THE COCA TRAP
After 50 years of a bloody civil war, a peace treaty was signed between Colombia's government and the main guerilla army in the country, the FARC. Under this agreement, peasant farmers were expected to start growing legal crops on their plantations instead of coca.
[ Gelver Solarte ] To make life a bit easier for my family, for my wife and kids,
to give them a more or less decent life, the only option...
is growing coca and marijuana.
[ Jose Orozco ] On one hectare I can grow up to 10,000 coca bushes because they grow close together.
Peasants and all Colombians are obliged to destroy illegal plantations
Growing coca is illegal in Colombia
[ Jose Orozco ] They waged a military campaign against peasants,
they send in troops with rifles and batons
to uproot the coca that we plant
[ Leyder Valencia ] As for us, we make the very least out of coca trading
It's not us who get rich from selling drugs, others do
but the harassment policy only targets us,
poor peasants who grow coca to survive
THE COCA TRAP
[ Jose Orozco, President, Peasant Workers Association, Cajibio ] We're going to meet our guys,
another group that I represent,
a group of coca farm workers
[ Jose Orozco ] We have one more delegation; our comrades from the municipality
[ man ] of Paez! [ Jose Orozco ] Representatives of Paez
A good group
[ Jose Orozco ] We're regaining our strength, getting some rest
We prepare our food here at our makeshift camp kitchen
We collected some nice firewood
That's to keep on living
and fighting
[ Jose Orozco ] Here we have an important delegation
Do they also cultivate marijuana and...
[ Jose Orozco ] and coca as well?? [ woman ] Yes, sir.
A little bit of coca too
We all do the same thing, agriculture.
[ Jose Orozco ] Our comrades are in a good mood because they cooked some meat today
[ woman ] We're all here together in this camp
We want the agreements to work
The government doesn't honour its commitments,
that's why we're here
We don't feel good here,
but we will fight for our rights
until we get them
[ Jose Orozco ] By our count, at the moment, there are about 1,000 peasants here
including our comrades here,
there are more people on the other side. They decided to camp away from everyone
because they're a bit nervous,
they're scared that ESMAD, the Anti-Disturbance Squad,
will come storming in while we're working and burn our food and all our things
People are determined, and they're ready to continue the struggle
to always...
always keep going towards our goal,
one goal shared by all peasants
That is recognition of peasants in Colombia, that's what we fight for
[ geo title ] LEYDER VALENCIA‚ COCA PLANTATION
[ Leyder Valencia ] I was born in 1981,
I'm 37 years old
I grew up in a coca growing area
My family...
they grew coca leaves
The money we made from selling coca leaves
paid for the basics that my family and I needed,
things like healthcare
We'd pick the coca on my father's farm then go to work on a neighbour's
[ Leyder Valencia, farmer ] It was like a cycle, a constant...
...circle
We went farm to farm picking coca
that's how all the families lived
[ Leyder Valencia ] When I had no money to provide for my family,
I went to a guy who bought coca
I'd tell him that I'd have a harvest after 15 days and asked him to lend me some cash
He'd give me the money and I bought food or whatever I needed
Once I had the harvest, I’d pay him back in coca
[ son ] Papi! Is your uniform ready?
[ Leyder Valencia ] He doesn't have socks
You should go and put the old one on, my girl, but wash first
[ Leyder Valencia ] Well, about my family,
I have a wife,
we have three children
[ Briceida Lemos, Leyder's wife ] One is sixteen,
one is...
ten, and my girl is six
[ Leyder Valencia ] The eldest wants to be a singer
and dancer
and the second wants to be a footballer, he loves football
and my youngest daughter wants to be a doctor, so she says
Those are their dreams
[ Briceida Lemos, Leyder's wife ] They study, the boys are at middle and high school
and the young girl goes to primary school
[ Briceida ] Honey, do you want some coffee? [ daughter ] No
I just want them to study,
to go to university. To us, that's almost impossible, and here
it is just impossible
They shouldn't be ashamed of us, I want them to acquire a profession,
one that will help them become someone,
and not mere slaves
[ Jose Orozco ] So, everyday life...
JOSE OROZCO‚ COCA PLANTATION
[ Jose Orozco ] for a coca cultivating farmer...¬∂
The working day starts very early
Waking up at about 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning is normal
People generally work the whole day, until about 5 pm
Usually, by the end of the day, a good farmer can pick up to 150 kg
The plants you see here are average quality
The leaves are good, but the bushes are too high, too big
There are smaller plants, so it's easier to pick the leaves
The guys who have those bushes...
They're lucky
[ Jose Orozco ] Relations within the coca market aren't strong,
well, the farmer who grows it and the drug trafficker are miles apart
[ Jose Orozco, president, Peasant Workers Association, Cajibio ] I'm certainly no drug dealer
I don't work for any cartels
because I cultivate coca to survive,
I don't get rich
You'll never see a drug trafficker living in the conditions
that we live in here,
you'll never see that!
You'll never see a drug trafficker,
as we say, walking the roads here and wearing our boots
For me it's incomparable
[ farmer ] And five
[ man ] 25, that's good!
[ farmer ] 32
[ peasant ] This is the only lab on our farm, but other farms have labs just like this
Maybe not right on the farm, but quite nearby
so that they don't have to ship it too far, and can process it on the spot
so it doesn't have to be carried a long way by donkey
[ VO ] And who buys it?
[ peasant ] It's bought by people from the mafia, they take it...
to big labs
where they make drug packs from the paste to ship to other countries,
with more chemicals and much stronger
Only the base is made here,
they purify it even more
and the price goes up
[ peasant ] No one wants to do this
but circumstances force us to
Because if prices were higher
for sugar cane or molasses,
I wouldn't work with coca
because it's much too chemical,
it's very harmful to people
[ peasant ] Yes, I have three children
and we have to send them to study in Popayan, some are studying there
But if I didn't do this, I couldn't afford the cost of their education
They go to a private university,
one's a dentist, one's an electronics engineer. It's expensive!
We do this because we have to,
not because we want to
[ Emilio Archila ] We have to be clear with the words we use
Growing coca is illegal
It's forbidden
The programme we're talking about covers 100,000 families
all across Colombia, from the Venezuelan border to the border with Ecuador
We must uproot all the crops
and we need the families to have alternative ways to make a living,
not related to growing coca
[ Emilio Archila ] The second component is to give a legal alternative to those families
a substitute programme or substitute product so that they don't go back to growing coca
And finally, we need the state to go to these remote areas in Colombia
with offers and suitable services
in health and education, roads, electricity, and so on
[ Leyder Valencia ] I was getting threatened over the telephone
Stop working on the peace process!
Stop working on crop substitution!
We had to leave our farm where we had lived for 17 years,
we had to leave everything
to save our lives
[ Leyder Valencia ] It was dark
Then we saw three people dressed in black,
with rubber boots on, and they were armed
My wife went to the window
and came face to face with one who was just in front of her
My wife asked, 'What are you doing?'
'What are you doing?' He just stood there, leaning on the wall
He leant like this on the wall
[ Leyder Valencia ] She said, 'Don't go out, don't go out! It's dangerous, what might they do!'
I shut the door and locked the kids in
At around midnight...
the troops came, because we'd told them we were in danger
But it was already 12:00 at night
it had been almost 4 hours
If they'd done anything to us, it would've been over by the time the troops arrived
[ Leyder Valencia ] The peace process is underway,
but we, public leaders are still getting killed
Just like during the conflict, in the war
All around the country, both men and women, almost 400 public leaders have been killed
[ Leyder Valencia, farmer ] Because we worked on the peace process and crop substitution
It's the killers of public leaders
who get rich from drug trafficking, specially from cultivation
How do they see us?
As a problem!
Getting rid of the problem means killing us, threatening us and chasing us off our land
[ Jose Orozco ] Before, we wanted to do everything peacefully,
that was the idea at first, but we saw no commitment
The government, led by the President,
and excuse me for being blunt, treated us as idiots
They must honour their promises, come to Cauca
and look the farmers and indigenous people in the face‚
To look well, and generally learn about what's going on here
[ Jose Orozco ] We need everyone now
We can't give up because someone can't throw stones or deems himself useless, no!
We need each and every one of you, we must be coordinated
Among us, are people who like to be at the forefront, right?
They like the adrenaline and standing against the teargas
One way or another, we all make a difference, we fight for us all!
[ Leyder Valencia ] These are coffee plants [ Gelver Solarte ] Yes, coffee plants
Up here, there and there, we had coca
We uprooted the coca, we uprooted it all
Now the government is offering financial assistance
to people who grow substitute crops
[ Gelver Solarte ] I did it back in 2014, of my own free will,
with no state assistance, I uprooted the coca
As for coca fields, these are the last, there are no more
They're there and here, these are the last of them
The rest of the farm is planted with coffee and bananas
On this farm, we used to have four hectares of coca
and now it's less than one
[ Gelver Solarte ] All five years, starting from 2014, until today,
[ Gelver Solarte, farmer ] I've run the farm, and it's hard because raw materials are expensive,
and the crops sell at low prices
I cultivate coffee, fruit...
and coca
And the money from a little coca helps grow the cheaper crops
[ Leyder Valencia ] It takes 3 months to grow marijuana, 3 months for coca, coffee takes 9 months
[ Gelver Solarte ] Bananas take 16 months
Growing a large hand of bananas can take up to 18 months
You know, I don't plant coca because I want to!
Because circumstances force me to grow it,
but I don't want to
[ Leyder Valencia ] You need to wrap it here
Do it with guava, the machine won't cut it
[ Gelver Solarte ] Good one, right? [ Leyder Valencia ] Yes
[ Leyder Valencia ] Look how it grew
Beautiful, isn't it?
[ Leyder Valencia ] This family grows coca now
but as the government rolls out the substitution programme,
these crops will vanish completely
These plants will go completely
All we demand of the government is that it honours the agreement
and then we'll destroy all the remaining coca
[ Emilio Archila ] For each component of the programme to reach the families in time,
they needed to have signed the agreements long ago
That didn't happen
So, now, they'll get aid and seeds and so on, and everything else they're entitled to later
[ Emilio Archila ] And that has led to disagreements
the situation has deteriorated over time
because many enemies of the system,
principally the drug traffickers,
attack the programme by saying it doesn't work
Their objective is to encourage the families back into growing coca
[ Jose Orozco, president, Peasant Workers Association, Cajibio ] The substitution plan is a good idea in theory,
but it hasn't been put into effect well,
in practice, nothing happens
The authorities have waged a military campaign against us
Why do I say that?
Because they send in troops with rifles and batons
to uproot the coca that we plant
They don't give us an alternative so that we can give up coca as the law requires
That's what we want from our government
Why? Because we're tired of fighting the troops on our farms
[ Jose Orozco ] Here, in this camp, they fight us too,
both the army and the police
They're just waiting for us to make some kind of mistake
so that they can catch or kill someone
as they have on previous operations
Now we plan to keep fighting and looking for ways
to make progress through dialogue
[ VO ] Are you scared? [ Jose Orozco ] Sometimes, yes, but sometimes I think...
I think and, you know, I have a son,
and he's just 8 years old
When they threaten me, I think...
'My kid may be left alone, with no home' and when I think that I choose to go on
If we achieve our goals in this struggle...
it'll be for him, one day he'll grow up
It will be our kids who benefit from this struggle, not us
[ Leyder Valencia ] Whatever happens, we're determined to replace coca planting
[ Leyder Valencia, farmer ] If the government lets us down we'll find a way to support our families,
but we won't grow coca anymore
Because no good has come of it, many families have lost children to drugs
I dream of my children's future,
of them becoming professionals, good people working on Colombian land
As what's important to peasants are the land...
and the field
Because a country without peasants…
without production
without food...
gives way to war
If there's no food...
there can be no peace
which is what Colombians dream of, a stable, lasting peace
A world where we, poor men, don't kill each other
That's my dream for my children