UNODC and Andean Coca

The annual reports on coca cultivation and cocaine production from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) are atop the agenda this morning. Just the Facts has a great breakdown on all the new data, writing that the headline of this year’s reports is “Peru's significant increase and Colombia's decrease in coca cultivation in 2009.” In fact, Peru is on its way to becoming the world’s top producer of coca (retaking that distinction from Colombia) according to the UNODC – a charge Peruvian President Alan García vehemently rejected Wednesday. [García did, however, maintain that his country has been the victim of “the Plan Colombia effect” – a reference to the idea that a decline in coca production in neighboring Colombia has done little more than push the crop across the border.]

By the numbers, it’s interesting to note that total Andean coca production decreased by 5.2% in 2009, with Colombia seeing the most significant reductions (down 16% from 2008). Again, Just the Facts has the analysis, writing that the 2009 numbers are “the lowest figure UNODC has detected in Colombia since it began measurements in the late 1990s.” And perhaps even more interestingly, the decline came in a year “in which coca eradication - both aerial and manual - fell sharply.” This would seem to counter the argument that there is any sort of correlation between forced eradication programs and reductions in coca cultivation.

In Bolivia, production of the plant barely changed between 2008 and 2009. The Andean Information Network has ten initial observations on the new Bolivia statistics, highlighting significant differences between the UNODC numbers and those reported in the 2010 U.S. International Narcotics Control Strategy. The UNODC cited just a 1% increase in coca production over the last year while the INCSR concluded there was a “9.38 percent increase” (from 32,000 to 35,000 hectares in 2009) – “inexplicably rounded up to ten percent” by DOS. But there’s more, says AIN:

“International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Chief David Johnson further misrepresented U.S. estimates in the INCSR press briefing on March 1, 2010, stating that ‘Peru had a modest increase and Bolivia has a continuing trend of a step up per year in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 percent that’s taken place over the course of the last several years.’ In fact, since the election of Morales in 2005, U.S. statistics have never reflected an increase in Bolivian coca cultivation that reached ten percent, and for most years increases in cultivation in Peru have been significantly higher.”

Behind that headline:

· I mentioned yesterday the fact that Mauricio Funes is still enjoying high approval numbers in El Salvador, one year after taking office. The LA Times this morning paints a different picture, however. The paper says that a year after promising change and the “reinvention” of the country, “Funes faces an avalanche of criticism, from opponents and supporters alike, over broken promises, corrupt management and a failure to halt rising violence that threatens to turn the nation into ‘a criminal state.’” The popular online magazine, El Faro, wrote in a recent editorial that “Salvadorans are not better off than they were a year ago,” adding that “in the middle of the worst public security crisis in a decade, the national police force remains without resources and has been infiltrated by organized crime.” In turn, the Salvadoran economy has struggled, says the Times, and the working-class base of the FMLN has been the most severely hit.

“Funes' failures have hit the poor and working class especially hard. After two decades of one-party right-wing rule, they greeted the rise of the left with great hope. Today they are deeply disillusioned.”

The story comes out as President Funes decided to put soldiers in charge of policing various prisons in the country this week. According to the AP, the Mara Salvatrucha and other gangs are believed to be increasingly running criminal operations from jail.

· In Mexico, the Washington Post’s William Booth covers the recent uncovering of what has become Mexico’s largest mass grave connected to the drug wars. A mine shaft near the popular tourist city of Taxco, the “grave” been out of operation for three years due to a mine workers’ strike. Here’s the pretty horrific picture Booth paints:

“State investigators rappelled down the 15-foot-wide shaft through darkness to reach the bottom, 50 stories down, where they found a cold, dripping-wet cavern filled with noxious gases. As they panned their headlamps around the cave, they found a subterranean killing field. Initially, they thought there were 25 dead, then 55. But as they struggle to reassemble the bodies at the morgue in the capital city, they think they have found the remains of 64 people.”

The story gets more graphic. The recovery of mummified and headless bodies has made identification sometimes impossible, Booth writes. Others appear to have been thrown into the shaft alive, say investigators – all part of Mexico’s “headlines that continue to numb,” to use the paper’s words.

· A different sort of mine-related violence is reported on at Upside Down World where Nancy Davies has a piece on the increasingly violent measures being taken against anti-mining activists in Oaxaca. And, from EFE, a piece today highlights a new report on homicides from the consulting firm Grupo Multisistemas de Seguridad Industrial. Some 19,000 homicides “of all types” occurred in the country in 2009, the group says. That would make the country the sixth most deadly in the world, in terms of per capita homicides. However, in Latin America, Colombia, Guatemala, and Paraguay still rank ahead of Mexico, the report says.

· On Venezuela, a report from VenEconomy looks at the NGO Transperencia Venezuela which recently held its 2010 forum on public administration, focusing on problems of governmental transparency in the country, specifically. At OSI’s blog, program officer Vonda Brown also highlights the work of Transparencia Venezuela, writing that the group has not been allowed to publish “shadow reports” regarding the Venezuelan government’s implementation of anti-corruption measures. However, there’s hope that the words not added to a recent OAS resolution on civil society participation may be help to change that situation. The full story at OSI’s blog.

· The AP reports on the shake-up of Hugo Chavez’s cabinet this week.

· At NACLA, a new piece looks at the Honduran business community a year after Manuel Zelaya’s ouster. According to rights activist Dr. Juan Almendares, it’s the country’s economic elites who instigated and continue to support repression in the country – a difference when comparing today’s violence with that of the 1980s. “It’s important to understand that in the eighties the direct confrontation was more the political sector working together with army,” Almendares says. “But today, the struggle is precisely about the neoliberal economic model, imperial globalization, and this whole campaign by financial capital to gain power over our lands, to take our resources.” The pervasiveness of Honduran business elite power extends even to the anti-coup Radio Globo apparently. As Adrienne Pine highlights, last week Globo journalists were sent a memo instructing them to not insult the company’s sponsors: among them golpista business magnate, Miguel Facussé. And in other Honduras news, Roberto Micheletti received a hero’s welcome in San Salvador where the city’s right wing mayor, Norman Quijano, called Micheletti a “distinguished guest” and a “paladín de la democracia.”

· In Cuba, the AP reports on the case of dissident Darsi Ferrer, found guilty Tuesday of purchasing cement on the black market. However, Ferrer was released from prison after the conviction since he had already served one year behind bars. He’ll serve four remaining months under house arrest.

· A few new poll numbers to highlight. After 100 days, Sebastian Pinera enjoys 54% national approval in Chile. And in Brazil, the PT’s Dilma Rouseff widened her lead over José Serra. Latest numbers have Rouseff up 40% to 35%, with 9% opting for the Green Party’s Marina Silva.

· Finally, some opinions. Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue has a long analytical piece about a new US policy to replace Plan Colombia. While he praises the security gains of the last decade, Shifter argues the program has done little on the drug issue. He cites the recent high commission report on Drugs and Democracy as the basis for an alternative approach. Alvaro Vargas Llosa writes on Venezuela and the Zuloaga case. Andres Oppenheimer has glowing words about Juan Manuel Santos. And we end back in Bolivia. Following Evo Morales recent statement that he wouldn’t hesitate in expelling USAID from Bolivia, Alex Main at CEPR analyzes the state of US-Bolivia relations. He says Morales’s words are consistent with his position since 2006 on the matter of USAID transparency, but:

“Unfortunately, rather than seeking to assuage the Bolivian government's concerns by lifting the veil on USAID's activities, the U.S. government has systematically refused to reveal all of the programs and groups that are currently receiving funding from the aid agency. As the Andean Information Network has noted, the US government's position violates international norms on cooperation calling for effective joint collaboration between the governments of donor and recipient countries on all cooperation programs.”