Government seeks to strengthen fight against drug trafficking after months of mistakes

“We are going to be relentless (in the fight against drug trafficking),” says Emilio Arce de la Torre Bueno, for 12 days the new executive president of the National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs (Of life).

Arce assumes the direction of this key body in the fight against drugs, replacing Ricardo Soberón, a lawyer linked to the coca-growing organizations placed by former president Pedro Castillo at the end of last year, and whose management was seriously questioned and considered, more ok, a throwback. Therefore, the new administration generates expectations.

The official points out that these days he has been carrying out a diagnosis before announcing his new actions. But he anticipates, among other points, that the operations to eradicate illegal coca leaf crops, hand in hand with the Corah Special Project, will continue.

“Our policy will be in the 2030 Plan, with budgets for eradication, substitute products and support for those who are dedicating themselves to other activities. Including, to seek not only to plant coffee, cocoa, but to industrialize this, ”she said in an interview with Peru21.

Head of Devida: “We are going to continue with the eradication.”

He explained that approximately 30% of Devida’s budget is earmarked for eradication actions. And that, along with this, farmers will also be accompanied for other activities, such as the self-management of enterprises –such as the breeding of bees and fish– and also technical support and fertilizers to those who already have crops.

“To make it easier for them and for them to have a sustainable, competitive family economy, so that the coca leaf is not an attractive product for farmers. On the other hand, we do geolocations and help in the precision of the demarcation of border limits of the native communities, in such a way that their lands are not invaded to plant coca ”, he asserted.

“We have to support that farmer so that, in his ventures, he sees support (from the State) and this has a multiplier effect. All the means and mechanisms that we have to eradicate will be welcomed in the best way, ”he added at another time.

Devida’s new boss says that, after having worked for several years in the anti-terrorism and anti-drug prosecutor’s offices, “we are convinced of all the related evils that drug trafficking brings.”

“For each spread of drugs that is produced, it costs us money to be able to search, eradicate and prevent. So, all this leads to drug trafficking being an evil that generates, only economically, great damage to Peru, ”he stressed.

FROM THE CABINET

Within the framework of the protests registered in recent days, this week the new chief of staff, Alberto Otárola, stressed that the government will fight drug trafficking, but will also help coca growers so that they leave illegality and enter the market formal.

“This government announces the decision, not only to confront the organized (drug trafficking) mafias that have been detected, many of them, in some attacks on the population in recent days, but that we are going to resume that model that was awarded by the United Nations, which was called the Peru Model, alternative, integral and sustainable development”, he asserted.

in dialogue with Peru21the Minister of Defense, Jorge Chávez Cresta, stressed that “the solution to the social problem, of economic development that we currently find in the Vraem, does not come from a military solution.”

“We have to be clear about that. How was the Huallaga thing resolved? Because there was no military solution there, an authority was appointed to coordinate and integrate the entire multisectoral platform. In such a way that (as a State) offer an alternative crop, with the development of an airport, roads and infrastructure to be able to change that way of life”, he pointed out.

“Currently, the Vraem area feels very comfortable in the sense that its economy, the maintenance of the economic cycle, is done by drug trafficking,” he said.

KEEP IN MIND:

“We cannot be forever in Vraem, 15% of the Armed Forces are in Vraem; we have to contribute to development and disaster risk management, and we cannot be there forever,” said Defense Minister Jorge Chávez Cresta.
“One measure is that there is a person who can integrate all the needs and, with the security provided by the Police and the Armed Forces, be able to carry out the solution that is required,” he added.