Pubdate: Mon, 06 Aug 2001
Source: Lincoln Journal Star (NE)
Copyright: 2001 Lincoln Journal Star
Contact:  http://www.journalstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/561
Author: Michael Easterbrook, The Associated Press

DRUG SPRAYING FIGHT INTENSIFIES

BOGOTA, Colombia - Battle lines are being drawn over the massive fumigation 
of drug crops in Colombia, with opponents saying it poses health risks 
while the U.S. ambassador warns that aid could be withheld if the 
Washington-backed plan is scrapped.

The country's top anti-narcotics enforcer, meanwhile, is accusing drug 
traffickers - who have lost of millions of dollars in profits - of waging a 
smear campaign against Washington's $1.3 billion counterdrug offensive.

"What I have seen is a plot against the fumigations," said Gen. Gustavo 
Socha, chief of the anti-narcotics police. "The drug traffickers are 
generating false information and forcing people to disseminate it."

Though he did not provide specific examples, Socha said drug traffickers 
were forcing peasants to give false testimony about alleged illnesses from 
the sprayings.

Farmers and a coalition of governors from southern Colombia are demanding 
an end to the fumigation. The governors have visited the U.S. Congress to 
make their case.

The fumigation drive, in which planes spray herbicide on drug crops 
protected by leftist rebels and rival paramilitary forces, is the key to 
Washington's strategy to curb drug production in Colombia. This South 
American country is the leading supplier of cocaine and heroin to the 
United States.

The campaign has drawn increasing fire in recent weeks from critics who say 
the chemicals dropped from the planes are not only harmful to people, but 
are polluting one of the world's richest ecosystems.

A judge in Bogota on July 27 ordered a temporary halt of the spraying in 
Amazonian Indian lands.

It appears doubtful the Colombian government will jettison the sprayings 
nationwide. But, underscoring Washington's concern about the turn of 
events, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson warned that a permanent halt could 
jeopardize U.S. aid.

"I have no doubt that many voices in the U.S. Congress would call for an 
end to assistance to Colombia," Patterson was quoted as saying in El 
Tiempo, Colombia's most widely read daily. The U.S. Embassy confirmed the 
comment was accurately quoted by the Bogota newspaper.

Patterson did not elaborate on what assistance would be cut. Washington's 
$1.3 billion contribution to President Andres Pastrana's anti-drug 
offensive, dubbed Plan Colombia, is already in the pipeline.

It is paying for dozens of Blackhawk and "Super Huey" helicopters to ferry 
troops to drug-producing regions controlled by Colombia's illegal armed 
groups. The rival groups, along with the government, are embroiled in a 
37-year civil war fueled by the drug trade.

The U.S. funds are also bankrolling social programs in Colombia.

For some, the debate recalls Washington's "big stick" approach to Latin 
America of times past.

In the respected Bogota newsmagazine Cambio, columnist Roberto Pombo 
alleged the sprayings were destroying the environment and impoverishing the 
country's peasant farmers, who have few or no viable alternatives to making 
a living other than growing drug crops.

Pombo called the fumigations a "failed campaign against drug traffickers, 
all by imperial order from the United States."

However, Pastrana had sought the assistance, and a groundswell of public 
opinion against the fumigation offensive, slated to continue over at least 
the next three years, has not materialized.

U.S. officials insist the herbicide, glyphosate, which is produced by the 
U.S. chemical company Monsanto, is safe. But the British company Imperial 
Chemical Industries confirmed Friday it has stopped supplying an additive 
used with the glyphosate, saying that use of the two agents together had 
not been tested.

The crop dusters, many provided by the State Department and flown by 
American contractors, have blanketed 123,500 acres of cocaine- producing 
crops since the campaign was launched last December in southern Putumayo 
province, Colombia's cocaine heartland.

Recent U.S. estimates showed 336,400 acres of coca, the main ingredient in 
cocaine, were being cultivated in Colombia. Colombian police say 15,300 
acres were being used to grow poppy, from which heroin is made.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D