Pubdate: Mon, 27 Aug 2001
Source: St. Petersburg Times (FL)
Copyright: 2001 St. Petersburg Times
Contact:  http://www.sptimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/419
Author: Lucy Fuchs

PEOPLE ARE BEING HARMED

I am very glad to see that the government is reconsidering the 
Colombia spraying plan. Officials are now investigating if and how 
much this aerial spraying is affecting human beings. But of course, 
even if people do not get sick or develop rashes, the spraying is 
harming people. One cannot control the winds when planes fumigate, 
and so the herbicide chemical solution also damages fruit trees and 
other food crops. It affects the soil and the rivers and the animals.

Since we would not permit such spraying in the United States, we 
should not do it in Colombia -- or don't we think that their lives 
are as valuable as ours?

I concur with those who say that the spraying in Colombia is not 
about drugs, but rather a way to dislocate the people who live in 
certain territories.

A few years ago, I went to Colombia with a delegation of the Latin 
America Working Group from Washington to investigate human rights 
abuses. Now I fear that I should have stayed in the United States and 
investigated our own human rights abuses. -- Lucy Fuchs, Brandon
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