On the frontlines of Peru’s forgotten cocaine war : NPR
The Trump administration’s goals of cracking down on drug trafficking could be at odds with cuts to aid programs intended to combat coca at its source in the Amazon.
SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
The Trump administration has expanded its crackdown on suspected drug traffickers by striking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. But as the United States flexes its muscles at sea, Trump’s USAID budget cuts could harm his efforts to end land-based counter-drug operations in Latin America, such as Peru, the world’s second-largest cocaine producer. There, coca is planted deeper in the Amazon rainforest, leading to deforestation and bloodshed on indigenous lands. Simeon Tegel has more.
SIMEON TEGEL, BYLINE: This is the land of the Kakataibo, but the jungle they inhabit is under siege and the people who guard it risk their lives every day.
SEGUNDO PINO: (speaking Spanish).
TEGEL: Six leaders of the small Kakataibo tribe, which has just a few thousand members spread across Peru’s central Amazon, have been murdered by drug traffickers in recent years, said Segundo Pino, a Kakataibo leader.
PINO: (speaking Spanish).
TEGEL: Pino shows me a death threat on his phone and says he could be next. He is the leader of the Kakataibo Indigenous Guard, a self-defense group that now patrols tribal lands to stop the spread of coca crops, the key ingredient in cocaine.
We have been walking in the jungle with the native guard for about an hour. We have just crossed a thigh-deep river. There are a dozen of them, men and women. Some men carry spears. Some have machetes. One has a bow and arrows, and the other has a very old hunting rifle.
And yet there is also a touch of striking modernity. Drones are being used to geolocate coca, particularly inside a reserve to protect the last handful of isolated Kakataibo, hunter-gatherers still living a pre-Columbian lifestyle and extremely vulnerable to epidemics and abuse from outsiders.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
TEGEL: We are now at the edge of the reservation for these indigenous tribes living voluntarily in isolation. It is an absolutely spectacular place. This is where the Andean foothills emerge from the Amazon. But there are coca plantations and clandestine airstrips in the reserve.
(SOUNDBITE OF DRONE TOURNAMENT)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking Spanish).
TEGEL: So they found the first coca plantation three minutes after the drone was launched.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Speaks Spanish).
TEGEL: He says there’s more. Just a little further, there are more.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Speaks Spanish).
TEGEL: This woman says the Kakataibo people inside the reserve, who may be her distant relatives, are terrified of drug traffickers and unable to defend themselves. They rely on the Indigenous Guard to protect them, she said. This is a common story throughout the Peruvian Amazon. Coca crops, once grown only in the mountains, have more than doubled in Peru. With 12,000 hectares in this region of the Ucayali plain, Peru now produces 850 tonnes of cocaine per year. Dozens of indigenous leaders have been murdered for resisting traffickers, and young people are being drawn into this deadly trade.
We find ourselves in the middle of an illegal airstrip. It’s maybe 800 meters long in a field in the middle of the forest. Drug traffickers used it to transport two or three light planes full of cocaine to Bolivia each week. But now there are huge holes that the local Ashaninka indigenous community have dug there. They hired diggers to arrest drug traffickers.
ISIDRO PENYA: (speaking Spanish).
TEGEL: This field was entirely jungle just 15 years ago, says Isidro Penya (ph), who heads the village’s indigenous police.
DAVID MORI TRIGOSO: (speaking Spanish).
TEGEL: The expansion of coca in the Amazon has accelerated during the COVID pandemic, says Commander David Mori Trigoso of DIRANDRO, Peru’s counternarcotics police, thanks in part to the suspension of eradication and cultivation ban efforts.
TRIGOSO: (speaking Spanish).
TEGEL: The commander emphasizes how hard his men work in difficult conditions to stop narcos deep in the jungle. But he also recognizes the problem of deep-rooted corruption in Peru. He claims that a drug cartel even personally offered to share its profits and that several of his former colleagues are currently serving 25-year prison sentences for collusion with traffickers. Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s USAID budget cuts have cast doubt on Washington’s long-standing support for alternative crop programs in Peru. They come as Congress considers legislation that could override existing Native reservations.
PENYA: (speaking Spanish).
TEGEL: Ultimately, Isidro Penya says, even if President Donald Trump cracks down on drug cartels elsewhere, as long as there is a demand for cocaine, including in the world’s largest consumer market, the United States, South America’s indigenous communities will continue to suffer.
For NPR News, this is Simeon Tegel in Ucayali, Peru.
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