A Photographic Exhibition

By Luis A. Gómez

October 30, 2005

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A few weeks ago, the Brazilian photographer Flavio Cannalonga walked among the people in the Chapare. From that experiences came this brief but beautiful exhibit that we present today. “Narco-traffickers are definitely nowhere to be found there. Only regular people, only children, only the old, only men and women. Victimized, abandoned, forgotten,” says Cannalonga of the coca growers of the Tropic of Cochabamba.

Flavio, a friend and reader of Narco News, is a photographer with much experience in creating portraits of the lives of our peoples with a tender fierceness, in capturing with his eyes that which thousands of people do as life goes on in our América. Through his images, awash with a unique poetry, flow the angels of the Amazonian world, the children that look toward the future from Brazilian beaches, the believers, and a few solitary men as well… all the time overflowing with the strong reality of the men and women that we are, in a smooth palette of grays, whites, and blacks.

Because of this, Flavio’s presentation of the Chapare seems necessary to us at Narco News. By focusing on the memory of the faces of those who live by cultivating the sacred leaf of the Andes, he found in their eyes the always living memory of a sad past that won’t let them sleep, but also the brilliance that signals a better and more dignified future; one of sovereignty, that breaks unequivocally with the fate laid out by the United States’ policies of eradication and death.

Flavio Cannalonga found the irrepressible strength of the cocaleros in the midst of the confusion created by power, money, and violence, and now shares his finding with us. Welcome once again to this exhibit hall, kind readers. Have a nice stay.

Translation of exhibit text:

• The soldier, trained to eradicate the culture of the cocaine, works as his Quechua and Aymara did, while chewing coca leaf.


• Privatizations, carried out by former president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, transformed miners landless rural workers. The old helmet, exhibited with pride, is a relic from a time of hard work, of many struggles, but also of dignity.


• All they want is to be able to plant and market their production. But, despite the existence of some alternative development programs, no resources and no concrete options have been offered to them.


• Narco-traffickers are definitely nowhere to be found there. Only regular people, only children, only the old, only men and women. Victimized, abandoned, forgotten.