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From: Jessica Sundin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: University of Minnesota
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Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 09:57:32 -0600
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Subject: [CAN] Colombia News 1/8
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1. Aerials Attack Killing More than Coca
2. Twelve Dead in Second Colombia Massacre in Two Days
3. Rethink Colombia Peace Drive, Politicians Say
________________________________________________________________
WASHINGTON POST, Sunday, 7 January 2001
Aerial Attack Killing More Than Coca
By Scott Wilson
LA HORMIGA, Colombia - Colombia's mammoth anti-drug campaign, backed by
more than $1 billion of U.S. military and social development aid, has
entered a new punitive phase of aerial spraying that is killing fields
of coca as well as the legal crops of farmers here in the country's most
bountiful drug-growing region.
Using U.S. and European satellite photographs to pick targets, Colombian
army and police aircraft have begun spraying herbicides on small farms
in western Putumayo, the southern province that accounts for more than
half the country's coca production.
The flights, paid for by the U.S.-backed anti-drug campaign called Plan
Colombia, have occurred almost daily over several farming communities
since Dec. 22 and have wilted hundreds of acres of coca, the key
ingredient in cocaine, and legal crops, which often are planted
alongside coca. Local people say the chemicals have sometimes fallen on
towns and farmhouses, causing people to suffer fevers. They also blame
the spraying for the deaths of some cows and fish.
"Those without coca are more affected than those with it," said Hilberto
Soto Vargas, a local farmer whose banana grove was fumigated even
though, by his account, he pulled up his coca plants two years ago when
he became a member of a Pentecostal church. "All of this is dying now,"
he said, pointing to his fields. "All of it."
Colombia accounts for 80 percent to 90 percent of the world's cocaine
production and a growing share of its heroin. The fumigation in Putumayo
marks a bold new escalation of Plan Colombia, a U.S.-backed $7.5 billion
campaign to cut Colombian drug production by half in six years, by 2005.
Until recently, spraying focused almost entirely on remote
industrial-sized coca and poppy plantations that grow most of Colombia's
drugs. Officials claim it has denuded roughly 125,000 acres of drug
fields. Now the planes are targeting more populous farming areas like
this one, where coca is seen by many poor villagers as a legitimate cash
crop and is often grown side by side with corn, yucca, pineapple and
livestock. Often it shares a plot next to the farmer's tin-roofed shack.
The new approach is designed in part to punish several coca-rich
communities that have refused to join a U.S.-backed program that pays
farmers to uproot illegal crops and replace them with legal ones. Some
of the communities declined to join because of threats from leftist
guerrillas who profit from the drug trade.
In La Hormiga, a town 30 miles west of Putumayo's commercial center of
Puerto Asis, town officials and residents say the fumigation has been
devastating. In interviews, dozens of farmers said that the spray,
delivered by small planes escorted by armed helicopters, has killed
hundreds of acres of food crops, scores of cattle and hundreds of fish
that washed up on the banks of the Guamuez River. On several occasions,
several witnesses said, the aircraft dropped herbicide within the town
itself.
U.S. drug control policy director Barry R. McCaffrey has said repeatedly
that the herbicide, Roundup, produced by Monsanto Co., is harmless to
humans and animals-he called it "totally safe" during a November visit
to Colombia.
However, in the United States it is sold with warning labels advising
users to "not apply this product in a way that will contact workers or
other persons, either directly or through drift." The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency says glyphosate-based products such as Roundup should
be handled with caution and could cause vomiting, swelling of the lungs,
pneumonia, mental confusion and tissue damage.
Several farmers here said they have experienced fever-like symptoms
since being sprayed, but local doctors report only one hospitalization
for chemical poisoning. Mayor Flover Edmundo Meza, whose own farm was
fumigated last week, predicts widespread hunger throughout the
municipality of 35,000 people because of crop damage. The loss could
result in thousands of families leaving their farms, he said.
"Our intention is to eliminate these crops-voluntarily-and avoid these
damages, but the government is not listening to us," said Meza, who took
office Jan. 1. "People will not be able to eat, and we don't have the
resources to address this. We are asking the government to stop at
once."
The U.S. Congress has pledged $1.3 billion over the next two years to
Plan Colombia, most going toward such military hardware as the
helicopters used in the fumigation missions. The U.S. contribution also
includes money to build small businesses, health clinics, schools and
roads that Colombian officials hope will help end two decades of coca
cultivation in Putumayo.
European nations have chipped in more than $200 million for social
programs, but have roundly condemned the fumigation strategy. However,
that approach is backed with enthusiasm by the United States; some U.S.
officials in Colombia proudly display photos of denuded coca and poppy
fields on their office walls.
About $81 million of the U.S. aid is available for the plan's
alternative development program, which through subsidies and small loans
seeks to coax farmers to abandon coca crops for legal ones. Of that sum,
$30 million is marked for eradication programs that farmers must join if
they are to avoid fumigation.
In December, more than 500 families signed up for crop substitution
programs in Puerto Asis, an area largely protected from guerrilla forces
by privately funded paramilitary groups and a nearby army base.
But not a single farmer in La Hormiga or in the neighboring municipality
of San Miguel signed on to the plan when it was presented here late last
summer. Gonzalo de Francisco, President Andres Pastrana's point man for
Plan Colombia, said the communities understood the consequences but
might have been frightened off by pressure from guerrilla forces.
De Francisco said the towns, which sent his office petitions pleading
for an end to the fumigation six days after it began, will be offered
another chance to sign the pacts in coming weeks. In the meantime, the
spraying will continue.
"Obviously, we take these reports [of harm from spraying] seriously and
we are trying to get the best information we can so we can analyze the
situation correctly," de Francisco said. Fumigation is not perfect, he
said, and everyone would be better off if the villagers agreed to join
the programs to end coca cultivation.
The central government in Bogota argues that the spraying is necessary
because as much as one-third of Colombia's coca comes from small farms
like the ones here. An estimated 66,000 acres of coca are under
cultivation in the municipality of Valle de Guamuez, of which La Hormiga
is the capital. That is almost double the acreage of food crops and
accounts for a large fraction of the province's total coca production,
which has been increasing.
But a recent tour of the area suggested there is no way to fumigate from
the air without harming legal agriculture as well as drug crops.
"That is the thing that hurt me," said Rosa Elvira Zambrano, a
71-year-old widow, pointing to her neighbor's four-acre coca field,
which lies across a barbed-wire fence from her withering grove of banana
trees and yucca. Zambrano, who has lived on a seven-acre farm inside La
Hormiga's city limits for 25 years, grows food and raises chickens to
support her daughter, also a widow, and three grandchildren.
On the morning of Dec. 22, she said, a group of planes and helicopters
passed over her farm three times, spraying herbicide on her crops while
mostly missing her neighbor's coca. "It's the government that has ruined
all this," she said. "How will I eat?"
More than a dozen farmers said the aircraft appear to be spraying from
high altitudes, perhaps for fear of guerrilla ground fire. The result,
they say, has been indiscriminate fumigation. A reporter's inspection of
fields in the area suggested that food crops have been hit at least as
hard as coca.
Ismael Acosta, a 46-year-old father of five, cultivates an acre and a
half of coca on his farm along the banks of the Guamuez River. He said
that at noon last Wednesday, more than 10 aircraft passed over his farm,
most of which is planted with corn and yucca, a common crop grown for
its roots. One day later, his corn patch had turned brown and his yucca
was losing leaves. A few yards away, his coca patch showed signs of
yellowing.
In Puerto Asis, meanwhile, about 550 farmers are beginning a social
experiment meant to end fear of fumigation. Last month, two-thirds of
them signed agreements with the government to receive $1,000 payments if
they pulled up their coca plants within a year.
The other third, who don't grow coca, received pledges of the same
subsidy as a reward for staying out of the drug business.
The farmers can keep the money or use it to buy farming supplies to get
a new start with legal crops. The sum would be enough to pay for two
milk cows, 50 chickens, an acre of banana trees and more.
More important, the agreements authorize the farmers to apply to a local
nonprofit foundation for small-business loans from a pool of U.S. and
European aid. Farmers are to get seats on the foundation's board and the
chance to pitch ideas for putting such enterprises as cattle ranches and
fish farms on former coca fields.
Fernando Bautista is a butcher who helps run his cousin's 15-acre coca
farm along the placid Putumayo River near Santa Ana. Bautista has lost
three brothers to drug-trade murders; now he says he wants to give his
two daughters another way of life by starting a dairy farm with
government help.
He and his cousin, Ramiro Garcia, have joined with 20 other coca farmers
to pitch the idea. They plan to pool their $1,000 government payments,
then seek a loan to purchase 10 cows each, build stables and buy tank
trucks.
But the economics must make sense for Garcia to give up the $6,000 in
annual profit he has been getting from the 35 pounds of coca paste that
his farm produces each year.
Along the edge of his field stands a warning: a small patch of brilliant
green plants resembling clover-infant coca bushes, enough to plant 25
acres.
"If the government helps us, I will sell them or just pull them up,"
Garcia said. "If not, I'll plant them."
Copyright 2001 The Washington Post Company
________________________________________________________________
REUTERS, Friday, 5 January 2001
Twelve Dead in Second Colombia Massacre in Two Days
BOGOTA - Gunmen killed at least 12 peasants on Friday in a mountainous
region of northwestern Colombia where leftist guerrillas and far-right
paramilitaries are fighting for territorial control, police said.
The killing, the second in the area in two days, happened between the
towns of El Penol and Guatape in the department of Antioquia, regional
police commander Col. Guillermo Aranda told reporters.
Police blamed paramilitaries for killing 11 people on Wednesday near the
town of Yolombo but did not know who was responsible for Friday's
attack.
Several shotgun-toting men in combat uniforms went from house to house
killing suspected collaborators with rival groups, Aranda said.
``We don't know who is to blame for this massacre -- we don't know if it
was paramilitaries or guerrillas,'' he said.
``They came murdering peasants ... these people did not have anything to
do with the conflict in which these outlawed groups are engaged,'' he
added.
Colombia, an Andean nation with 40 million inhabitants, is mired in a
four decades-old conflict involving leftist rebels the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN),
paramilitary forces that rights groups allege have links to the military
and the state security forces. Colombia's army denies paramilitary
links.
The conflict, which has claimed more than 35,000 civilian lives and
displaced 2 million people in the last decade alone, has intensified in
recent months despite President Andres Pastrana's peace efforts with
leftist rebels.
Police recorded 205 massacres in Colombia in 2000 in which 1,226 people
were killed. Most were attributed to paramilitaries, whom rights
organizations allege commit the worst human rights violations in a
``dirty war'' against guerrillas.
Copyright 2001 Reuters
________________________________________________________________
Thursday January 4 2:04 AM ET
Rethink Colombia Peace Drive, Politicians Say
By Jude Webber
BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombian President Andres Pastrana has not
yet given up on his floundering peace drive with FARC rebels -- but he
has considered it, government and party officials say.
Pastrana interrupted a vacation to consult political leaders on the
two-year-old peace process, regarded by many Colombians as increasingly
futile, amid calls from across the political spectrum for an urgent
re-evaluation of his policy of granting the rebels a demilitarized zone.
The peace process plunged into crisis after the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) pulled out in November. It was dealt a fresh
blow last week by the murder of a prominent congressman the army blamed
on the FARC.
``We don't want there to be this breakdown (in talks) but the government
is ready, it too has thought about breaking them off,'' the leader of
Pastrana's own Conservative Party, Ciro Ramirez, told reporters after
the meeting, which lasted hours Wednesday.
Pastrana's top peace commissioner Camilo Gomez, who plans talks with the
FARC commander Manuel ``Sureshot'' Marulanda in the rebels' enclave
Thursday, said all was not yet lost -- but indicated the government was
also tiring.
``We believe in a political and negotiated solution but it is undeniably
important for advances to be made more concrete and certain situations
to be cleared up,'' he said.
Politicians described Thursday's talks as pivotal in the peace drive,
which has so far yielded nothing tangible in terms of ending four
decades of brutal violence.
Gomez said it was up to the FARC to explain whether it murdered Diego
Turbay, the president of a congressional peace commission, with his
mother and five others last Friday.
``By now, everyone in Colombia is convinced that the peace process
cannot continue ... as it has until now,'' opposition Liberal Party
leader Horacio Serpa said before the talks. ``There needs to be a ...
change of direction.''
--- Critical Juncture ---
Ramirez urged a ``180-degree turn,'' saying the government knew it
needed a more radical stance. Pastrana, who came to power on a peace
ticket but has lost popularity amid recession and high unemployment, has
insisted he is making progress.
Critics say that ceding a sprawling tract of southern jungle to the FARC
for peace talks in 1998 has been a disaster, allowing it to use the area
as a fertile recruitment ground.
The enclave's future is also in the spotlight. It officially remains off
limits to the military only until Jan. 31 and while Pastrana has
extended it six times in the past, he may find it more difficult to do
so again.
With the economic and social development and drug-busting Plan Colombia
-- backed by U.S. military aid -- set to begin this month, many
Colombians fear an escalation of violence in 2001.
Gomez's talks with Marulanda were expected to focus on Turbay's murder
and a tentative exchange of sick prisoners. Such a swap, dangled by
Pastrana to try to lure the rebels back to talks, would be the first in
Colombia's war.
The FARC pulled out of the peace talks demanding a crackdown on their
arch enemies, far-right paramilitary death squads.
With the FARC talks in crisis, Pastrana has pushed ahead with plans to
allow Colombia's second biggest rebel group, the National Liberation
Army (ELN), its own enclave for talks. But local residents fearing a
repeat of the FARC experience.
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