TOBY MUSE
Sex, drink, and the coca boomtown blues
The drugs trade brings the violence of the old wild west to Colombia's towns
Toby Muse in Llorente (September 2005)
The Guardian (original article)
The Guardian (original article)
Five years ago Llorente was a quiet farming community of fewer than 4,000 people dealing mainly in cattle, African palm and fruits; an impoverished place indistinguishable from hundreds of others scattered across the Andes. But a surge in the production of coca, the raw material used in the manufacture of cocaine, in the surrounding countryside has turned the town into one of Colombia's most notorious marketplaces for farmers to sell to drug traffickers. Gone is the rural tranquillity. In its place is a loud, violent settlement awash with money where gold chains, cocaine, guns, and alcohol are abundant.
When Llorente became an outlaw town it gave up the protection of the law. In the absence of any authority, it is ruled by drug traffickers and the gun, giving the town a constant feeling of wild west chaos.
Locals whisper of the Marxist guerrilla militia members who keep watch here. Violence is endemic. Shots ring out throughout one Saturday night, and Sunday morning brings two dead bodies left alongside the road. The police mainly stay in their bunker-like station, leaving the job of patrolling to the army, who occasionally pass through in tanks.
But it is the hundreds of prostitutes, some of whom chartered buses to make it down here, who are the most visible sign of the town's new wealth.
Adriana Suarez, an amiable 23-year-old, has, like the rest of this town tucked away in south-western Colombia's flatlands, tied her fortunes to the cocaine industry, the largest in the world. She sits easily at the bar, fanning herself under the spinning, tatty disco ball. Nearby five prostitutes sit chatting, bored in the humid heat.
"I came here a month ago because a friend told me I could make a lot of money here with the coca farmers," says Ms Suarez, who is saving money to support her six-year-old daughter who lives with her parents back home in western Colombia. "It's hard to be away from my daughter, but I was never going to bring her somewhere so violent," she says.
Natives of Llorente are amazed by the town's growth. "This town used to be so quiet, then people starting making money here and soon so many people were turning up," says Lucia in her bakery. She asked that her second name not be used for fear of reprisals. "Of course it's good that there's more money but people don't know how to spend it, it all goes on prostitutes and alcohol."
One result of the farmers switching to coca, she adds, is that prices for food have been driven up. Llorente shows the central role coca plays in Colombia's rural economy but also serves as a warning of the limits of the government's drug eradication programme.
As Plan Colombia, the multibillion-dollar US-Colombian anti-drug plan, has heavily fumigated coca crops in south and central Colombia, coca production has dispersed, in particular to the south-west. In 1999 Colombia's south-west province of Nariño, which contains Llorente, accounted for less than 3% of coca crops. By last year Nariño was the second largest producer, providing nearly 20% of total output.
With its ample crops, hundreds of cocaine laboratories and Pacific Ocean port, the province has become, according to the UN, the "most important illicit drug production centre in Colombia".
While government figures show this shift in production, what has been less documented is the migration of thousands of people leaving zones where coca has been eradicated for the new boomtowns. Llorente locals talk of an influx of agricultural consultants, of the increase in salesmen and doctors.
One such person is Luis Burbano. He moved here to open an electrical goods store. While in other farming communities across Colombia his wares are an expensive rarity, Mr Burbano is selling out of stereos, DVD players and huge television sets. "It's common here for people to live in shacks, but inside you'll find the latest electrical goods," he says.
"This town has been forgotten by the government, it should be helped," Mr Burbano adds. "The government must help these farmers to change to other crops instead of just destroying the coca crops because when the coca goes this town will simply die."
One of Llorente's doctors, Freddy Mejia, has to attend to the town's new problems. "There's a lot of sexually transmitted diseases here which came with the prostitutes, and alcoholism is pretty common," says Dr Mejia, who himself moved from another coca zone to work in Llorente. "Every weekend when everyone gets drunk I have to deal with machete attacks and shootings," he says, but adds. "It's not much better for the rest of the week, now I think of it."
Unfortunately for Ms Suarez, the action tonight is not in the brothel but at the cockfight. In a wooden barn, cages hold the chickens waiting to fight. Men in baseball caps and gold jewellery casually bet £500 a fight. During the evening one man will laughingly pull up his T-shirt to show a 9mm pistol tucked into his belt. Another enters with a girlfriend and is greeted by all with handshakes and hugs as "little godfather".
Even as the money continues to swirl around, Llorente's future is already set. Colombia is littered with virtual ghost towns that once were boomtowns but withered away when the government began eradicating their coca.
The government has noticed the shift in coca production to this province and has fumigated more coca here than anywhere else. Locals in Llorente say that since coca became its number one industry there have always been ups and downs. But now the slow patches are longer and more frequent.
Ms Suarez is getting out. "People get killed here all the time, and you just have to learn to not ask why they were killed because they'll kill you too," she says. "I don't want to live in a place where I can get killed for nothing."
She's leaving for the capital. As she walks off down the street the drinking continues and farmers stagger back and forth, grasping their bottles of rum.
When Llorente became an outlaw town it gave up the protection of the law. In the absence of any authority, it is ruled by drug traffickers and the gun, giving the town a constant feeling of wild west chaos.
Locals whisper of the Marxist guerrilla militia members who keep watch here. Violence is endemic. Shots ring out throughout one Saturday night, and Sunday morning brings two dead bodies left alongside the road. The police mainly stay in their bunker-like station, leaving the job of patrolling to the army, who occasionally pass through in tanks.
But it is the hundreds of prostitutes, some of whom chartered buses to make it down here, who are the most visible sign of the town's new wealth.
Adriana Suarez, an amiable 23-year-old, has, like the rest of this town tucked away in south-western Colombia's flatlands, tied her fortunes to the cocaine industry, the largest in the world. She sits easily at the bar, fanning herself under the spinning, tatty disco ball. Nearby five prostitutes sit chatting, bored in the humid heat.
"I came here a month ago because a friend told me I could make a lot of money here with the coca farmers," says Ms Suarez, who is saving money to support her six-year-old daughter who lives with her parents back home in western Colombia. "It's hard to be away from my daughter, but I was never going to bring her somewhere so violent," she says.
Natives of Llorente are amazed by the town's growth. "This town used to be so quiet, then people starting making money here and soon so many people were turning up," says Lucia in her bakery. She asked that her second name not be used for fear of reprisals. "Of course it's good that there's more money but people don't know how to spend it, it all goes on prostitutes and alcohol."
One result of the farmers switching to coca, she adds, is that prices for food have been driven up. Llorente shows the central role coca plays in Colombia's rural economy but also serves as a warning of the limits of the government's drug eradication programme.
As Plan Colombia, the multibillion-dollar US-Colombian anti-drug plan, has heavily fumigated coca crops in south and central Colombia, coca production has dispersed, in particular to the south-west. In 1999 Colombia's south-west province of Nariño, which contains Llorente, accounted for less than 3% of coca crops. By last year Nariño was the second largest producer, providing nearly 20% of total output.
With its ample crops, hundreds of cocaine laboratories and Pacific Ocean port, the province has become, according to the UN, the "most important illicit drug production centre in Colombia".
While government figures show this shift in production, what has been less documented is the migration of thousands of people leaving zones where coca has been eradicated for the new boomtowns. Llorente locals talk of an influx of agricultural consultants, of the increase in salesmen and doctors.
One such person is Luis Burbano. He moved here to open an electrical goods store. While in other farming communities across Colombia his wares are an expensive rarity, Mr Burbano is selling out of stereos, DVD players and huge television sets. "It's common here for people to live in shacks, but inside you'll find the latest electrical goods," he says.
"This town has been forgotten by the government, it should be helped," Mr Burbano adds. "The government must help these farmers to change to other crops instead of just destroying the coca crops because when the coca goes this town will simply die."
One of Llorente's doctors, Freddy Mejia, has to attend to the town's new problems. "There's a lot of sexually transmitted diseases here which came with the prostitutes, and alcoholism is pretty common," says Dr Mejia, who himself moved from another coca zone to work in Llorente. "Every weekend when everyone gets drunk I have to deal with machete attacks and shootings," he says, but adds. "It's not much better for the rest of the week, now I think of it."
Unfortunately for Ms Suarez, the action tonight is not in the brothel but at the cockfight. In a wooden barn, cages hold the chickens waiting to fight. Men in baseball caps and gold jewellery casually bet £500 a fight. During the evening one man will laughingly pull up his T-shirt to show a 9mm pistol tucked into his belt. Another enters with a girlfriend and is greeted by all with handshakes and hugs as "little godfather".
Even as the money continues to swirl around, Llorente's future is already set. Colombia is littered with virtual ghost towns that once were boomtowns but withered away when the government began eradicating their coca.
The government has noticed the shift in coca production to this province and has fumigated more coca here than anywhere else. Locals in Llorente say that since coca became its number one industry there have always been ups and downs. But now the slow patches are longer and more frequent.
Ms Suarez is getting out. "People get killed here all the time, and you just have to learn to not ask why they were killed because they'll kill you too," she says. "I don't want to live in a place where I can get killed for nothing."
She's leaving for the capital. As she walks off down the street the drinking continues and farmers stagger back and forth, grasping their bottles of rum.