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| The road block of the Cochabamba-Santa Cruz highway carried out by several groups of coca growers in the first week of April 1988, caused confrontations between law enforcement forces and coca leaf producers, resulting in the loss of human lives. In addition, maintenance work being performed on the highway through the tropics that links the cities of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz was halted, causing damages to the road. Losses Among other consequences, there was the regretful loss of agricultural crops such as bananas, passion fruit, citrus and other products that were to be transported to the markets in Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. Those coca growers as well as many other farmers engaged in legal activities such as commercial centers, were all affected by the road block and closing of the highway. The volume of products that come out of the Cochabamba tropics ranges from 11,500 to 12,000 QQ weekly. During the first week of April, after coca growers roadblock began, this average dropped to approximately to 1,800 QQ. The resulting difference in economic terms represents around Bs. 1,350,000. The following chart on the Volume of the Output of Products from the Cochabamba tropics and the chart of Direct Loss of the Agricultural and Livestock Sector show clearly the resulting losses from the road block. Wasted Milk The roadblock also affected the so-called milk basin in the Cochabamba tropics where neither marketing nor collecting of milk for MILKA, the milk processing plant, could take place. More or less 600 families engaged in this line of business wasted an approximate daily average of 12,000 liters of milk, which represented a loss of around Bs. 157,000 in their retail sales and direct deliveries to MILKA. These data do not take into account the loss the plant suffered from being idle. Empty Hotels Other business were also affected by the roadblock, particularly tourism. "The Cochabamba tropics have turned into a desert", says the owner of Hotel Los Tucanes, located in Villa Tunari. As she informed us, entrepreneurs and investors are discouraged by the problems caused by the coca growers roadblock and by the closing of the highway. "The highway and communication are very important", she says. A few months ago, the hotel Los Tucanes had eleven employees to serve its guests. Now it has only three. In 1997, the hotel gross receipts amounted to 15 thousand dollars; since January 4th 1998, income falls short of this amount proportionally. Every single hotel in the area is going through the same crisis. The courageous continue working Torres complains that neither authorities nor also civil society pay attention, or give support to the economic activities of the region. "We have had a wonderful winter, with very good weather and the situation is peaceful; the highway is not in such bad condition as traffic is circulating but the press has not helped us spread this image". Now, according to her report the tropics are abandoned. "But we, the courageous ones, continue working", says Torres. Doubts We can only speculate on how many families were left unable to sell their crops as a consequence of those who defend what is illicit? Is it bad that the Government has decided to end illicit drug trafficking in Bolivia by year 2002, in keeping with the desire of the majority of the Bolivian population? Is the Bolivia economy so solvent that it can allow losses of such magnitude? | ||
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