Tomàs Abella | Los hijos del sol

Approximately 85% of the world-wide coca leaf production is grown in Bolivia and Peru. Although coca is an ancient crop which is intimately related to the Andean world-view, in the 80’s, the plummeting prices of raw materials such as coffee or cacao on the international markets, dominated by the big international corporations, triggered the spread of coca plantations. It meant relief from hunger for thousands of peasants.

On the grounds of the San Antonio men's penitentiary in Cochabamba, 80% of the prison population is linked to drug trafficking crimes. Most of them are peasants accused of being pisacocas – day labourers that work in clandestine cocaine paste extraction laboratories. An average of 350 inmates is crammed into just 1,200 m² of prison surface area. The 90 available cells are sold to the prisoners with the greatest acquisition power; the prices range from between 650 and 2,500 dollars, but most of them sleep on the ground.

In the high lands and Andean valleys of Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, some 15 million Qhiswa and Aymara Indians live. Heirs of the upper Andean civilizations that once inhabited South America, for more than five centuries the Qhiswa and Aymara have survived a campaign of border subjugation in a massacre legitimized by the racist ideology of the dominating culture. Despite the social destructuring and acculturation processes they have suffered, these people have not lost their identity or their awareness.

The victory of Aymara Evo Morales in the elections held in Bolivia in 2006 made him the first indigenous President of an Andean country since colonial times. His purely pro-indigenous political platform is harshly protested by the elite, of white or mestizo origin, that has historically governed the country.