Colombian Governors Demand Halt to Coca Fumigations
by Yadira Ferrer
BOGOTA - Six governors from southern Colombia asked President Andrés Pastrana on Monday to order a halt to the use of the glyphosate and other herbicides in eradicating illicit drug crops, charging that the chemicals endanger human health and the environment.
Governors Pablo Muñoz, of Caquet department, Floro Tunubal, of Cauca, Parmenio Cuéllar, of Nariño, Juan Cárdenas of Huila, Iván Guerrero, of Putumayo, and Alfonso Jaramillo, of Tolima, explained to Pastrana that the situation confronting the region is explosive, as 35,000 indigenous peoples and peasants are threatening to rise up in protest against the fumigations.
Governor Tunubal said that the aerial spraying begun last week under the orders of the National Anti-Narcotics Directorate is an attack ''against the life'' of his community, because the glyphosate used also kills the areas food crops, contaminates the water supply and surrounding jungle and, most importantly, harms the health of the peasant farmers.
The fumigation operations are ''costly and ineffective,'' as proved by the experience of the last 25 years. In that period, the authorities have been using the herbicide to eradicate illicit crops - including coca (used to make cocaine), marijuana, and poppies (to produce heroin) - ''but the total area covered by these plantations has expanded from 20,000 to 160,00 hectares,'' Tunubal pointed out.
The governors exhorted Pastrana to comply with the accord that was signed in 1999 to put an end to a protest at that time against state-ordered herbicide spraying. The agreement included the suspension of fumigations in exchange for voluntary eradication of the illicit crops by hand.
The departmental leaders also called on the president to adopt an alternative plan that they have presented to the international community, proposing the integral development of the southern portion of the country as an alternative to Plan Colombia, which is Pastrana's strategy to combat the drug trade and to attend to social needs.
The People's Defender (ombudsman), Eduardo Cifuentes, repeated Monday that the decision of the National Anti-Narcotics Directorate to conduct aerial herbicide fumigation in southern Colombia ''will bring grave consequences for the local ecosystems and for the health of the region's inhabitants.''
''I believe that the state should have a margin of autonomy in managing its internal policies... and in considering the effects that this decision (to fumigate) has on the environment and the population,'' said the government official, referring to the Pastrana administration's promise to the United States under Plan Colombia to eradicate illicit crops here within the next five years.
Plan Colombia, which Bogotá and Washington define as ''a strategy for peace, prosperity and the strengthening of the state,'' has been loudly criticized by some 60 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Colombia, Europe and United States that claim it is causing an escalation of the country's decades-long civil war.
The government-sponsored strategy has a budget of 7.5 billion dollars, of which the United States is providing 1.3 billion, largely in military aid for the anti-narcotics efforts underway in the Colombian south and southeast, which are also regions with a high presence of leftist guerrillas.
The policy to eradicate the illegal plantations of coca, marijuana and poppies should be carried out, but through measures that are ''reasonable and in line with the Colombian Constitution,'' underscored Cifuentes.
The country's environmental legislation involves the universal principle of precaution, which in this case requires the authorities - the Ministry of Environment - to suspend the fumigations until they have scientific proof that its effects are innocuous for people and the environment, said the People's Defender.
Nevertheless, in Colombia, the application of glyphosate and other mixes of herbicides and agro-chemicals in anti-drug efforts has continued despite the fact that the Ministry of Environment has said the National Anti-Narcotics Directorate does not possess an environmental management plan for carrying out the fumigations.
Marco Romero, of the state-run National University, said in comments to IPS that the Directorate has pursued aerial spraying of drug crops ''in an irresponsible way, violating all the related environmental and constitutional laws.''
The fumigation of illicit crops is outlined in the anti-drug policy executed by the Pastrana government, and is closely linked to the vision the United States holds of the drug trafficking problem, says the academic.
In Romero's opinion, the US approach is that the narcotics trade exists because Colombia has illegal drug plantations and, as a result, it is a problem that must be attacked at the source of production.
But many Colombian analysts interpret it the other way around: illicit crops exist because they are encouraged by the lucrative drug trade. One proof of this thesis is the ease with which the drug crops reappear in other areas following fumigation at any given site.
Nariño's Governor Cuéllar says that the government's zeal to eradicate drug crops using aerial fumigations obeys the obligations the Pastrana administration has to the United States under Plan Colombia and Washington's approach to the narcotics trade.
In Cuéllar's opinion, the United States sees the problem as the mere existence of the drug crops, while for Colombians these plantations exist because of ''the poverty and marginalization of the peasant farmers.''
The meeting of Colombia's southern governors coincided Monday with the request in Brussels by European Parliament deputy Joaquín Miranda, of Portugal, that Pastrana renounce aerial spraying of drug crops in the Colombian south and that he back the alternative plan proposed by the departmental leaders.
According to the European deputy, the fumigations carried out ''could ruin the possibilities proposed by those communities'' and their authorities to resolve the problem of illicit crops through manual eradication, crop substitution programs and other economic alternatives.
The Cauca governor had presented this possibility in April before the European Parliament and the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, both of which gave the alternative plan their support.
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