ANDEAN AMAZONIAN FORUM
First
Meeting of the Independent Global Commission (IGC)
In defense of Human Rights, of ‘master’ plants and environmental
survival
September
15 - 19 2004
Popayán
GOALS:
- To promote the
articulation and strengthening of an open peaceful transnational dialogue
between movements tied to the cocalero issue, environmentalists and
international drug policy reform movements.
- To encourage the
exchange between concrete alternatives to restore the coca to the
corresponding spiritual, nutritional, medical and environmental standing
it has historically held in the Andean Amazonian Region.
- To further the goals
of reforming 'drug' policies by giving shape to the Independent Global
Commission and designing, together with legislators, reforms which
contemplate the defense of human rights and civil liberties of growers and
users.
- To echo the numerous
voices worldwide which call for peace and the demilitarization of peoples'
territories and resources.
PROPOSAL:
In a search to build on social knowledge regarding
drug policies and their manifold repercussions, the Fund for Drug Policy Reform of the Tides
Foundation has generously contributed to the joint building of a moment and
space for social deliberation on special plants and consciousness-altering
substances, known as ‘drugs’. Numerous analysts, economists, pacifists, and
politicians among others demand reforms and greater social participation in the
design and implementation of ‘drug’ policies and measures. The alternatives are
there and they are proposed from all countries.
In 2003, academics, growers, users and activists from
16 countries founded the Independent
Global Commission (IGC), a transnational social policy
initiative that seeks to horizontally articulate social alternatives
to repressive ‘drug’ policies and measures. Generously and beyond local and
national frontiers, analysts and activists from all over the world search for
the means to strengthen social proposals that reflect their own diversity. With
these funds granted by the FDPR we are, initially, given the means to seek
alternatives to shelter the
coca and its peoples from the war declared against them, an
Andean Amazonian Forum. Academic institutions such as the Colombian Institute
of Anthropology and History (ICANH) with Colciencias are backing this attempt
at promoting dialogue. The forum would renew commitments to drug policy reform made
at the International
Costa Rica Peace Conference of 2000 and the Andean Amazonian
Meeting held at the Cinep
in 2001. It echoes the
many former proposals arising from diverse sectors in the countries of the
North and the South.
Our wider expectations are to assemble a meeting of the
Independent Global Commission. To this
end, several organizations have already begun to seek the means to make an IGC
workshop and public forum possible. We are here actively requesting that, those
who can, join us through their own means and help us to find support for other
guests. We wish to join in putting forward collective social proposals for more
sensible and humane ‘drug’ policies by making this diverse transnational social
policy instance come true.
BROAD OBJECTIVES AND MUTUAL STRENGTHENING:
The
Forum is convened with te view of promoting the articulation and strengthening
of visible peaceful international solidarity among these social movements and
finding a common ground for our diverging approaches in the face of that which
destroys and divides us: ‘drug’ policies and measures that range from
“ignorance to racism”. While in the countries of the North penalization of
consumption is used to obscure growing restrictions on individual rights, in
the countries of the South, people’s territories and resources are alarmingly
militarized under the coordination of US narcotics agencies. Terrorism —whether
of the state or of the insurgency— thrives on prohibitionist policies. While
governments stigmatize social opposition movements as terrorists, under the
cover of antinarcotics policies, insurgents follow the military model laid out
by Prohibition: targeting both growers and users while themselves thriving off
of the business. The political tendency to narcotize, and by so doing
militarize, the acute problems faced by peasants in the South calls on us to
seek alternatives from within the communities themselves in a personal exchange
which we are proposing in the Andean Amazonian Region.
The scope of the current agrarian cocalero movement in
the Andean Amazonian region reflects the need for policies that respond to the
region’s particular agricultural, environmental, and social realities. Social
movements such as that led by Evo
Morales; the call of Felipe Quispe for a communitarian
constitution that would reflect the reality and expectations of the mainly
indigenous Bolivian people; the diverse social movement against fumigation in
Colombia; the Sacrifice Marches of the cocaleras and cocaleros of the Alto
Huallaga; and the mobilization of the Federation of Agrarian Producers of the
Río Apurímac and Ene Valleys (Fepavrae), all demand the respect and the
sustainable and fair use of the region's rich natural resources. They are
seeking the legal means to make their dignity, their rights and social
expectations respected. In acts of peaceful resistance, this social
mobilization seeks to reform current drug policies and measures under the cover
of which peoples' territories and resources are forcibly controlled and their
ancestral cultural rights denied.
The immediate issues in each of the Andean
countries vary. Very generally speaking, in Peru the
cocaleros demand a halt to alternative crop programs and to forced eradication,
they demand a Coca Law
and the deactivation of Devida and Enaco. The popular Bolivian
movement is discussing development proposals in the cocalero zones and demands
that Law 1008 be reviewed. This movement encompasses wide national grievances
such as society’s right to oversee the use of its natural resources. In Colombia widespread demands are for a
political solution to the country's conflict which has already massacred
millions of Colombians, for the right of communities to their autonomy and
neutrality in this conflict, for social and not military solutions, for an end to the
incrimination of peasants, a halt to the chemical war with pesticides and that
the rights of the coca
be recognized.
Although any of the Andean Amazonian countries could
host this regional
and international meeting, several Andean nationals have
suggested that it be held in
Colombia.
The narcotized view through which the Region is viewed
completely discounts the region's agrarian crisis and seeks to isolate the
cocalero movement and ignore the wide social expectations it expresses. The coca
and its growers are victims of aggression throughout the whole region.
Nonetheless, possibly nowhere is the
coca, nature and the sacred more profaned than it is in Colombia.
Despite the fact that coca is part of the cultural, spiritual and natural
legacy several of its indigenous peoples, of the Colombian nation, the coca and its
traditional uses in Colombia are almost completely obscured by the narcotics traffic and the economic and
political interests tied to it. The
Colombian Administration has taken the lead in regional strategies to
disarticulate social protest and consistently stigmatizes all social protest
tied to cocalero issues as a
part of the Drug War and/or narcotics trafficking. The Uribe Administration
is also building a society governed on suspicion (paid snitching); a society
where peasants are armed against each other and massive raids and detentions of
the nation’s farmers as well as intense chemical war measures against the coca and its peoples
are presented as success figures in the Drug War. This US Administration states
that its aim is to eliminate the
coca plant from the face of Colombia.
Coca is a part of the natural and cultural legacy of the
Andean Amazonian Region, and its forced disappearance from the zones where it
is endemic would affect the balance of fragile and immensely rich ecosystems.
It would violate the spiritual, agricultural, and cultural traditions of
millions of peasants. One of the territories which has played an historic role
in the survival of coca in Colombia
is the Cauca.
The Cauca territory is the home the
Nasa People, the Güambiano People and of diverse Afro-Colombian, mestizo and
white communities. Coca there is consumed both for its sacred purposes and for its
nutritional and medical use; there the
coca provides its own answers. With the welcome and
logistical support of the
local communities in convening and seeing to our safety, we wish to invite you
to this Andean Amazonian Forum in Popayán (Colombia)
on the 16th, 17th, and 18th of September, 2004.
The Cauca convenes as of its long history of social organization and
its multi-ethnical culture and Popayán, its capital, is a peaceful colonial
city with the required infrastructure to support this event at a low cost. Popayán is situated in southern Colombia,
which makes it easy to access for delegations arriving overland from other
Colombian coca territories, from Peru,
from Ecuador,
and from the Amazon. For these reasons
and in an appeal for support
for the millions of peasants (white, black, mestizo and
indigenous) Colombians assassinated, persecuted and displaced from their homes
by the Drug War, and with the aim of expanding our collective knowledge and
strengthening our social proposals, we believe it important to build this
opportunity for cocaleros, environmentalists, analysts, users, and
organizations for drug policy reform to come to Popayán in the name of peace.
Our
immediate purpose with the resources at hand is to bring together cocaleros,
cocológos (coca researchers) and those who are knowledgeable on ‘drug’ issues
from the Andean-Amazon Region in a
dialogue which would allow us to propose concrete peaceful
alternatives for restoring the
coca leaf to the rightful nutritional and medicinal standing
which it has historically held in the region. A further goal is to consolidate the international alliance
of drug policy reform movements through the presence of our US,
European, Asian, and African colleagues. To this purpose, we
are actively seeking their support to join us for 4 days in Popayán. We especially
wish to invite with our international colleagues who have for many years
advocated the rights and defense of the
coca leaf and of all of those who make up the IGC. Your
presence and contribution to this dialogue on Master Plants and mind altering
substances will expand the reach of our transnational search for peace and
demand for respect for consumers’ and growers’ human rights and civil liberties.
Drug
policy reform commences with social praxis, for example social organizations’
endeavor to implement programs to shelter populations displaced by the war
being fought in the name of
‘drugs’; harm-minimization programs such as those successfully implemented by
our European colleagues; and the legal achievements towards raising awareness
and changing mentalities by activists for medical marijuana in the United
States. The support and
funding required to bring these experiences together is noted in general terms
below. We have attempted to include a series of practical aspects in this draft
and would appreciate any and all suggestions regarding the different aspects of
this proposal.
We hope
that this FDPR seed money and the ICANH funds will be the first of the
contributions towards this convening of social assessments for peaceful
resistance to war and to the terrorist model. We are asking you and your
organizations to join us in supporting local, national, and transnational
initiatives for drug policy reform. Our wide expectations are noted below and
we hope each one of you proposes the presence and support you might deem
necessary in order to strengthen social alternatives to current drug policies and
measures through the Andean Amazonian Forum and IGC Meeting in Popayán.
FUNDS AVAILABLE:
We currently have US$25,000 (and others not noted yet)
which we hope to use as follows:
·
US$2,500 to organize the event: travel
and other expenses for Monica Juliana Lalinde for a 4 to 6 week stay in
Popayán with the local communities to jointly prepare the public forum and to
serve as English-French-Spanish liaison for the local communities.
·
US$2500 for overhead and
unforeseen needs
- A US$3,000 fund for
supporting part of the needs of those communities which might make it
overland to join us.
The
remaining $17,000 from the FDPR will serve to bring together hopefully 27
participants (without expenses) for travel and a 4 day stay in Popayán. With
these initial funds, we would like to support those people (22
international/regional and 5 national guests) who might otherwise not be able
to attend.
This forum
is scheduled from September 15th to the 19th , immediately after the
end of the more expensive high season in order to reduce costs. In very broad
terms, we estimate that from the Andean Amazon Region the ticket should cost
around US$550. From Europe and the US,
the ticket would cost approximately $1,000. From the rest of
Latin America the cost would be similar to that from the US and Europe. From Asia,
tickets cost approximately $1,800. A 4-day stay in Popayán costs approximately
$200.
SUGGESTED TOPICS:
Cultural
diversity is recognized by all international conventions. Nonetheless, this law
of coexistence —of diverse cultural usages and diverse responses— is not
applied when it comes to plants such as the poppy, the coca and cannabis.
Natural and common law is completely disregarded and norms are decreed violating
that which is protected by law: the growing and consumption of plants whose use
responds to a belief in a spiritual awareness, to social rituals, dietary and
medical customs, and a life of coexistence and sustainable use of our
environment. First we are told that
these plants are harmful for users, then that they are destructive to society,
and now that the phenomenon is chiefly chemical, we are told that these plants
harm the environment. Growers and users —both adversely affected by
antinarcotics measures and policies which breach international conventions
signed to protect human and civil rights, people’s traditions, livelihood and
the environment— have put forward peaceful alternatives. The Andean Amazonian
Forum in Popayán seeks to promote an exchange between growers, users and
analysts of the ‘drug’ issue. It seeks a public forum that would allow us to
project our common ground, and workshops to discuss differences to be
reconciled.
o
The coca
and cocaleros: cultural, agrarian and
environmental life in the Andean Amazonian
The
practices, lives and projects of growers in the Andean Amazonian Region under
the impact of counter-narcotics measures and policies
Goal: The Drug War is costing
millions of lives and endangering peoples´ subsistence, resources, and future.
The imbalances generated by the current prohibitionist economic model
particularly affect peasant growers of banned crops in the countries of the
South. The communities suffering under these drug measures have found diverse
survival strategies. Complementary and/or contradictory, these multiple proposals
generate alliances and differences which merit a space for social deliberation
in the face of the ever-growing penal and military dynamics.
o
Users’
harm rejection proposals. The defense of medical marijuana,
of consumers, and of harm and risk reduction alternatives
Goal: Historically, society itself has been at the
forefront of defending the traditions it seeks to conserve and promoting
legislation to incorporate evolving mentalities and rights. Cannabis has been
grown and used for medical and recreational purposes for centuries. Marijuana,
with a low degree of toxicity, is one of the few plants which serve to
alleviate the painful symptoms associated with illnesses such as cancer,
sclerosis, migraine headaches, arthritis, and gastritis; it alleviates glaucoma,
epileptic convulsions and the nausea produced by chemotherapy, among other
problems. Western pacifist and organic
culture has adopted this Asian legacy and defended it from the economic
dynamics of prohibition. Organized communities of medical marihuana,
recreational and users in distress propose practices for defending this right
to health and free will.
o
Reformulating
shared international responsibility
Legislative
approaches and practical alternatives for socially reformulating ‘drug’
policies
Goal: In order to reform drug
policies, local communities and analysts must have a chance to share their
experiences and knowledge with those who design legislation and oversee its
application. As members of civil society we are here calling on independent
legislators from the
American Region and Europe
to join us in order to strengthen the legislative initiatives they have already
presented to address the ‘drug’ issue.
Below you
will find a list of the
guests we hope to finance. It is basically composed of those people who, due to
lack of funding, might otherwise not be able to join us. Individual presentations follow. A longer
list is also being composed since there are, as mentioned, several
organizations already proposing alternatives and seeking further funding for
the Andean Amazonian Forum and Independent Global Commission meeting in Popayán.