Pubdate: Sat, 04 Aug 2001
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2001 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82

SPRAYING POISON IN COLOMBIA

Children in southern Colombia have developed sores on their skin. 
Potatoes and onions, a staple of poor families in rural provinces 
there, are drying out. Colombians have been stricken with bloody 
diarrhea from contaminated drinking water.

Governors, senators, farmers, Indian groups and others from the 
region are blaming those ailments, along with environmental and 
agricultural fallout, on a U.S.-funded anti-narcotics program of 
aerial fumigation under way there. The U.S. and Colombia dispute the 
claims that the local population is at risk from an American-made 
chemical-- glyphosate, used in herbicide products like RoundUp--that 
is being sprayed to eradicate illegal crops of coca and heroin poppy.

But the people on whom the stuff is falling disagree. They want it 
stopped. They argue that it has harmed communities, livestock, fish 
and food supplies.

The Bush administration should listen to them. The aerial spraying is 
a centerpiece of its $1.3 billion Plan Colombia assault on cocaine 
and heroin production in Colombia. However, after fumigating 128,000 
acres of coca, indications are the effort has only succeeded in 
pushing growers to relocate their crops.

"All of us involved in this process are enemies of narcotrafficking," 
observed Gov. Parmenio Cuellar of Narino province, one of two 
governors who recently visited Washington, with Colombian 
legislators, to lobby for an end to aerial defoliation in their 
provinces. Instead, they propose a program of manual eradication 
(such as spraying on the ground), combined with alternative crop 
development programs. Cuellar said that despite years of fumigation, 
the size of the coca crop in Colombia has continued expanding. The 
U.S. General Accounting Office concluded the same thing in a 1999 
report.

As for Plan Colombia, Gov. Floro Alberto Tunubala Paja of Cauca 
province said, "The great majority of Colombians don't agree with it 
because they were not consulted." Colombia's human rights ombudsman, 
Eduardo Cifuentes Munoz, has demanded a suspension of fumigation. He 
questions the lack of an environmental management plan and 
information about the effects of the chemicals used in the spray.

On top of that, now the United Nations has demanded an audit of the 
crop-dusting, calling it "ineffective." Neighboring Ecuador has asked 
that fumigation be kept 6 miles away from its border, due to concerns 
about the spray drifting.

The health concerns are grave enough. But members of Congress 
increasingly question U.S. military aid under Plan Colombia, given 
the Colombian military's human rights record and its links with 
right-wing paramilitary groups accused of committing 70 percent of 
the nation's political murders. That violence has grown since U.S. 
aid started flowing.

President Bush and Colombian President Andres Pastrana invested much 
in this policy, but it's becoming a disaster.

Bush came into office quite correctly questioning the value of waging 
war on foreign drug traffickers without a strong program at home to 
quash demand. What happened? If Plan Colombia proves anything, it's 
that spending the money in the U.S.--on drug education and treatment 
programs--would be wiser.
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MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe