Pubdate: Fri, 17 Aug 2001
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2001 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author: John Diamond, Washington Bureau

U.S. SAYS SPRAYING IN COLOMBIA IS SAFE

Anti-Drug Effort To Go On Despite Health Protests

WASHINGTON -- Chemicals sprayed on coca crops in Colombia as part of 
a massive campaign against drug trafficking can cause skin and eye 
irritations, the State Department acknowledged for the first time 
Thursday, but the effects are considered mild, and the Bush 
administration plans to push forward aggressively with the program.

Part of the administration's $1.3 billion Plan Colombia initiative to 
help the South American country curtail its illicit cocaine industry, 
the aerial spraying of herbicides is viewed in Washington as the key 
to success. The Bush administration is opening a public-relations 
campaign for the spraying program out of concern that it will be 
halted by protests in Colombia and opposition from environmentalists. 
The State Department's senior official in charge of counternarcotics 
said he is so confident of the program's safety that he would be 
willing to put his family in a field while it was being sprayed with 
the plant killer.

At the same time, Rand Beers acknowledged some evidence of health 
risks and enough unanswered questions that the U.S. is launching an 
investigation to determine whether the herbicide is safe.

"This particular mixture [of herbicide] does cause slight irritation 
to the eyes and the skin," Beers told reporters at a State Department 
briefing Thursday. "This is not a totally benign product."

Moreover, Beers acknowledged, the Environmental Protection Agency, 
which has been conducting safety studies on some of the chemicals 
used in the spraying, has not tested the specific, somewhat more 
concentrated mixture being used on the coca fields.

The coca crop eradication program began in Colombia in 1994 but has 
accelerated greatly in the past year with the influx of U.S. funding 
under Plan Colombia Of the 335,000 acres in Colombia that the CIA 
estimates are under coca cultivation, 138,000, or 41 percent, have 
been sprayed since December.

2-pronged strategy

Beers said the strategy is twofold: First, destroy as much of the 
coca crop as possible, depriving cocaine manufacturers of their raw 
material; second, hurt coca growers financially to the point where 
they will think twice before replanting a field with a crop they 
could lose in a single afternoon.

The spraying will go on, he said, "until it is understood that any 
time you grow the illegal product, you are at risk from the 
government to the destruction of your crop."

As the spraying campaign has intensified, so has criticism of the 
effort. Peasant farmers in especially hard-hit regions have alleged 
that the herbicide is causing skin rashes and other illnesses, 
particularly among children. Responding to local political pressure, 
Colombia top environmental official last spring challenged the safety 
of the coca eradication effort. About 3,000 farmers in northeastern 
Colombia destroyed a refueling depot for crop-duster aircraft.

Bush administration officials suspect that the growing protests in 
Colombia stem not from the spraying's health risks but from its 
economic impact.

"If the spraying is successful, it kills their income," Beers said.

A study by a Colombian toxicologist focusing on villages near where 
fields have been sprayed examined 29 reported cases of skin problems 
and concluded that only three were even possibly attributable to the 
herbicide.

"We are unable to determine that there is a health hazard," Beers 
said. If efforts under way by Colombian officials as well as 
scientists at the EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention find such evidence, he said, "we will take appropriate 
action, whether it is compensation or suspension of the [spraying] 
program."

Widely used in U.S.

Current evidence indicates that the key ingredients in the herbicide, 
also used widely in the United States, pose no long-lasting health 
hazard, assuming they are mixed and applied properly, Beers said. At 
the same time, the Bush administration says more work needs to be 
done to confirm that.

Questions about the spraying campaign have not been confined to 
Colombia Environmental groups in the United States have criticized 
the program. The World Wildlife Fund calls the spraying "ecocide" and 
likens the chemicals to the Agent Orange defoliant used in Vietnam 
and later linked to illnesses in U.S. veterans and Vietnamese.

"Like Agent Orange in Vietnam, this spraying is having a devastating 
effect on the wildlife, forests and river ecosystems of " the 
Wildlife Fund said in a recent newsletter.

Meanwhile, Colombian President Andres Pastrana stepped up pressure 
this week on the guerrillas who finance their operations through 
drugs by signing legislation granting the U.S.-backed military 
greater latitude to battle the rebels.

The signing has raised concerns among human-rights groups and some in 
the U.S. Congress that the added powers will lead to further abuses 
by the military, and the measure is expected to be challenged in 
Colombia Constitutional Court.

One of the law's most criticized articles allows the president to set 
up martial law zones in which local civilian officials would be 
subordinate to regional police and military commanders.

The law also allows soldiers to detain suspects longer before handing 
them over to a judge and shortens the time allowed for completing 
investigations into alleged human-rights abuses by security forces.
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