Civil Conflict

Tensions are rising in Peru's Upper Huallaga Valley coca fields, as government eradicators come under attack, growers go on strike, and the García government vows to take a hard line.

The Peruvian government's US-backed forced coca eradication campaign is running into serious problems in the Upper Huallaga Valley. Clashes with police, roadblocks, and a general strike have all broken out in the past few days.

A stolidly mainstream Canadian defense and foreign affairs think tank has called for the creation of a marketing board to buy and sell Afghan opium. It's part of a report on Canada in Afghanistan that calls for innovative thinking to avoid failure in NATO's mission there.

The "coca, si; cocaine, no" policy of Bolivian President Evo Morales has brought peace to a region long riven by conflict and repression. But while coca farmers need no longer worry about violent conflict with the state, they are still having a hard time making enough money to survive. Plans are underway to do something about that.

Just a little over a year into his term, Bolivian President Evo Morales is engineering a "coca, yes; cocaine, no" policy that is reducing tension there and leading to cooperative eradication efforts with farmers. Will the US government go along with it?

On the eastern slopes of the Andes, as the mountains edge down into the jungles of the Amazon, hundreds of thousands of Peruvian peasants are growing coca as a cash crop to survive. But they face considerable obstacles. Here is a first report from the region.

While the US using tried-and-failed eradication schemes on the Afghan opium trade, others including the UN and World Bank are calling for smarter alternative development. Others are going even further.

As 2006 comes to a close, we look back at the year's biggest drug reform defeats, disappointments, and downers.

Peruvian President Alan Garcia asks for the death penalty for terrorism after Shining Path guerillas attack police and anti-drug workers trying to wipe out illicit coca crops. The following day, he says coca is great in salads.

With Afghan opium production going through the roof, US drug czar John Walters announced Saturday that the Afghan government would begin using herbicides to eradicate the poppy crop. But the Afghan government hasn't officially agreed yet.