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### Viewing cable 06LIMA4516, AYACUCHO CONTACTS TALK OF NARCO-ECONOMY,

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
06LIMA4516 | 2006-11-28 20:08 | 2011-02-22 12:12 | UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY | Embassy Lima
Appears in these articles: www.elcomercio.pe

`

    VZCZCXYZ0000
    RR RUEHWEB

    DE RUEHPE #4516/01 3322058
    ZNR UUUUU ZZH
    R 282058Z NOV 06
    FM AMEMBASSY LIMA
    TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3125
    INFO RUEHAC/AMEMBASSY ASUNCION 1559
    RUEHBO/AMEMBASSY BOGOTA 4132
    RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 7103
    RUEHBU/AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 2689
    RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS 9967
    RUEHLP/AMEMBASSY LA PAZ NOV MONTEVIDEO 9042
    RUEHQT/AMEMBASSY QUITO 0848
    RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 0971
    RUMIAAA/CDR USCINCSO MIAMI FL

` `

    UNCLAS LIMA 004516

    SIPDIS

    SENSITIVE
    SIPDIS

    E.O. 12958: N/A
    TAGS: PGOV PINR PHUM SNAR PE
    SUBJECT: AYACUCHO CONTACTS TALK OF NARCO-ECONOMY,
    NARCO-CULTURE

    --------
    Summary:
    --------

    ¶1.  (SBU) Ayacucho's economy turns on narcotr...

    id: 87334
    date: 11/28/2006 20:58
    refid: 06LIMA4516
    origin: Embassy Lima
    classification: UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
    destination:
    header:
    VZCZCXYZ0000
    RR RUEHWEB

    DE RUEHPE #4516/01 3322058
    ZNR UUUUU ZZH
    R 282058Z NOV 06
    FM AMEMBASSY LIMA
    TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3125
    INFO RUEHAC/AMEMBASSY ASUNCION 1559
    RUEHBO/AMEMBASSY BOGOTA 4132
    RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 7103
    RUEHBU/AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 2689
    RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS 9967
    RUEHLP/AMEMBASSY LA PAZ NOV MONTEVIDEO 9042
    RUEHQT/AMEMBASSY QUITO 0848
    RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 0971
    RUMIAAA/CDR USCINCSO MIAMI FL

    ----------------- header ends ----------------

    UNCLAS LIMA 004516

    SIPDIS

    SENSITIVE
    SIPDIS

    E.O. 12958: N/A
    TAGS: PGOV PINR PHUM SNAR PE
    SUBJECT: AYACUCHO CONTACTS TALK OF NARCO-ECONOMY,
    NARCO-CULTURE

    --------
    Summary:
    --------

    ¶1.  (SBU) Ayacucho's economy turns on narcotrafficking, local
    contacts told Poloff during a Nov. 8-10 visit.  They cited
    coca-growing in the Apurimac and Ene River Valley (VRAE) as a
    key source of jobs, particularly for area youth who migrate
    to the VRAE during school vacations.  They alleged that a
    major candidate for Regional President, Rofilio Neyra from
    the Fujimori Party, was financing a campaign of lavish
    giveaways with drug money.  (Neyra lost, but remains
    prominent.)  The extent of narco-penetration in Ayacucho is
    surprising, and suggests a tough fight ahead for licit
    alternatives.  End Summary.

    Students: "Spring Break" Coca-style
    -----------------------------------

    ¶2.  (U) Narcotrafficking from the Apurimac and Ene River
    Valley (VRAE) sustains the economies of the cities of
    Ayacucho and Huanta, according to a range of local contacts
    interviewed by Poloff during a pre-election visit to the
    region, Nov. 8-10.

    ¶3.  (U) To the person, contacts alleged that the drug trade
    is financing a mini-economic boom in the city and region.
    This includes: new houses in Huanta, new businesses in
    Ayacucho (opened by people with no visible source of
    financing) and, above all, a surge in youth spending, in the
    form of packed discotheques on weekends, high levels of
    alcohol consumption, and abundant cell phones.  According to
    several contacts, high school and university students
    (Ayacucho is home to the 8,000-student state-run University
    of Huamanga) frequently head to the VRAE during vacations to
    work for 1-2 month stints in coca fields to help their
    families or finance their studies.

    ¶4.  (U) Other fortune-seekers also head to the VRAE in the
    hopes of getting rich quick.   One contact told Poloff of a
    cab driver who takes 3-4 months off to visit his "little
    shack" in the VRAE, where he cultivates 4-5 hectares of coca
    plants.  The contact estimated that one could earn USD 3,000
    in four months and noted how the cabbie, like many,
    rationalized his participation in the drug trade, saying he
    was "only growing the leaf," not actually selling the drug
    ("Es solo hoja....").  The contact alleged that many, if not
    most, of working age in Ayacucho believe that anyone who
    would pass up this kind of opportunity would have to be a
    "chump" (cojudo).  (USAID Note: The cab driver is likely an
    absentee landlord who employs full-time VRAE peasants to tend
    to his fields and who hires others during harvest periods.
    End Note.)

    --------------------------------------------- ---
    Regional President Says VRAE Coca Cultivation Up
    --------------------------------------------- ---

    ¶5.  (SBU) APRA Party Regional President Omar Quesada
    confirmed the account of increased coca production.  Having
    recently completed a pre-election campaign swing through the
    VRAE, Quesada said coca production was up "tremendously" and
    that this had created a migratory pull of peasants from the
    highlands to the jungle in search of work.  (USAID Note:
    According to USAID field offices in the VRAE, increased coca
    production results from both increases in hectarage as well
    as the application of high-tech farming techniques.  End
    Note.)  Quesada maintained eradication policies would fail in
    explosive fashion in the VRAE.  Instead, he said the GOP and
    others had to take the "oxygen" out of narcotrafficking with
    better interdiction, both of drugs leaving the VRAE and of
    precursor agents headed into the area, and increased
    investment in alternative development, working closely with
    the regional government.

    ¶6.  (U) Several contacts echoed Quesada's comments about the
    need for more interdiction.  They say that the Police make
    little or no attempt to inspect shipments that come out of
    the jungle to Ayacucho.  They alleged that wood and other
    products borne by trucks often camouflage drug shipments.

    -------------------------
    Narco-Political Influence
    -------------------------

    ¶7.  (SBU) A wide range of local contacts alleged that
    Fujimori-party candidate for regional president Rofilio Neyra
    as narco-financed.  They claimed Neyra's wealth came suddenly
    and from unknown sources, and that he was using it to finance
    a rural-based campaign of lavish giveaways to local peasants,
    including a bank of computers to one school and tanks of gas
    to various families.  Neyra, they said, had also pledged to
    construct a propane gas plant that would cut the cost of gas
    in half in Ayacucho.  (Note: Neyra did not win the regional
    presidency in the elections, but he remains well-known in the
    region.  The new Regional President, Ernesto Molina of the
    local Movement for Regional Innovation (MIRE), has promised
    to "industrialize" coca production and build roads.  The Lima
    press has brought to light similar allegations of candidates'
    narco-connections in the capital covered in septel.  End
    Note.)

    --------------------------------------------- -
    Locals See Dangers: Consumption, Narco-Peonage
    --------------------------------------------- -

    ¶8.  (U) XXXXXXXXXXXX as well as other
    contacts described how drugs are not just flowing through
    Huanta and Ayacucho, but are increasingly being used by
    people in the area, particularly youth in the cities.  (NAS
    Note: the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is
    preparing a study of drug usage in Peru which will reportedly
    confirm a steep rise in drug consuption in Ayacucho.  The
    study is slated to come out in February-March 2007.  End
    Note.)

    ¶9.  (SBU) Along with drug use, the narcotics trade is
    impoverishing those in the countryside.  Regional President
    Omar Quesada noted the irony of coca production was that it
    generates fast money for a few while turning the peasants in
    the VRAE into virtual "peons" of narcotraffickers and causes
    extensive environmental damage.

    --------
    Comment:
    --------

    ¶10.  (SBU) Narco-penetration of Ayacucho, while not unknown,
    proved to be far more extensive than one would have guessed
    before this recent trip.  Local experts mentioned ideas to
    limit the drug trade, including investment in infrastructure,
    more interdiction, and alternative crops like the
    oil-producing nut sachainchi.  Nonetheless, their more
    extensive descriptions of increasing narco-influence in
    Ayacucho suggest that these alternatives have a long way to
    go if they are to gain traction at the expense of the area's
    thriving trade in illegal drugs.
    STRUBLE

    =======================CABLE ENDS============================

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