HEARTS OF
COLOMBIA
Mary
Barr
With Plan Colombia, we
have taken the “War on Drugs,” literally by trying to eradicate Coca, the weed
that cocaine is made from. The problem
with declaring war on this weed, is that it grows like---a weed. In a June 2003 Witness for Peace delegation,
I visited the Putumayo
region of Colombia
and saw many devastated fields. In one
field a farmer had burned Coca off their land in compliance with U.S.
contracts. In one blackened area, there
was a tiny green plant sticking up out of the middle. If you guessed that it
was Coca, you can go to the head of the class.
In my estimation we can’t effectively kill this weed or Poppy and
Cannabis weeds either.
The plan
is to give farmers a one-time payment of (?) to
plant alternative crops like corn, rice and Heart of Palm. Heart of Palm takes fifteen months to grow,
while Coca takes only three months to grow.
Rice takes only four months to grow but you need tons of it to make the
same profit from one kilo of coca. I
wondered how all the farmers voluntarily agreed with this plan. In interviews
with the non-profits that implement the plan, I found out that if one farmer in
a community agreed, they all had to agree, or no payment. Plus they would be placed on the list for
fumigation. This caused a lot of
arguments in the pueblitos, where 90% of the rural
population lives in abject poverty, and pressure to sign on was great.
We were lead through three farms by Don Ishmael,
his wife and cousin. All of these farms had eradicated coca over two years ago,
at the beginning of Plan Colombia. In
walking for many miles we saw no Coca but they all had been fumigated, the last
time only two days before. At one patch of Heart of Palm the Senora stopped me
and started to cry. I guess she was around
sixty years old, and she had spent days in the blasting heat of the region to
plant these crops, which were totally devastated. She told me it was the third time she planted
and had her crops fumigated. Then she
said something that made me grab an interpreter thinking that my Spanish was
faulty. She repeated that these were
Plan Colombia
crops. The very crops we had paid her
and given her seed and instruction to plant!
And we had fumigated them not once, but three times. Of all the things I learned this tiny crying
woman moved me the most.
On our way back from the country our bus was
stopped and entered by a paramilitary soldier. There is a civil war going on in
Colombia
that is claiming many lives. We have sent 650 million dollars so far this year
in military aid to Colombia
and are planning to send more. The FARC, the United Self Defense Forces of
Colombia (AUC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) are notorious for
kidnapping and ransom tactics.
When we went to our meeting at the U.S. embassy
in Colombia
we were told that there were over 8,000 complaints filed of erroneous
fumigation of licit crops. We asked how
many were paid out and were told two! We
asked if that was because of budgetary concerns and were told they had an
unlimited amount. We asked what was paid
out and they answered $6,000. We then
showed our pictures of fields of corn, Heart of Palm and other licit crops that
had been fumigated from three farms. An
embassy official said that they would visit and, if they found the same
conditions, would pay reparations.
We also saw many fields of tall grass that
fumigation had destroyed. This, along with poor roads and great distances to
transport crops, is another obstacle for farmers in implementing alternatives
to coca growing. Besides having less to feed their livestock, studies have
shown it can make the animals sick and may cause deaths. It is not yet known if the meat, milk or eggs
from these animals will adversely effect humans. And
we saw two water sources that were fumigated, which is
illegal, and people and their livestock drink it. During an interview with a nurse who
participated in health studies on fumigation, she told us health problems in
fumigated areas have doubled since it began. The folks at the embassy started
out by saying there are no side effects from fumigation and then when we showed
them a photo of a woman whose arms were burned from fumigation they said, “Oh
yes, some people are allergic.”
What if we hadn’t gone through the trouble we did
to visit these farms, and what if the farmers had been afraid to allow us? I am worried that some of these over 8,000
claims from farmers have validity and will never get paid. Considering 90% of the rural population lives
in abject poverty, this will add to the internal displacement and result in
more refugees to the U.S. We also run the risk of sending poor youth
into the ranks of the AUC, FARC, and ELN whom we send the Colombian army our
funds to fight. Our tax dollars are
being wasted and also used in an inhumane manner. That only exacerbates the problems we claim
to be trying to solve.