Regardless of whether the statistics were true or false, when it came to combating the actual problem the priorities of Plan Colombia were difficult to fathom. Manual elimination — the process by which soldiers go out into the fields and uproot plants by hand in an effort to keep fields free from coca — had long proven to be both a superior strategy and a cheaper one, costing a mere quarter of the price of herbicide spraying: it costs 750 USD to spray just one hectare by plane, whereas the cost to eliminate the same area by hand, without any of the environmental consequences, is a mere 180 USD. Despite this, however, both the US and Colombian governments chose to continue mostly with the former method. Critics argued that the difference in expenditure would make it possible to unlock the social potential of Plan Colombia to a much greater extent, and consequently would allow for funds to be invested in schools, health care, infrastructure, and micro loans to impoverished peasants, as well as alternative-livelihood programs for farmers in the affected parts of the country. This notwithstanding, herbicide spraying became a permanent fixture.
By evening the monkeys are back and Nelcy has come to assist Edgar. Next to the lab a mound of leaf residue accumulates under a cloud of fuel vapours, which rises up into the trees, where the primates have to revel in the stink. Edgar and Nelcy treat the water with chemicals one last time, turning it a milky colour and causing it to curdle. After wrapping the separated mass in a towel, they begin wringing it out together until every last drop of liquid has been squeezed out, and the lump inside is packed solidly, as big as a bowling ball.
‘Phew. One more round.’
‘OK, phew, ha ha.’
They stand face to face, with eyes locked as if in an arm-wrestling match, while José sweeps up scattered bits of leaves and Luis makes vroom-vroom sounds with a plastic toy car between the oil drums. It is almost 6.00 p.m., and a familiar sound of muffled motors is heard coming from the mountains, a noise that has become somewhat of a soundtrack to life for indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians, and recently settled farmers since the beginning of the new millennium: military helicopters.
No sight in the air space above southern Colombia today is more common than that of the arrival of the Black Hawks, which appear in the sky like ships in formation, all on different assignments in conjunction with the DEA-led war on drugs. Control, presence, and power: that is the message. It is a symbolic language directed at the guerrillas and at individuals suspected of sympathising with them, and even if the spraying is ineffective and perhaps even counterproductive as a means to fight drugs, such activity in the sky plays an integral role in anti-guerrilla warfare. Ecological destruction, financial depletion, and failed results with regard to coca is a price the US and Colombian governments are willing to pay to keep the FARC in check and to create the feeling that, despite everything, the state is in control.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, rain patters down over the house. Edgar melts the white paste in a saucepan over a fire before allowing the creamy white substance to harden on the bottom. Now it is ready.
‘It’s no good if it doesn’t harden. You can’t sell a soft product.’
It should have the consistency of taffy but the colour of meringue. He stirs it with a ladle, mixing it until it has achieved just the right texture. After a little while it dries as it should and can be broken into pieces like hardened chocolate. He looks pleased. Nevertheless, a sense of sadness hovers over the entire process, the activity to which Edgar has devoted himself for the past two days. Nothing is as it used to be. While the green leaf was once regarded as a sign of prosperity, today it is associated with an entirely new set of connotations and no one has pleasure any more from the mere sight of a coca plant or a kilo of paste.
‘We don’t make our living from coca any longer,’ Edgar says. ‘We do it to bring in pesos. It’s money you just can’t get any other way. The food we eat doesn’t come from coca, but rather from other things we have here: fish farming, chickens, potatoes, yuccas, corn. A little of everything. And then we also have two cows.’
For the farmers of Putumayo, just as in most other parts of the country, coca cultivation has always been viewed as a legitimate activity, not only because coca is always in demand but also because they see themselves as exploited, something the guerrillas never tire in pointing out. But 15 years after the boom, the concept of what has always been known as green gold is a double-edged sword; the leaf that distinguished itself as sacred in the past is now somewhat of a curse. Those wild heydays that characterised Putumayo long before the region became the bloody battlefield did not exactly make for a paradise, either. Edgar maintains that he does not yearn for the past and the exorbitant spending, but rather looks to the future. The people living in the villages and cities born out of the coca boom in the 1980s and 1990s were suspicious and jealous of each other, and the streets were lined with whorehouses and populated with people recovering from excessive liquor consumption and partying. Today, people are well aware that much of the misery that followed has to do with coca in one way or another. That there will always be a hangover.
For Edgar, Nelcy, Ester, José, and the vast majority of other farmers living in the province, la coquita, coca, is an extra income, not a primary one. There was more to Plan Colombia than just chemical aerial bombs; one-fifth of the resources were dedicated to social funding, aimed at eliminating the incentive to cultivate coca — at combating poverty, in other words. While most of the money was lost to corruption and bureaucracy, a small amount did manage to trickle down to the farmers, and Edgar’s fish farm is the result of such assistance. It will never measure up to coca in terms of proceeds, but in the long run it could prove very profitable for, just like coca, fish also has an immediate market.
But the lesson the farmers of Putumayo, the region where coca has been cultivated the longest, have learned from their financially treacherous dealings with the cocaine industry have not really spread to other parts of Colombia. The promise of fast cash sweeps across the country like a giant windstorm, shaking up everything in its path, and out of all the socially vulnerable regions presently on the verge of being sucked into the carousel, none is as typical as the coastal jungles where Leo and his fishermen hunt for the miracle catch: Chocó.
After scraping his finger over the product, Luis licks the white film from his fingertips. He giggles when his tongue goes numb. Dad does the same and nods approvingly. The quality is good. Nelcy says that there is less than she had been hoping for. Diana teases one of the fighting cocks. Maria, the eldest daughter, comes home in her school uniform and passes by her parents with a resounding ‘God bless you’, to which Edgar and Nelcy respond by shifting attention from the raw cocaine to their daughter, answering back in unison: ‘God bless you.’
THE CANOE ROCKS slightly in the turns as Graciano steers his dugout deeper, into the heart of the business. Vines, branches, brushwood, trees, and leaves as large as bedsheets hang over the water as he carefully guides the canoe through the foliage and its dark, cave-like passages, like a tiny strand of thread through the eye of a needle.
‘Almost there.’
The sun flashes sporadically through the thick jungle coverage, and the quick shift from total darkness to intense sunlight gives the setting the appearance of a fast-winding newsreel in sepia tones. The dense river water is mustard-coloured, and here and there dragonflies stop in midflight, hovering like helicopters.
Graciano suddenly whistles and points to the right. ‘There,’ he says.
Three men, standing in a glade in black bathing suits and pouring water over each other, look up when Graciano arches the canoe around them, greeting him with a familiar hello. The guerrilla soldiers are taking a swim, their guns having been left on the riverbank. A bit further up are the remains of a house where some armed silhouettes are seen moving about. This is the checkpoint — the border, defence, security. It is what the farmers are paying for; no military, no police, and no para
militaries pass by here. On the other side of this point, everything is safe. Graciano’s little outboard motor–driven canoe sails on for two more kilometres towards the mountains before he switches it off by a mud bank and glides in among five other canoes all pointing in the direction of a tree, like fish surrounding a food source.
‘This is where it begins. All of this is new. Eight years ago there wasn’t a single coca plant here. No one even knew what coca was. Now there’s nothing else. And nobody talks about anything else. Many of these fields are no more than a couple years old. Everybody here knows that it’s a golden opportunity — but that its time is nearly up and it won’t be coming back.’
This is the inland of Chocó, the last of the new frontiers of the cocaine industry. The province, wedged between the Pacific Ocean and the western mountain range, consists of impenetrable rainforests crisscrossed by thousands of rivers, comprising one of the largest water systems in the world. The Atrato River flows north into the Caribbean and is the economic artery of Chocó, while the San Juan, the second-largest river in the region, runs south into the Pacific. If these two waterways could be connected, Colombia would have a navigable channel between the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific that could compete with the Panama Canal; it’s been a moneymaking dream of many past governments. But there is a long way to go. So far Chocó only has one main road, hardly drivable, and is inhabited exclusively by waterborne people no one has ever cared about. Living here far below the poverty line are the descendants of slaves, indigenous peoples, and settlers, whose slow-paced lives, centred on fishing and small-scale farming, are only interrupted by occasional short-lived economic booms based on sudden and whimsical demands and desires from the outside world — gold, wood, silver, coca.
‘Buenos días. Done already?’ He laughs.
A group of raspachínes — leaf pickers — have finished for the day and are now heading back home to the village. Graciano exchanges pleasantries with them, asking about their day, before climbing up a steep slope and making his way down into a valley of glistening coca fields. Hectare upon hectare has been thoroughly cleared, and newly planted coca bushes shine like emeralds in a black landscape of burned logs. And then suddenly a familiar sound is heard, followed by another. Adjacent to each plot is a lab, and in the clearing far below the afternoon sun beats down on a tarp, stretched across a simple wood construction that protects Solin, César, and Andrea from the sun. The process is now in full swing, and the shearing machine’s motor roars, causing leaves to whirl and insects to scatter. Andrea is cooking, César is cutting the leaves, and Solin is mixing chemicals. And soon the lab is full of the pungent vapours of ammonia and fuel.
‘You get a bit groggy,’ Solin says. ‘But we’re used to it. We’ve been here for eight days straight.’
They are a team of three, each of whom have a different role, but all work together to deal with the harvest from César’s plot. Today the pickers have gathered 12 arrobas, which will now be turned into paste, and when that is done — the harvest will generate 3.5 kilograms of paste — it will be sold to local buyers, the sale authorised by the guerrillas, for a total of 8.4 million pesos, or 5320 USD. One arroba, equivalent to 12 kilos, is the base unit of the coca economy. Los raspachínes, who are the bottom level of the cocaine hierarchy, earn 6000 pesos per arroba, which means an average daily pay of about 15,000 pesos, or 11 USD. But they also get three meals, which Andrea is responsible for providing. One hectare yields about 150 arrobas per harvest, and there are four harvests a year. The smallholders usually own between two and five hectares each.
‘But after I’ve paid all the workers, including those who’ve delivered the chemicals, there’s only 1.5 million pesos left over for me,’ César says. ‘It’s not great business. Just a little better than others.’
Like Graciano, César is one of the thousands of new coca cultivators along the San Juan River, a growing agrarian proletariat who, on the one hand, are simply happy that some money has finally come to the region, but on the other are also very much aware that the prosperity will be short-lived, and that the military aircraft can come at any time and chemical-bomb everything, just like in Putumayo. This is what makes it a rush. In fact, the whole idea of striking while the iron is hot has, along with cocaine’s grip on Colombia, become one of the most distinctive cultural hallmarks of the nation. Some would call it a national disease: el cortoplazismo, shortsightedness.
Andrea peels a banana while Solin and César kick about in the green mound in an effort to mix all the leaves together before the pulpy mass can be dumped into the oil drum filled with fuel. Andrea is 24 years old and César’s live-in partner, and she hopes to become pregnant soon. For her, the rush was a godsend because, as she says, it rescued her ‘from slavery’: ‘I’m free now. I can do what I want.’
Although slavery was abolished in Colombia in 1851, a deep-seated historical racism continues to characterise both city and country life alike, and it is quite common to see young, white couples driving through remote villages in search of girls ‘to take care of’: that is, offering them lifelong servitude in exchange for room and board and Saturday nights off. Destitute families have received verification via television that life in the city is better than in the country, and because this analysis is often correct, daughter and parents alike often consent to such arrangements when they are offered. The white couple feels as if it has done a good deed, and the African or indigenous family is happy to have one less mouth to feed. The demand for boys is also great — most often for custodial work — but not at all to the same extent as for girls, which is why thousands of young men are sent to join the guerrillas or a paramilitary group, either of which the family often regards as a better option than life at home.
Problems arise for the girls when they become pregnant, which often occurs around the same time that the woman of the host family also finds herself expecting. Usually, the servant is around 15 years old and the lady of the house 25. Since the intention is that the domestic help, that is, the person of colour, is to take care of the white couple’s child, one of the newborns has to be given up, and often the solution is adoption. An excursion to an orphanage is arranged, where the servant, assisted by the lady of the house, hands over the child and verifies in writing that everything has been done of her own volition. A visit to the church follows, where the priest offers forgiveness and the matter is closed once and for all, after which the young woman of colour is expected to project her motherly instincts onto the white child.
Andrea began working as a domestic servant in Cali at the age of 12. Her only exposure to the big city and its enticements was through the bus window, for when she did have a Saturday night off she was always either broke or on call, and thus was never able to enjoy it. After a number of years of this, she sensed that her life was becoming increasingly meaningless. Then she started longing to have her own children. And as soon as she realised what sort of life a black maid without money had in store, she contacted people from her hometown, who told her that coca had come to the village and that there was now, finally, money to be made.
‘I just left. Escaped. We don’t have much here either, but at least I’m not locked up. Today we own this plot of land and can make our own decisions. I also sell candy in the streets. I purchase it in a town upriver and sell it in the village.’
The village is El Caraño, a small riverside community consisting of a hundred simple wooden houses, where everyone who owns coca fields on the surrounding hills lives. Graciano has lived in El Caraño his entire life, whereas César and Solin wandered around the country for many years searching for money, but like Andrea, were enticed back by coca. Solin is not a landowner, but because he is the chemist he is the team’s most important member, without whose itinerant skills the industry could not function. In historically experienced parts of the country such as Putumayo, just about any farmer can handle the proportions, the chemicals, and the simple
process coca demands, but in more recently converted areas the chemists play a crucial role.
‘It’s not difficult, but no one can afford to make a mistake.’
Solin’s dirty cap teeters slightly atop his curly head. He is one of a few Caucasians living among the thousands of Afro-Colombians in El Caraño. With a calm voice and a steady hand, he leads the work for which César pays him 60,000 pesos, or 30 USD, a day. During the harvest they live in the lab day and night, and when all the work is done they travel the five kilometres home to the village by canoe, where they sell the paste and rest for a few days.
Solin is originally from Meta, a region in the east where coca quickly emerged after Putumayo was sprayed, but the area was also eventually visited by the planes. ‘I had a small farm there with coca, yucca, bananas, and other things. They sprayed everywhere, so leaving was the only option. The chickens died — everything. It’s extremely poisonous. The first time it happens you just start over, you replant everything. But after they come back and spray again and again, it begins to take its toll. I knew a guy who lived here and said it was peaceful and quiet. So I came here.’
His wife lives with their three daughters in Armenia, a city in the coffee region. He sends them money, but as long as there is work to be done here, he only sees them once every other month. ‘This is a temporary situation. If I got a job in the city I would leave. But the pay’s no good. I worked at a cardboard recycling plant in Villavicencio and earned 15,000 pesos a day, and while that bought food for the children and my wife, there was never anything left over for me. You just get fed up. It doesn’t work. There are people claiming they can live just fine on 15,000 pesos a day, but those making such claims are also involved in some sort of illegal activity on the side. Everybody knows this is how it works. One hand is legal, the other one isn’t.’
Cocaina: A Book on Those Who Make It Page 10