Pubdate: Wed, 04 Jul 2001 Source: Methow Valley News (WA) Website: http://www.methowvalleynews.com/ Address: P. O. Box 97, Twisp, WA 98856 Contact: 2001 Methow Valley News Fax: (509) 997-3277 Author: Ann George Note: Ann George, a resident of the Chewuch, is going to Columbia with Witness for Peace this week to gather first-hand information COLUMBIAN SPRAY PROGRAM MISSING ITS TARGET In July 2000 President Clinton signed into law Plan Colombia, a $1.3 billion aid package for Colombia and its neighbors, aimed at decreasing illegal drug use in the United States. Plan Colombia will fund a large military buildup and a massive herbicide spraying campaign in Colombia, a country already beset with problems, where more than a million people have been displaced by violence, and poverty is rampant. A civil war has been raging for four decades in Colombia. In this war between the Colombian military, guerrilla forces and paramilitaries, most of the casualties are civilians. Difficult though this situation is to understand, it is imperative that we all become informed about it, because right now we have an opportunity to affect U.S. policy in Colombia. Last year Sen. Patty Murray supported Plan Colombia, but she has indicated to concerned constituents that she would withdraw her support if Plan Colombia resulted in human rights violations or significant environmental degradation. Observers are reporting extensive environmental damage and human rights violations and more are inevitable. We now have the opportunity to convince Sen. Murray to see this for herself. One of the goals of Plan Colombia is to wipe out half of the 300,000 acres of coca (the plant used to produce cocaine) estimated to be growing in Colombia. Between December 2000 and February 2001, an area of the Amazon basin jungle about the size of the Methow Valley floor from Winthrop to Lost River--about 74,000 acres--was sprayed. As of February, on good days, the spraying was proceeding at about 3,000 acres per day. Environmentalists have several reasons to be concerned about this. First, most of the spraying is taking place in the Amazon jungle with planes flying too high to accurately aim the spray. In one area, spraying destroyed 42 acres of yucca. "The planes didn't come right over us," a resident told a reporter. "They came close by," he said pointing to a field of coca 100 yards away. Observers report that more than half of the vegetation killed is legal crops, that wells are being contaminated, livestock killed and forests destroyed. In addition, the spraying is leading to increased clearing of the Amazon rainforest because farmers who have lost their crops often move deeper into the jungle. "In this sense," warned Linda Farley, American Birds Conservancy Science Officer, "glyphosate spraying is already having a significant detrimental effect on the endemic and threatened birds of Colombia, as 95 percent of the 75-plus threatened species are forest-dependent." Loss of habitat in Colombia might also affect Methow Valley birds--such as the nighthawk and the American redstart--that winter in northern South America. The herbicide being sprayed is commercially known as Roundup, but the version being used in Colombia contains an unidentified surfactant that makes it more effective at killing vegetation and apparently more harmful to humans and animals than the version used in the United States. Representatives from the Center for International Policy who visited a sprayed area in April 2001, reported that the spraying had sharply increased cases of skin, gastrointestinal and respiratory disorders, particularly in children. Most of the funding in Plan Colombia is for military aid. Robert E. White, a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay, has warned that Plan Colombia "puts us in league with a Colombian military that has long-standing ties to the drug-dealing, barbaric paramilitaries that commit more than 75 percent of the human rights violations" in Colombia. According to the Washington Post, one paramilitary group in Colombia killed more than 983 civilians last year. In February a Colombian general was convicted of allowing a paramilitary group to massacre at least 22 civilians in a province southeast of Bogota. Witness for Peace, an organization that promotes social and economic justice in Latin America, is leading a delegation to Colombia for senators and their aides in August. One of Patty Murray's aides is considering going. We need to let Sen. Murray know that it is vital that she send a representative to see the situation in Colombia firsthand. You can contact Sen. Murray at: 173 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510, or call her at (202) 224-2621, or e-mail her at or fax to (202) 224-0238. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth