Colombia's coca wars | DW Documentary

the katat tumbo forest is at the heart of the largest kocoa growing area in Colombia the country is producing more cocaine than ever before and the drug is now Colombia's most important export but in recent times a new trend has emerged while coca production is booming many farmers are having trouble finding buyers the reason over production [Music] [Music] Franco my name is wer Franco and I work in agriculture the income I earn from Koka allows me and my family to get what we need to live the essentials why do I grow coca katat tumbo is known for being very large and remote you are far away from the main roads and highways it's much easier to transport 10 kilos of Coca paste which fits into a small bag than 20 or 30 loads of bananas which take up much more space [Music] [Music] there's just one step missing to turn this into cocoa paste it's not yet been fried that means it's still impure you throw it into a pot heat it up and remove the water and all the impurities two years ago this was worth 2,750,000 pesos about € 640 now it's worth nothing because nobody buys it anymore there are about 120 to 130,000 plants here we use them to make 30 or 40 kilos of Coca paste that's about 75 to 80 million pesos around 17 to 18,000 but now I'm in danger of losing everything because nobody is buying coca paste right now I harvest and store it all but nobody buys it I think this is the biggest crisis coca farmers in katat tumbo have ever faced it doesn't just affect katat tumbo in north santand but other parts of the country as [Music] well my name is joh and I'm 17 years old I've been working here for about 2 years before that I went to school in Venezuela but because of the economic crisis I had to come here to work back then I lived with my grandparents my grandmother was getting more and more sick my grandfather had an injured arm that's why my grandmother said I should come work here to help them out I sometimes send them money coca is strictly illegal sometimes government soldiers come to a cocoa farm and destroy the coca plants if you're working there you get arrested they can even burn down the lab and Destroy Everything who are you johandry how much do you have 31 kg we used to have lots of money and little Coco paste now we have lots of paste but no [Music] [Music] [Music] money many people here work with Coca because its cultivation accounts for 70% of economic output everything here revolves around coca the problem right now is selling it which has a huge impact on trade everything is affected anything [Music] else here's what Koka does it's the plant that kills armed groups are fighting for more land so that they can expand koca cultivation it's the reason behind all the conflict if we were growing casava plantains and other things on these lands nobody would be fighting over it and we the entire population are the ones caught in the middle my name is Claudia Patricia manri Rios I'm working to help victims of sexual violence [Music] it's difficult to be a woman in this area some of us have endured horrible things in my case it was sexual violence we live in constant fear my personal experience is difficult because you can't fathom how someone would think of using your body as a spoil of War I fought with all my might but I couldn't when you have a gun to your head it's very difficult also because my daughter was there and I thought what else can I do I had no strength left and then after I had fought for as long as I could they hit me in the face with one of the weapons they had with them I passed out and then regained Consciousness I was gone and came back I remember it well but these are memories I would like to erase [Music] [Applause] [Music] this experience destroyed me emotionally sexually personally I wish we didn't have Koka in our region because if there was no coca we wouldn't have to live with all these dangers all the time with the confrontations we wouldn't live in [Music] fear I need to tell you something I've checked our finances and the situation is tough I hardly have any work and that affects wage payments on the one hand there's no more work we can no longer Harvest Coke on the farm and on the other we have to talk about my debt to you the wages I still owe you for the last few weeks I've already done the math and I think I'll have to pay you with a few grams of Coca paste because as you know there's no cash right now if there's no more work because things are so hard I don't want coca paste I'd rather wait until you can sell coca paste and when you have cash to pay me let me know and I'll come back then to collect the money you tell me when there's money or work and I'll come back this is going to be my house this will be my little house there are two rooms here one on the right is a bathroom the other room is the living room dining room and kitchen one room I'll make available to victims who need a place to stay and what we can do here in this big dining room is have conversations we can talk about topics like empowerment so we can feel better this house is a start it's a rebirth for me in my own healing process if I could only manage to finish building this house there are not that many women in this area one way or another I'll help them heal their wounds if I could do that for myself bit by bit then I can do that for them too [Music] [Music] we've paid a steep price sometimes I wish the government was a bit more Humane and would help us more we often feel abandoned and alone and sometimes we get tired still we have no choice but to carry [Music] on always with the hope that maybe one day we'll have peace [Applause] [Music] because of this crisis of not being able to sell cocoa paste has dragged on so long it's now become impossible for us to make a living from Coco cultivation but selling palm oil could be a good business for one it requires only a small investment it's also easier to cultivate the Palm is cut every 4 to 6 months and it's harvested with a side you don't need to be a slave to cultivation like you do with Coca the new danger I see as a farmer is that Palm cultivation will lead to the development of a monoculture I fear it will spread too much and degrade the soil as a result many farmers have switched from Coca to palm oil production but Violence by armed groups continues [Music]

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 66,932

Keywords: Documentary, DW documentary, full documentary, DW, documentary 2023, dw documentary, documentaries, Documentaries, Coca, guerrilla, jungle, farmers, murder, colombia cocaine

Id: ib-7tHcolv4

Length: 12min 25sec (745 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 29 2024