Alternative Development Policy in the War on Drugs Building a culture of legality in the southern Pacific region of Colombia

By

Sarah Fields Krupp

A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of

Masters of Arts

in

Latin American Studies

in the

Graduate Division

of the

University of California, Berkeley

Committee in Charge

Professor Laura Enriquez, Chair Professor Alex Saragoza

Professor Isha Ray

Spring 2013

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i Chapter 1 - Introduction 1

Field Research 4 Chapter 2 - Literature Review 6

Drug War 7

Aerial Spraying 8

Alternative Development 10

Chapter 3 – Background 13

Black Communities in the Pacific 13

Consejos Comunitarios: Political Rights 15

Coca’s Introduction in Tumaco and Its Impacts 16

Alternative Development in Tumaco’s Black Communities 19

Chapter 4 – The Development Process in Las Varas 20

Project Description 21

La Voluntad and Violence 22

Institutional Support 23

Convincing a Community: Social Development 25

Convincing a Community: Economic Influences and Infrastructure 27

Geography and Accessibility 29

Food Security 31

Conclusion 34

Chapter 5 – Conclusion 36 Bibliography 37 Appendix A Methodology 40 Appendix B Interview Schedule 41

i

Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to all of the people who made this thesis possible. I am grateful for the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and the Tinker Foundation for funding my travel to and from Colombia as well as the Latin American Studies Department at UC Berkeley for covering the rest of my research expenses. Thank you to my wonderful committee members, Laura Enriquez, Alex Saragoza, and Isha Ray for your help throughout the research and writing process. Every conversation with you made me feel like an at times overwhelming project was possible and greatly helped me improve my thesis. I am indebted to all of the wonderful people in Colombia who helped make this research possible. My interviewees were generous with their time, patient with my questions and encouraging of my research. I hope that I have presented their comments and opinions properly and take full responsibility for any misinterpretations or misrepresentations. Finally, I cannot thank my family and friends enough for all of their support and encouragement. I would never have been able to get through my research and thesis writing without you. Dad, thanks for always believing in me, being prepared to discuss my research regardless of how little you knew about the topic. To my brother Marcus, you literally lived through the writing process with me and remained positive and supportive through it all. My fellow Latin American Studies MA students, thank you for your encouragement and discussions of my topic from its first formulations to the final editing. Sarah Weber and David Trautman, you listened to my frustrations and my successes patiently. Thank you for your friendship and support, for being my primary sounding board for ideas, and for listening patiently to all of my frustrations and successes.

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Chapter 1 - Introduction

Nested among the mangrove enshrouded rivers in the southern Pacific region of

Colombia, the rural, Afro-descent communities of Tumaco—long neglected by the state and impoverished—have been cultivating a cash crop that has reaped profits as well conflicts previously unknown in the region. That crop, coca, and the armed groups that traffic cocaine, have transformed this once peaceful region. The municipality of Tumaco has the most coca cultivation in the country and one of Colombia’s highest homicide rates.1

It is not hard to understand why Tumaco became a center for drug cultivation in recent years or why violence so easily took root in a once tranquil region. The Pacific Ocean and proximity to Ecuador make it a strategic transit corridor. The lack of state services, such as adequate roads and law enforcement, legal industry and viable agriculture make it susceptible to illicit activities.2 Many of the region’s rural communities can only be reached by boat—and then only when high tide swells the rivers, which is a detriment to legal commerce and a boon to the illicit economy. Without the presence of security officials, drug-trafficking gangs and guerrillas began to penetrate these remote communities with little resistance in the late 1990s. Lastly, Tumaco’s population faces profound poverty; it lacks both industry, and aside from coca, lucrative agricultural production. Because nearly 80 percent of Tumaqueños are unemployed, and the profits made on conventional agricultural products are meager at best, drug traffickers found a population that was willing to partake in the cocaine trade.3 For all the same reasons that Tumaco became a hotbed of coca cultivation, it has also been difficult to extract from the illicit economy despite efforts by the United States and Colombian governments and the United Nations. Since 2006 the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations Office of Drug Control (UNODC) and the Colombian government have invested approximately $15 million in 13 of Tumaco’s Afro-Colombian villages to wean them off coca cultivation.4 The intent of the intervention is to coax farmers away from growing coca for the production of cocaine by offering assistance to develop viable, legal livelihoods. These initiatives are referred to as alternative development and are usually combined with more aggressive strategies, such as aerial herbicide spraying.5

Despite these high-level interventions, there has been little improvement in the situation, according to residents and officials familiar with the communities. In most of

1 Kraul, Chris. “Colombia city demands protection from drug gang,” Los Angeles Times, May 24, 2012. 2 Felbab-Brown, et. al, “Assessment of the Implementation of the US Govt’s Support for Plan Colombia's Illicit Crop Reduction Components.” US Agency for International Development April (2009). 3 United Press International, “Cada vez más grave la situación en el puerto Colombiano de Tumaco,” UPI español, Feb. 7, 2012. 4 This estimate includes aid from the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), USAID and the Colombian government, as well as agricultural loans to farmers who are part of the development projects. All but one of the 14 villages in Tumaco, the most recent to receive collective title, have been part of an alternative development project. 5 Alternative in this sense does not have the connotation of being non-traditional. It refers to providing a legal alternative to illicit crops.

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the communities, coca production has not decreased.6 This is reflective of the pattern nationwide (and globally). Counternarcotics strategies, including aerial spraying, have failed to reduce overall drug production.7

Of the 13 Afro-Colombian villages in Tumaco which participated in an alternative development project, just one—Rescate Las Varas, a community of nearly 7,000 residents—has all but eliminated coca and is no longer threatened by armed groups.8 Here, as in the other communities, there had been a small scale development project that provided aid to a small group of farmers who promised not to grow illicit crops. But in September 2008, with the support of the Department of Nariño, the community launched Sí Se Puede Las Varas, a concerted effort to rid its territory of coca and improve the legal economy.9 In 2010, USAID invested in the agricultural component of the project to improve the quality, productivity and quantity of the region’s main cash crops: cacao, coconuts and African palm.

Alternative Development projects may include infrastructure improvements and community building, but they are primarily focused on replacing illegal crops with legal cash crops. The economic development goal of an alternative development project is to provide families with an adequate source of income.

In this thesis, I seek to identify the factors that contributed to Las Varas’ relative success and explore whether the community can serve as a model for the other villages in the region. Specifically, I ask: What characteristics of the community and the development process contributed to the eradication of the majority of coca and have begun to improve the quality of life in Las Varas? Is it possible to emulate these characteristics in the other communities?

It is important to note that at the time of my fieldwork it was too early in the project to evaluate its economic impact—one of the most crucial factors for the project’s long tem success. The average income of coca farmers in the Pacific region is $800 a month.10 The long-term economic development objective in Las Varas is for each household to ultimately earn two minimum wages or $640 a month.11 At the time of my research, however, residents were struggling to buy basic necessities. I am basing my assessment of the community’s progress on the following criteria: Despite financial hardship, nearly all community members interviewed attested that their overall quality of life was better.12 Illegal armed groups no longer threatened the community and there were vast social changes, including better relations between residents, the revival of community events and an end to the excessive drinking and prostitution that coca profits had fueled.

I argue that there are three overarching reasons for Las Varas’ success. First, the program was more expansive than the projects in Tumaco’s other consejos comunitarios

6 UNODC, “Colombia: Monitoreo de Cultivos de Coca 2010.” June (2011). 7 USAID, “Assessment of the Implementation of the US Govtʼs Support for Plan Colombia's Illicit Crop Reduction Components.” April (2009). 8 Although Las Varas is considered a coca-free community, there is still a small amount of coca cultivation. In spring 2012, Nariño government officials and Las Varas community leaders estimated that about 30 hectares of coca remained, about one to two percent of the amount cultivated previously. 9 Departments have similar functions as states in the US. Tumaco is in the Department of Nariño. 10 Interview, Estupiñan, 24 June 2011. 11 Ibid. 12 This was the common sentiment of most of the 40 residents I interviewed from June-Aug 2011.

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and bolstered by significant institutional support with an emphasis on community building. Las Varas, unlike the other communities, had the additional assistance of the Department of Nariño government (Gobernación), which has shepherded the process and lent its political, financial and professional expertise.13 The Gobernación strategy involved the whole community—unlike the other alternative development projects, encouraging the development of networks and institutions throughout the community. It also leveraged important concessions such as a temporary suspension of aerial spraying in the territory allowing residents to eradicate coca of their own volition and engendered community trust in the government. With the help of the Gobernación, the community organized politically and socially, stimulating participation and interaction between residents.

Second, the decision to end coca cultivation and pursue development assistance was made internally and autonomously by the community. As I will explain in Chapter 4, many factors played a role in the decision-making, including peer-pressure, external coercion such as aerial herbicide spraying, and decreasing profits. But, on the whole, residents considered it an autonomous choice they had made as a community. As a result, their commitment was much greater than if it had been imposed on them. In contrast to Las Varas, the other communities in Tumaco which participated in alternative development projects were selected by the state and were offered a development package contingent on eliminating illicit crops. Thus, according to leaders of several of the other communities, residents did not have the same sense of ownership and dedication to the success of the projects as the residents of Las Varas.14

Third, Las Varas has inherent physical advantages both in terms of geography and infrastructure. Critically, about half its residents are connected to the greater municipality by road. It is one of two consejos comunitarios in Tumaco that is accessible by road; the rest can only be reached by river. The additional time and expense of traveling by boat raises the cost of development, cuts into profit margins on legal crops that must be transported and limits state presence. Whereas police can easily travel to and from Las Varas to monitor the presence of armed groups and illicit coca cultivation, they only occasionally make the costly, inconvenient trips from the urban area to the other rural communities.

The factors contributing to Las Varas’ comparative success, both internal and external, are so interdependent as to be difficult to rank by importance. For instance, the community mobilization to eradicate coca and seek support garnered Gobernación’s assistance. That assistance provided the expertise and resources that enabled the community to generate even more widespread commitment to coca eradication and development efforts. Similarly, Las Varas’ road transportation infrastructure and relatively concentrated population made it more difficult and less attractive for armed groups to establish a permanent presence there and in turn, relatively secure for the Gobernación staff to enter. This enabled the latter’s hands-on participation. Regardless, some conclusions can be drawn from the study of this case about the necessary preconditions and intervention methods for more successful eradication and development projects.

13 Tumaco is in the Department of Nariño. Departments have a similar role as states in the US. 14 Jairo Ruben. Interview. 14 June, 2011. Tumaco; and Ari Ledesma, Rio Gualajo community council leader. Interview. 2 August, 2011.

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Although it is premature to consider Las Varas a truly successful model because its economic development is still nascent, there are compelling reasons to examine the community’s progress at this early stage: 1. New development projects funded by USAID and the Colombian government are currently being formulated for the other 13 black communities, or consejos comunitarios, in Tumaco. Proposals for these projects are, at least theoretically, informed by Las Varas’ experiences. 2. Las Varas may be the only case of successful alternative development in a consejo comunitario. The policies that effectively addressed the social, cultural and political characteristics in Las Varas may be applicable to Colombia’s more than 120 other consejos comunitarios.

If Las Varas is to be a beacon for other consejos comunitarios, gauging the efficacy and sustainability of eradication and development there is crucial. In the consejo comunitario Rio Gualajo, residents uprooted nearly all of the coca in the hope that the demonstration of their commitment would also garner the assistance of Gobernación. But the cash-poor department, with its regional office already devoting 20 percent of its time and resources to Las Varas, could not assist another community. Gualajo leaders are hoping that ,with the next round of USAID funding, their community will be able to emulate Las Varas’ progress. Field Research

The majority of my research for this study was conducted from the end of the June 2011 through early August 2011 in Las Varas and the urban zone of Tumaco. My fieldwork included semi-structured interviews with more than 40 Las Varas community members and leaders. The interviews were conducted in both group and individual settings. The interviewees were about evenly split between residents I chose by simply approaching people in the community and residents who community leaders introduced to me. I additionally conducted repeat individual interviews with three Department of Nariño officials who oversaw the Las Varas project in person while I was in Tumaco and by phone and email after I returned. The interviews with community members, leaders and Nariño officials generated the bulk of my data. Community members described their experiences with the process, each from his or her own perspective. When analyzed together, these perspectives offered a complete and nuanced picture of the changes in the community and the implantation of the project. Community leaders helped paint a more detailed picture by describing their own roles within the process. I also interviewed eleven community members in the consejo comunitario Rio Bajo Mira and, although I was not able to visit the other consejos comunitarios for security reasons, I interviewed leaders of six consejos comunitarios in the urban zone of Tumaco. The information gathered from these interviews allowed me to contrast the experience of alternative development in Las Varas with the experiences of other villages. Lastly, I conducted two interviews with officials from Tetra Tech International Development, the company that contracted with USAID to implement the alternative development projects in Tumaco. These interviews provided me with additional information on how the projects were implemented and how circumstances in Las Varas differed from the other communities.

This thesis is structured in five chapters. Following this introduction, I will review the relevant, current literature, including the theories underpinning alternative development and critiques of the way it is practiced. In Chapter 2, I will provide background information that offers a brief description of counter narcotics policy in

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Colombia, the strategy of alternative development, as well as the history and political structure of consejos comunitarios. The third chapter recounts how coca was introduced and how it transformed the region. Particular emphasis will be placed on Las Varas, as well as the impact of alternative development projects on Tumaco’s communities, in this description. In Chapter 4, I will present evidence from my fieldwork to substantiate my argument that various factors both inherent to Las Varas and specific to the project’s implementation contributed to its success. Finally, in the fifth chapter, I will examine the intersection of the literature and my research, as well as pose some possible implications for alternative development policy.

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Chapter 2 - Literature Review

Development projects do not operate in a vacuum. They contend with a tangled web of social, political and economic conditions. Before examining the literature specific to alternative development, I will provide a brief overview of Colombia’s political economy to explain how the country became one of the world’s biggest producers and exporters of narcotics. The discussion will also offer insight into the obstacles to extracting Colombia from the illegal economy.

Colombia is notoriously difficult to govern, with whole regions remaining outside the grasp of the state.15 The terrain is vast and rugged, straddling three Andean cordilleras, the Amazon jungle to the south and littoral wetlands along the Pacific Coast creating barriers to domestic communication and trade. The state’s absence from much of the countryside—a consequence of both geography and the orientation of the elite-dominated regime— unequal land distribution, armed conflict and free-market orientation have all contributed to the Colombian drug trade.16

Although a democracy since its independence, Colombia has consistently been dominated by conservative land-owners and miners who have marginalized the peasantry. Property is concentrated among the elites with sixty-one percent of the land held by just .4 percent of the population.17 Furthermore, the elites hold the most fertile lands, leaving peasants small plots of generally marginal land to cultivate. Even when granted title to their own property, these peasants often lack the credit and technical assistance needed to make the land productive.18 With meager resources and little money generated from farming, they struggle to make ends meet. As a consequence, peasants are often quite desperate for a sustainable source of income, even if it is illicit, to guarantee their survival.19

With high levels of poverty and weak state presence, it is not surprising then, that these “ungoverned spaces” become “breeding grounds” for illegal armed groups.20 Power in much of remote Colombia lies “in the hands of guerrillas, paramilitaries and narcotraffickers.”21 While the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or FARC), a left-leaning guerrilla group 15 Mark Bowden, Killing Pablo: The hunt for the world’s greatest outlaw (New York: Penguin Books, 2001).16See Carlos F. Diaz-Alejandro, Foreign trade regimes and economic development: Colombia. (Cambridge, Mass: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1976), introduction; Leah Ann Carroll, Violent Democracy; Bowden, and US Agency for International Development (USAID) Assessment of the Implementation of the United States Government's Support for Plan Colombia's Illicit Crop Reduction Components. Felbab-Brown, Vanda et al. 2009. 17 Center for International Policy (CIP) and Latin America Working Group Education Fund, Washington Office on Latin American Studies, After Plan Colombia: Evaluating “Integrated Action,” the next phase of U.S. assistance (Washington, DC, 2009) 3. 18 Alexandro Reyes Posada, Guerreros y Campesinos: El Despojo de la tierra en Colombia (Bogotá: Grupo Editorial Norma, Bogota, 2008), 21-25. 19 USAID, 30-32. 20 Colletta A. Youngers and John M. Walsh, “Development First: A more humane and promising approach to reducing cultivation of crops for illicit markets, ” Washington Office on Latin America, March 2010; 8. 21 Ibid.

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thousands strong, has been the greatest direct threat to the state, the right-wing paramilitaries and criminal gangs have been equally, if not more, pivotal in the drug trade.22 Without dwelling on the origins or ideologies of the various armed groups in Colombia –a topic for another thesis– it is important to note that they continue to dominate much of rural Colombia, holding the monopoly on violence. As the purveyors of the illegal economy, they are able to offer peasants what the legal market and government do not: credit and a steady source of income. Drug War

Though Colombia was central in the marijuana trade in the 1960s, and in cocaine trafficking by the 1970s, cultivation of the coca plant is relatively new to the country. Colombia’s primary role in the cocaine trade until the late 1980s was as an intermediary trafficking country, procuring coca paste or base from Peru and Bolivia, processing and exporting it.23 The majority of the cocaine was then shipped from Colombia’s Atlantic Coast to South Florida where it was distributed throughout the United States.24 But in the 1980s, US-sponsored counternarcotics efforts in Peru and Bolivia cut production in those countries, displacing coca cultivation to neighboring Colombia.25

The shift in cultivation sites coincided with economic reforms within the country that further exacerbated the inequality between the landed class and peasants.26 Like many other Latin American regimes, Colombia adopted neoliberal economic policies in pursuit of economic growth.27 The state eliminated tariffs protecting domestic farmers, devalued the currency and channeled resources into export-led development. The policy reforms dealt a heavy blow to the already struggling peasant class.28 Foreign food imports flooded the market, devastating small farmers, particularly coffee and grain cultivators.29 Without the conditions to make legal agriculture viable, peasants were particularly vulnerable to the lure of cultivating illicit crops.30

22 For a discussion of the armed groups in rural Colombia, see Carroll, “Introduction;” Reyes; Sanín F. Gutiérrez "Telling the Difference: Guerrillas and Paramilitaries in the Colombian War;" Politics & Society. 36.1 (2008): 3-34; and Garry Leech, The FARC: The Longest Insurgency. London: Zed Books Ltd, 2011. 23 US General Accounting Office (GAO), “Drug Control: Efforts to develop alternatives to cultivating illicit crops in Colombia have made little progress and face serious obstacles” (Washington, DC, February 2002), 3-7. 24 US Congressional Research Service, “Latin America and the Caribbean: Illicit Drug Trafficking and US . Counterdrug Programs” (12 May 2010). Interdiction has shifted the main drug trafficking route to land, with the narcotics entering the US through Mexico. 25Dion, 400. Within the last five years, the trend has begun to reverse itself, with coca cultivation declining slightly in Colombia and rising in Peru and Bolivia. 26 Carlos Felipe Jaramillo, “Liberalization, Crisis, and Change: Colombian Agriculture in the 1990s” Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 49, No. 4 (July 2001): 821-846. 27 Ibid. 28 Jaramillo. 29 Ibid. 30 Government Accountability Office, “Plan Colombia: Drug reduction goals were not fully met, but security has improved; U.S. agencies need more detailed plans for reducing assistance.” October 2008.

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By 1999, Colombia was no longer simply the world’s top cocaine trafficker, it was also the largest producer. 31 Reflecting the shift in roles, efforts to stop the drug trade increasingly tied Colombia to the US. Colombia had become the third highest recipient of US military aid by 1999.32 But when results proved to be limited, the US escalated and consolidated its involvement in the country even further. Launched in 2000, Plan Colombia, a multiyear $7.5 billion counternarcotics and counterinsurgency strategy, was designed to beat back the cocaine and heroine trade and improve the country’s security.33 Spearheaded by then President Andres Pastrana, the plan’s objectives were to reduce the “cultivation, processing and production” of heroine and cocaine by half within six years and to undercut the strength of the FARC.34 Under Plan Colombia the government launched major aerial spraying and military campaigns in the southern departments of Caqueta and Putumayo.35 The activity spurred a migration of displaced coca farmers and armed groups to Nariño. Many of the farmers planted coca crops in their new destication. As cultivation rose, a growing drug trade drew even greater numbers of armed actors.36 In turn, the drugtraffickers, paramilitaries and guerrillas encouraged peasants to cultivate coca.37 By 2007, armed groups and violence became commonplace and coca cultivation reached 18,000 hectares—one-fifth the national total.38 Plan Colombia officially ended in 2007. Since then, the US-Colombian counternarcotics strategy has had several different names. It is commonly known as the National Consolidation Plan, but is still often simply referred to as Plan Colombia.39 Most of the counternarcotics funding has continued to been spent on security— training military and police officers and purchasing helicopters and other equipment —and aerial spraying to destroy the coca crops.40

31 María Clemencia Ramírez, “Aerial Spraying and Alternative Development in Plan Colombia: Two sides of the same coin or two contested policies?” Harvard Review of Latin American Studies (Boston: Harvard University, spring/summer 2005). 32 Ibid. 33 US State Department “Support for Colombia factsheet." http://www.state.gov/www/regions/wha/colombia/fs_000328_plancolombia.html As of 2009, $6.5 billion of it was spent according to the Center for International Policy. (Isacson and Poe, 2009) 34 GAO report, 2008. 35 Felbab-Brown et al., 2009, 81. 36 Felbab-Brown et al., 2009. 37 Felbab-Brown et al., 2009. 38 Felbab-Brown et. al, 2009, 81-82 39 The Colombian state has since established the Center for Integrated Consolidated Action (CCAI in Spanish) an agency that is responsible for coordinating the security and development efforts. There are three phases to this new approach that the government correlates with traffic light colors. The first phase (red), consists of securing the area with police and military officers and driving out armed groups. In the yellow phase, the intent is to maintain order and begin to restore institutions. Lastly, in the green phase, the goal is to establish state institutions and public services. For a detailed explanation, see Isacson and Poe. 40 Youngers and Walsh; Adam Isacson, “The US Military in the War on Drugs,” in Coletta A. Youngers and Eileen Rosin (eds.), Drugs and Democracy in Latin America : The Impact of US Policy, (London: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2005), 15–60.

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Aerial Spraying

For as long as aerial spraying has been a strategy in the war on drugs, it has drawn criticism. Left-leaning organizations have lambasted the practice as an inhumane and environmentally destructive practice.41 Beginning in the 1990s, however, a more mainstream voice of opposition emerged. These critics do not oppose aerial spraying per se, but argue that it should only be used when farmers have legal economic alternatives.42 They contend that it is cruel and ineffective to destroy farmers’ sole livelihoods. Otherwise, the United Nations concluded in a 2005 evaluation that "illicit crops should be eradicated only when viable alternatives exist for households participating in alternative development.”43 According to the World Bank, wholesale eradication unaccompanied by economic development is unethical and ineffective: “There is a moral, political and economic case for having alternative livelihoods programs in place before commencing eradication."44 There is a growing consensus that aerial spraying as the primary tool for stemming cultivation is not only unethical, but actually undermines the goal of eradication.45 Aerial spraying often simply encourages migration as farmers desperate to find a new source of income flee, adding to the already alarming rate of displaced Colombians.46 The herbicide used destroys food and legal cash crops, undercutting food security and any stream of licit income that families had. With no other options, the farmers will often press deeper into the jungle to cultivate coca again. Additionally, for many farmers aerial spraying is one of their first encounters with the state. Thus, it sparks distrust and resentment toward the government.47 A report prepared for USAID argued that “forced eradication in the absence of alternative livelihoods fosters a positive relationship between the population and the armed actors.”48 The peasants, according to the report, look toward the illegal groups for protection against the government, and refuse to “provide intelligence on the armed actors to the state.”49

However, aerial spraying is not seen as entirely counter-productive. Some critics of the current practices argue that aerial spraying is a necessary tool when combined with legal income opportunities. They say that without the threat of forced eradication, farmers have little incentive to adopt legal crops that may not also offer a steady source of income.50 41Many groups argue that the use of herbicide has environmental costs, contaminating the soil and water. For an overview, see Judith Walcott, “Spraying Crops, Eradicating People.” Cultural Survival Quarterly, (Winter: 2001) 26., 4; 29-37. 42United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “Thematic Evaluation of UNODC Alternative Development Initiatives,” (New York, 2005); and World Bank, “Afghanistan: State Building, Sustaining Growth, and Reducing Poverty. A Country Economic Report, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit South Asia Region,” World Bank, Report No. 29551-AF, 2004. 43 UNODC 2005, 14. 44 The World Bank, Afghanistan – State Building, Sustaining Growth and Reducing Poverty, February 2005, 82. 45 Felbab-Brown et. al 2009; and Youngers and Walsh. 46 Youngers and Walsh, 9. 47 See Felbab-Brown 2011. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid.

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There are, however, many documented cases where alternative development project sites have been destroyed by aerial fumigation.51 Whether the prevalence of such cases is because the aerial spraying program is not carefully administered, coca is interspersed within the project areas or there is drift from nearby spraying is a matter of dispute.52 Regardless, when alternative development projects are sprayed with herbicides, participants lose their newly-planted legal crops and often their faith in the government and the aid agency.53 The result is that projects are abandoned and millions of dollars wasted.54 Alternative Development

Alternative development has been a relatively small part of the US-Colombian counternarcotics strategy.55 Of the more than $7 billion US dollars spent on security56 and antidrug initiatives as part of Plan Colombia, slightly more than $500 million has funded alternative development.57 This comprises the single largest portion of non-military aid included in the plan. Although it is just a fraction of Plan Colombia’s budget, alternative development is the “carrot” in a policy that is otherwise all “stick.” Assessments of alternative development projects by the US Government Accounting Office (GAO), academics and non-governmental organizations have found that most projects fail to achieve their goals of community-wide coca eradication and sustained economic development.58 The overall ineffectiveness of alternative development projects is perhaps unsurprising in light of the needs in coca-growing communities and the additional challenges that illegal economies bring. In fact, it is “unrealistic to expect positive results in violent frontier areas, where most of the coca is grown, basic services are lacking, and government presence is ephemeral.”59

Development projects sponsored by outside agencies are often unsuccessful even when they are not forced to contend with the additional challenge of an illegal economy.

51 See Youngers and Walsh, 17; and Felbab-Brown et al. 2009, 26-29. 52 The various perspectives are represented in Francisco E. Thoumi, US AID Annex 4 ; Youngers and Walsh; Jason Thor Hagen, "Alternative Development Won't End Colombia's War" (Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, 1 May, 2001). http://www.fpif.org/articles/alternative_development_wont_end_colombias_war . 53 Transnational Institute, “Alternative Development Overview,” 2006; Youngers and Walsh, 14. 54 Felbab-Brown et. al 2009, 34. 55 USAID is not the only actor involved in alternative development in Colombia. The United Nations Office of Drug Control (UNODC), the European Union, and other governmental agencies, as well as nonprofits, have also collaborated with the Colombian government on alternative development projects. 56 “What Future for US-backed Plan Colombia?” British Broadcasting Corporation, 12 June 2010 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10208937. 57 Felbab-Brown et. al, 6. 58 For example, see Youngers and Walsh, US General Accounting Office (GAO), Drug Control: Efforts to develop alternatives to cultivating illicit crops in Colombia have made little progress and face serious obstacles” (Washington, DC, February 2002), and GAO: “Drug Control: US nonmilitary assistance to Colombia is beginning to show intended results, but programs are not readily sustainable, (Washington, DC, July 2004). 59 Hagen.

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The failure of rural development projects is not a new or unrecognized phenomenon.60 As Ferguson makes clear in his book about Lesotho, a beleaguered African country that is desperately poor despite a plethora of aid agencies and programs, development projects rarely translate into gains for the intended beneficiaries.61

Rural development projects are to be found scattered liberally across the African continent and beyond; and, in nearly every case, these projects seem on inspection to be planned, implemented and justified in very nearly the same way as they are in Lesotho. What is more, these projects seem to ‘fail’ with almost the same astonishing regularity that they do in Lesotho.

Indeed, the shortcomings in policy and implementation of alternative development include a dearth of resources, the limited breadth and duration of the assistance, and the absence of state services and control.62 Yet, despite acknowledgement of the need for much larger investments by aid agencies, alternative development projects, by their very nature are short-term and relatively limited.

Most USAID projects range from two to three years. This means that assistance, both financial and technical, has usually ended before the first harvest.63 Thus, project objectives tend to be short-term goals that do not ensure economic sustainability.64 A development project is considered complete when the crops are planted and farmers receive their training. Often the aid agencies do not adequately plan for the commercialization of the crops produced or account for how the farmers will transport them to markets.65

In the case of Colombia, addressing deficits in transportation is critical as most coca-producing regions are “inaccessible by highway and far from any realistic market.”

66 Despite this need, building ports and highways is beyond the capacity of the small-scale alternative development projects in Colombia.67

One of the most widely criticized aspects of alternative development in Colombia is the government’s requirement that farmers eradicate all of their illicit crops before receiving assistance.68 The policy has the perverse consequence of discouraging the farmers most dependent on coca from participating because they do not have a source of income to sustain them during the transitional phase. Additionally, the policy increases the likelihood that projects will fail, as described below.69 With numerous obstacles to 60SeeJames Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: "Development", Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2007 ). 8-9. 61Ibid.62 See the introduction of the USAID 2009 assessment for a detailed overview of the problems with alternative development. 63 Felbab-Brown et. al, 12. 64 GAO 2004, 10-15. 65 Youngers and Walsh, 13. 66 Francisco E. Thoumi, "Illegal drugs in Colombia: From illegal economic boom to social crisis." The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 582.1 (2002): 113. 67 Ibid. 68 See Linda Farthing and Benjamin Kohl. “Conflicting Agendas: The Politics of Development Aid in Drug-Producing Areas.” Development Policy Review 23.2 (2005) 183-198; Felbab-Brown et. al 2009 “Conclusion and Recommendations;” and Youngers and Walsh. 69 See Youngers and Walsh, 18 and Felbab-Brown, 2.

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legal economic development, forcing farmers to eradicate their primary source of income long before they can hope to earn a legal livelihood, leaves the farmers destitute for years.70

Even under the best circumstances, most of the crops that replace coca, such as cacao or coffee, take several years to produce harvests. In the interim, the “income in many of the former coca communities often plummets 80% from their already poverty-level.”71 In some instances, total coca eradication has led to nutritional deficits.72 Although USAID provides some food aid, it is only for a short period of time. As a result, “only farmers who have sufficient resources for legal livelihoods available prior to eradicating are likely to weather the gap between eradication and the time when alternative development efforts start generating income.”73 Thus, the “zero-illicit” policy often compels cash-strapped farmers to abandon the project and return to growing illicit crops.74

In recommending an end to the zero-illicit policy, a report commissioned by USAID concluded that it complicated the already fraught relationship between coca growers and the state.75

Having had few positive experiences with both their own government and the US government—which sponsors the aerial spraying program—residents are distrustful of the official assurances of forthcoming aid. For them, building trust is a gradual process and that requires sustained assistance as the farmers transition from coca.76

If the Colombian and US governments worked to build trust, rather than mandating that peasants take a leap of faith, alternative development would be much more appealing.77 As it stands now, the projects operate in small clusters where residents motivated by increasing amounts of violence and tired of aerial spraying agree to eradicate coca.78

The reach and efficacy of alternative development projects have also been hampered by security issues. Security threats drove USAID from the areas most densely cultivated with coca in the early 2000s. USAID shifted its focus to communities that did not contend with armed groups. However, this also meant that most projects were implemented in regions with little to no coca cultivation, thereby not greatly impacting the communities most entrenched in coca farming.79 With improvements to security in certain regions due to Plan Colombia, USAID is once again implementing alternative development projects in vulnerable areas, but the armed groups continue to make it difficult to operate.80 Residents who live among armed groups are reluctant to associate

70 Felbab-Brown et. al 2009, 8 and Ramírez. 71 Felbab-Brown, 2. 72 Felbab-Brown et. al 2009, 48. 73 Felbab-Brown et. al 2009. 74 Felbab-Brown et al. 2009, 48. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid, 48. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid, 22-24. 79 GAO, 2008. According to the report, USAID defined these communities as “vulnerable,” to the appeal of coca cultivation.80 Felbab-Brown et al. 2009, 9-14.

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themselves with the government or cooperate with aid agencies because they fear retaliation.81 The criminal groups continue to restrict the free movement of people and goods, impeding the access to markets necessary for the economic development aims of projects.82

Chapter 3 - Background This chapter provides a framework for understanding the political, cultural and

economic conditions of the consejos comunitarios and how alternative development projects operate within them. It will address some of the problems that impeded the projects implemented in Tumaco’s other consejos comunitarios, offering a contrast to the relative success of the project in Las Varas described in my research.83 Lastly, it will detail the history of coca production in Tumaco and its effects on the community of Las Varas. Using residents’ testimonies to recreate aspects of the community life offers insight into why Las Varas eradicated coca, why residents largely considered the project successful and why the social processes involved in the project were critical to the outcome.

Black Communities in the Pacific

In the tropical, southern Pacific region of Colombia, not far from the Ecuadorian border, black communities have made their homes and livelihoods along the inlets that flow east from the ocean. They inhabit areas that are difficult to access by land. Historically, their isolation was strategic. 84 Some of the communities were founded centuries ago by escaped and freed slaves. Others were settled long after the abolition of slavery by landless blacks, who were able to gain access to the land because these undeveloped, remote spaces were unwanted by others.85

The consejos comunitarios vary in size and population. In Tumaco, the populations range from fewer than 400 residents to nearly 7,700 inhabitants.86 The villages are arranged in hamlets or veredas which are traditionally tightly-knit communities, each at least nominally represented by an elected committee.87 The homes in the veredas are clustered together much like an urban neighborhood. The houses are small and box-like, usually constructed by the dwellers from wood. Some have long stilt legs, suspending them above the water when the tide swells the rivers. The farms are in a separate part of the community. The separation of the homes and farms has made for a 81 Hagen; and Isaacson. 82 Felbab-Brown et al. 2009, 22. 83 The descriptions of the alternative development projects in most of the consejos comunitarios are based primarily on interviews with community leaders that I conducted in Tumaco’s urban core. I was unable to visit most of the consejos comunitarios due to security risks, making it difficult to interview ordinary community members. 84 Historical information about the black communities was gathered from unpublished contextual documents provided by the GobernaciónArturo Escobar; and Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008). 85 Ibid. 86 Victor Mejia, Gobernación official. Interview. 14 June 2011. 87 The following description of the services in consejos comunitarios is derived from observation and dozens of personal interviews with residents and leaders of consejos comunitarios in Tumaco from July-Aug. 2011.

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clear delineation of gendered spaces. Women work in the home raising the children, cooking and cleaning, while men work on the farms.88 Women often know very little about their family’s farm unless they have taken over its management because they are widowed or separated from their husbands.

Subsistence agriculture and fishing have long sustained Tumaco’s black communities.89 Most families buy staples such as rice and other necessities with their earnings and complement their diets by growing fruit and vegetables including yucca, oranges, plantains, as well as fishing and hunting small animals such as mountain rats, armadillos and foxes. Since they sustain themselves through diverse activities, not just farming, rural blacks are more often referred to, and refer to themselves, as recogedores or gatherers, rather than as farmers or campesinos. In Tumaco, communities have traditionally relied on meager profits from selling coconuts or cacao to purchase the rice and other staples that supplement their subsistence activities. Most grow both crops, but each community tends to focus most of its resources on one crop, a practice that residents attribute to ancestral tradition. Farmers also grow and sell plantains, which are used as a shade crop for cacao. For some, small-scale forestry as well as fishing and crabbing are important sources of income.90 Yet, the profits earned for crops, lumber and seafood are restricted by limited market access and inadequate infrastructure. The region is not well connected to regional, national or international markets, transportation costs are high and there is no local infrastructure to transform the crops into higher value products, such as processed chocolate or packaged coconut water. Transporting the crops from the consejos comunitarios to urban centers, most of which is done by river, is costly and inefficient. Even in the two consejos comunitarios that are accessible by land, the roads do not traverse the entire territory. Travel by boat, usually a canoe with a motor attached, is about four times more expensive than covering the same distance by land.91 It also must be timed to the eight-hour tide cycle that controls the river flows because during low tide, the rivers become unnavigable. The traditional farming methods of the black communities have included low- density cultivation and little crop maintenance. For instance, there are about 200 to 300 cacao trees per hectare on an average farm in Tumaco’s black communities whereas upwards of 900 is recommended for commercial farms.92 Few of the farmers have received training on crop management and tend to do little upkeep such as pruning, resulting in low yields and quality. This lack of care has been inconsequential in the communities’ ability to sell their crops because the cacao beans are sold to Casa Luker, a company that makes low-grade Colombian chocolate.93 However, communities receive 88 In the more than two dozen interviews with women I conducted from June-Aug. 2011, just two women worked in the farm. Both were separated from their husbands. This observation was confirmed in 4 July 2011 interview with Las Varas community council leaders Jose Felix Cruel and a 7 July 2011 interview with Gobernación offical Eugenio Estupiñan. 89 Subsistence agriculture does not exclude cash crops. Most households grew small quantities of cacao, coconuts and/or African palm to sell but made barely enough for their basic necessities. 90 Small river crabs, or jaibas, are common in local cuisine. 91 This was the common estimate that Tumaqueños would give. 92 Mejia and Gustavo Adolfo Mindineros, Las Varas resident and agricultural techician. Interview. 12 July 2011. Tumaco. Many community members said their land was sparsely planted with cacao trees simply because that was the way their ancestors had done it. It is likely that the custom developed due to a tangle of factors, including sustainability, curbing the spread of plant diseases and an inability to access credit. 93 Interview. Gustavo Adolfo Mindineros.12 July 2011. Tumaco

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little money for their cacao from Casa Luker because they have limited amounts to sell and no other prospective buyers to drive up prices. As a result, the money earned from cacao, even with a guaranteed buyer, does not bestow Tumaqueños with financial security.

Until the alternative development projects, African palm, used for cooking oil and biofuel, was one of the few agricultural products in the region to receive significant national and international support. Farmers were able to access aid and credit for its cultivation.94

The disregard for the agricultural livelihood of the region is emblematic of the profound state neglect of the rural Pacific. The only government service provided to the rural communities in Tumaco is education, which is inadequate at best.95 Several times a week school teachers travel from the urban area and offer classes, often in a one- or two-room school house to multiple grade levels. Most children do not graduate from high school. With such limited educational opportunities, it is not uncommon for residents to be illiterate or have poor literacy skills. As a consequence, it can be difficult for them to negotiate with the government and find work other than farming. In addition to the educational inadequacies, the communities lack access to running water. There is no waste management or sewage system. And although some communities have a facility intended as a health clinic, none of them are functioning.96 In the swaths of the communities that have electricity, it is because the residents coerced the local utility company to provide it or a cluster of households pooled resources to buy a generator. The deficits in education, infrastructure and basic services, deprive residents of the resources to improve their lives and earn an adequate living cultivating legal crops.

Consejos Comunitarios: Political Rights

The 14 black communities in Tumaco are recognized as consejos comunitarios granting them special rights as semi-autonomous entities. The 1991 Constitution and subsequent legislation, Law 70, institutionalized collective and autonomous right based on the notion of ethno-cultural difference for indigenous and black communities.97 Through this legislation, black communities in “unoccupied national lands” (tierras baldías) in rural and riparian areas where Afro-Colombians live “in conformity with their traditional systems of production” were made eligible to apply for collective land titles.98 The collective rights do not preclude individual property ownership by residents. Rather, they forbid outsiders from acquiring property in the territory and require that before any

94 Garry Leech. "The Oil Palm Industry: A Blight on Afro-Colombia." NACLA Report on the Americas 42.4 (2009): 30. 95 Data on the services provides is derived from multiple personal interviews with consejos comunitarios residents and Gobernación officials from Jul-Aug 2011. 96 The communities do have their own midwives. But much of the traditional practices of the curanderos and their knowledge of medicinal plants has been lost. It was not clear to me exactly why. However, I was told leaders that when families had enough money, particulary during the coca boom, they chose to pay for medical care and medicine in the city of Tumaco. 97 Adopted in 1993, Ley 70 fullfilled provisions in the 1991 Colombian Constitution that mandated legislation recognizing black ethno-territorial rights. Ley 70 applies only to black communities in the Pacific region. 98 1991 Colombian Constitution, Transitory Article 55.

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development occurs, the community must be consulted (consulta previa).99 In addition to protecting property rights, the stated purpose of Law 70 is to “establish mechanisms for the protection of the cultural identity and the rights of the black communities of Colombia as an ethnic group and the fostering of their social and economic development, with the end of guaranteeing that these communities obtain a real position of equality of opportunities in relationship to the rest of Colombian society.100 However, little has been done to foster this cultural identity or promote social and economic development in the consejos comunitarios.101 In fact, unlike indigenous communities, consejos comunitarios were not guaranteed resources, impeding their ability to transcend their structural limitations. Although they are governed and represented by an elected council or junta directiva that fulfills a role similar to a city council, the communities are still subsumed by the municipality. As a result, they do not receive any direct financial transfers from the state nor do they have the ability to levy their own taxes. Legally, the municipality is responsible for providing services to the territories, however, the territories are rarely able to wrest significant funding from municipal governments, and as previously mentioned, municipal infrastructure and services are not extended to the consejos comunitarios.102 Without the necessary resources, the consejos comunitarios have largely been unable to implement their community development plans that outline objectives to address physical, social and political infrastructure needs from foot-bridges to parenting skills workshops.103 As a result, black communities in Tumaco have not been able to realize their development goals.

Coca’s Introduction into Tumaco and Its Impacts

While some indigenous Andean cultures have consumed the coca leaf for hundreds of years as a mild stimulant, Afro-Colombians do not have a custom of growing or consuming coca. In the early 1990s some Afro-Colombians from the Pacific started to migrate to other parts of the country to work as rapuchines, coca leaf harvesters, or to become coca farmers themselves. But coca was not common in the Pacific until US-Colombian counternarcotics and anti-insurgent tactics in the 1990s drove both growers and drug traffickers into new regions where state presence was minimal.104 Remote and lacking even basic state services, the black communities became fertile ground for coca production. In the early 2000s, coca growers from Caquetá and Putumayo began to purchase land and plant coca in the region. Tumaco natives who had left to find work

99 The Rapaport Center of Human Rights and Justice, “Unfulfilled Promises and Persistent Obstacles to the Realization of the Rights of Afro-Colombians. A Report on the Development of Ley 70 of 1993.” University of Texas at Austin School of Law ( 2007), 17. 100 Colombia Ley 70, 1993 cited and translated by Karen Engle, The Elusive Promise of Indigenous Development: Rights, Culture, Strategy. (Durahm, NC: Duke University Press, 2010) 101 The Rapaport Center, 17 102 According to the Rapaport Center report, this is often because the municipal governments “suffer from a lack of administrative capacity as well as corruption and inefficiency” which may also be influenced by “racially and ethnically discriminatory attitudes,”18. 103 These are usually called planes de vida. I obtained the plans, which are not published, from Gobernación and individual communities. 104 Felbab-Brown et al. 2009.

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returned when they learned of the coca boom.105 To stimulate production, drug traffickers offered coca seeds to residents either on credit or as a “gift.”

Within a few years, families that did not grow coca were a minority. A USAID official described the region as a “coca country, like you might have coffee country or a tobacco belt.”106 One Las Varas community leader who refused to grow coca said that at the height of the boom, he was considered “el bobo de paseo”—the fool of the group.107

In Las Varas, the introduction of coca brought subtle changes in the beginning. Men bought luxuries they could not have afforded before, such as sound systems, and they began to spend more money on alcohol. Women bought clothes for themselves and their families, meat to supplement their typical diet, and in parts of the community with electricity, some purchased appliances. Coca even brought a different sound and set of musical rhythms.108 With the coca culture and newly-purchased sound systems, pulsating Reggeaton and fast-paced pop blared from bars and homes. Reflecting this change in tempo and music were the changes in the pace and priorities of Tumaqueño daily life.

Many described these as the golden years. For the first time, families not only could meet their needs, but they lived comfortably. With the family’s coca earnings, Alicia Viojo said she was able to pay her daughter’s fees at a university in Bogota.109 Even families that did not grow coca, or much of it, often profited indirectly. Sales in the small resident-owned stores—generally, a few wooden shelves stocked with batteries, diapers, chips and soda—surged, as did the earnings in the makeshift bars and restaurants that cropped up throughout the communities.

Coca growers in other communities tell a similar story: “With coca, you could buy a TV, a motor, a boat, a house. You could afford to send your kids to school in Tumaco. At first there wasn’t any violence and people had more money,” said Anderson Orobio, a leader of the Rio Bajo Mira consejo comunitario.110 But the tensions were not far behind. Even in the good times, there were signs that the community was beginning to come apart. Farmers no longer worked cooperatively on each others’ land as they did during cacao harvests. Coca cultivation operated on a smaller scale, often with coca plants tucked in among other crops, and was much easier to tend and harvest. Thus, the male members of each household —it was almost exclusively the domain of men—would care for and harvest their own coca. If they needed assistance, they did not work communally, rather they would pay workers. The loosening ties between neighbors reproduced themselves in growing insularity. Residents communicated less. The culture became individualistic and money-oriented. Marcela Quiñones described the loss of community identity: “We were losing our culture. Our sports, dance, music. The muchachos were always talking about money.” 111

105Ibid.106 David Caño, former director of the southern pacific USAID operation. Phone Interview. 22 May 2011. 107 Cruel. 14 July 2012. Tumaco.108 Julio Dominguez, a Las Varas youth. Interview. 23 June 2011, Tumaco; and Cruel. Interview. 28 July 2011. Tumaco. 109 Alicia Viojo. Interview. 23 July 2011. Tumaco She said that because she has since stopped growing coca, she can no longer afford the school fees and her daughter has dropped out to work as a maid. 110 Anderson Orobio. Interview. 30 July 2011. Tumaco. 111 Marcela Quiñones. Interview. 11 July 2011. Tumaco

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As coca spread and profits grew, community norms also dissolved. Men passed large parts of the day and night drinking.112 In fact, even some of the young men who had been involved in coca production readily admitted that they spent much, if not most, of their earnings on alcohol. They would at times point to the poor condition of their home or vehicle, if they were lucky enough to have one, as proof.113

Women in particular, were more likely to disapprove of coca cultivation because of the social cleavages that an illegal economy and “easy money” created within the community and their own families.114 Gender relations deteriorated as men began to flex their newfound wealth on “masculine” endeavors. In addition to alcohol and sound systems, they spent their coca profits on prostitutes—frequenting sex workers in Tumaco’s urban area— sewing discord between couples and discontent among women in the community. “When the men made money they would spend it on prostitutes and drinking. There was never anything left for the family,” said Jenny Napa, a Las Varas leader.115 Another resident, Johana Rodriguez, described the effect as making gender relations “even more unequal.” Men became even more machista and “it seemed they controlled everything,” she said.116 Women were pivotal in organizing against coca cultivation and compelling their families to eradicate the illegal crops.

More tensions emerged in the community and the threat of violence became pervasive. As residents became more immersed in the coca trade, armed groups, particulary the paramilitaries, were working in the territory. They provided the seeds and bought the coca leaf from farmers. Residents feared the duros or heavies who collected debts for the traffickers, demanding repayment for the “loans” that coca farmers received to purchase coca seeds or fertilizer and pesticides needed for coca cultivation.117 Defaulting on the loans was a dangerous option, as was being in the middle of a squabble between rival drug traffickers for territorial control. Although Las Varas never experienced the same level of violence as some of the other communities, the corpses of residents from nearby communities were found in the rivers too frequently to ignore the threats.

The continual presence of armed groups was perhaps the most disturbing consequence of the coca trade for Las Varas. Residents described the fear as palpable within the community. When paramilitaries lounged on the soccer fields or sat in the main plaza, parents would keep their children indoors.118 One teenager said that when her family grew coca she had been afraid that paramilitaries would hurt her parents.119

In addition, not knowing if an armed group might be present in other parts of the community stifled communication between the veredas. Residents travelled little within the community. Soccer matches between veredas, which had always been large social events, drawing dozens of family members and friends to watch, were no longer held.120

112 Cruel. Interview. 5 July 2011. Tumaco; Nixon Arobio, a Las Varas resident. 5 July 2011. 113 11 July 2011 interview with Arobio. 11 July 2011 interview with Las Varas resident Jaime Quinones. 114 Interviews, Cruel and Landa, 1 Aug, 2011. 115 Jenny Napa, Las Varas resident. Interview. 7 July, 2011. Tumaco 116 Rodriguez. Interview. 7 July 2011. Tumaco117 Residents received the coca seeds as a loan that would have to be repaid with the coca profits. They were also given loans for fertilizer and pesticides. 118 Landa. Phone Interview. 16 April 2012. 119 Kella Calleno. Interview. 12 July 2011. Tumaco.120 Quiñones. Interview. 11 July 2011. Tumaco.

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The paramilitaries imposed a de facto “lockdown” each evening, preventing residents from leaving the consejo comunitario and visitors from entering. Las Varas President Jose Felix Cruel described the community’s transformation under the influence of coca and armed groups:

At first, there was money in the consejo comunitario but also delinquency. Then the armed groups came … and this paradise became a conflict [zone.] At 6pm, nobody could leave or enter.121

The discontent felt by Cruel and others eventually reached a tipping point within the community, prompting the call for eradication. Alternative Development in Tumaco’s Black Communities

In order to understand the uniqueness of the alternative development project in Las Varas in relationship to projects in other communities, it is important to understand the reasons why many of the other projects did not achieve the level of success they intended. The challenges discussed in the literature review—limited resources, lack of security, and policy failures—have complicated the successful implementation of alternative development in Tumaco’s consejos comunitarios. Though the projects included, at least on paper, the goals of improving market access and strengthening local institutions—particularly the municipality—to support the consejos comunitarios, these objectives were often not achieved.122 Neither the aid agencies nor the Colombian government invested the sustained resources required to build infrastructure or develop the political will to cooperate at the municipal level. 123

The scope of alternative development projects in Tumaco was also limited by partial community participation. Other than Las Varas, the projects were restricted to a “nuclei” strategy. The tactic did not have the persuasive effects intended.124 Instead of viral success, the result was to isolate the participants and create friction among community members. Farmers that continued to cultivate coca saw the participants as traitors and potential informants. On several occasions when spraying occurred near a nuclei, it was assumed the participants had informed the state of its existence.125 Nevertheless, some areas have been able to create a significant contiguous swath of land free from coca. This was accomplished by residents who were interested in participating in an alternative development project buying the plots belonging to farmers who were

121 It is interesting to note that although Cruel reflects on the time before coca nostalgically, he had moved into the city of Tumaco so that his children could attend better schools, reflecting the lack of opportunity within the community. 122 Interview. Jairo Cortes, Governación offical. 5 July 2011. Tumaco. Previously, Cortes had worked on several USAID projects in Tumaco. 123 The municipality, which is a key component of the USAID program ADAM (the Spanish acronym for Municipal-Level Alternative Development program) was not a willing partner under the former mayor according to Gobernación officials. 124 2 July 2011 interviews with Consejo Comunitario Rio Alto Mira Council President Gilmer Ganaro and Consejo Comunitario Rio Mexicano Council President Apolinar Granja. 125 Ibid.

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unwilling to abandon coca.126 This strategy, however, limitations to the overall goal of eradication. First, only residents with enough resources could buy additional property. Second, the newly displaced farmers would often buy parcels in other parts of the community to which they then transplanted their crops.127 Thus, this method of alternative development caused coca production to shift between areas rather than effectively eradicating a portion of coca cultivation.

The success of the nuclei was also thwarted by aerial spraying, which will be discussed in the following chapter. Aerial spraying destroyed legal crops within the nuclei, frustrating the participants.128 In the consejo comunitario Rio Alto Mira, participants returned from a workshop one day to find that while they were learning how to better manage cacao, their crops—some of which had been planted and rehabilitated as part of the project—had been fumigated. Alto Mira President Gilmer Ganaro said that there may have been a small amount of coca interspersed in the area that was sprayed, but that the herbicides destroyed the crops of all the participants regardless of whether they had coca. He lamented the effects of the aerial spraying:

The project was allowing us to get rid of the coca little by little. But then (with the spraying), dozens of families lost almost everything. It destroyed 200 hectares of food crops. It was horrible.129 The participants of this particular project decided to abandon alternative

development, but they were still obligated to repay the loans they had accepted as part of the project. Others in the community saw the outcome as a cautionary tale to steer clear of alternative development.130 The same is true for other communities that suffered similarly from aerial spraying.

However, aerial spraying was also one of the main reasons residents gave for wanting to stop cultivating coca.131 Although farmers have become adept at salvaging their coca plants by trimming and replanting them, the widespread application of herbicide has notably decreased the yield of the coca leaf in Tumaco.132 Ironically, many residents also said that the aerial spraying had damaged their food crops and legal cash crops more than the coca.133 In this sense, the spraying had both positive and negative impacts: it encouraged people to move away from coca production, but it also destroyed their other legal crops and thus, an important alternative source of sustenance.

126 Interview. Oscar Taylor. 14 July 2011. Tumaco. Taylor is the director of Coagropacifico, an agricultural collective that has contracted as a technical agency for alternative development projects in Tumaco. 127 Ibid. 128 It is not clear if they were sprayed because there were illegal crops nearby or interwoven with the legal crops or if the spraying was a mistake. 129 Gilmer Ganaro. Interview. 28 June 2011. 130 Ibid. 131 Fanny Rodriguez. Interview. 11 July 2011. 132 Felbab-Brown et al., 2009, 22. 133 Farmers minimize the effect of spraying on coca crops by trimming affected leaves and transplanting them.

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Chapter 4 – The Development Process In Las Varas

The progress made in Las Varas offers a unique vantage point to analyze the methods that led to its relatively successful outcome, as well as to pinpoint the practices that floundered. In this chapter, I examine how the community was able to eradicate most of its coca, remove armed groups from its territory, lay the foundation for economic development and revive social ties. I argue that the most important factors contributing to Las Varas’ success are its geography, infrastructure, community commitment and the institutional support it received. Gobernación facilitated a strategy focusing on total community involvement, building leadership, raising social consciousness and stimulating social capital generation.134 The other consejos comunitarios did not benefit from the same combination of factors and, in fact, they had few, if any, of the same advantages.

All five of the factors listed above contributed to greater security in Las Varas, which residents cited as one of the most significant achievements of these development efforts. Yet, even prior to the development process, the community had been more secure than most of the others because of its geography and infrastructure. The relative security had enabled institutional support, which, in turn, made it more secure. Thus, rather than rank the factors by importance, this chapter addresses them in as close to a chronological fashion as possible, following Las Varas’ journey to illuminate the process. Prior to the analysis, I offer a brief account of investments in infrastructure, economic development and food security. Next, the social development variables will be examined beginning with a description of the community’s grassroots mobilization to eradicate coca and a summation of the institutional support provided by the Department of Nariño. The following section will discuss how the community’s initial mobilization evolved into widespread community commitment to stop growing coca and reject armed groups through consciousness-raising and community building. I will then explore how infrastructure and the location of Las Varas were critical to its ability to develop. Lastly, I will provide analysis of both the achievement and failures of the food security project, an integral part of the process, which reflects common mistakes of development projects addressed in the literature review. Project Description

The main objective of the project was to help Las Varas residents secure adequate livelihoods once they eradicated their illegal crops. The most significant physical investments in Las Varas included a cacao project for 163 families, food security gardens for each of the community’s 1,256 families and a bevy of infrastructure projects. The cacao project aimed to develop one high-density productive hectare for each of the 163 households.135 The average family owns about eight hectares of land and cultivates at least some cacao that is sold for a small amount of profit to a Colombian chocolate

134 I am referring specifically to “bonding” social capital. “The density of supportive ties within a neighborhood or community.” Anthony S. Bryk. et al., Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010), 169. 135 USAID planning document, 2008.

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company for low-quality candy bars.136 The majority of families had also cultivated coca on at least part of their land. As part of the project, farmers received training on how to maintain and harvest cacao, they rehabilitated the existing trees on the hectare, pruning and treating them for disease and planted new trees. The additional cacao seedlings planted increased the quantity of trees per hectare to 900 from an average of 200 to 300. The farmers earned a minimum wage through the project for about half the days expected for them to complete the work partly as an incentive and partly to provide them with some income to replace the lost coca profits.

In Las Varas, significant investments in food security—production of fruits and vegetables for the community’s consumption—and infrastructure complemented the “productive” cacao project. As part of the food security project, which will be discussed in greater detail later in the chapter, each family cultivated a small plot with food crops such as yucca, tomatoes, beans, corn and cilantro. The gardens were intended to serve most of the community’s daily dietary needs, with any surplus sold in Tumaco’s urban core to provide additional income. Each family was provided with seeds, plants and training on how to care for the crops. In addition, because rice is a daily staple of residents’ diets, but was being purchased entirely from outside the community, 25 hectares of rice were planted and a rice mill constructed to serve the internal market.137

In addition to the rice mill, US AID sponsored infrastructure projects for recreation, transportation and education. They included a multi-use basketball-soccer court, two school houses, a computer lab and foot bridges that permit movement throughout the community when the rivers are full. Perhaps most importantly, the project improved the dirt road connecting San Luis Robles, Las Varas’ center, to the highway, by resurfacing it and creating drainage canals as well as building a small bridge to make it more accessible during heavy rains.

La Voluntad and Violence Las Varas’ experience diverged fom the other villages even before the project

was conceived. While most communities that participate in alternative development projects are selected by the federal government and offered aid in exchange for eradicating drugs, Las Varas began the process internally of its own voluntad or will and solicited institutional support.138 There had been some resistance to coca cultivation in the community, particularly by women, since its introduction to Las Varas. But it was not until paramilitaries shot three Las Varas residents dead on September 7, 2008 that a groundswell of opposition emerged. The killings realized residents’ mounting fears. The morning after what residents refer to as “la masacre,” about 300 residents gathered at a community meeting, according to interviews with attendees. At the meeting, community members decided that the violence, as well as the fear and intimidation that had become constants in the community, would persist unless they drove the armed groups from the territory. They also understood that eradicating coca community-wide necessitated the development of legal economic opportunities, which, due to the lack of resources within the community, could only be achieved with outside, institutional support.

136 Minderos. Interview A Las Varas community member and cacao expert, Minderos worked on the USAID project. 137 Mindineros. Interview. 12 July 2011. Tumaco 138 Cruel and Landa. Interview. 28 July 2012.

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The community’s quest for assistance gradually yielded results. Las Varas leaders first approached the municipal government for help, but city officials said they did not have the staff or resources to provide substantial support.139 Then Las Varas resident Fruto Castillo, who was also an employee of the Department of Nariño, arranged a meeting between the community leaders and local department officials. There was precedence for department’s involvement in alternative development; the administration of then-Governor Antonio Navarro had been supporting efforts to eradicate coca and spearhead development in two indigenous communities in western Nariño. Gobernación did not make any immediate promises of financial aid, but began to assist the leaders in raising community consciousness. Eventually, as the community demonstrated its commitment to coca eradication, Gobernación would invest substantial human resources.

The notion of community choice proved important in the process as well as the ongoing commitment to stay coca-free. That the community members made the decision, themselves, rather than having it forced upon them from the outside engendered a sense of pride in residents. Community members and outsiders familiar with the process said Las Varas’ internal decision-making was pivotal to its success. Fanny Rodríguez, who had long opposed coca, expressed the satisfaction that many in the community felt with their role:

Here we were decisive. The people became conscious that (coca) only brought problems, that it brought death. We solved the problem, ourselves.140

Even residents who initially resisted coca eradication expressed deep pride that the community made the choice independently.141 In Tambillo, the last hamlet to concede to coca eradication, and the only one that refused to uproot the coca plants themselves, residents still insisted that it was ultimately their choice. This was underscored in Tambillo committee president’s assertion: “We decided. We let the police come and remove the coca.”142 That Tambillo’s residents eventually did make the decision is evidence that allowing communities to transition gradually from coca cultivation can ultimately lead to greater community ownership of the effort. Institutional Support

This section will briefly outline the significance of the institutional support received by Las Varas, with an eye to underlining how it differed from interventions in the other consejos comunitarios. The specific impacts of that institutional support, as they relate to the factors contributing to the change in Las Varas, will then be explored in greater detail in the following sections.

Typically, Colombian communities selected to participate in an alternative development project work with both an international organization (usually USAID, UNODC or the European Union) and a national government agency, called Acción Social at the time of this research. Ideally, the municipal government is also involved in supporting the development. Las Varas, however, had what a manager of the project for the development agency that oversaw the development projects in Tumaco, described as

139 Ibid. 140 Rodríguez. Interview. 15 July 2011. Tumaco. 141 Maria Rodriguez. Interview. 14 June 2011. Tumaco; Ruben Rivero. Interview. 14 June 2011.Tumaco. 142 Rivero. Interview. 14 June 2011.Tumaco

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a “godfather” in form of the Department of Nariño.143 The relationship was unique in two senses. First, department governments are usually marginally involved, if at all, in alternative development projects. Second, because of Gobernación’s involvement, the community received broad, hands-on development support that far exceeded agricultural assistance, including expertise in raising social consciousness and building political organization, as well as help with secretarial and accounting duties. Between human resources and financial contributions—primarily an aqueduct that is under construction, Gobernación’s investment doubled the size of the project to approximately $3.6 million.144

In addition to contributing its own human and financial capital, Gobernación disregarded Colombia’s “zero-illicit crop” rule, permitting the participation of all residents even if they grew coca. And, it negotiated for the suspension of aerial spraying in the territory. The involvement of the entire community in the project was crucial for the following reason:145 The entire community, rather than small pockets or clusters where residents agreed to eradicate coca, experienced the benefits of the project including food security gardens and infrastructure improvements. This enabled the process of raising consciousness and establishing social norms that shunned illegal activities and led to the eradication of coca throughout the community. This process will be explored in detail in the following section. The effect was to generate community trust in the commitment of the institutions and to demonstrate the advantages of participation. Instead of eradicating coca based on the hope of aid, residents witnessed and actually experienced the benefits of development such as road improvements. Proven benefits helped persuade residents to participate. The psychological effect of immediate infrastructure improvements shaped residents’ perceptions of the project.146 Jairo Ruben Quiñones, head of the Tumaco-based Organization of Southern Pacific Consejos Comunitarios, RECOMPAS, said that “it changed people’s minds and attitudes when their conditions improved.”147 He contrasted it with the cluster model in the other consejos comunitarios: “some (residents) benefited and others didn’t. It created rivalry in the community.”

In addition to abandoning the “zero-illicit crop” policy, then-Nariño Governor Antonio Navarro arranged a critical short-term concession with the national government to suspend aerial herbicide spraying in Las Varas.148 This permitted residents to manually uproot their own coca, empowering them to make the decision, resulting in a stronger commitment to eradication.149 The suspension also engendered trust in the good will of participating organizations and prevented aerial spraying of legal crops.

Another institutional boon to Las Varas was the presence of federal police, which have been consistently patrolling the community’s territory since 2010.150 The state had

143 Jaqueline Vargas, Tetra Tech manager. Interview. 21 July 2011. Vargas had worked on the alternative development projects in Tumaco for eight months. 144 According to an unpublished 2010 Department of Nariño report, it has contributed $6,688,940,613 pesos to the project. About half of that is devoted to an aqueduct to provide residents with clean water. 145 Ruben. Interview. 11 July 2011. Tumaco; Landa. Interview 28 July 2011. Tumaco. 146 Ibid. 147 Ruben. Interview. 11 July 2011. Tumaco. 148 Estupiñan. Interview. 28 July 2011. Tumaco. 149 Navarro. Interview. 24 July, 2011. Tumaco. 150 Estupiñan. Interview. 28 July 2011. Tumaco.

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not committed security forces to complement any other alternative development projects in Tumaco. The community had already largely succeeded in removing the paramilitaries from the territory prior to arrival of the national police. By reducing the amount of coca being grown, armed groups had little business in the community. But the security presence helped to prevent illegal armed actors from returning.151 It also gave the community a sense of security, easing fears that eradication would provoke the armed groups to retaliate.152

Convincing a Community: Social Development “Eradicating coca is not just uprooting it from the soil. It has to be eradicated from the heart and mind.”153

Though the violence in 2008 had spurred an outcry and initial action, the desire of a few hundred residents was not enough to eliminate coca in a community of nearly 7,000 people. Many residents—particularly those most involved in the production of coca—were not eager to give up the lucrative crop. With the support of the Gobernación, the community leaders and passionate residents began a nearly two-year process at the end of 2008 to achieve community-wide voluntad. The process transcended the simple notion of replacing illicit crops with legal ones. Social capital—the bonds and trust between people—is crucial for developing community leadership participation as well as “establish norms” and “enforce social controls.” This was a crucial difference between Las Varas and the other communities. The alternative development project in Las Varas included a gradual social process of rebuilding community ties.154

In line with social control theory, it is important that the community values illicit-

free cultivation and shuns illegal activity. Re-building social bonds was necessary to mobilize community solidarity to

eradicate coca, establish social norms, reject illegal armed groups and pursue community improvement. Through efforts to reconstruct social capital, Las Varas has been able to raise awareness of the social ills created by coca, transmit that message throughout the community and engender social norms that discourage illegality, including coca production and interactions with armed groups.

As mentioned previously, the illicit economy and security threats in Las Varas, as in other consejos comunitarios, had atomized the community, stifling communication between veredas and community-wide events such as soccer tournaments. It also undermined communal farming practices. Regenerating and strengthening those social ties was integral to Sí Se Puede Las Varas. The Gobernación proposal explicitly addressed these aspects of development, calling for “recuperating the social and cultural life of the community and promoting organization as key aspects, not just of productive

151 Jairo Cortes, Gobernación official. Phone Interview. 12 March 2012. 152 Ibid. 153 Cruel. Interview 3 July, 2011. Although Cruel is quoted here, many Las Varas leaders and Gobernación officials made similar, if not verbatim, statements. 154Social capital is not a commonly articulated goal of alternative development projects.

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(economic) development, but also in human coexistence and political empowerment.”155 This notion of development went beyond the USAID objectives.

One of the strategies initiated by Gobernación was the development of organizations in each vereda. They formed groups for women, young people and farmers, as well as an elected political entity to represent each vereda, the comité veredal.156 The leaders of these groups started the process of raising consciousness and building consensus to eradicate coca with small charlas (talks), meetings, and workshops, in which they discussed the harm coca had done to the community. They emphasized that by growing coca, residents were violating the law and inviting a host of problems. The newly formed comités veredales also held forums and meetings for residents to discuss and voice their opinions on eradication.

Community leaders also raised consciousness by reminiscing about village life prior to coca’s arrival.157 Leaders reminded community members of the peace and conviviality that had been lost: the daily socializing between residents in different veredas, the soccer matches that drew hundreds to watch and picnic, and the gatherings to dance and play traditional marimba music. For young people who grew up when coca was already prevalent in Las Varas, the discussion introduced them to a community they had never known.

In addition, during meetings leaders also evoked the community’s ethno-cultural ties to the land—the sustainable ancestral farming and subsistence techniques that had been practiced prior to the coca boom and they underscored how coca had changed the community’s relationship to the land.158 Maintaining coca in the hot, humid environment requires farmers to shirk their traditional organic agricultural practices, and instead use pesticides and fertilizer liberally. The result of honoring the traditional method and remembering their ancestors was to generate pride in the community’s traditional way of life.159

Yet, raising consciousness and restoring cultural values, according to dozens of residents and outside observers, was a struggle against economic reality: coca generated profits that residents had become accustomed to earning and spending. Community leader Wilfrido Landa said that during the process he wanted to “throw in the towel many times.” He continued:

“The community was blind when it came to illicit crops. It was easy sustenance. It was hard to leave the easy life of fast money and have to do sweaty work. Many did not understand that this thing (coca) was illicit and that it was harming the community.”160 For eradication to prevail in Las Varas, the perception of coca had to change.

Coca had become so common in the community and throughout much of rural Tumaco, that non-growers were the minority. Cultivating coca had lost the stigma associated with

155 Sí Se Puede Las Varas, Departamento de Nariño, 2008. 156 Estupiñan. Interview. 25 June, 2011. Tumaco. 157 Ibid; Cruel. Interview. 28 July 2011. Tumaco. 158 Ibid. 159 Landa and Cruel. Interview 21 June, 2011. Tumaco. 160 Landa. Phone interview. 14 May 2012.

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an illegal practice.161 In order to counteract this, council leaders underscored the illegality of coca and that it was the culture of illegality that was wreaking havoc on their community, creating insecurity and social dissolution.162

Eventually, residents began to associate the problems within the community—the prostitution, drinking and the loss of community and culture— with the illicit economy. They acknowledged their role as coca farmers in causing the changes. Marco Antonio Quintero, a Las Varas native, like dozens of other residents interviewed, said that he ultimately abandoned coca when he became aware of “the fear that it was creating in the community and its bad effects on society, especially on the muchachos (young men).” He added: “We were drinking and some people developed other vices.”163 About two years after the process of consciousness-raising began, each of Las Varas’ veredas voted to eliminate coca and every resident signed a pact agreeing to uproot their illegal crops.

The community’s awareness and endogenous decision-making was a crucial difference between the process in Las Varas and alternative development in other communities, according to Rubén, the director of RECOMPAS. With the projects in other communities, the attitude of the aid organization has been, “I am going to do this here. Take it or leave it,” he said. Rubén said that the consejos comunitarios felt obliged to accept the assistance, but “they do not have a consciousness of what they are doing, what they are fighting for.”164

Over this two-year period, Las Varas residents would also succeed in driving illegal armed groups from the territory.165 The community solidarity enabled residents to trust and expect that others would shun the guerrillas and paramilitaries who entered the territory. The decrease, and eventually, the almost total elimination of coca also meant that the drug-trafficking groups had little business in the territory. Without community-wide solidarity, the armed groups would have been more likely to target individuals who vocally opposed their presence.166 But the wide-spread support made intimidation more difficult. Convincing a Community: Economic Influences and Infrastructure

Building solidarity and social capital was integral to the elimination of coca and the community’s progress, but practical and economic motives including aerial herbicide spraying, declining profit margins and infrastructure improvements, worked in tandem with the social processes.167168 Nearly all of the residents I interviewed cited two of their primary reasons for giving up coca as the reduced earnings from coca cultivation and the

161 Even though coca is illegal, the growers are not punished. Their crops may be sprayed with herbicides, but the farmers are not prosecuted, fined or jailed. 162 Landa and Cruel. Interview 21 June 2001. Tumaco; Estupiñan. Interview. 23 June, 2011. Tumaco 163 Quintero. Interview. 12 June 2011. Tumaco. 164 Ruben. Interview. 11 July 2011. Tumaco. 165 Rodriguez. Interview. 25 July, 2011.166 Cruel. 2 July, 2011. Tumaco. 167 Prior to agreeing to eradicate coca, Las Varas had been sprayed with herbidicies many times. 168 Residents from other communities also said that the drug traffickers were offering less for the coca. Several community leaders and officials said that a truce between the FARC and the criminal groups in the region resulted in something like price-fixing between the groups. They were no longer competing for the coca crops. For more on the collaboration between the two groups, see Kraul and Gonzalez.

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constant threat of aerial spraying. I argue, in line with officials familiar with the project, including community leaders of Las Varas and those from other consejos comunitarios, that the infrastructure improvements also helped convince community members to abandon coca. Although residents did not stress these changes as influential, I will explain below why I believe they were important. First, I will describe how aerial spraying affected the residents’ decision to eradicate coca, followed by a description of the effects of smaller profits and infrastructure improvements.

Aerial spraying damaged the coca crops, reducing yields and thus earnings. But residents emphasized that it also destroyed their cacao and plantains, as well as the food crops they supplemented their diets with, forcing them to spend more on food. Some residents also said the herbicide gave their children rashes. Community members knew that if they continued to grow coca, their community would continue to be sprayed. One woman described how the damage caused by aerial spraying spurred the members of her vereda to agree to eradicate coca: “The first time they fumigated, people cried. It killed everything: cacao, plantains, everything. We knew that if there was coca, they would keep fumigating. At any minute the plane could come,” she said.169 However, spraying alone did not prompt eradication.170 Decreasing profits also factored into this decision-making. Although it is not quite clear why, the prices drug-traffickers paid for the coca leaf and paste decreased over the years.171 Additionally, as mentioned above, profits declined with yields due to aerial spraying.

In addition to the growing disincentives of coca cultivation, project benefits— both realized and promised—galvanized the community. Because Sí Se Puede Las Varas was not restricted by the “zero-illicit crop” policy, all residents could benefit whether or not they had eradicated coca. In line with much of the research on counter narcotic strategy, I contend that the hope of alternative sources of income complemented the threat of spraying.

Most prominent among the more immediate benefits were the improvements made to the road, which the majority of community members use at least occasionally, the creation of the food security gardens and the construction of a large sports facility in Robles. Las Varas community leaders, leaders of other consejos comunitarios and officials familiar with the projects insisted that these tangible benefits helped build trust between the institutions and community members. These investments signaled a commitment to the community and demonstrated that institutional support could improve residents’ quality of life.172 Jairo Ruben Quiñones described this as a pivotal difference between projects in other communities and alternative development in Las Varas: “It changed peoples’ minds and attitudes when conditions improved,” he said. Gilmer Ganaro, president of the consejo comunitario Rio Alto Mira was one of several leaders of other communities who said they believed these changes eased the transition for Las Varas residents and offered hope.173 The assurance of assistance for legal agriculture, along with the investments in infrastructure such as schools and bridges, access to basic 169 Rodriguez. Interview. 14 July 2011. Tumaco. 170 See Rocha, Ricardo et al. “Assessment of the Implementation of the United States government’s support for Plan Colombia’s illicit crop reduction components.” (2009) 171 Napa. Interview. 22 June 2011. Tumaco; Clementina Olaga, Las Varas resident. Interview. 22 June 2011. Tumaco. 172 Ruben. Interview. 11 July 2011. Tumaco. 173 Ganaro. Interview. 24 June 2011. Tumaco.

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medical care, and food security helped Las Varas subsist in the short-term and gave them a glimpse of a better future without coca. According to Ganaro, “people justify coca as a means of subsistence or to pay for their children to attend schools outside the community or to be able to afford health care.”174 Yet the changes in Las Varas, he said, had begun to offer residents alternatives. Interestingly, non-community members and project facilitators often stressed the importance of these investments more than ordinary residents. Most Las Varas residents interviewed did not volunteer these as reasons when asked open-ended questions regarding their decision to eradicate coca.

Although it may seem more prudent to disregard a factor that was not emphasized by ordinary community members, I argue that residents undervalued the impact of the improvements for two reasons. First, the road improvements and food security projects were two of the earliest and most important projects that affected the community. However, at the time I did my research, more than a year after the completion of the projects, residents had either soured on the projects or seemed to have taken them for granted. They complained that the road, although still in much better condition than it had been, was quickly falling into disrepair and nearly every resident interviewed considered the food security program a failure. Thus, it is difficult to interpret just how great of an impact these had on generating voluntad during and soon after their implementation. To acknowledge that they had been pivotal would, in a sense, mean that the residents had been duped. Second, I argue that community members had a tendency to inflate, somewhat, the community’s social consciousness and internal decision-making over any influence of the institutional support. To acknowledge that institutional investment played into the decision-making would take away from the insistence that it was an entirely endogenous choice. Geography and Accessibility

Las Varas has two inherent physical advantages that have facilitated development by making it more secure as well as easing communication and transportation both externally and internally. First, Las Varas has a more concentrated population than most other consejos comunitarios, with veredas situated fairly close to each other and to the center. In part, this is because there are no mountainous regions or rivers that separate the territory. Residents often pointed to a sense of community-wide unity helping to build the consensus to shun armed groups and coca, which they related to the geography. The residential concentration is conducive for creating and maintaining strong social ties, allowing community members from different veredas to interact more frequently. In contrast, Rio Bajo Mira, a consejo comunitario with a similarly-sized population is dispersed over three times the area. And, with 35 hamlets, it has nearly four times as many as Las Varas.

Although communication between veredas declined with coca cultivation, it had not disappeared entirely in Las Varas and the physical proximity facilitated the reconstruction of those social bonds. The frequency of interaction between residents made the process of consciousness-raising easier, according to community leaders and officials working with the community.175 174 Ibid.175Angulo. Interview. 17 July 2011. Tumaco.

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Council President Jose Felix Cruel described how the physical layout provided more opportunity for socializing and greater familiarity between residents: “Everyone knows each other. It is easier to establish trust between people if their children knew each other from school.” In part, this is also because nearly all residents travel to the center to access the road that connects Robles to the outside. They socialize with other residents they meet along the way as they walk, wait for a collective taxi in Robles and even on the drive to urban Tumaco. Tetra Tech ARD manager and Tumaco native Leidy Angulo explained that since “everyone has to go through Robles to leave and residents naturally run into each other, it adds to the sense of community.” The centralized nature of the community also led to more democratic decision-making, according to residents’ accounts and officials involved in the project.176 Most Las Varas residents are within a 40–minute walk from the center, where the community-wide meetings are held. The relative proximity of most residents allowed for frequent, well-attended, community-wide meetings or “asambleas generales” in which residents could voice their opinion about eradication and their desires for development. In contrast, in other consejos comunitarios, most residents must travel by boat even to reach a central meeting point. For instance, traveling between Bajo Mira’s veredas by foot can take hours and some parts can only be traversed by boat.

Angulo noted that the widespread participation empowered the consejo comunitario to shape its own development efforts.177 Residents could more easily gather to hold meetings, propose ideas and build consensus, which they could then articulate into demands. She states:

They were able to meet as a community, to plan their own vision because unfortunately, (usually) those who put forward the money (aid agencies), also impose the conditions. This is what happened in the other consejos comunitarios.178

It is partly a result of the ability to meet to come to a consensus on their priorities that the community was able to request infrastructure projects it desired. In fact, all of the infrastructure developed was generated by proposals from the community. In addition to the existing infrastructure and land accessibility, offers distinct advantages. Better communication with the outside makes it easier for institutions to access, and therefore, to work in Las Varas, including police and military personnel.179 The impact that road connectivity has on security and institutional support creates a feedback loop. Las Varas was, despite the shootings, more secure than the other communities, partly because it is better connected and does not offer a clandestine location for armed groups to operate. In contrast, most other consejos comunitarios were experiencing frequent killings during the same time period. Greater security in Las Varas made it safer for institutions to engage in alternative development in the territory. Additionally, for the department officials, the police and other government and non-

176 Ibid; Rodriguez. Interview. 28 June 2011 177 Angulo. Interview. 17 July 2011. Tumaco.Angulo knew of the development projects in Tumaco but did not work on them, which is probably why she had few qualms criticizing them. 178Angulo. Interview. 17 July 2011. Tumaco.179 These conclusions are drawn from multiple interviews including the following: 11 July, 2011, Fanny Rodriguez, 28 June 2011, Jose Felix Cruel and 14 July 2011, Eugenio Estupiñan.

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governmental agencies, the relative ease of access, facilitated the trips between the city and the territory. A team of national police, for example, have traveled between the urban area and Las Varas on a nearly daily basis since the fall of 2010. The convenience also facilitated the communication and participation of community leaders. The council leaders were able to travel more easily to the urban area to meet with Gobernación staff, as well as to interview and negotiate with contractors for infrastructure projects such as the school houses and the aqueduct. Because they were able to give input on a regular basis, leaders had greater power over the development process, according to Angulo and other officials. Food Security

This section will examine the importance of the food security project in the process of coca eradication, but also why ultimately, it failed to meet its long-term objective. The food security project was intended as the first step in an initiative to enable the community to produce the bulk of its own food.180 It was also designed as a relatively cost effective way to include the whole community: in contrast to the cacao project which benefited just 13 percent of the households.181

Though every family in Las Varas planted their own vegetable garden—a small plot of tomatoes, yucca, beans, cilantro and corn. Each household received seeds, plants and training from agricultural technicians. The idea was both to help them feed their own families without coca earnings, as well as provide income from any surplus produce that they could sell.

However, for several reasons that will be explored, the gardens failed. They produced few crops and were not replanted after the first season.182 This was in part because the technical assistance was inadequate and the crops became diseased—the ordinarily difficult growing conditions were exacerbated by heavy rains, according to Gobernación officials.183 Additionally, the project flouted the community’s culture, introducing new foods and ignoring traditional gender roles. In its failure, the food security project offers a meta-case study that reflects some of the flaws of conventional development projects.

The food security project has a somewhat contradictory relationship with community participation. On a macro scale, the projects folded every Las Varas family into the process, which, according to council leaders and officials, helped generate community will to engage in alternative development. According to Mejia, the Gobernación’s agricultural director in the Pacific region, the project was crucial because “everyone was included, whether or not they grew coca. It demonstrated that benefits could come, if the community continued on the path of legal development.”184 Like the initial impact of the infrastructure projects, it is difficult to gauge just how much the food 180 Mejia. Interview. 27 July 2011. The second phase, if implemented, will focus on raising chickens and pigs. 181 Unpublished project documents.The long-term plan is for every Las Varas household to receive assistance cultivating one hectare of cacao with loans and additional assistance, and eventually for each resident to have three hectares of well-tended cacao. 182Mindineros. Interview. 22 June 2011. Tumaco. 183 Ibid. 184 Mejia. Interview 22 June 2011. Tumaco

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security projects initially influenced residents’ attitudes because at the time I did my fieldwork, the gardens were no longer being cultivated and there was a general dissatisfaction with the results. Even the most avid proponents of the community’s development criticized the gardens’ actual impact on food security. Community member Fanny Rodriguez said “the gardens did not help.”185 She continued: “They helped somewhat during the season they produced, but that was just one spring, and people did not replant.” Rodriguez and others blamed the projects’ incompatibility with cultural traditions, a lack of technical assistance and rampant plant disease for the failure.186

In part, the food security project was inherently problematic because the idea was exogenous to the community. Residents requested support to improve their cacao production and infrastructure improvements, but they did not ask for assistance in growing their own food. Rather, attaining food security is part of a broader Gobernación objective for all of the rural communities in Pacific Nariño, through producing the bulk of the food they consume. Although rural Pacific inhabitants have always supplemented their diets with the fruit that grows more or less unattended throughout the territory, as well as wild game and fish, for decades they have bought the staples they consume, such as corn and rice. Still, many residents and leaders said that when the project was proposed, most community members welcomed it. Yet the implementation defied traditional culture in two important respects. First, some of the fruits and vegetables that were planted as part of the project had never been grown in the community before, such as corn. And others, such as tomatoes and cilantro, had not only never been cultivated in the territory, but were not part of the diet. It is not clear why these non-traditional crops were selected. I was told by Gobernación officials that residents chose from a list of crops, but it is difficult to understand why, if the community members were guiding the process, they would select crops they are not accustomed to eating. And it was apparent from the way in which many residents spoke about the crops that they felt they had been selected for them, not by them: “It was a big mistake,” said resident Marco Antonio Quintero of the food security project. “We do not have the culture to grow corn and beans. It’s not part of our ancestry,” he added.187 Mindineros, a Las Varas resident and the head of the community’s agricultural technical agency, which had worked on the food security project also blamed the failure partially on the lack of familiarity with the foods: “we don’t eat those vegetables. We need to focus on the nutritious produce we already cultivate and eat,” he said.188 However, he and others added that if the crops had been more productive, it may have changed residents eating patterns.

Second, the vegetable gardens defied traditional gender roles and reordered the relationship between gendered space and duties. As mentioned previously, home life is part of the woman’s domain, which includes cooking, cleaning and raising the children. In most families, men do the agricultural work on the farms, which are located a distance from the houses. Despite these customs, the food security gardens were planted alongside homes and intended primarily for the women’s stewardship. Men and women interviewed said that some women did not want to take on an additional responsibility and most

185Fanny Rodriguez. Interview. 11 July 2011. 186 Rodriguez. Interview. 11 July 2011. Tumaco 187 Quintero. Interview. 16 July 2011. Tumaco. 188 Mindineros. Interview. 23 July 2011. Tumaco.

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women had no experience cultivating plants.189 To compensate for their inexperience, they should have received ongoing technical assistance, but instead they were given little training, according to multiple residents. As articulated by Ruben Rivero, “the continual assistance was lacking and we needed it because we are unfamiliar with these crops,” he said.190

Adding to these challenges was a particularly rainy winter. Without the know-how and, at times, the commitment, the women were unable to mitigate the weather-related damage and most of their plants were killed by fungus or produced few crops.191 Some residents said the women should have been provided with chemical inputs to curb the diseases. Because the diseases le``d to poor harvests, residents said they were not motivated to invest the time or effort into harvesting and cultivating seeds to replant the gardens. Conclusion

The relative success of alternative development in Las Varas can be traced to the differences in the process and level of institutional support, the community’s commitment to reform and the territory’s physical characteristics. The Gobernación’s focus on community building and inclusion were among the most significant policies affecting development. These policies were not part emphasized in the alternative development projects in Tumaco’s other communities. Additionally, Las Varas has the inherent advantages of a more concentrated population and road connection to urban Tumaco, which facilitated community building and made it easier to deliver aid to the village. These factors all contributed to building the broad-based consensus among community members necessary for Las Varas to transition from coca.

Interestingly, the food security initiative offers insight into both one of the strengths of the project, a commitment to benefiting and including the entire community, and conversely, a critique common to less successful development projects—a lack of meaningful community participation and cultural consideration. The aid agency imposed its vision of what was best for the community and the results were disastrous. However, even though the tangible objective, providing households with the means to grow food, was not met, the project involved each family in the community, fostering a sense of solidarity and togetherness.

189 Mejia. Interview. 13 July 2011. Tumaco. 190 Ruben Rivero. Interview. 14 June 2011.Tumaco. 191 From my own perspective, the spread of disease also raises the question of whether crops such as tomatoes and corn are suited to the wet, tropical climate in Tumaco. However, this concern was not mentioned by any of my interviewees.

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Chapter 5- Conclusion

When coca cultivation shifted away from its neighboring countries because of US anti-drug efforts, Colombia became the world’s biggest cultivator of coca in large part because of the numerous challenges to legal trade and the absence of the state in rural areas. These conditions, guaranteeing fertile ground for illicit farming, still exist today.

The efforts to stop coca cultivation have focused on aerial spraying, with a small portion devoted to alternative development. The literature makes clear that for the most part, alternative development has failed to stem coca cultivation. Of the many obstacles to the success of alternative development, one of the most fundamental is the remote nature and lack of infrastructure of regions where coca is farmed, making the transportation of crops to markets prohibitively expensive and security tenuous. Moreover, the Colombian zero-illicit conditioning assistance on 100 percent coca eradication ignores daily realities and limits the reach of alternative development projects. It is clear that development projects, as they are conceived, do not address the structural drivers of the illegal economy, thus impeding their success.192 Las Varas: A model?

“We live poor here. Poor as you see us. We have always lived poor. (Coca) was a blessing … it was useful for something. On the other hand, we weren’t happy. Now we are poorer, but we live more peacefully – Maria Rodriguez, Las Varas resident.193 The predicament of Las Varas—both its success and the frailty of its progress

reflected in Maria Rodriguez’s quote— offer a window to analyze how alternative development can succeed as well as the formidable obstacles to economic development. All of the consejos comunitarios in Tumaco were experiencing the same negative impacts—aerial spraying, violence and reduced earnings on coca crop—that spurred change in Las Varas. So why was Las Varas the only community that eradicated coca and began the process of economic development? As USAID embarks on a second cycle of projects in Tumaco, it is important to consider the combination of variables including physical conditions, profound institutional support and community will that contributed its relative success. Equally, as critical, is determining whether Las Varas’ progress is sustainable. Preventing a return to coca depends on the ability for farmers to earn an adequate living to support their families. Las Varas is itself still at a crossroads, with most families continuing to live in deep poverty.

There are lessons to be learned from Las Varas and they largely confirm the predominant criticisms of alternative development. Alternative development projects simply lack the resources to be effective. In the case of Las Varas, the Gobernación matched the funding for the aid project and provided day-to-day human resources such as coaching community leaders and overseeing infrastructure projects. The case study of Las Varas makes it clear that with more resources and sustained, intensive assistance, conditions can improve in communities that abandon coca. Yet, despite that Las Varas 192 Felbab-Brown. 193 Rodriguez. Interview. 6 July 2011. Tumaco.

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has been touted by USAID as a success story, there is no indication that Colombian government and the US will start investing the resources and long-term assistance needed to achieve sustainable economic development.

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Appendix A - Methodology Recruitment

The recruitment process was informal, yet cautious. I was always careful to

ensure that the participants felt comfortable to decline being interviewed. My first step was to meet with the Gobernación staff who introduced me to the two senior Rescate Las Varas council leaders, the President Jose Felix Cruel and the Legal Representative Wilfrido Landa. After I explained the purpose of my research, Landa and Cruel gave me permission to conduct fieldwork and interview residents in the community who consented with the condition that I was to be accompanied by a “guide”—a Gobernación official or a trusted community member. The residents I interviewed were sometimes suggested by my “guides” and other times, I approached random residents who happened to be nearby. During the first few interviews, the “guide” listened to the interview, which I worried might influence the residents’ responses. However, after the first day, I was able to conduct my interviews unaccompanied. In addition, some residents approached me to ask—since I was obviously an outsider—why I was in the community, providing an opportunity for me to request an interview them. All the names used are real. Although I asked all interviewees if they wanted to remain anonymous, only one asked that her name not be used and I do not refer to her in my thesis.

A limitation of my study was my status as an outsider both as a non-Colombian and a Caucasian. Often times, I would not understand some of the slang until I translated the interviews. I often had to decline sharing meals with families and was unable to stay in the village because I could not tolerate the water. Additionally, a complication I had not anticipated was the expectation from community members t I could provide them with direct benefits. Since Caucasians who visit the consejos comunitarios are usually from aid and government agencies, residents made the assumption that I must be linked to a group that could offer them direct assistance. Despite my efforts to explain my purpose, it was difficult to make clear that I was there solely to conduct research.

Analysis

I chose to use semi-structured interviews, allowing for flexibility. I wanted the

participants to feel they could guide me and explore their own experiences rather than my questions dictating the confines of their responses. After transcribing my interviews, I reviewed them with an eye to identify the meta-themes. I then wrote a short narrative to understand the “story” of Las Varas. From there, I created a key and coded my interviews. For instance, any response related to geography was labeled CXG. Next, I compiled the interviews by theme and sorted them into subthemes. For example, initially I coded a set of responses as “geography” which I subsequently grouped as “infrastructure/communication,” “infrastructure/security” and “residential concentration/social capital.”

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Appendix B – Interview Schedule

Farmers o Describe what crops you farm, what practices you use and when you started to farm

in this way:• What crops do you cultivate? When did you begin cultivating these crops? • What farming practices do you use? How do you manage pests and disease? How

do you fertilize? • Has the way you farm changed? If so, how and when? • If you have made changes, how have they affected your livelihood? • Has your family’s food consumption changed? If so, how? • Has your consumption of other goods such as clothes changed? If so, how? • Has/Have the program(s) or policies interfered with any of your cultural practices

or beliefs? If so, how? • Has your income changed? If so, how? • Do you feel the same, more, or less satisfied with your livelihood, home and

community life? Describe how and why. • What, if any, changes in the program(s) would have benefited you? • Have there been any other impacts that I have not asked about? If so, please

describe them. Community leaders o Describe how your community has changed in the last 10 years:

• Has there been any change in the community’s access to government services such as health services and education?

• Has there been any changes in the community’s infrastructure such as road and school improvements?

• How have the families in your community been affected? Have their incomes, health, and/or well-being changed?

• Have the cultural practices and beliefs of your community been impacted? If so, how?

• Have there been any other impacts that I have not asked about?

Colombian and US government administrators/ USAID contracting agency representatives

o Describe the program(s) in the community. • What are the successes? Please describe how they have been successful. In your

opinion, why do you think they have been successful? • What are some of the problems and challenges? Please describe them.

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• In your opinion, what caused the problems? • How have the communities been impacted? • What changes should be made to improve the programs? • Are there any plans to make changes to the programs?