Timeline for entries tagged “Coca”

A chronology of events related to peace, security, and human rights in Colombia.

June 17, 2020

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime and Colombia’s National Police release their estimates of coca cultivation and cocaine production in Colombia in 2019. The report finds a 9 percent reduction in coca-growing from 2018 to 2019, from 169,000 hectares to 154,000 hectares, but a 1.9 percent increase in cocaine production, to an estimated 1,137 metric tons of pure cocaine. Coca cultivation decreases most in Caquetá, Antioquia, Nariño, Bolívar, and Putumayo, while increasing in Norte de Santander and Valle del Cauca.

Inforgraphic source: UNODC.

Tags: Coca, Cocaine, Illicit Crop Eradication, UN

May 1, 2020

The Defense Ministry launches the “second phase” of its 2020 manual coca eradication effort. 76 mobile eradication teams, each made up of 21 civilians and 42 security-force members, are to deploy around the country.

Tags: Coca, Illicit Crop Eradication

March 26, 2020

  • 20-year-old Alejandro Carvajal is killed in an “incident,” as the Army calls it, with soldiers accompanying coca eradication in the municipality of Sardinata, in the Catatumbo region. The Catatumbo Campesino Organization (ASCAMCAT) states that Carvajal, the nephew of a local social leader, was killed in his home.
  • On March 19, the Defense Ministry had pledged to continue manual coca eradication despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo source: ASCAMCAT Twitter.

Tags: Catatumbo, Coca, Human Rights, Illicit Crop Eradication

March 19, 2020

  • Marco Rivadeneira, a well-known campesino leader who had accompanied peace accord-mandated crop substitution programs in Putumayo, is killed in Puerto Asís municipality. Three men took Rivadeneira from a crop-substitution meeting by force; his body was found shortly afterward.
  • The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ office, the OAS Mission in Support of the Peace Process, and the Truth Commission are among organizations issuing statements rejecting the murder.
  • Three days after Rivadeneira’s murder, the government steps up forced manual eradication operations in Putumayo’s coca-growing areas.

Tags: Attacks on social leaders, Coca, Crop Substitution, Illicit Crop Eradication, Putumayo

March 5, 2020

  • The White House announces that the U.S. government’s estimate of Colombian coca cultivation increased from 208,000 hectares in 2018 to 212,000 in 2019. The declaration calls it a “stabilization” of coca cultivation. Referring to a counter-narcotics dialogue that took place on the same day, it reports, “A focus of the discussion was expanding the results of Colombia’s integrated coca eradication program by ensuring full use of all available tools, including manual eradication, alternative development, and a Colombian-led aerial eradication component, supported by rural development and rural security programs.”

Tags: Coca, Drug Policy, Illicit Crop Eradication, U.S. Policy

March 2, 2020

  • President Iván Duque makes a hastily planned visit to Washington, where he meets with President Donald Trump at the White House. Asked by a reporter about coca cultivation in Colombia, Trump tells Duque, “Well, you’re going to have to spray. If you don’t spray, you’re not going to get rid of them. So you have to spray, with regard to the drugs in Colombia.” Duque responds, “We have to combine all the elements that we have: obviously, precision spraying, but also the record highs that we reached in 2019 on manual eradication and also dismantling the drug cartels.”

Tags: Coca, Drug Policy, Illicit Crop Eradication, U.S. Policy

February 22, 2020

  • News emerges that, at some point in recent weeks, the Colombian government terminated its contract with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime to monitor and verify the crop-substitution effort carried out under chapter 4 of the peace accord.
  • In a thorough February 4 report, UNODC found high levels of compliance with the crop substitution program, with very little re-planting of coca despite delays in government compliance with commitments.

Tags: Coca, Crop Substitution, UN

February 1, 2020

  • Police carrying out manual coca eradication in the Rio Mexicano sector of Tumaco, Nariño, enter into a confrontation with residents. A farmer named Segundo Girón is killed by a bullet; three police are reported wounded. About half of the coca-growing families in the Rio Mexicano area have signed on to the peace accord’s crop substitution program, the rest did not.

Tags: Coca, Crop Substitution, Illicit Crop Eradication, Narino

January 15, 2020

  • The CEO of the International Development Finance Corporation, a U.S. government body that issues loans and loan guarantees, visits Tumaco, the Pacific coast municipality that leads all Colombian municipalities in land area planted with coca. Adam Boehler promises US$5 billion in financing for private development projects, and witnesses a coca eradication operation.
Photo source: César Carrión, Colombian Presidency
Photo source: César Carrión, Colombian Presidency

Tags: Coca, Illicit Crop Eradication, U.S. Aid, U.S. Policy