An Andean prophecy says that for the Indios, the coca leaf is strength and life. It is a spiritual element which allows you to get in touch with the gods: Apusa, Achachilas, Tata Inti, Mama Quilla, Pachamama. It is a sacred thousand-year-old plant that, because of the Western world, where it is used to extract drugs, is becoming a curse, a source of delirium and addiction.

Those who are affected are mainly the cocaleros, who have always grown such leaves, handing down the art of tilling the land from generation to generation. They are, once again, on the verge of despair and destitution. For a long time they have had to fight against international and national laws which are meant to hinder and to control them on the ground that “la hoja de coca” is the cause of the drug trade and therefore must be “torn out by the roots”.

The Peruvian farmers have had it this time. Tired of being cheated by the government, by the laws, by international institutions, they decided to call a general strike during the International Week for the Farmers’ Fight.

After a long and exhausting march they arrived in Lima from the South-East and the North-East of the country. They are occupying the main streets and the seat of government, the parliament as well as other institutions waiting for President Toledo to listen to them.

There are about ten thousand of them and they are demanding a radical change in the country’s agricultural policy and that their requests concerning the cultivation of the thousand-year-old leaf be met.
“We shall not leave Lima unless our bill of rights’ is signed” – commented  Elsa Malpartida, top executive of the National Confederation of Peruvian Cuencas Cocaleros, yesterday, Wednesday the 21st of April. “In all these years we have always been cheated. We have signed thirteen acts and none has ever been made effective. We have had enough. Now we have decided not to give up what we are entitled to”.

They come from Alto Huallaga, Huànuco, San Martìn, Ucayali and from one area of La Libertad. Others come from Apuìmac, Cusco and Ayacucho. Some others from the valleys of Chanchamayo, Tingo Marìa and Monzòn. All had to face hard and painful walks to reach the capital city. Those who arrived last were the campesinos of Apurìmac and Ene, in the central forest. The cocaleros coming from the valleys of the south walked sixteen days to be heard, in order not to miss this moment, a fundamental phase in a fight that has lasted too long.

Elsa Malpartida explains: “We demand a clear and definite ruling be issued protecting  the plots where coca leaves are grown. Also, the right price must be paid for the sale of the leaves to the National Enterprise of Coca (Enaco). We want another farmer census to be held, since the current one dates back to 1978. Now many of the people in the list are dead, others have changed their job. And, too, the cocaleros also complain bitterly about fumigation, which is used by certain South American governments supported by the US – Colombia is a perfect example – to wipe out illegal fields. This is a very harmful weapon, which is used irrationally and is consequently also spoiling other crops, explains the representative. Enough is enough. We want respect. We want to set forth our reasons and prevent the total and aggressive destruction of coca leaves. These are precise requests. “We demand a complete change in the whole agricultural policy. Does the government even realize that Peru goes on importing products such as maize, potatoes and bananas, which we produce locally? Such absurd situations cannot be tolerated. We are neither terrorists, nor drug peddlers. We are farmers, we grow the basic staple foods for our people and we must be respected as such.
Then the secretary general of the Federation of farmers of the valleys of Apurìmac and Ene adds: “We have always been cheated, that’s why we are here. We want to talk and listen directly, with no intermediaries. And we won’t give up. We also demand that our executive Nelson Palomino be freed: he is held in the prison of Ayacucho because he has been unjustly accused of supporting of terrorism.

Thousands of people are asking for protection, support and respect for their work. Coca-growing campesinos are fed up and want to clarify misunderstandings and twisted interpretations of their problems: the only possible way to have their rights granted. The hoja de coca is part of the daily lives of people who live at incredible altitudes, of rural communities which do not have enough food to survive, of people obliged to work in mines at incredible depths. The plant is certainly rich, and has medical properties which have been proved scientifically. Also, it is very nourishing because it has plenty of mineral salts and vitamins.

Carlos Terrazas Orellana, a historian specializing in anthropology and an expert on the Andean region at the University of Paris, explains that the traditional use of the cocas leaves is very common in Andean Countries and is a staple element in their diet. It has always been considered a miraculous plant with extraordinary properties. The influence of the Western world spoilt everything. Since cocaine was first extracted, the panacea was turned into a lethal weapon. Political and economical interests used the controversy to their advantage and to the detriment of the Indios’ sacred plant, doomed to disappear as such. But there is more.

The historian also explains how this is a threat for the tobacco tycoons. Aside from the chemical transformation into cocaine, according to Orellana, coca contains high levels of nicotine and is therefore a danger because it could easily replace cigarettes, leading to very high losses for the tobacco industry.

In fact, these leaves are something else again, he says. Among their components are several substances used for pharmaceutical products, and cocaine is merely 1% of coca.

Nevertheless, in 1988 the Vienna Conference condemned it to extinction, ruling that the production and sale of coca should be forbidden except for its traditional use. Which is a real pity, he points out, because the whole world could benefit from it. It’s high time the misunderstanding was cleared up: coca is not cocaine. Let’s give it back its legal status and the role it has always had in the society it belongs to, thanks to its medical and nutritional properties. We would also help the thousands of peasant farmers who live in the Andean region and survive thanks to the hoja de coca.

And he concludes: “ This being an economic problem, the only possible solution is an economic one. Currently the only demand for coca from Europe or the US is illegal, for the chemical production of cocaine. But if those governments and peoples who truly intend, both politically and economically, to get rid of the drug trade, were to immediately legalize the production and the sale of coca and its by-products, except for drugs, they would both achieve their goal and have several advantages. But this is another story.