VZCZCXYZ0000
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHPE #1587/01 1202004
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 302004Z APR 07
FM AMEMBASSY LIMA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5251
INFO RUEHBO/AMEMBASSY BOGOTA 4611
RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 7313
RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS 0339
RUEHLP/AMEMBASSY LA PAZ APR QUITO 1177
RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 1250
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHMFIUU/CDR USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL
RUEABND/DEA HQS WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RHEHOND/DIRONDCP WASHDC

UNCLAS LIMA 001587 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PTER PGOV SNAR PE
SUBJECT: GOP CN POLICIES: MORE GOOD NEWS THAN BAD 
 
REF: A. LIMA 1396 
 
     ¶B. LIMA 1270 
     ¶C. LIMA 909 
 
------------------------- 
Summary and Introduction: 
------------------------- 
 
¶1.  (SBU) The last month has seen a series of lurches in GOP 
counternarcotics policy.  On March 15, Agricultural Minister 
Juan Jose Salazar signed a unilateral accord with cocaleros 
in Tocache, promising, among other things, to suspend 
eradication pending the general registration of coca growers. 
 A little over two weeks later, President Garcia swung to the 
other extreme, ordering Interior Minister Alva Castro "to 
bomb and machine gun (coca) maceration pits."  In 
anticipation of Drug Czar Romulo Pizarro's visit to 
Washington, we offer our analysis on what the Garcia 
administration is doing right and wrong in its fight against 
narcotics. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Overall, there appears to be more good news than 
bad.  President Garcia sees the fight against narcotics as 
something that touches upon Peru's core security interests 
and not just a sop to foreign governments.  The government's 
public affairs posture is aimed at bringing the Peruvian 
public to the same conclusion.  The national drug 
coordination office, Devida, has increased stature and its 
Director, Romulo Pizarro, has access to senior government 
officials.  For the first time in years, the GOP is putting 
important new resources of its own into the counter narcotics 
effort, and it has done reasonably well with its new 
political strategy designed to divide the cocaleros. 
Finally, the GOP is talking about bringing more tools to 
bear, such as asset forfeiture and increased interdiction of 
precursor chemicals going into and processed drugs going out 
of drug-producing areas. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) The biggest weakness in the GOP approach is that it 
almost certainly overestimates the potential impact of 
interdiction of chemical precursors.  The Garcia 
Administration is betting that these controls will cause 
stocks of unprocessed leaf to pile up, causing prices to 
crash and coca farmers to embrace alternative development. 
The GOP dislikes the social conflict engendered by 
eradication, and believes eradication won't reduce production 
if leaf prices are high and probably isn't necessary if 
prices are low.  Cocaleros have detected this ambiguity and 
turned up the level of confrontation and violence. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Ironically, the disastrous Tocache Accord, which 
the cocaleros celebrated as a great victory, made the GOP 
look weak.  Consequently, Garcia has now publicly embraced 
eradication as an important element of GOP policy and taken a 
tough line against negotiations with cocaleros.  Romulo 
Pizarro has changed his position and now states that 
eradication is non-negotiable.  Our objective, as the GOP 
recovers from the Tocache Accord fiasco, will be to convince 
the GOP to maintain its renewed commitment to eradication as 
part of a balanced and varied approach to the fight against 
narcotics.  End Summary. 
 
-------------------------------------- 
The GOP: A Tougher Stance Post-Tocache 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (SBU) An overview of the range of GOP CN activity yields 
a mixed picture.  The Garcia Administration has been doing a 
good job in demand reduction and, more importantly, an even 
better job in educating the public about the dangers of 
narcotrafficking.  Peru has over one hundred thousand young 
people who are addicted to drugs, a catalogue of victims that 
clearly demonstrates that the GOP has a dog in this fight. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Until Agricultural Minister signed the Tocache 
Accord on March 15 (Ref C), the Garcia Government had been 
content to follow the line of its predecessor, showing very 
little sense of urgency on counternarcotics.  Salazar's 
capitulation, however, raised the coca issue's profile 
dramatically, caused commentators to openly question where 
the GOP was going, and this, in turn, forced the President to 
take a far harder line on coca cultivation and production. 
In April 2 remarks, Garcia publicly ordered Minister Alva 
Castro "to bomb and machine gun (coca) maceration pits." 
Though some observers dismissed this as Garcia hyperbole, the 
President followed up with a sterner warning in the same 
speech, laying out the drug issue in the starkest terms for 
the Peruvian public.  He stated that, if illegal narcotics 
could not be controlled, Peru could face an insurgency like 
that which plagues neighboring Colombia (Ref B). 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Garcia's tougher line resonated with local 
opinion-shapers, a fact reflected in a Sunday 4/22 editorial 
in Lima daily of record "El Comercio."  The piece captured 
the mood expressed in a number of major media and, more 
important, proposed a new baseline for GOP drug policy. 
Entitled "The Cocaleros Have to Decide: the State or (the) 
Drugs," the paper denounced narco-penetration of parts of 
Peru (including the existence of so-called "liberated zones" 
dominated by narco-traffickers) and called for a 
strengthened, integral government CN plan, including 
eradication and social investment, to push back against the 
narco-menace.  The editorial also acknowledged that 
eradication will likely not be violence-free and called for 
Agricultural Minister Salazar's eventual dismissal. 
 
---------------------------- 
CN Policy: Encouraging Deeds 
---------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU) The GOP has undertaken a series of encouraging 
initiatives that reinforce the toughened public stand.  For 
the first time in recent history, the GOP has publicly 
announced major investments, valued in the tens of millions 
of dollars, that will be focused on improving coca-growing 
regions, including key expenditures for infrastructure, 
alternative corps, and land-titling.  The GOP has held fast 
to its pledge not to meet with cocaleros who are illegally 
blocking roads and, just one week after a CORAH eradication 
worker was murdered in Huanuco on 4/12 (Ref A), the GOP 
re-initiated eradication operations in the zone in question. 
 Finally, the GOP has introduction legislation in Congress 
that would provide for seizure of illegally gained assets as 
a new tool to fight organized crime. 
 
----------------------------- 
The Easier Step: Interdiction 
----------------------------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU) In its 2007 anti-drug strategy, the GOP has 
emphasized interdiction -- particularly of chemical 
precursors -- as the main method of combating the illegal 
drug trade.  Almost everyone ) from cocaleros to government 
officials ) prefers to talk about interdiction rather than 
eradication, stating that such policies attack the big drug 
kingpins but leave the little people alone.  Interdiction by 
itself, however, will not work.  So long as coca can be grown 
in large areas unrestricted and at a profit, narcotraffickers 
will take advantage of Peru's vast and varied geography and 
its weak police forces to ensure that chemical precursors get 
to coca-producers. 
 
-------------------------- 
The Hard Work: Eradication 
-------------------------- 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Until recently, many in the GOP had seen 
eradication as a necessary evil, which they have tolerated as 
part of the US policy.  Given the choice, some in the GOP 
would rather eradication withered away as it invariably 
brings on social conflict.  Due in part to this ambivalence, 
it is not likley that Peru will make its 10,000 hectare 
eradication goal for this year. 
 
¶11.  (SBU) Eradication is vital to a serious CN program. 
While it alone will not stop drug production, without its 
dissuasive effect, growers will continue to plant coca amidst 
alternative development crops or refuse alternative 
development altogether. Agricultural Minister Salazar's March 
15 blunder energized cocaleros and set out markers ) a 
temporary end to eradication in Tocache, a promise to survey 
and register (carry out an empadronamiento) of all coca 
growers ) from which the GOP has walked back by ignoring the 
accords and has spoken out more forcefully.  The trick will 
be to convince the GOP to stick to its new, tougher line. 
 
¶12.  (SBU) One aid to our effort, ironically, may be the 
excesses of the energized cocaleros.  As the GOP has backed 
off from Tocache, the cocaleros have tried to run with it, 
and may have overreached in the process.  Since March 15, GOP 
officials have denounced strikes and road blockages in coca 
producing areas.  Moreover, Sendero Luminoso's 4/12 ambush of 
PNP and CORAH eradicators (Ref A), where five PNP officers 
were wounded and one civilian CORAH employee murdered, 
underscored President Garcia's warnings about the link 
between SL to narcotraffickers, has discredited striking 
cocaleros and hardened public opinion.  Some cocalero leaders 
are for the first time admitting that some of their number 
are involved with narcotraffickers. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
Comment: Salazar's Folly May Have a Silver Lining 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Salazar's blunder has had multiple effects, not 
all of them negative.  It has awakened opinion-makers to the 
dangers posed by weakness in the face of cocalero demands, 
compelled Garcia and the GOP to take a more forceful line, 
and caused the cocaleros to overreach.  Our challenge is to 
convince the GOP to keep its commitment to eradication as a 
key element in a balanced counternarcotics policy that 
includes interdiction, law enforcement, institutional 
strengthening, and alternative development. 
STRUBLE