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Viewing cable 06LIMA4516, AYACUCHO CONTACTS TALK OF NARCO-ECONOMY,

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
06LIMA4516 2006-11-28 20:58 2011-02-22 12:00 UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Embassy Lima
Appears in these articles:
www.elcomercio.pe
VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHPE #4516/01 3322058
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 282058Z NOV 06
FM AMEMBASSY LIMA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3125
INFO RUEHAC/AMEMBASSY ASUNCION 1559
RUEHBO/AMEMBASSY BOGOTA 4132
RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 7103
RUEHBU/AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 2689
RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS 9967
RUEHLP/AMEMBASSY LA PAZ NOV MONTEVIDEO 9042
RUEHQT/AMEMBASSY QUITO 0848
RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 0971
RUMIAAA/CDR USCINCSO MIAMI FL
UNCLAS LIMA 004516 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PINR PHUM SNAR PE
SUBJECT: AYACUCHO CONTACTS TALK OF NARCO-ECONOMY, 
NARCO-CULTURE 
 
-------- 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
1.  (SBU) Ayacucho's economy turns on narcotr...

id: 87334
date: 11/28/2006 20:58
refid: 06LIMA4516
origin: Embassy Lima
classification: UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
destination: 
header:
VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHPE #4516/01 3322058
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 282058Z NOV 06
FM AMEMBASSY LIMA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3125
INFO RUEHAC/AMEMBASSY ASUNCION 1559
RUEHBO/AMEMBASSY BOGOTA 4132
RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 7103
RUEHBU/AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 2689
RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS 9967
RUEHLP/AMEMBASSY LA PAZ NOV MONTEVIDEO 9042
RUEHQT/AMEMBASSY QUITO 0848
RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 0971
RUMIAAA/CDR USCINCSO MIAMI FL


----------------- header ends ----------------

UNCLAS LIMA 004516 

SIPDIS 

SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 

E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PINR PHUM SNAR PE
SUBJECT: AYACUCHO CONTACTS TALK OF NARCO-ECONOMY, 
NARCO-CULTURE 

-------- 
Summary: 
-------- 

1.  (SBU) Ayacucho's economy turns on narcotrafficking, local 
contacts told Poloff during a Nov. 8-10 visit.  They cited 
coca-growing in the Apurimac and Ene River Valley (VRAE) as a 
key source of jobs, particularly for area youth who migrate 
to the VRAE during school vacations.  They alleged that a 
major candidate for Regional President, Rofilio Neyra from 
the Fujimori Party, was financing a campaign of lavish 
giveaways with drug money.  (Neyra lost, but remains 
prominent.)  The extent of narco-penetration in Ayacucho is 
surprising, and suggests a tough fight ahead for licit 
alternatives.  End Summary. 

Students: "Spring Break" Coca-style 
----------------------------------- 

2.  (U) Narcotrafficking from the Apurimac and Ene River 
Valley (VRAE) sustains the economies of the cities of 
Ayacucho and Huanta, according to a range of local contacts 
interviewed by Poloff during a pre-election visit to the 
region, Nov. 8-10. 

3.  (U) To the person, contacts alleged that the drug trade 
is financing a mini-economic boom in the city and region. 
This includes: new houses in Huanta, new businesses in 
Ayacucho (opened by people with no visible source of 
financing) and, above all, a surge in youth spending, in the 
form of packed discotheques on weekends, high levels of 
alcohol consumption, and abundant cell phones.  According to 
several contacts, high school and university students 
(Ayacucho is home to the 8,000-student state-run University 
of Huamanga) frequently head to the VRAE during vacations to 
work for 1-2 month stints in coca fields to help their 
families or finance their studies. 

4.  (U) Other fortune-seekers also head to the VRAE in the 
hopes of getting rich quick.   One contact told Poloff of a 
cab driver who takes 3-4 months off to visit his "little 
shack" in the VRAE, where he cultivates 4-5 hectares of coca 
plants.  The contact estimated that one could earn USD 3,000 
in four months and noted how the cabbie, like many, 
rationalized his participation in the drug trade, saying he 
was "only growing the leaf," not actually selling the drug 
("Es solo hoja....").  The contact alleged that many, if not 
most, of working age in Ayacucho believe that anyone who 
would pass up this kind of opportunity would have to be a 
"chump" (cojudo).  (USAID Note: The cab driver is likely an 
absentee landlord who employs full-time VRAE peasants to tend 
to his fields and who hires others during harvest periods. 
End Note.) 

--------------------------------------------- --- 
Regional President Says VRAE Coca Cultivation Up 
--------------------------------------------- --- 

5.  (SBU) APRA Party Regional President Omar Quesada 
confirmed the account of increased coca production.  Having 
recently completed a pre-election campaign swing through the 
VRAE, Quesada said coca production was up "tremendously" and 
that this had created a migratory pull of peasants from the 
highlands to the jungle in search of work.  (USAID Note: 
According to USAID field offices in the VRAE, increased coca 
production results from both increases in hectarage as well 
as the application of high-tech farming techniques.  End 
Note.)  Quesada maintained eradication policies would fail in 
explosive fashion in the VRAE.  Instead, he said the GOP and 
others had to take the "oxygen" out of narcotrafficking with 
better interdiction, both of drugs leaving the VRAE and of 
precursor agents headed into the area, and increased 
investment in alternative development, working closely with 
the regional government. 

6.  (U) Several contacts echoed Quesada's comments about the 
need for more interdiction.  They say that the Police make 
little or no attempt to inspect shipments that come out of 
the jungle to Ayacucho.  They alleged that wood and other 
products borne by trucks often camouflage drug shipments. 

------------------------- 
Narco-Political Influence 
------------------------- 

7.  (SBU) A wide range of local contacts alleged that 
Fujimori-party candidate for regional president Rofilio Neyra 
as narco-financed.  They claimed Neyra's wealth came suddenly 
and from unknown sources, and that he was using it to finance 
a rural-based campaign of lavish giveaways to local peasants, 
including a bank of computers to one school and tanks of gas 
to various families.  Neyra, they said, had also pledged to 
construct a propane gas plant that would cut the cost of gas 
in half in Ayacucho.  (Note: Neyra did not win the regional 
presidency in the elections, but he remains well-known in the 
region.  The new Regional President, Ernesto Molina of the 
local Movement for Regional Innovation (MIRE), has promised 
to "industrialize" coca production and build roads.  The Lima 
press has brought to light similar allegations of candidates' 
narco-connections in the capital covered in septel.  End 
Note.) 

--------------------------------------------- - 
Locals See Dangers: Consumption, Narco-Peonage 
--------------------------------------------- - 

8.  (U) XXXXXXXXXXXX as well as other 
contacts described how drugs are not just flowing through 
Huanta and Ayacucho, but are increasingly being used by 
people in the area, particularly youth in the cities.  (NAS 
Note: the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is 
preparing a study of drug usage in Peru which will reportedly 
confirm a steep rise in drug consuption in Ayacucho.  The 
study is slated to come out in February-March 2007.  End 
Note.) 

9.  (SBU) Along with drug use, the narcotics trade is 
impoverishing those in the countryside.  Regional President 
Omar Quesada noted the irony of coca production was that it 
generates fast money for a few while turning the peasants in 
the VRAE into virtual "peons" of narcotraffickers and causes 
extensive environmental damage. 

-------- 
Comment: 
-------- 

10.  (SBU) Narco-penetration of Ayacucho, while not unknown, 
proved to be far more extensive than one would have guessed 
before this recent trip.  Local experts mentioned ideas to 
limit the drug trade, including investment in infrastructure, 
more interdiction, and alternative crops like the 
oil-producing nut sachainchi.  Nonetheless, their more 
extensive descriptions of increasing narco-influence in 
Ayacucho suggest that these alternatives have a long way to 
go if they are to gain traction at the expense of the area's 
thriving trade in illegal drugs. 
STRUBLE 

=======================CABLE ENDS============================