TURNING
THE ANALYSIS
THE USE
OF CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS IN THE "WAR ON DRUGS"
Darío González
Posso
−ABSTRACT−
This conference develops two basic themes: the use
of chemical and biological weapons in the "war on drugs" and the need
for an international assessment of "drug policy" and alternatives
based Human Rights.
Chemical and biological weapons are the tools of a
global strategy towards achieving a "drug-free world" by attacking
the offer at the source: crops and peasant growers of coca, poppy or
cannabis. Inversely, one frequently hears the argument according to which
"the origin of the problem" suffered by countries where these crops
are to be found is in the demand, the existence of a great consumers'
market. Both of these so-often-used
arguments are false. It is necessary to
take a new approach, to turn the analysis.
After a century of repression, what is obvious is that the origin of the
problem is, in the first-place, Prohibition.
Combating the offer "at the source"
through forced eradication, particularly through indiscriminate aerial dusting
with chemical weapons -which affects food crops, animal and plant life, and the
overall population- signify that the Colombian states is violating its citizens
human rights and infringing basic International Humanitarian Law in Colombia's
armed internal conflict. Fumigation is a war operation which does not distinguish
between combatants and civilian population, or between military objectives and
civilian property.
Today in the Andean-Amazon Region, the so-called
"war on drugs", with all its connotations of geopolitical control and
increased U.S. military presence, acquires new force under what has been called
the Andean Anti-drug Initiative. Within
this context, the Colombian government is intensifying chemical war against the
peasantry alleging the need to suppress the sources which finance outlawed
armed groups. The use of chemical weapons and the threat of biological agents, and
all of the catastrophic effects on human health and the environment that come
with, are but instruments of said global strategy.
Thus the initiative for a high level Independent Global
Commission −autonomous of governments and multilateral organisms−
to evaluate drug policies and put forward alternatives which respect
human rights and people’s diversity.
It would propose −as part of its objectives− to carry out a social,
horizontal, and inclusive debate regarding incrimination of peasant coca,
cannabis and poppy growers and the measures and conditions which affect users;
it would seek to establish dialogue −on the basis of its global stock of
knowledge and experiences− with national multilateral official instances,
putting forth proposals for social responsibility and political
correspondence. With these aims in mind,
one of the steps proposed is the review, repeal or amendment of United Nations Conventions
of 1961, 1971, and 1988. In this sense, the basic path is to establish social
dialogue regarding the place deserved by the cultural, medical, industrial,
recreational and nutritional use of the coca, poppy and cannabis plants,
unfairly condemned to be forbidden substances by the United Nations in
1961. It is also essential to analyze
the problem from an agrarian perspective, namely, that democratic agrarian
reforms and macroeconomic policies geared at protecting and restoring peasant,
indigenous peoples’, afro-descendants’ economies are a must. Analyses and
alternatives centered on drug-policy reform are not enough. We must go beyond
and promote, defend and guarantee people’s right to the land and their basic right
to feed themselves.
Translated from Spanish by MM Moreno,
Mama Coca
www.mamacoca.org