5 - 11 July 2001
Issue No.541
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 5 - 11 July 2001 Issue No.541 |
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A case of déjà-vu
A case of throwing the baby with the bath water? Egged on by the US, the Colombian army is spraying coca fields with poison and decimating adjoining villages and food crops along the way, writes Faiza Rady
Anyone who protests about this [toxic spraying] is labelled a drug dealer. Years into the future a lot of old men with dandruff will get together in Geneva and talk about it. But by then there will be no countryside left. --Luis Fernando Arango, Colombian lawyer
United States President George W Bush is not one to renege on his campaign pledges. Indeed, US-based transnationals and the military- industrial complex that wisely backed the Bush camp can boast profitable returns on their campaign contributions. Heading a long line of corporate giants waiting for their political investments to pay off, the oil industry recently made out with generous tax breaks and sufficient leeway to bypass the now controversial Kyoto protocol on climate change, which would limit carbon dioxide emissions.
Dismissed by the Bush administration as scientifically inconclusive, global warming and greenhouse gas emission theories were thrown overboard along with Kyoto, giving the oil industry a free hand to slash costly gas emission reduction requirements and wreak more havoc on the environment both at home and abroad.
Another powerful campaign supporter, the military industrial complex, was also given an extra bonus. In addition to receiving an annual $200 billion from American taxpayers, the US arms industry was handed lucrative contracts under the so-called Colombia Plan, which the Clinton administration sold to Congress last year as an essential component of the US-sponsored "all- out war against drugs".
According to former US president Bill Clinton's hard sell of the package, the plan was designed to "help boost Colombia's interdiction and [drug] eradication capabilities ... and will also include assistance for economic development, protection of human rights and judicial reform."
The plan offers the Colombian government a hefty $1.3 billion aid package, 84 per cent of which goes to military assistance. This includes 104 combat helicopters, as well as troop training for the Colombian army's counter-narcotics battalions. The Colombian army, however, is no conventional peace-keeping force. Its high brass, and the counter-narcotics unit, in particular, have been repeatedly cited by humanitarian groups as heavily involved in gross human rights violations.
International and local human rights organisations accuse the army of having set up the country's murderous paramilitary militias, which operate with complete impunity and serve to eradicate opposition guerrilla movements, along with any other form of opposition. The militias are implicated in the murder of thousands of trade union and peasant leaders and the displacement of an estimated 2,100,000 people, who fled the war of terror waged in their villages and towns.
In its February 2000 annual report, the US- based NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced the Colombian army's support of and affiliation with the militias. "The military's support for paramilitary activity is national in scope and includes areas where units receive or are scheduled to receive US military aid," reads the report.
While the human rights record remains dismal, the Colombia Plan's much-touted "drug eradication capabilities" never materialised. To date, Colombia remains the world's most important manufacturer of cocaine, producing a staggering 80 per cent of the drug's global supply.
The war against the lush green plant, however, is waged vigorously on all fronts. An essential component of the Colombia Plan includes the aerial spraying of opium and coca fields with "Roundup Ultra", a broad-spectrum herbicide patented and distributed by the US-based chemical and biotechnology giant Monsanto.
Prior to flooding the lucrative Colombian "drug-eradication" market, the company's claim to fame was established during the Vietnam War. The patent holder of "Agent Orange", Monsanto produced the infamous defoliant that was used to destroy cover foliants from the fields and increase visibility. The effects were deadly. "Toxic effects in animals include [among other effects] gastric ulcers, immunotoxicity, vascular lesions, fetotoxicity, impaired reproductive performance and delayed death," reported the London-based trade watchdog Corporate Watch.
Besides leading to wide-scale deforestation in Vietnam, Agent Orange caused over 50,000 birth defects and hundreds of thousands of cancer cases in Vietnamese civilians and soldiers, as well as in former US servicemen stationed in Southeast Asia. After the war, and in the wake of the defoliant's sinister trail, US Vietnam war veterans held Monsanto responsible and filed a class action suit against the corporation. Monsanto eventually settled out of court, paying the veterans an $80 million settlement in damage claims. The Vietnamese received nothing.
Following the much-publicised Agent Orange debacle, Monsanto executives were forced to turn a new leaf. Compared with Agent Orange, Roundup seems innocuous enough. Besides being marketed as a weed killer in Colombia, the product is sold across the counter as a safe herbicide for civilian use. Yet its label warns against potentially high toxicity levels, reports Corporate Watch. "Roundup will kill almost any green plant that is actively growing. Roundup should not be applied to bodies of water, such as ponds, lakes or streams, as Roundup can be harmful to certain aquatic organisms. After an area has been sprayed people and pets should stay out of the area until it is thoroughly dry. We recommend that grazing animals remain out of the treated area for two weeks," cautions the product's label.
Despite the label's clear warning, human rights activists and medical personnel in the region report that the Colombian army wantonly disregards it -- hitting subsistence crop fields, villages and water bodies along with coca plantations. As if this is not bad enough, the army has also ignored the American Food and Drug Administration's permitted level of Roundup concentration levels. Since coca plantation raids started last year, the army has consistently aero-sprayed vast rural areas with concentration levels exceeding more than 104 times the recommended level in the US.
Meanwhile, subsistence crops are destroyed, animals are dying and people -- especially children -- are coming down with alarming symptoms of acute and chronic diseases. As a result, people are fleeing the ravaged areas in droves. "In the tiny community of Santa Rosa de Guamez, pineapples are stunted and shrivelled. The once green banana plants are no more than blackened sticks ... food crops have been devastated," reports the British weekly, The Observer.
Backed and financed by the US, it appears that the Colombian government is using Roundup to vacate entire regions under the guise of "drug eradication". In this context it may not be coincidental that the highest-hit areas are predominantly located in the north -- a region rich with oil and mineral reserves and targeted for ambitious development projects.
Meanwhile, coca cultivation has tripled since aerial spraying began.
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