The paths of Destiny showed me the way towards the Cultural Nations and not the geographic-political ones, artificially designed on the maps: so there I got … just a few steps from the Bolivian border, impassable to me, in the heart of the Peruvian Andean world, feeling the mysterious auras of the Inca Empire, in Cusco … the same quechua population, the same issues, the same traditions, the same sacred green Coca … I had been separated from …
The time after my expulsion from Bolivia was not easy nor peaceful, but the fact to be safe and fine encouraged me to stay firm, albeit unquietly, on my ideals and commitments in and towards Life, under the blessing look of the sacred green Coca, suggesting new paths to explore.
The traditional use of Coca, except some pockets of inveterate prejudice, is recognized as a founding element of the Andean culture, so calling for a moral engagement to protect and enhance the sense of ritual and community aggregation.
In the Andean-Amazonian region, cradle of the Erythroxylum Coca, the sacred plant of the Andes, over several decades it’s the watchword: war on Coca …
The officially stated objective is the destruction of cocales, the crops of Coca, to avoid the artificial production of cocaine hydrochloride, known as white powder.
However, on the base of the full knowledges about the sacred plant of the Andes, that objective is badly formulated, if not downright false.
Meeting Peoples, in a world without borders, where the cultural realities can express themselves in the richness and variety of knowledges and ancestral traditions, as the sacred green Coca: an utopia … well worth any price.
It was July 1994 in the rainforest of tropical Bolivian Chapare, where for about a year I was running, as only expatriate, the operation of solidarity Rayos de sol, with the support of the fans of my adventures, even when … lost battles.
In collaboration with the indigenous communities and the leadership of the Federation of the Peasants Workers of the Tropic of Cochabamba (FETCTC), whose executive secretary was the aymara unionist Evo Morales Ayma, a micro-project got on the way, with the main objective of the integral development of the communities in that region, including the defense, enhancement and promotion of Coca, the sacred plant of the Andean-Amazon world.
Whoever meets the sacred green Coca in the Andean-Amazonian region can take away just its memory, because it remains firmly enclosed in its ancestral nest … or maybe Coca is really … a prisoner?
Going over the past years several confirmations arise in favor of a positive response.
In 1912 at The Hague (Netherlands), cocaine, together with green Coca as its raw materials, was included in the Opium Convention, signed in 1913 by the Government of Peru, so giving a start to a negative campaign against Coca plant, promoted by Peruvian psychiatrists (Valdizán, 1913).
Curiously – and also as a significant demonstration that the sacred green Coca incessantly reassembles the harmony of cosmovision – the elf of Coca certainly enjoyed a lot, darting into the bag of the draw for the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
In fact the inaugural game was played in Bolivia, the Andean cradle of Coca, between Germany, the country where cocaine was isolated in laboratory, and the United States of America, one of the countries where the use of white powder is more spread and … home of Coca Cola.
An historical evidence of the good effects of Coca, the sacred plant of the Andes, comes up from the very past, from the mysterious sceneries of Himalaya.
Here it goes.
In April 1953 a German-Austrian climbing team left Munich (Germany), led by doctor Karl Herrligkoffer, and directed to the magic setting of Himalaya, aiming to get the top of Nanga Parbat (8125 meters), one of the 14 mountains above 8000 meters, not yet reached by human being; in the team the climbers Hermann Buhl and Hans Hertl, who had delayed his climbing plans in the Andes to catch the challenge.
Although there would be no need for any help, being the sacred green Coca itself the effective very speaker of its own values and benefits, worthy of praise are some people who were distinguished performers and promoters of its goodness.
Peruvian scholar Hipólito Unanue, already in the 18th century, claimed: In situations of food shortage, especially of sources of protein such as meat, Providence has supplied us with this wonderful Coca plant.
The circle, broken and interrupted in 1994, of my experience in the Bolivian region of Chapare got apparently closed in the thin air of 4000 meters of La Paz …
I am deeply grateful to Felipe Cáceres García, Viceministro de Defensa Social, for receiving me with his usual openhearted friendship, hosting me in his Ministry, where I could compile some proposals on the beneficial use of the sacred green Coca, as well as fulfilling a duty of justice in the rehabilitation of my civil rights.
When I was running the solidarity operation Rayos de sol in Bolivian region of Chapare, men and women used to gather in the evening, at the light of the oil lamp, in front of the table where the little mat with the leaves was prepared.
Although not yet fully aware, I was passively taking part in the ritual of the sacred green Coca, absorbing the aura of ancestral heritages that had never before convened me so intensely; by then I had clearly caught the meaning of the sacred mystery of Coca in its communitarian dimension, however I was anxious to find out the real mechanisms by which Coca leaves were considered a source of physical and mental energy.
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