Latin American Program in the News: Coca planting rises in Colombia, cocaine production falls
Colombia saw an increase from the previous year in the amount of coca planted in 2011 though the amount of cocaine produced fell.
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One of the world's top cocaine producers, Colombia, has been battling drug-funded leftist rebels and powerful gangs for decades, but billions of dollars in drugs still leave the nation each year despite a decade-long U.S.-backed security crackdown.
The area planted with coca increased 3 percent to 64,000 hectares (158,147 acres) in 2011 versus the previous year, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said in its yearly report on Colombia's drug business.
Despite the increase, production of cocaine decreased 1 percent last year to 345 tonnes versus 2010, which the United Nations attributed to lower productivity.
The figures will likely give fodder to political rivals of President Juan Manuel Santos, especially former President Alvaro Uribe, who want to paint Santos as out of touch with security problems on the ground. In 2010, Santos succeeded Uribe, who was barred by the constitution from running for a third term.
"It will certainly add fuel to the fire of the Uribistas, who are relentlessly criticizing Santos," said Cynthia Arnson, Latin American program director at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
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Original article here.
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Latin America Program
The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action. Read more
