The USA recently declared that Bolivia, under former Coca farmer and new indigenous president Evo Morales, is now a ‘Narco State’. Native Voice Films decided to discover how the new radical policies of Morales towards coca and cocaine are working.
Morales’s promise to legalize traditional coca growing has ensured massive popular support amongst rural and indigenous Bolivians. The power base of the new government are these tens of thousands of militant coca farmers who for decades have had their crops destroyed and themselves brutalised by a US backed ‘Zero Coca’ policy. But can Morales’s slogan of Coca Yes and Cocaine No really tackle the enormous cocaine trade in his country? Native Voice Films spent weeks in the jungle wet lands of Bolivia amongt the legal coca growers – and also with the masked illegal cocaine paste workers. It also filmed with the nortorious ‘anti narco commandoes’ who once saw their new president and as a cocalero farmer therefore the enemy.
Despite threats from the United States, which has reduced official aid, Bolivia is at a genuine and positive cross roads in fighting cocaine production. With excellent access to all side of the cocaine trade, this film reveals how the bold nationwide plans of exploiting legal uses for coca might just be bearing fruit.
Director / Camera: Phil Cox
Producer: Giovanna Stopponi
Fixer: Humberto Claros
Editor: Esteban Uyarra