In an obvious play on words, the Bolivian coca growers intend to wage war on the world's most popular soft drink. Thus, Coca Deputy, Geronimo Meneses yesterday presented the "Coca-Colla, a new energizing gas to be produced with the" sacred leaf "Andean coca cultivation in the Chapare region.
There, where Evo Morales took to the trade union and political career over two decades ago, is most of the coca Law 1008, passed in the '80s and still in effect, illegal.
The initiative was the peasants and, if missing more matches with the syrup created in 1885 by John Pemberton, the packaging of the "Coca-Colla" would have a red label and containing a dark liquid, almost black.
Although the Coca-Cola claims to do the coca leaf removed from the formula in 1929, reports abound on the Internet that "Coca-Cola continues to buy coca in Peru," the conspiracy theory that Evo Morales is usually added with enthusiasm.
Although the Minister Meneses and gave the press the bottle, the authorities admitted that the name could be changed. "Initially it is a private initiative to produce an energizing of coca, but we are seeing momentum because we want as a state of coca industrialization," said Vice Minister of Rural Development, Víctor Hugo Vázquez. He highlighted the various existing private initiatives in Bolivia where there are mates, syrups, toothpaste, liquor, candy and even coca cake. In fact, an Italian restaurant in La Paz offers spaghetti coca, a mixture of wheat flour and the "ancient road".
The amount of cocaine consumed is legally part of the dispute, which seek to be repaid with the results of the Integral Study of the Coca Leaf and the national survey on the use and legal consumption of that product launched in 2009 with support from the European Union. However, not all growers, a kind of elite-peasant support increasing the surface: the "legal" do not want the increase in supply, bring down prices.
With the new Congress in their favor, the government intends to increase legal coca to 20,000 hectares to include farmers in the Chapare, Morales social base in the legal culture.
Before the conquest, coca was already part of the rituals from the colonial Andean and became part of the mining economy: the "akulliku" (mask) enabled workers to stand in the dangerous tunnels tens of meters below land, and not the Church's protests against the "road diabolical" achieved their ban.
Nowadays, although current law permits only 12,000 hectares to satisfy the lawsuit, there are planted some 30,000 according to a recent report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Also there is extensive smuggling to northern Argentina, where coca chewing is permitted but not cultivation or importation legal.
The Argentine ambassador in La Paz, Horacio Macedo Jujuy is one of the regular followers of this consumption characteristic of the Andes.
"Under this government the area increased by 20%, but as this increase was in the most productive areas, the increase in cocaine production in 2005-2008 was 50%. In the Chapare, 95% of the coca is so-called unauthorized markets, ie drug trafficking, "he told Clarin former deputy minister of Social Defense (anti-narcotics) Ernesto Justiniano.
In recent years, increased the number of Colombian companies operating in Bolivia with more advanced technologies, including mobile plants cocaine.
But since the government responded that the seizure is a record and there is no longer killed by clashes between peasants and military in coca growing areas.
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