Andres Schipani’s article, “Jessica Anne Jordan Burton: beauty queen defies cartel beasts in Bolivia’s war on cocaine,” presents an inaccurate, hyperbolic, and sexist account, which projects narrow-minded generalizations and grossly distorts the current reality of Bolivian drug policy.  Unfortunately, this erroneous portrayal has been widely reprinted and quoted in the English-speaking press.

Inaccurate or incomplete information appears in almost every line. The misrepresentation of Jordan loosely camouflages an improvised dramatization of the dynamics of drug trafficking in Bolivia.

Objectifying Jordan

Schipani’s skepticism that an attractive, ex-Miss Bolivia could be employed by the Morales administration is off the mark.  Young, attractive and female does not signal incompetence.  Although Schipani notes that Jordan has never held public office, he omits that she lost last March’s gubernatorial race in the Beni department to the incumbent by less than three percent.[i] Although the announcement of her candidacy and campaign did generate a great deal of media attention at the time, she quickly faded from the Bolivian media spotlight after the publication of final election results.

Furthermore, Schipani inaccurately describes Jordan’s post by calling her “a controversial figurehead in Bolivia’s increasingly fraught campaign against cocaine barons,”[ii]  In fact, her bureaucratic post is not part of Bolivia’s formal drug control apparatus, and, unlike Social Defense Vice Minister, Felipe Cáceres, she can’t be considered a figurehead.  Thus his claim that Jordan’s position has not “turned the spotlight on the country’s faltering effort to rein in drug traffickers” misrepresents her sway in Bolivia’s drug control policies.  Morales created this new post to address one of its priorities for lowland departments: border control.  Jordan’s official title is “Beni Director of Border Development,”[iii] a new post that she manages to explain despite the article’s dramatized focus.  Her position will address different forms of illicit trafficking, corruption, poverty and “crack down on illegal logging and gold mining as well as drugs.” The assertion that Jordan is the “viceroy with the job of cleaning up the drug-infested border province of Beni,”  is far overstated.

Although Schipani claims her appointment “astonished Bolivia,” in fact the June 7, 2010 announcement received scant notice, beyond sexist jokes in passing. It is a common practice in all Bolivian administrations to appoint leaders who lost in national elections, much like President Obama’s decision to name Hillary Clinton Secretary of State after her unsuccessful presidential bid.

Inaccurate information on anti-narcotic efforts

Although Schipani admits that there are “grim tiding from the rest of the region,” in term of anti-drug efforts, he feels comfortable critiquing Jordan’s efficacy, stating, “it is far from clear that this is a battle she is winning,” after only nine weeks on the job.

In fact, the article’s messy generalizations about the drug war are more like a low-budget B movie than the product of investigative journalism.  Here are some quotes and AIN’s response:

“Latin America’s drug war has long been a byword for ugliness: a macho, brutal world where grim-faced soldiers battled ruthless narco-traffickers in jungles and slums.”

• In Bolivia the police, not the military carry out interdiction efforts, except for river operations and some transport.  The FELCN anti-drug police have a significant number of female officers, and both men and women certainly participate in drug trafficking. Although the frequency of confrontations between law enforcement officers and drug traffickers has increased in the past year, most drug seizures and destruction of factories occur when the facilities are abandoned or empty.

“The picture in Bolivia is also bleak. UN and US officials estimate that 30,000 hectares of illegal coca is now being cultivated.”

• Schipani rounded liberally and failed to take into account that some coca production in Bolivia is legal.  Both UN and U.S. reports place coca cultivation between 30,000 and 35,000 hectares.  The UNODC estimated a total of 30,900 hectares grown in Bolivia in 2009, whereas the U.S. claims that there were 35,000 hectares cultivated during the same time period.[iv]  According to Bolivia’s 1988, drug control laws, 12,000 of these hectares are legal and permitted.  In 2006 the Morales administration raised the ceiling of permitted coca production to 20,000 hectares until the completion of an EU-funded legal market study.  Regardless of which amount of legal coca you accept, there is nowhere close to 30,000 hectares of illegal coca.

“A former coca farmer himself, he (Morales) expelled U.S. Drug agents two years ago, saying he could achieve a ‘zero cocaine policy’ by allowing grow the crop for medicinal and cultural uses…”

• Morales expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency [DEA] in November 2008 for alleged political intervention, yet the U.S. Narcotics Affairs Section [NAS] of the Embassy continues to fund antidrug and coca control efforts – albeit with a reduced budget – and coordinates with the Bolivian government on a daily basis.
• The 1988 Anti-drug Law 1008 stipulated regions where coca leaf could be legally grown in Bolivia for traditional purposes. This law was not a Morales initiative.

“…but [Morales] recently acknowledged his experiment—a bold departure from U.S.-led eradication policies—was in trouble.”

• Although Morales frequently urges coca farmers to follow the stipulations of the cooperative coca reduction policy and his officials openly recognize the challenges that the negotiated approach presents, Morales officials have never stated that the program struggled to achieve its goals.  In fact, the 2009 UN office on Drugs and Crime Coca Cultivation study stated that this coca control policy is beginning to show results in the Chapare and La Asunta regions, and that controlled coca production helped lead to crop diversification in the affected regions.  The cooperative coca reduction program in the Chapare seems to be working, and efforts in La Asunta are showing initial results.[v]
• Bolivia is still in last place for coca production. Coca cultivation in Bolivia represents 19% of the global total.[vi]
• Although 2009 was the fourth consecutive year that the UNODC recorded a coca cultivation increase, the slight 1% rise in coca cultivation [for 2009] reflects the lowest increase in the previous four years. [vii]
• Bolivia’s coca reduction is in fact a complex, detailed program carried out by Bolivian and international agencies, including the EU and UN.  Cooperative reduction is accomplished by using satellite imagery and aerial photography, as well as on-site verification of property boundaries and continual consultation and negotiation with unions and farmers.  These control measures are carried out within a logical, organized framework.[viii]

“Valentín Mejillones, an Aymara priest who blessed Morales at a presidential inauguration ceremony, was recently arrested alongside two Colombians with a 240kg stash of liquid cocaine. It was an embarrassing blow to the leftwing president.”

• Although Mejillones’s arrest did provoke surprise and a great deal of attention because of his participation in Morales’s first inauguration in 2006, he has no official ties to the administration, nor did he receive any special treatment once caught.  He is facing appropriate legal consequences for his role in drug trafficking.  Upon his arrest, Morales officials immediately expressed their desire that he face the full weight of the law.

Schipani refers to “cartel beasts” and “cocaine barons.” He also quotes drug control chief Felipe Cáceres’ admission that Bolivian drug traffickers now use more sophisticated methods and have forged ties with large trafficking organizations.

• Although large trafficking organizations maintain contacts and travel to Bolivia to secure shipments, the majority of local drug production and trafficking is carried out by “family clans.”  Ironically, over the past fifteen years interdiction efforts splintered larger groups into innumerable small organizations, making them harder to detect. When anti-drug police are able to disband them, the overall effect on trafficking is negligible, as rival groups quickly absorb their share of the market.

Conclusions

Unfortunately, the reality of Bolivian anti-narcotic efforts remains sufficiently complicated without inaccurate, misdirected analysis to further confuse the general public.  As in all Andean countries, supply-side efforts face significant challenges.  Despite very real problems on the interdiction front, Bolivia is attempting peaceful, negotiated coca reduction, and their strategy is beginning to show positive results.  The style and muddled focus of the article does a disservice to Bolivian anti-narcotics efforts, Ms. Jordan, and the author himself.

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[i] Jordan (40.1% of the vote) lost to her opponent, the incumbent Prefect Ernesto Suarez (PB) (42.5%), in a close race. http://www.cne.org.bo/CNEResultados/ProcesoElectoral2010.htm
[ii] Technically, Beni is a department, the loose equivalent of a U.S. State. Departments are divided into provinces, somewhat similar to U.S. counties.
[iii] http://www.la-razon.com/version.php?ArticleId=3125&EditionId=100&a=1
[iv] See, Andean Information Network, “The UNODC Coca Cultivation Study for Bolivia Shows Minimal Increase in Coca Crop: Sharply Contrasts with U.S. Statistics.” http://ain-bolivia.org/2010/06/the-unodc-coca-cultivation-study-for-bolivia-shows-minimal-increase-in-coca-crop-sharply-contrasts-with-u-s-statistics-2/
[v] Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, Monitoreo de Cultivos de Coca. June 2010.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] The Andean Information Network, the Institute for Policy Studies and the Puente de Investigacion y Enlace organization carried out a fact-finding delegation in the Chapare region in July 2010. See the upcoming joint-organizational memorandum on this topic.