Pubdate: Wed, 02 May 2001
Source: News & Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2001 The News and Observer Publishing Company
Contact:  http://www.news-observer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/304
Author: Gail S. Phares
Note: Gail Phares, regional coordinator of Witness for Peace 
Southeast, led a delegation of 100 to Colombia in March.

POINT OF VIEW: THE DRUG WAR CRASHES

RALEIGH -- Missionary "Roni" Bowers and her daughter Charity, killed 
in Peru in the shooting-down of a light plane during a U.S.-supported 
anti-narcotics campaign, are but the latest victims of the war on 
drugs. The two died as a result of our anxiety about the impact of 
drugs on our society and because of the means we have chosen to 
address these concerns.

It is our unwillingness to accept moral culpability for our drug 
problems that is primarily responsible for the death of Roni Bowers 
and her daughter. The Peruvian Air Force was merely the agent that 
carried out this U.S. policy.

It seems that we don't have the imagination or the stomach to attack 
drug demand here in the United States. Half the people who need drug 
treatment do not receive it because it is not available. Instead, 
over 500,000 nonviolent drug offenders are currently in prison -- 
they are also victims of the misguided war on drugs.

Other victims of this war are small subsistence farmers in southern 
Colombia whose food crops are being destroyed by aerial spraying 
intended to kill coca plants. The Amazon rain forest is also being 
sprayed with Ultra-RoundupTM and is suffering significant damage as a 
result.

Last year Congress approved a $1.3 billion funding package for 
Colombia, mostly for the military there. Part of the aid was for 
aerial spraying of coca crops. In just 2 1/2 months the planes 
sprayed almost 75,000 acres. The bulk of the spraying was carried out 
around a cluster of four towns controlled by paramilitary forces: La 
Horminga, El Placer, La Dorada and San Miguel. Legitimate food crops 
were also destroyed in the same operation in which coca was 
destroyed. I visited these villages and witnessed first-hand the 
devastating impact of U.S.-funded aerial spraying.

Tens of thousands of gallons of the toxic herbicide are being sprayed 
on coca plants. The herbicide, glyphosate, also falls on family 
farms, killing corn, yucca, banana fields, community wells and rivers 
and the rain forest. Spraying is killing legal crops along with coca 
and is leading innocent families to starvation. It is having 
disastrous effects on Amazon biodiversity.

The campaign does not stop production of coca. It merely moves it to 
another area of the Andes. As long as there is demand here in the 
United States, small subsistence farmers will produce coca leaves for 
a small amount of cash.

Here in the United States, government should provide drug treatment 
on demand, treating addiction as a public health problem. As 
Colombian President Andres Pastrana said recently, economic and 
military pressure on drug-producing countries makes little sense 
unless the "consumer countries" do their part.

The problem of illicit drug crops is inextricably bound up with the 
desperate struggle of small farmers to survive in a region of total 
neglect. Only through a negotiated settlement with the guerrillas 
will the 40 years of violence end. And only the transformation of 
rural Colombia through programs of land reform, massive investment in 
farm-to-market roads, schools, health centers and access to credit 
will make it possible for farmers to move entirely to legitimate 
crops.

With this kind of support for alternative crops, the campesinos' 
dependence on illicit drugs will diminish and ultimately disappear. 
Dialogue with the guerrilla organizations and civil society is 
crucial to the success of Plan Colombia.

U.S. military aid and funding for aerial spraying in Colombia must 
stop. It is time to question this misguided and dangerous policy. 
Perhaps the deaths of Roni and Charity Bowers will help President 
Bush, Congress and all Americans demand an end to the current war on 
drugs. Instead of attacking the supply side in Colombia and Peru, we 
must focus on demand here.
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MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe