War on Drugs and violence in Latin America: an analysis of the impacts of the fight against cocaine in Peruvian communities in the Huallaga Valley

• Grant number: 23/17916-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: November 01, 2024
• End date: February 28, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Paulo José dos Reis Pereira
• Grantee: Mariana de Oliveira Nastari
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Sociais. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The War on Drugs promoted by the United States has shaped the understanding of the legal and illegal circuits of psychoactive substances in Latin America, legitimizing the use of violence to guarantee the exclusivity of the legal field for the capitalist market. The consequence was the immediate criminalization of Andean cultural practices involving the coca leaf and, especially, the marginalization of vulnerable communities dependent on the drug trade, resulting in the creation of mechanisms to combat cocaine, especially in the Huallaga Valley - a target area for coca leaf plantations - which caused a paralysis in the development of this region. The repressive and militarized policies implemented in Peru within the framework of the War on Drugs followed the maintenance of the capitalist logic of gains over these substances from the implementation of structural violence, especially in vulnerable communities, making the violation of basic rights and civil liberties politically justified and accepted from the moment that the issue of drugs began to be defined as a threat to security.