vox
18th August 2002, 04:00
Malte started a thread about the FARC, and I can't say, from what I've read, that I support them. I don't know much about the history of the group, but the evidence is clear that right now they are not the "good guys." It's also true, according to human rights groups, that the right-wing paramilitary groups are far worse than the FARC. I don't know of anything in Plan Colombia that would stop these paramilitary groups from getting more support.
However, what I really want to talk about here is the previous action of the US. I recall a "60 Minutes" episode in which Pastrana said that he asked the US for humanitarian aid and was refused, but was offered military aid. Pastrana wanted the aid in order to improve the lives of Colombians (this is what he said, anyway) and to reduce tension with the FARC. Clinton would only go for military aid and the aerial spraying of drug crops.
Here's a little journalism about the spraying and US action in Colombia:
Colombia: Rules of the Game (http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0217-04.htm) Sample quote: A grade school garden and a government-sponsored alternative agriculture project designed to teach peasants to grow cash crops other than coca were destroyed by fumigation. Paramilitary gunmen have gone on killing sprees whose total toll will never be known.
U.S. War on Drugs in Colombia is Ravaging Farmers and Land (http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0326-03.htm) Sample quote: "Colombia's military uses helicopters and airplanes to spray rainforests with glyphosate, a chemical manufactured by Monsanto," Panetta said. "They're supposedly killing coca plants, but they spray indiscriminately. In La Hormiga, a small city in the Amazon Territory, the spraying killed medicinal plants and food crops such as yucca. Yet, the adjacent coca fields flourished. Glyphosate seeps into the soil and water. Fish die in contaminated rivers."
How Global Battle Against Drugs Risks Backfiring (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0617-02.htm) Sample quote: Colombian babies and children are falling ill. Peasants, already miserably poor, are getting hungrier. Indigenous tribes are being torn apart and whole communities pushed into exile.
The reason is the US-sponsored Plan Colombia, conceived by President Bill Clinton and roundly embraced by President George W Bush, designed to eliminate all cocaine production in Colombia. A key element is the spraying from planes of a highly concentrated chemical toxin on the coca bushes, whose leaves provide the raw material for the drug.
The coca bushes have generally survived. In the front line of America's war on drugs it is humans and the environment that have become the victims.
Colombian Farmers Count Cost of Airborne Assault on Drug Fields (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0227-02.htm) Sample quote: "Why should I lie? I had coca. But they've left me with nothing - no work, and no food," said Otoniel Urrea, staring down at his devastated smallholding in a barren gully stripped of vegetation... Farmers say that poisoned ground can take months to recover. Mr Urrea says coca was his only source of cash. The nearest city is Mocoa, 12 hours away down a rutted singe-lane road, and transport costs make most legal crops unprofitable to grow.
Colombians Say US Drug Spraying Is Creating A Health Crisis (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/050100-02.htm) Sample quote: The children and their teachers were in the schoolyard, they say, playing soccer and basketball and waiting for classes to begin when the crop-duster appeared. At first they waved, but as the plane drew closer and a gray mist began to stream from its wings, alarmed teachers rushed the pupils to their classrooms.
Over the next two weeks, a fleet of counternarcotics planes taking part in a U.S.-sponsored program to eradicate heroin poppy cultivation returned here repeatedly. Time and time again, residents charge, the government planes also sprayed buildings and fields that were not supposed to be targets, damaging residents' health and crops.
``The pilot was flying low, so there is no way he could not have seen those children,'' said Nidia Majin, principal of the La Floresta rural elementary school, whose 70 pupils were sprayed that Monday morning last June. ``We had no way to give them first aid, so I sent them home. But they had to cross fields and streams that had also been contaminated, so some of them got sick.''
Sen. Joe Lieberman Says Visit to Colombia Reinforces Support for Herbicide Spraying (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0809-05.htm) Sample quote: Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Thursday that two days in Colombia has only reinforced his support for the U.S.-backed drug crop spraying program.
"I emerged with a strong conviction that it's the right thing, that we're protecting our national security," he said during a meeting with the international press here.
So there you have it, folks. Do not expect Colombians to fall gratefully at the feet of the USA after it has poisoned their families, land and water and driven them from barely making any sort of subsistence level living to having no living at all.
Don't be suckered by the right-wing rhetoric that's recently popped up on this board. We know that the US is not helping anyone but the ruling elite. History has taught us this lesson and current events remind us all the time that this is the case.
vox
However, what I really want to talk about here is the previous action of the US. I recall a "60 Minutes" episode in which Pastrana said that he asked the US for humanitarian aid and was refused, but was offered military aid. Pastrana wanted the aid in order to improve the lives of Colombians (this is what he said, anyway) and to reduce tension with the FARC. Clinton would only go for military aid and the aerial spraying of drug crops.
Here's a little journalism about the spraying and US action in Colombia:
Colombia: Rules of the Game (http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0217-04.htm) Sample quote: A grade school garden and a government-sponsored alternative agriculture project designed to teach peasants to grow cash crops other than coca were destroyed by fumigation. Paramilitary gunmen have gone on killing sprees whose total toll will never be known.
U.S. War on Drugs in Colombia is Ravaging Farmers and Land (http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0326-03.htm) Sample quote: "Colombia's military uses helicopters and airplanes to spray rainforests with glyphosate, a chemical manufactured by Monsanto," Panetta said. "They're supposedly killing coca plants, but they spray indiscriminately. In La Hormiga, a small city in the Amazon Territory, the spraying killed medicinal plants and food crops such as yucca. Yet, the adjacent coca fields flourished. Glyphosate seeps into the soil and water. Fish die in contaminated rivers."
How Global Battle Against Drugs Risks Backfiring (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0617-02.htm) Sample quote: Colombian babies and children are falling ill. Peasants, already miserably poor, are getting hungrier. Indigenous tribes are being torn apart and whole communities pushed into exile.
The reason is the US-sponsored Plan Colombia, conceived by President Bill Clinton and roundly embraced by President George W Bush, designed to eliminate all cocaine production in Colombia. A key element is the spraying from planes of a highly concentrated chemical toxin on the coca bushes, whose leaves provide the raw material for the drug.
The coca bushes have generally survived. In the front line of America's war on drugs it is humans and the environment that have become the victims.
Colombian Farmers Count Cost of Airborne Assault on Drug Fields (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0227-02.htm) Sample quote: "Why should I lie? I had coca. But they've left me with nothing - no work, and no food," said Otoniel Urrea, staring down at his devastated smallholding in a barren gully stripped of vegetation... Farmers say that poisoned ground can take months to recover. Mr Urrea says coca was his only source of cash. The nearest city is Mocoa, 12 hours away down a rutted singe-lane road, and transport costs make most legal crops unprofitable to grow.
Colombians Say US Drug Spraying Is Creating A Health Crisis (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/050100-02.htm) Sample quote: The children and their teachers were in the schoolyard, they say, playing soccer and basketball and waiting for classes to begin when the crop-duster appeared. At first they waved, but as the plane drew closer and a gray mist began to stream from its wings, alarmed teachers rushed the pupils to their classrooms.
Over the next two weeks, a fleet of counternarcotics planes taking part in a U.S.-sponsored program to eradicate heroin poppy cultivation returned here repeatedly. Time and time again, residents charge, the government planes also sprayed buildings and fields that were not supposed to be targets, damaging residents' health and crops.
``The pilot was flying low, so there is no way he could not have seen those children,'' said Nidia Majin, principal of the La Floresta rural elementary school, whose 70 pupils were sprayed that Monday morning last June. ``We had no way to give them first aid, so I sent them home. But they had to cross fields and streams that had also been contaminated, so some of them got sick.''
Sen. Joe Lieberman Says Visit to Colombia Reinforces Support for Herbicide Spraying (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0809-05.htm) Sample quote: Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Thursday that two days in Colombia has only reinforced his support for the U.S.-backed drug crop spraying program.
"I emerged with a strong conviction that it's the right thing, that we're protecting our national security," he said during a meeting with the international press here.
So there you have it, folks. Do not expect Colombians to fall gratefully at the feet of the USA after it has poisoned their families, land and water and driven them from barely making any sort of subsistence level living to having no living at all.
Don't be suckered by the right-wing rhetoric that's recently popped up on this board. We know that the US is not helping anyone but the ruling elite. History has taught us this lesson and current events remind us all the time that this is the case.
vox