Pubdate: Sun, 16 Jul 2000
Source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune (MN)
Copyright: 2000 Star Tribune
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Author: Jared Kotler, Associated Press

COLOMBIA REFUSES TO TEST POSSIBLE COCA-KILLING FUNGUS

BOGOTA, Colombia - The Colombian government says it has no intention of 
testing or even further studying a fungus promoted by the United Nations 
and the United States as a potential "silver bullet" for killing coca plants.

In an interview, environment minister Juan Mayr said the U.S. State 
Department "told lies" when it reported last week that Colombia had agreed 
to field test the fungus before deciding whether to it use against 
cocaine-producing plants.

"We will not accept the introduction of any foreign element, which is what 
they have offered us under the name Fusarium oxysporum," Mayr told The 
Associated Press on Friday, adding that: "We have told them to forget it."

Mayr said a team of scientists from the government, Bogota's National 
University, and several prestigious private institutes examined the plan 
presented several months ago under U.N. auspices, and rejected it 
categorically.

They warned of possible mutations and adverse affects on people and the 
environment in the delicate Amazon basin, where most of Colombia's coca is 
grown.

Based on expert opinions, "I think it makes no sense to permit the entry of 
an external biological agent that can have an adverse affect on our 
ecosystems," said Mayr, who has the authority to reject the use of any 
herbicide based on the fungus in Colombia.

Mayr said the government would welcome funding for research into 
alternative biological controls based on "blights" or even insects already 
present in the coca-growing areas.

He said there was no evidence that Fusarium oxysporum - an outbreak of 
which ravaged coca in Peru in the early 1990s - exists in the southern 
states where most of the nearly 300,000 acres of coca are grown. Nor does 
the government plan to look for it further, Mayr added.

Last week, a State Department spokesman said reports that Colombia had 
agreed to a U.S.-funded testing program were accurate. The New York Times 
reported on July 6 that the Colombian government had agreed to such a 
program under U.S. pressure.

Washington's leverage here is undoubtedly growing as Colombia prepares to 
receive the bulk of a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package President Clinton 
signed on Thursday for stemming an explosion of cocaine production in the 
South American country.

The aid, much of it for military helicopters, would permit increased aerial 
eradication of coca crops using chemical herbicides already approved by 
Mayr's ministry. Armed leftist rebels entrenched in the coca regions have 
impeded fumigation, often firing on crop dusting planes.

The rebels and peasant coca farmers contend chemical spraying causes 
illnesses, and kills food crops as well as coca - not to mention forcing 
growers to cut down more virgin forest in order to replant their wilted crops.

The development of a safe, nontoxic, Fusarium-based herbicide that kills 
only the coca would "obviate these concerns" argued the spurned U.N. 
proposal, which was to be funded with a $300,000 grant from the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture.

But according to Mayr, many of the complaints about the approved herbicide 
- - known as glyphosate - are highly exaggerated. He said it would be better 
to keep spraying glyphosate while developing biological alternatives than 
to introduce a potentially hazardous fungus.

Amid complaints from environmentalists, the state of Florida last year 
ditched a plan to test a strain of Fusarium against marijuana crops.

Colombians wonder why the U.S. government is so eager to use it in their 
country.

"Why apply it, even in a test, on Colombian territory and not in the United 
States?" Bogota's leading El Tiempo newspaper said in its editorial on 
Saturday. "Is destroying coca a mission to be carried out at any cost, 
without any considerations?"
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager