Fighting Drug Traffickers Deep in the Peruvian Amazon

0:00Today on State of the World, fighting drug traffickers deep in the Peruvian Amazon. You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories, up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. In Peru's part of the Amazon, the plant used to make cocaine is being cultivated deeper and deeper into the rainforest. And this drug trade is not only driving deforestation, but also bloodshed on tribal land. Peru is the world's second largest producer of cocaine, and drug crops have expanded rapidly in recent years. Reporter Simeon Tegel takes us into the Amazon to meet the self-defense force patrolling the jungle to stop the destruction of their lands.

0:51This is the land of the Cacataíbo. But the jungle they call home is under siege, and the people guarding it risk their lives every day.

1:03We have six brothers who have been killed by murderers. Six leaders of the tiny Cacataibo tribe, which has just a few thousand members scattered across the central Peruvian Amazon, have been murdered by drug traffickers in recent years, says Segundo Pino, a Cacataibo leader. We are inside the list. One of them is me, my person. Directly, they tell us that our hours are counted. Pino shows me a death threat on his phone and says he could be next. He is the leader of the Kakataibo Indigenous Guard, a self-defense group that now patrols tribal land to stop the spread of coca crops, the key ingredient in cocaine.

1:49We've been walking through the jungle with the indigenous guard for about an hour. We've just waded through a thigh-deep river. There's about a dozen of them, men and women. Some of the men are carrying spears. Some have machetes, one has a bow and arrow, and one has a very ancient shotgun. And yet there's also a striking touch of modernity. Drones are used to geolocate the coca, including inside a reserve to protect the last handful of uncontacted cacataibo. Hunter-gatherers still living a pre-Columbian lifestyle who are extremely vulnerable to epidemics and abuse from outsiders.

2:31We're now at the edge of the reserve for these indigenous tribes living in voluntary isolation. It's an absolutely spectacular location. It's where the Andean foothills first rise out of the Amazon. But there are coca plantations and clandestine airstrips in the reserve.

2:57So they found the first coca plantation within three minutes of launching the drone.

3:12He's saying there's more. Just a little bit further in, there's more.

3:27This woman says that the Kakataibo inside the reserve, who may be her distant relatives, are terrified by the drug traffickers and unable to defend themselves. They rely on the indigenous guard to protect them, she says. This is a common story across the Peruvian Amazon. Coca crops, once only grown in the mountains, have more than doubled in Peru. With 12 ,000 hectares in this lowland region of Ucayali, Peru now produces 850 tonnes of cocaine a year. Dozens of indigenous leaders have been murdered for resisting the traffickers, and young people are being drawn into the deadly trade. We're standing in the middle of a clandestine airstrip.

4:08It's maybe half a mile long in a field in the middle of the forest. The drug traffickers used it to take two or three light aircraft a week full of cocaine to Bolivia. But it now has some huge holes in it that the local indigenous Asheninka community put there. They hired diggers to stop the narcotraffickers.

4:32This field ruled jungle just 15 years ago, says Isidro Peña, who heads the village's indigenous police.

4:49The expansion of coca into the Amazon accelerated during the COVID pandemic, says Comando David Moritrigoso of Dirandro, Peru's anti-narcotics police, thanks in part to the suspension of crop eradication and interdiction efforts.

5:18The commander stresses how hard his men work in difficult conditions to stop the narcos deep in the jungle, but he also acknowledges the problem of entrenched corruption in Peru. He says one drug cartel even personally offered to share its profits with him, and several of his former colleagues are now serving 25-year prison sentences for colluding with the traffickers. Meanwhile, the Trump administration's cuts to USAID have thrown into doubt Washington's long-standing support for alternative crop programs in Peru. They come as the Congress here is considering a law that could annul existing indigenous reserves.

5:54La buena voluntad, la iniciativa que tenga el presidente Trump de los Estados Unidos nunca va a poder combatir el narcotráfico si es que no elimina primeramente ese mercado que tiene él ahí en su país. The bottom line, Isidro Peña says, is that however much President Donald Trump cracks down on the drug cartels elsewhere, as long as there is demand for cocaine, including in the largest consumer market in the world, the United States, indigenous communities in South America will continue to suffer. For NPR News, this is Simeon Tegel in Ucayali, Peru.

6:32That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.