| They want to be left alone
to yank the flowers from the ground, instead of having police airplanes
spray their land with herbicides to combat drug crops
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Thursday, 28 October 1999
Colombian Indians doubt safety of spraying crops
By Timothy Pratt
CALI, Colombia -- If the Yanacona Indians have their way, the Colombian
government in coming months may allow them to take out tens of thousands
of poppy plants - the source of heroin - with their own hands. Literally.
They want to be left alone to yank the flowers from the ground, instead
of having police airplanes spray their land with herbicides to combat drug
crops.
The collateral damage to corn and other crops - as well as the health
risk to humans, say the Yanaconas - has long been an issue here. But several
recent events have put drug eradication by spraying on the front burner.
First, the looming prospect of a doubling of US antinarcotics aid to Colombia
- which means more spraying. Second, the latest round of peace talks with
rebels.
"No more contamination and destruction of the ecosystem with spraying,"
was one of the demands made by Raul Reyes, a member of FARC (Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia) negotiating team before the talks began on Sunday.
And earlier this month, an international conference for environmental
journalists held in Bogota focused heavily on narcotics trafficking.
"Everywhere there's been spraying, there have been complaints - hundreds
of them," says sociologist Ricardo Vargas, who spoke at the conference
and is the author of a study commissioned by the Netherlands' Transnational
Institute, soon to be published as a book titled "Spraying and Conflict."
The Yanacona's governor, Eider Meneses Papamija, says that the spraying
"goes against the health of our people," and links the practice to vomiting
by children, damaged corn and potato crops, and slow sales in milk, since
customers think the cows have eaten contaminated grass. At the same time,
he says his people are eager to get rid of the "cursed flower" and return
to traditional crops, while developing economic alternatives to selling
the poppy's milky latex for producing heroin.
This community lives in the central Andean range, a mountainous region
about 100 miles south of Cali. These are the kind of mountains the delicate
flowerdoes well in, and Colombia, with three mountain chains snaking through
its territory, has been steadily supplying more of the world's heroin in
recent years.
According to current US government figures, poppy flowers and coca plants
- the source of cocaine - are now planted on more than 10 million acres
of Colombian soil. Col. Leonardo Gallego, head of the anti-narcotics division
of the National Police, said this month that the results of Colombia's
"First National Census on Illicit Crops" puts the total at closer to 7.8
million acres.
In fact, US antidrug funding to Colombia is now at an all-time high
and may be going higher. The $ 289 million authorized for this year put
Colombia third in military aid, behind Israel and Egypt. A $ 1.5 billion
aid package over three years is currently being debated in Congress. Colombian
officials say about 10 percent of the US aid is currently used for spraying.
At least $ 10 million of the aid package will go toward the development
of ecologically sound eradication methods. But, according to a US congressional
aide, approximately $ 114 million of the package will be aimed at increasing
removal efforts, primarily by spraying.
The herbicide Roundup, produced by St. Louis-based Monsanto, has been
a key weapon in eradication efforts.
Luis Eduardo Parra, Colombia's chief environmental auditor for the government's
drug crop eradication program, says that Roundup and its main ingredient,
glyphosate, have undergone decades of safety studies. He adds that the
herbicide is widely used in the US for such commercial crops as corn.
Mr. Parra also says "the drug traffickers dupe the peasants and Indians
into believing that if they plant potatoes and beans together with coca
or poppy, then the police won't spray, and that if there's spraying, then
they can complain. This is simply not true."
But agronomist Elsa Nivia says the Yanacona claims may have a basis
in fact. She heads a nongovernmental organization in Cali that works to
"combat the use and abuse of pesticides and to promote ... sustainable
alternatives."
The environmental problems, says Ms. Nivia, often arise from such factors
as what solvent is mixed with Roundup before spraying, the dosage of glyphosate
used, and whether or not the herbicide drifts during spraying onto neighboring
lands.
The herbicide is dissolved in solvents ranging from water to kerosene
to diesel oil, say scientists. Roundup is "an environmentally friendly
herbicide ... but toxicity varies hugely according to the formulation and
dosage," says Albert Fischer, a former researcher at Colombia's International
Center for Tropical Agriculture.
Mr. Fischer also mentioned that spraying could "eliminate ancestral
crops ... in some cases, thereby eliminating important genetic diversity."
Parra says the Yanacona's charges are "without basis ... and used to
call attention to themselves and to pressure the government in negotiations
over other needs, like more land."
But Colombia's minister of the interior says he's willing to give the
Yanaconas the benefit of the doubt and let them pull the poppies from their
land. But if they violate the trust, he says, the spraying will begin again.
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