Cocalero

       Cocalero is referring to the coca leaf growers that are present in Peru and Bolivia. Cocalero is a film that follows Evo Morales in his 2005 run for the Bolivian presidency. Morales is one of the leading figures in the cocalero movement in Bolivia. This is a in-depth look at aymara indian Morales as he gains confidence and support on his way to becoming president in 2006. The coca business is one of the largest money makers and one of the most controversial industries in Latin America. The United States is a major player in the global marketplace and was one of the main causes for the crackdown on coca growers with there war on drugs campaign. This campaign targeted the backbone of the problem with drugs we have in this country and at the time that was the Bolivian coca growers.
       As the war on drugs escalated the Bolivian government began to raise the stakes and stopped most of the coca plantations they found. This lead to a devastating effect on the indigenous farming population which was irreversible. There were very few people on the side of the coca growers at the time, but Evo Morales was there to take up the side of the farmers whose livelihood had been lost. Fortunately for the farmers, Morales was a confident and charismatic candidate for president who was more than comfortable and ready to put his ideas into action.
       Taking away land from the indigenous population took away there jobs and livelihood that could not be replaced. This led to an outcrying by the community and a mobilization of indigenous farmers into groups opposing the governmental movement to seize land from the farmers. One of the main groups who supported this movement was the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador or CONAIE. As Les Field talks about in his article, Ecuadors Pan-Indian Uprising, “Indians demanded the immediate resolution of land disputes in six highland provinces”(p.39). This was the first demand of the farmers after occupying the Santo Domingo cathedral in Quito. This was just the start of an escalating revolt that soon led to countless interstates blocked by trees and boulders along with the Pan-American highway. “By Monday, June 4, the mobilization had paralyzed the sierra provinces of Bolivar, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, and Tungurahua”(p38-39). Blocking off all these major arteries left many of the outlying towns and communities very short on necessities and in a sense showed the government just how dependent the provincial capitals were on the local farmers. “The head of the Agrarian Reform ministry was sent to negotiate with the native leadership”(p40). Clearly this problem was much more prominent than first expected and Evo Morales was the chief contributor that stood behind the local farmers and the push to regain the land the government had seized from them. Trying to restore a level of normality to the lives of the ten million Indians that called Ecuador home. After deploying national and local law enforcement along with the army many of the insurrections were stopped. The reason these groups mobilized and fought back will not be soon forgotten by the Indians living in Ecuador or by any country for that matter. This was not just a problem for Latin America, this was clearly a global problem that had to be solved at a global level.