Indigenous Rights in the Andes and Licit Uses of the Coca Leaf

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Tuesday, 9 December 2008 (All day)
Seminar

Some Andean governments and the region’s indigenous groups have sought to distinguish clearly between coca, a plant long used by indigenous peoples for health, religious and cultural purposes, and cocaine, an illicit drug. Yet both coca and cocaine have the same status in the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.

The Bolivian government’s aim of declassifying coca as a narcotic drug under the UN Conventions has sparked significant international debate.

Speaker(s)

Pien Metaal

Some Andean governments and the region’s indigenous groups have sought to distinguish clearly between coca, a plant long used by indigenous peoples for health, religious and cultural purposes, and cocaine, an illicit drug. Yet both coca and cocaine have the same status in the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.

The Bolivian government’s aim of declassifying coca as a narcotic drug under the UN Conventions has sparked significant international debate. This seminar brings together distinguished experts to analyze the role of the coca leaf in indigenous cultures, scientific studies of its health and nutrition-related attributes, and international conventions and declarations related to anti-drug efforts and indigenous rights.

Panel One: The International Debate on the Coca Leaf and Indigenous Cultures

Moderator: Catherine Allen, Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology, The George Washington University

Pien Metaal, Researcher specializing in coca issues, Drugs and Democracy Program, Transnational Institute

Anthony Henman, Anthropologist and Author of Mama Coca

Ramiro Matos, Curator, National Museum of the American Indian, The Smithsonian Institution

Panel Two: Perspectives from Bolivia and Colombia

Moderator: Coletta Youngers, Senior Fellow, Washington Office on Latin America

Dionisio Nuñez, Yungas coca grower leader, Former Member of Congress for the /Movimiento al Socialismo/ (MAS), Bolivia

Jaime Arias, Colombian indigenous leader and representative on the Working Group to Prepare the Draft American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Organization of American States (OAS)

Ambassador Reynaldo Cuadros, Permanent Representative of Bolivia to the OAS

Some of the presentations will be made in Spanish; simultaneous interpretation will be available.

The George Washington University
Elliott School of International Affairs
Linder Family Commons, Room 602

1957 E Street, NW
Washington, DC

(Foggy Bottom-GWU Metro, Blue and Orange lines)

Location

The George Washington University, Washington, USA