Global Policy Forum

By Danielle Knight

Politicians from Colombia are calling on the U.S. government to stop funding the fumigation of illicit coca and poppy crops and instead focus on agrarian reform and development. The administration of President George W. Bush maintains that fumigation is a safe and essential way to eradicate coca in the region.

However, governors and legislators from Colombia who are visiting Washington this week say a growing number of officials back home believe the herbicide glyphosate is harming communities and the local food supply, killing livestock, and polluting the environment. "We agree that narcotic crops need to be eradicated but the method used to eradicate these crops is not working and is causing harm," Parmenio Cuellar, governor of the southern state of Narino, said Monday.

A former senator and minister of justice, Cuellar said the fumigation programmes do not work because they fail to address the root of the problem: That poor farmers have no choice but to grow illicit crops in order to feed their families. "In order to eradicate coca, we need to fight the absolute poverty that poor farmers live in," said Cuellar.

Floro Alberto Tunubala Paja, governor of the state of Cauca, said that in combination with the civil war, fumigation has forced the relocation of about 7,000 people in his state. He told reporters that people suffered illnesses and skin problems because the planes spraying the crops would blanket entire communities with herbicides. Directions on glyphosate labels, he pointed out, warn users not to allow the product to come into contact with people or water sources. "The main health impacts are on children under five years old," said Tunubala, the first indigenous governor of a Colombia state.

The visiting Colombians are promoting an alternative they call 'Plan Sur' (Southern Plan). This would include funding for social and economic development programmes and would focus on manual eradication of the coca plant. Eradication would be voluntary but farmers who replace coca and poppies with legal crops would receive subsidies. Colombian Senator Rafael Orduz said the main problem with fumigation is that it does not work. When glyphosate was first sprayed ten years ago, he said, there were 40,000 hectares of illicit crops in Colombia. "Now, more than 160,000 hectares of illicit crops are grown in Colombia," said Orduz, who has sponsored legislation to suspend fumigation. "It is important that U.S. taxpayers understand that these efforts cost a lot but do not have much effect."

Human rights groups agree, pointing to a 1999 U.S. General Accounting Office report that said U.S. and Colombian efforts to eradicate enough coca and opium poppy to reduce the net cultivation of these crops have failed. In addition to Cuellar and Tunubala, four other Colombian governors also are calling for a halt to fumigation. Eduardo Cifuentes, the Colombian human rights ombudsman, and Carlos Ossa, the comptroller general, have also joined the cause and are pressing for Congressional hearings.

A Colombian judge on Jul 27 ordered that aerial spraying be suspended in response to a petition by indigenous groups. The ruling asked the administration of Colombian President Andres Pastrana to provide documentation illustrating the effects of the spraying of glyphosate on people and the environment. It also asked the government to explain why it believed it was entitled to carry out the spraying. Indigenous leaders argue that while the government is obligated to consult them before spraying near or on their land, no officials have discussed it with them.

In response to the court ruling, the U.S. government said it would temporarily halt fumigation in Cauca and Narino. But the Bush administration has not provided any indication that it might revise its position, that aerial spraying is central to its counter-narcotics efforts. As opposition to spraying grows in Colombia, the United Nations Drug Control Programme last week called for international monitoring to determine the safety of spraying and the impacts it was having on nearby legal crops that are inadvertently doused with herbicide, which is manufactured by Monsanto.

Last year, the Clinton administration spent 1.3 billion dollars on an aid package to Colombia that included the funding of anti-drug efforts in Colombia. The Bush administration is now asking Congress to continue the expanded fumigation programme by with an additional 882 million dollars through its requested Andean Regional Initiative. Several Democrats stand strongly opposed, however. Representatives John Conyers and Janice Schakowsky have sponsored legislation that would block further aerial spraying and on Monday expressed their support for the Colombian visitors. "Aerial spraying is insane," Conyers said. "It is not working. It is dangerous and a terrible thing to do to anyone in any country."

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.