Cocalero

As Cocalero in a broader sense those planters are called, who grow the coca shrub in the South American lowlands.

The Cocalero movement in the narrow sense is based in the Chapare and Yungas provinces in Bolivia.

The Coca shrub is grown in Bolivia for thousands of years, and coca leaves consumed as a traditional product. The chewing of coca leaves, and thus the consumption of intoxicants has, allows people in the highlands of Bolivia, the Altiplano, the age of colonialism and up to the present only the privation of life and the rigors of work in the tin and silver mines withstand altitude of 4000 m. Growing and harvesting coca bushes in Bolivia are therefore an integral part of the national culture and the national identity.

The Bolivian military governments of the 1980s were increasingly exposed to outside political pressure from the U.S. to curb the production of the drug cocaine at small producers in their country and to stop growing coca bushes. However, since both the Cocaleros in the lowlands as well as the consumers of coca leaves and coca tea in the highlands are dependent on the cultivation of the coca plant, which Cocalero movement has gained in Bolivia in the 1990s rapidly in influence.

The most important representatives of the Bolivian Cocaleros today is Evo Morales, a leader of the Cocalero movement after the turn of the millennium, Party Leader of the MAS and since the elections of 18 December 2005 on a vote share of more than 54 % of Bolivia 's President.