Source: Part of this material is excerpted from "Casualties of the 'War on Drugs': Traditional Farms Destroyed with Herbicides," by Elsa Nivia and Rachel Massey, Global Pesticide Campaigner, August 1999. For the complete article, contact Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA), 49 Powell St., Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94102 USA, Phone: (415) 981-1771, Fax: (415) 981-1991, panna@panna.org.
May 5, 2000
Its drug eradication campaigns, the Colombian government has been spraying traditional farming communities indiscriminately with herbicides containing glyphosate.
In June of 1999, the Colombian government began spraying homes and farms of the Yanacona indigenous community in the Macizo Colombiano region, Cauca province. Herbicides were sprayed over houses, community centers, schools, water sources, pastures and workers in the fields. Intended to kill small crops of opium poppy, the raw material used to make heroin, the spraying destroyed crops and pasture lands the Yanacona depend on for food and income. Fish and chickens died, other farm animals became ill, and both adults and children suffered symptoms of pesticide poisoning.
Faced with illnesses and loss of crops, the Yanacona indigenous community sent a representative to meet with the governor of the province, demanding a stop to the spraying. The governor promised that a fact-finding commission including representatives of several governmental and nongovernmental agencies would visit the community to collect testimony on the spraying. The actual commission consisted, however,of just two representatives of the provincial government.
Some 1500 members of the Yanacona community assembled to meet with the fact-finding commission. People presented testimony of their experience of being "sprayed like flies" and becoming ill. Mothers reported on illnesses among children, including respiratory distress, rashes, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, migraines and conjunctivitis. One pregnant mother with five children testified that all her children were sick and her livelihood had been destroyed.
Others reported that their pastures had been ruined and their cattle were ill. The spraying destroyed crops the Yanacona grow to feed their families and has affected their ability to sell their farm products. For example, the sale price of milk and cheese has fallen by 50% or more, due to customers' fears that the cows have drunk water contaminated with pesticides.
Community members maintain that the majority of the Yanacona farms that have been sprayed do not grow poppies.
In another area of Colombia, spraying with glyphosate has undone the successes of small farmers who were working to establish ecologically and economically sound alternatives to drug crops. Farmers in Caqueta province have designed intercropped gardens of native species, pasture areas with tree cover, and small-scale fish farming. In August, the government began spraying herbicides that have killed seedlings in their nurseries and crops in their fields, contaminated water sources and made adults and children sick. The farmers are seeking help from the International Red Cross to set up a forum in which to present testimony on what they have experienced.
Colombia produces three illicit drug crops: marijuana, coca and opium poppy. Commercial production of coca for processing into cocaine began in the mid-1970s and has increased dramatically; Colombia is now the world's largest producer of cocaine. Large-scale production of opium poppy did not begin until 1990, but it too has grown rapidly. Colombia is now the primary supplier of heroin to the eastern United States.
Between 1990 and 1998, the U.S. provided some US$625 million to the Colombian National Police and the Colombian military for aircraft, weapons, ammunition and other support for the war on drugs. Beginning in 1996, the U.S. State Department identified herbicide spraying to eradicate opium poppy crops as a priority; the cost of this undertaking for fiscal year 1999 may be as high as US$68 million. Yet the expensive and inhumane "war on drugs" has not brought the drug trade under control. According to conservative estimates, the area in Colombia planted with illegal crops increased by almost 400% between 1978 and 1998. Between 1996 and 1998, despite consistent spraying, coca production in Colombia increased by 50% and poppy production remained approximately constant.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Please send communications to your senators calling for the immediate suspension and long-term prohibition of aerial spraying to eradicate drug crops, and for the implementation of a genuine program of alternative, sustainable development. To find your senators, visit www.senate.gov.
SAMPLE LETTER
Senator _____________________
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator,
I am writing to urge you to halt U.S. military aid, military sales and military training to Colombia. U.S. aid is already accelerating the descent into all out Civil War in that troubled country. At a time when Colombians from all walks of life have expressed a desire for peace, U.S. plans to aid the Colombian military who have close links to paramilitary death squads responsible for 80% of the human rights abuses in Colombia are antagonizing efforts for peace.
In addition, I urge you to oppose the current U.S. strategy of spreading herbicides over Colombia's rainforests and jungles. Spreading powerful herbicides like glyphosate over Colombia's rainforest is an environmental and humanitarian crime as it harms not only the flora and fauna of the forests, but also the indigenous tribes and peasants who live there. One example is the Yanacona indigenous people of Cauca province who reported that herbicides have been sprayed over their houses, community centers, schools, water sources, pastures and workers in the fields. Intended to kill small crops of opium poppy, the raw material used to make heroin, the spraying destroyed crops and pasture lands the Yanacona depend on for food and income. Fish and chickens died, other farm animals became ill, and both adults and children suffered symptoms of pesticide poisoning.
In another area of Colombia, spraying with glyphosate has undone the successes of small farmers who were working to establish ecologically and economically sound alternatives to drug crops. Farmers in Caqueta province have designed intercropped gardens of native species, pasture areas with tree cover, and small-scale fish farming. In August of 1999, the government began spraying herbicides that have killed seedlings in their nurseries and crops in their fields, contaminated water sources and made adults and children sick.
The forced eradication strategy using aerial spraying of herbicides is not achieving its stated aim, which is to halt drug traffic from Colombia to the U.S. The Drug War strategy has failed to lower the amount of drugs under cultivation, and has focused attacks on small coca growers, while ignoring major drug traffickers like the paramilitaries. No amount of spraying will eliminate drug crop cultivation, since the growers will simply move elsewhere, deeper into the rainforest, or to neighboring countries like Ecuador and Brazil.
I particularly urge you to oppose the use of even more powerful herbicides, like tebuthiuron, in Colombia, and to oppose the use of fungul mycoherbicides to destroy drug crops. The use the Fusarium fungus as a mycoherbicide has not undergone careful scrutiny by independent experts. The concept of killing off natural Amazonian mycoflora, flora, and fauna with massive infusions of a fungus that can inhabit soil for decades or more; that may produce undetermined amounts of known toxins affecting many forms of life; that may kill species other than the target species; and may produce unquantifiable mutations, in an area whose ecosystem supplies much of the planet's oxygen, is a risky business at best.
I urge you to support humanitarian aid for the refugees displaced by the civil war, alternative development programs to help small coca and poppy growers switch to legal crops, and programs to strengthen Colombia's civilian institutions.
Sincerely,
In addition, send copies of your letters to:
Dr. ANDRES PASTRANA
Presidente de la República de Colombia
Palacio de Nariño
Carrera 8, No 7-26,
Santafé de Bogotá, COLOMBIA
Fax: (011) 57 1 286 7434/ 284 2186/ 337 1351
pastrana@presidencia.gov.co
JUAN MAYR
Ministro del Medio Ambiente
Juan_Mayr_M@hotmail.com
Jmayr@minamb.gov.co
Tel: (011) 57-1-336 1166, (011) 57-1-2886877, (011) 57-1-2840363
Dr. NÉSTOR HUMBERTO MARTÍNEZ NEIRA
Ministro del Interior
Ministerio del Interior
Carrera 8, No.8-09, Piso 2
Santafe de Bogota, COLOMBIA
Fax: (011) 57 1 286 8025 / 281 5884 / 342 3201
Dr. GUSTAVO BELL LEMUS
Consejero Presidencial para los Derechos Humanos,
Fax 57-1 - 3418364
Santafé de Bogotá, COLOMBIA.
Dr. JAIME BERNAL CUELLAR
Procurador General de la Nación
Fax 57-1- 2840472, 57-1-3429723
Santafé de Bogotá, COLOMBIA
Dr. ALFONSO GOMEZ MENDEZ
Fiscal General de la Nación
Diagonal 22B, No 52-01
Santafé de Bogotá, COLOMBIA
Fax: 57-1 5702122, Fax 57-1- 5702000.
Santafé de Bogotá, COLOMBIA
Dr. FERNANDO CASTRO CAICEDO
Defensor del Pueblo
Calle 55, No 10-32
Santafé de Bogotá, COLOMBIA
Fax 57-1- 3461225
Santafé de Bogotá, COLOMBIA
