Speaks in Cochabamba, Hub of Bolivia’s Cocaine Trade : Pontiff Warns of ‘Seductions’ of Drugs

Pope John Paul II gave the youth of Cochabamba some fatherly advice Wednesday that hit close to home, speaking of the “seductions” of drug abuse and narcotics trafficking.

Cochabamba, a city of 350,000 people, is a growing hub for South American cocaine trafficking. Drug money is feeding a business and real estate boom here, and the use of cocaine by residents has become a serious problem, anti-narcotics officers say.

In a soccer stadium filled with young people Wednesday night, the Pope warned against an “egotistical and false escape of seeking irrational satisfaction of the appetites.”

“The abuse of alcohol, drugs . . . and the temptation of easy enrichment through narcotics trafficking are more of the concentrated seductions that threaten to destroy the person and the society,” he said.

It was a brief mention in a long speech that also touched on social injustice, political violence, extramarital sex and religious faith. But nothing is more topical in Cochabamba than drugs.

This traditional agriculture center, with a spring-like climate the year around, lies in a wide valley flanked by dry Andean foothills. Three hours away over a winding highway is the Chapare, a lowland region of jungles and farm plots whose main crop is coca leaves, the raw material of cocaine.

Bolivia is the world’s No. 2 producer of the leaves, after neighboring Peru. Coca is chewed legally by Indians as a mild stimulant and also processed into a paste that is further refined into pure cocaine powder. The Chapare produces the bulk of Bolivia’s cocaine paste.

Although most of the Chapare paste is taken to other parts of Bolivia or neighboring countries for refining, narcotics agents say increasing amounts of the powder are being produced in Cochabamba. Traffickers operate medium-sized cocaine laboratories in the city, the agents say, and many residents make more money than their jobs pay by cooking up a few ounces of the drug in their home kitchens.

Much of the cocaine refined here is smuggled out on Lloyd Aereo Boliviano, an international airline based in Cochabamba. Investigators say some Lloyd crew members are involved in the trafficking.

Several major Bolivian cocaine traffickers and many smaller smugglers have luxury homes here. Cochabamba’s biggest cocaine dealer is reputed to be Bismarck (Texas) Barrientos, 38, whose family allegedly began smuggling the drug in the 1970s.

Investigators say Barrientos is worth about $50 million. He currently is investing in the construction of a luxury resort hotel outside Cochabamba and an apartment building in the city.

Drug dealers here also have investments in travel agencies, import-export companies, retail stores for smuggled foreign goods and other businesses.

Established businesses, including banks, often get capital by laundering cocaine money. A major investor in the Taquina brewery, one of Cochabamba’s biggest companies, is involved in cocaine traffic, according to investigators.

Cochabamba business in general benefits from the cocaine wealth as it trickles through the local economy. While historic poverty and a current economic recession plagues most of Bolivia, this city teems with expensive new cars and ambitious construction projects.

Cochabamba is a former colonial city of shady plazas and parkways and shoulder-to-shoulder houses with interior patios instead of yards. John Paul II stayed Tuesday and Wednesday nights in a restored 16th-Century convent, one of the city’s historic buildings.

But new concrete structures of five stories and more are rising around town, and luxury homes of white stucco and red tile are spreading up the slopes northeast of the city.

A drug investigator estimated that 10% to 15% of the fancy houses, worth up to half a million dollars each, are owned by drug traffickers. Driving through the neighborhood of Mirador, he pointed out a trafficker’s palatial home with “his and hers” Mercedes-Benz automobiles in the carport.

Owners of expensive houses in the nearby Cala Cala and Queru Queru districts include former police and army officers who have retired on cocaine bribe money, the investigator said.

Some traffickers are accepted members of Cochabamba’s high society; they attend elite social gatherings and send their children to the best private schools. Barrientos, the reputed trafficker, has two children in the American Cooperative School, which teaches in English and charges more than $300 a month in tuition.

Barrientos allegedly got into the cocaine business with Roberto Suarez, once the top Bolivian trafficker. Roberto’s son, Roberto Jr., was married several years ago in Cochabamba, with a lavish society reception that is still talked about.

“It was the biggest event ever, next to the Pope’s arrival here,” said one anti-drug official.

Fancy Dress

Middle-level traffickers, dressing fashionably and spending freely, frequent discotheques with such names as Bungalow and Hollywood. Low-level dealers gather at sidewalk bars, where they sometimes hire mariachi bands to play while they drink.

Many Cochabamba youths try to imitate the traffickers’ life styles. Anti-drug agents say cocaine is widely used here by traffickers and non-traffickers alike.

“The youth here has deteriorated,” said one agent. “The users are here, and they are young people.”

Cigarettes containing semi-refined cocaine paste, called pitillo, are a cheap form of cocaine used by many Cochabamba young people, including children of the streets.

“The kids are able to get drugs at factory prices, and they are often involved in the drug trade,” said Father Patrick Henry, an American Maryknoll priest who works here with homeless children. Henry said most of the 1,000 children reached by his program, called Amanecer, have been involved in the drug business, drug use or both.

Although the Pope spoke little about drugs while he was in Cochabamba, he may have more to say when he visits two other Bolivian trafficking centers, Santa Cruz and Trinidad, on Friday and Saturday.

On a side trip Wednesday, the Pope told laborers, miners and peasant farmers in the city of Oruro that one of the Roman Catholic Church’s main concerns is with the suffering of the poor.

He criticized “defects” of capitalism and called for “more humane forms of social coexistence and economic models not based exclusively on profit or consumption but rather on sharing and solidarity.”