Montesinos, 17 September 1999,” September 22, 1999, document PE01771, digital collection “Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000,” Digital National Security Archive, George Washington University; Weimar, Seeing Drugs, 222-223

71

contending with continued violence from the Sendero Luminoso and other revolutionary militant

groups. The collective voices of these farmers–voices that could no longer be ignored–dictated

the pace, shape, and steady decline of intensive coca eradication strategies in U.S. foreign policy

for twenty, long years.

72

CONCLUSION

COLD WAR POLITICS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF RURAL SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

U.S. officials could not resist the mounting pressure against intensive coca eradication

programs throughout Peru’s Upper Huallaga Valley and Bolivia’s Chapare. This pressure came

from many different sources: narco-traffickers, revolutionary guerrillas, environmental

organizations, and most importantly, peasant farmers. The countries’ rural populations were the

decisive factor in forming a social and political front against these aggressive policies, one that

would influence the implementation of new U.S. anti-coca strategies and development programs.

These development programs presented a compromise between farmers’ desires and the political

designs of U.S. and domestic officials seeking to maintain some semblance of control on the

economic and political development of countries such as Peru and Bolivia. Alternative

agricultural projects, crop substitution, and modernized agricultural production characterized

these new programs. These new strategies reflected both the influence of mass rural mobilization

in these two countries on anti-drug policies and the long history of U.S. foreign policy strategies

during the later years of the Cold War.

For much of the 1980s, peasant farmers were increasingly pinned by militant violence

and aggressive coca eradication policies targeting their crops. Many farmers in Peru and Bolivia

turned to coca cultivation to supplement their dwindling incomes, with continuous economic

crisis crippling much of the region. This economic instability created further political instability,

with many regimes throughout the decade to court the U.S. for military and economic aid. This

aid, however, would not go to the countries’ crippling economies, but rather to tightening

73

security against the rise of revolutionary movements such as the Sendero Luminoso and to

intensify coca eradication efforts through advanced trimming equipment on the ground and

herbicides from the air. Test sprays were conducted with minimal success in Bolivia and Peru

with drastic consequences that would seal the fate of such chemical solutions for the remainder

of the decade. Peasant farmers would dictate their own terms of development, demanding

compensation for their losses in voluntary eradication programs, and promoting government

assistance in providing alternative crops to supplement their transition from coca. These

agricultural development programs did not exhibit American designs from the top down, but

rather sprang up from the collective discontent of farmers long ignored by their own

governments, and threatened with violence from all sides.

In the 1990s, much of U.S. assistance in Peru and Bolivia focused on these new

development programs. American officials provided increasing amounts of aid over each year,

both to ensure each country’s commitment to limiting illicit coca production and to maintain the

peace between peasant farmers and domestic officials. Their collective organization forced this

change in U.S. foreign policy in the war on drugs, moving away from wholesale coca eradication

towards long-term solutions for farmers on the ground. Coca growers were no longer lumped

into a single category of illicit, criminal producers. Instead, peasant farmers who cultivated the

controversial crop were recognized by their economic struggles, as seen by Peruvian President

Alberto Fujimori’s negotiations with American officials. Because of their continued poverty and

lack of resources, these farmers utilized coca, not for illicit purposes, but to survive. Such

recognition was the fruit of their long struggle in the preceding decade, a decade of violence and

massive organization that helped define new forms of agricultural development.

74

Coca eradication policies in Peru and Bolivia represented a new battleground in the long

history of competing development ideologies espoused by the U.S. and the Soviet Union during

the last half of the 20th century. Since the end of World War II, American officials embraced an

ideology of development. This development was intended to modernize various target nations of

the ‘Third World’. It had its roots in American domestic projects such as the Tennessee Valley

Authority built in 1933 during Roosevelt’s New Deal. The TVA dammed much of the local river

networks to provide affordable electricity to the entire valley, bringing modern comforts to a

largely rural area. The project’s success carried on into the 1950s and 1960s, with many U.S.

officials dreaming for the opportunity to implement them around the world, in a constant effort

to combat the spread of communism through economic development. These proposed projects

would include dam construction, irrigation systems, and modernized methods of industrial

agriculture, which would include large amounts of pesticides and herbicides. This development

strategy responded to the perceived threat from Soviet aid influencing economically and

politically vulnerable nations around the world during the 1950s, and through the next forty

years. Peru and Bolivia, however, presented drastically different cases of politically and

economically unstable nations that were under threat from not only internal revolutions, but also

possible external influences seeking to determine the direction of their development. Rather than

falling into a similar pattern of U.S. or Soviet influenced development, these nations embraced a

different kind of development, one that was dictated by their rural, indigenous populations.80

80 David Ekbladh, The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 155 and 165; Ekbladh presents one of many similar scholars that focus on American development ideology shaped by New Deal politics and transported by Cold War necessity. Peruvian and Bolivian farmers presented a different kind of development, one that would not be dictated by American ideologies, but by their own demands espoused through their collective resistance in the 1980s and 1990s. It would form in response to American anti-narcotics efforts that undermined much of this development ideology, abandoning it for the sake of more aggressive eradication and counterinsurgency campaigns.

75

Militant organization like the Sendero Luminoso, along with difficult military regimes for

much of the 1970s and 1980s presented a clear threat for the U.S. The Sendero Luminoso

embraced a communist, anti-West political ideology that violently opposed American efforts for

coca eradication and development programs throughout the Upper Huallaga Valley. Their

message was initially well received by peasant farmers, who faced continuous economic

hardship and neglect from their own government, who too often ignored their desperate pleas for

help in favor of courting U.S. anti-coca policies for the sake of financial aid for military and

security forces. The U.S. could not afford to lose these two nations to communist revolutionaries.

The two countries were the primary growers of the world’s coca, and as such maintained a key

strategic position in the designs of anti-coca U.S. officials who sought to eliminate the crop, the

revolutionary movements that utilized its profits, and the influence of narco-traffickers.

Eradication seemed necessary to limit the influence of these communist movements, along with

the debilitating spread of cocaine that was impacting American society at many different levels.

This narrow-minded focus blinded American officials to the damage they caused to peasant

farmers throughout the Andes, farmers who turned to coca cultivation during the 1980s for

survival. The promotion of aerial herbicide eradication in the Chapre and Upper Huallaga Valley

demonstrated this narrow-minded determination.

U.S. officials approached negotiations with the Peruvian and Bolivian governments, not

in this mindset of American development, but in an anti-insurgency and anti-narcotics

framework. Financial aid was funneled to both nations for the sole purpose of shoring up

political stability and anti-narcotics forces. American money would supply guns and

ammunition, construct eradication bases throughout key growing regions, and supply helicopters

for transportation, air support, and for preliminary testing of aerial herbicide eradication. Peasant

76

farmers were in dire economic collapse, one that was consistently put on hold for the sake of

anti-narcotics efforts dictated by U.S. aid. Rather than address these economic concerns,

American officials continued to stress the importance of coca eradication and anti-insurgency

efforts. Herbicides would acquire a new role as the essential weapon for eradication efforts

throughout key growing areas. What was primarily exported to promote modern, industrial

agricultural development during the 20th century now took on quite a contradictory role to ensure

the destruction of crops rather than improving their cultivation. This aggressive stance was

clearly unpopular among rural Peruvians and Bolivians, and its lack of support was compounded

by domestic officials’ lack of response to the economic struggles these farmers faced.

Government programs directed newly acquired financial resources to new bases of

operation at Tingo Maria and Santa Lucia, while also arming the Civil Guard and military to

combat Sendero Luminoso militants. Expanding eradication efforts remained the primary goal

for much of the 1980s, while farmers seeking aid for agricultural development were ignored.

Their turn to coca, while necessary for their own economic survival, also labeled them as a

primary source of the international drug problem, thus placing them at odds with U.S. anti-

narcotics strategies. Additionally, domestic government officials did not subsidize other suitable

crops that could replace the farmers’ coca. Coca’s profits seemed limitless with a constantly

growing international market, making it the best option for struggling farmers. Therefore, once

coca eradication programs escalated to their peak in the late 1980s, rural Peruvians and Bolivians

utilized collective organization to combat them and promote their own alternative developments.

These farmers’ response clearly influenced U.S. officials to rethink such aggressive eradication

strategies, as seen in the fluctuations exhibited throughout the diplomatic dialogue between

American, Peruvian, and Bolivian officials. Peru and Bolivia’s successful resistance to such

77

programs and participation in alternative development and crop substitution projects highlighted

a new kind of development ideology, one that was promoted from the ground up, rather than

imposed top down. Their rural populations provided a substantial bulwark against either

influence, combatting aggressive policies from their own government and from increasingly

abusive militants. It was their mobilization that halted U.S.-desired chemical solutions in the war

on drugs, and their continued collective resistance presented an effective method for nations to

negotiate their own terms of development in an ever-shrinking, hostile world dictated by the

rumblings of Cold War tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

78

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