-It is an ineffective eradication measure which forces internal population
displacement and looting of small peasant land holdings, aggravates social
inequality and threatens Colombian’s health, environment, food safety and future
trade potential.
Colombia is currently the only country in the world that applies chemical
mixtures through aerial spraying in its attempts to eradicate crops
which can be
used for
illicit purposes. Fumigation measures were first applied in Colombia in 1978 to
eradicate an estimated
19,000
hectares of marihuana.[1]
Coca growing in Colombia at the time was basically limited to indigenous
communities
and poppy for drugs unknown to Colombia.
So, the government experimented on marihuana with
the pulmonary toxin
Paraquat, whose aerial use has since been banned for safety reasons. In 1984,
the Colombian government once again succumbed under US pressure and started
fumigating with the highly dangerous chemical Garlon-4 and Glyphosate to
eradicate what by then had expanded into 25, 000 hectares of coca.[2]
In 1992, the government went on to fumigate (new to Colombia) poppy fields and
for some years experimented with Gramaxone. By 1996, as reported by the
Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), “Glyphosate has been applied to all three
plants, and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) to opium poppy, both in the
form of liquid sprays. For coca bush, tebuthiuron and hexazinone, which are
granular and applied by aerial distribution, have been used, and for cannabis
plant, the liquid spray 2 ,4 ,5 ,7 - tetrabromofluorescein, known as Eosine
Yellowish although the latter can cause some browning of leaves of adjacent
vegetation”.[3]
For the past decade, Colombia and the US have been, apparently,
spraying a
chemical mixture of Roundup Ultra and 2 other adjuvants, which serve to modify
and increase the potency of Monsanto’s Glyphosate. This mixture has been deemed
by some experts to be 26 times more potent than the formula used for
agricultural purposes.[4]
There is really no way of knowing since the Colombian government has refused to
reveal this significant fact, as in the case Ecuador vs. Colombia in the
International Court of Justice.[5]
Whatever chemicals are being used, they are being sprayed from war planes and
helicopters all over the Nation. In 2009, there were approximately 73,000
hectares of coca in Colombia. That year 104,771 hectares were fumigated and
43,690 hectares were manually (also with this unknown chemical mixture)
“eradicated”. By December 2010, the figures for Colombian coca were 62,000 has.
In 2011 another 100 thousand hectares of Colombia’s territory were fumigated
and, to quote the UNODC: “The area under coca crop cultivation in Colombia rose
3 per cent in 2011 to 64,000 hectares (ha). Recent studies show that the coca
leaf yield per hectare has decreased, probably because farmers are cutting back
on fertilizers and agro-chemicals… and it is evident that aerial spraying is not
the only factor involved in crop reduction.”[6]
Coca, poppy and marihuana do not just grow organically anywhere. They thrive and
expand on agrochemicals. Thus, the expansion of illegal crops in Colombia might
be due partly to the fact that the chemicals used by the state to try to
eradicate these crops are basically the same agrochemicals used as fertilizers
and herbicides by the small farmers whose impoverishment is such that they have
to turn to coca planting, which can only average a risky monthly net income of
US$294 per hectare while, also according to the UNODC, the average plot measures
approximately 0.67 hectares. A cocalero family (5 members) lives on under
USD$200/month and is persecuted as part of the narcotics traffic. As concerns
the agro chemical business, the Colombian state not only does not control these
agroprecursors, it provides incentives for them and, for all purposes, lets the
herbicide market control itself.[7]
Thus, considering that one and all, including antinarcotics agencies, recognize
that the growing of illicit crops is a poverty-driven phenomenon whose
productivity depends on the use of agro chemicals, Keith Salomon’s (Drug Abuse
Commission –CICAD- researcher) proposal that Colombia could experiment with new
agrochemicals, is highly questionable and casts doubts regarding the corporate
and narcotics-driven interests that might lie behind aerial spraying in
Colombia.[8]
The fact is that, after the 3 decades of counterproductive spilling of millions
of gallons of diverse and experimental potent chemical mixtures on Colombia’s
soil, waters, crops (both legal and illegal), and peoples, Colombia’s lack of
empowerment to solve its internal affairs on its own is also affecting its
neighbors. The coca not now grown in Colombia for narcotics has moved to Bolivia
and Peru to satisfy market needs.
The
successive Colombian governments’ [1978-2012] persistence on this failed and
hazardous measure and their inability to provide sustainable and
financially-feasible long-lasting eradication alternatives for the estimated
100,000 campesino families
involved, has been seen as a narcotics and not counternarcotics effort; as a
means of diverting counter narcotics efforts towards targeting the victims and
not the criminals themselves. Fumigation does not weaken the narcotics traffic.
It displaces peasant populations and makes them more susceptible to being
controlled by the armed groups that regulate the narcotics traffic. Furthermore,
the frontier lands that are felled by displaced populations to plant coca are
often later used to implant megaprojects while soils saturated with Glyphosate
(both through planting and fumigation) destroy biodiversity and prepare the way
for glyphosate-resistant GMOS. Colombian peasants and social organizations
justifiably condemn the legitimacy of thus criminally persecuting coca growers.
Aerial spraying with potent
chemical mixtures to forcefully eradicate coca, poppy, and marihuana
is a war measure and as such
violates IHL by targeting peasants who are in no way part of the hostilities.
They are its first victims in a country whose social inequality is comparable to
that of Haiti and Angola. Spraying people’s homes and lands has only served to
aggravate this unfair distribution of the Nation’s wealth and to distort the
drug issue. The intensive use of chemical precursors and the government’s own
use and incentives for agrochemicals has possibly made Colombia one of countries
with the most polluted agriculture in the world. Steps should be taken to start
evaluating if this is true and, if so, to
determine the necessary measures to reverse the damage. Continuing to fumigate,
without carrying out the scientific studies —relevant to aerial spraying itself
and not to drugs— with respect of the Precautionary Principle[9]
and in accordance with the international Human Rights and Environmental treaties
and Conventions to which Colombia is a party, violates international laws and
principles and humanitarian values as well as Constitutional Court ruling No.
C-176/94 which expresses Colombia’s reserve regarding the 1988 Vienna
Convention.[10]
The Santos government should willingly, or forcibly, declare a moratorium on
aerial spraying and apply stricter controls over the agrochemical industry, the
time of assessing and having the necessary drug-independent scientific knowledge[11]
needed to devise fitting and effective strategies in true accordance with the
1992 Río Declaration.[12]
Throughout these 34 years, aerial spraying has been applied and sanctioned by
Administrative Regulations and environmental norms that are basically passed
after the fact. This year, however, the Colombian government drafted a 2012 Drug
Bill which proposes “legalizing” aerial spraying eradication.[13]
The International Community out of respect for its norms and for the sake of the
Colombian people and Colombia’s natural resources and biodiversity cannot allow
this highly questionable measure to be put into law until
this policy
has been
thoroughly, legally and scientifically proven to be completely safe and
effective.
Ma. Mercedes Moreno
November 2012
[2] http://www.mamacoca.org/docs_de_base/Fumigas/Carta_de_Inderena_a_Policia_oficio-c3885_agosot8_1984.html
[4] Nivia 2002: “in Colombia, where a mixture of Roundup Ultra (containing POEA)
plus the surfactant Cosmo-Flux 411F, with glyphosate concentrations 26 times higher
than those normally recommended is being applied through aerial spraying— http://www.mamacoca.org/feb2002/art_nivia_fumigaciones_si_son_peligrosas_en.html
[5] “Colombia does not see it as necessary to provide any details on the chemical ingredients of the herbicides.
However, Colombia can reassure the Court that its aerial fumigation meets the precautions required under the 1992 Rio Declaration on
Environment and Development. » http://www.limun.org.uk/ICJ_guide.pdf
[6] http://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Colombia/Colombia_Coca_cultivation_survey_2011.pdf
[7] Ministerio de Agricultura: Bases para el diseño de una política de precios de agroquímicos: http://www.minagricultura.gov.co/archivos/informe_final_estudio.pdf
[8] “Should the glyphosate product require changing, Roundup Biactive may be considered. Should the adjuvant require changing,
then on the basis of this research, Silwet L-77 and Mixture B would be good candidates for further evaluation.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19672761
[9] As stipulated in Colombia by Law 99 of 1993 which creates de Ministry of the Environment. However,
mention of the need for precaution was made in the first letter sent to the Government by the Natural Resources Institute
(INDERENA) in 1978 prior to the first aerial spraying campaign against marihuana.
[10] http://www.mamacoca.org/docs_de_base/Legislacion_tematica/Sentencia_C_176_1994_Convencion_de_Viena_1988.htm / “Colombia reserves the right
to make an independent evaluation of the ecological impact of drug control policies, since those that have a negative impact on ecosystems
contravene the Constitution”. http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=VI-19&chapter=6&lang=en
[11] In 2009, the Inter American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) confirmed that,
(while the chemicals in Colombian cocaine are harmful to the 1.5 million users in the States), the damages caused by the US Monsanto’s chemicals
sprayed on 48 million Colombians are “negligible” http://bogota.usembassy.gov/pr_56_030909.html. US military and corporative interventions
in Colombia make all drug related issues the sole jurisdiction of the Organization of American States, whereas, for years now,
he European Union has recently made known its doubts regarding the impact of aerial spraying in Colombia and
“the danger of a negative impact of the aerial spraying on past and future EU cooperation projects.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2001:187E:0164:0165:EN:PDF The EU has recently, and once more,
insisted on the need for truly independent monitoring of aerial spraying measures under UN and
the Pan-American Health Organization’s supervision. Independent, as opposed to the CICAD’s peculiar non definition,
would mean not guided by Colombia’s and the USA’s narcotics vested agrochemical interests and mimed biased moral views
which condition the results of studies on the environmental and chemical impacts of fumigation to the problematic use of all drugs by an
estimated 0.6 per cent of the world adult population.