April 18, 2004

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  Peruvian Coca Growers Threaten National Strike as Deadline Looms 3/26/04

  
  

  Peruvian coca growers are less than a month away from unleashing a national strike if the government of President Alejandro Toledo does not begin to deal with their demands. 
  

  The strike call issued from the II Cocalero Conference held in Lima on February 18-20 and organized by the National Confederation of Coca Growers of Peru (CONPACCP), led by Nancy Obregon and Elsa Malpartida in the absence of Nelson Palomino, who has been jailed for more than a year in Ayacucho. Indeed, freedom for Palomino is one of their central demands of the government, along with:
  

  
  
  • suspension of coca eradication in all its forms, whether voluntary or not;
    
  • shutting down the Peruvian drug agency, DEVIDA, and expelling the non-governmental organizations that operated in its corrupt alternative development programs;
    
  • empowering coca growers to have a greater role in the governance of ENACO, the Peruvian state coca monopoly; and
    
  • promulgation of a new coca law that includes its industrialization and commercialization, and repeal of the existing coca law, Law 22095.

  
  

  CONPACCP gave the government 60 days to respond, and the clock is ticking toward the April 20 deadline.

  
  

   

  • 8:18 pm
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