PANNA: Casualties of the "War on Drugs": Traditional farms destroyed with herbicides

In June 1999, the Colombian government began a program of aerial spraying over the homes and farms of the Yanacona indigenous community in the Macizo Colombiano region, Cauca province. Intended to destroy small crops of opium poppy, the raw material used to make heroin, herbicides containing glyphosate(1) were sprayed indiscriminately over houses, community centers, schools, water sources, grazing areas and workers in the fields. The spraying destroyed crops and pasture lands the Yanacona depend on for food and income. Fish and chickens died, other farm animals became ill, and both adults and children suffered symptoms of pesticide poisoning.

The current spraying is one of the latest in a long series of drug crop eradication programs in Colombia that have disrupted ecosystems and damaged food crops without halting the steady increase in production of drug crops. While the U.S. State Department argues crop eradication is key to halting the flow of illegal drugs out of Colombia, the main effect of the aerial spraying has been to destabilize communities that are already victims of extreme poverty and political violence. Resources that go into forcible crop eradication should be used instead to help small farmers start growing alternative crops.

Drug crops in Colombia

Colombia produces three illicit drug crops: marijuana, coca and opium poppy. Coca is a traditional crop in the Andes, grown in small quantities and used in leaf form to depress hunger and thirst, and for ceremonial and medicinal purposes. Commercial production for processing into cocaine began in the mid-1970s and has increased dramatically; Colombia is now the world's largest producer of cocaine.(2) Large-scale production of opium poppy did not begin until 1990, but it too has grown rapidly; Colombia is now the primary supplier of heroin to the eastern United States.(3)

Drug crops in Colombia are produced both by large-scale, commercial growers and by campesino (peasant) farmers on small plots of land. Both small- and large-scale drug crop production have led to substantial deforestation. In Colombia, coca production is responsible for the destruction of an estimated 240,000 hectares of tropical forest, and opium poppy has claimed 70,000 to 100,000 hectares of Andean forest land.(4) These patterns have been exacerbated by the aerial spraying campaigns, which have pushed drug cultivation into remote and previously undisturbed areas. Small farmers who are dependent on income from drug crops face a bleak set of options when their crops are eradicated. Some move to urban slums seeking work; many plant crops again in new locations or become day laborers on commercial drug crop plantations.(5) While some succeed in creating a livelihood based on legal crops, the odds are against them and government support for the transition is erratic at best.

U.S.-sponsored crop eradication

The U.S. government has actively pushed Colombia, as well as other countries, to use broad-spectrum herbicides against illegal drug crops. As long ago as 1978, Congress provided four helicopters to the Mexican government to spray marijuana and poppies with the herbicide paraquat, thus launching an "antidrug air force" that later expanded to other countries including Colombia.(6) Often support for the "war on drugs" is difficult to distinguish from U.S. involvement in national civil wars. Ostensibly combatting marijuana and poppy production, U.S. pilots sprayed glyphosate and 2,4-D over the jungle of Guatemala during the brutal counter-insurgency campaign there in the 1980s; and the U.S. has sponsored spraying with herbicides, including 2,4-D, by the repressive government in Burma.(7) The U.S. "anti-drug" funding in Colombia goes to support a military force notorious for assassinations and human rights abuses.(8)

In addition to glyphosate, the State Department has pressed the Colombian government to use the herbicide Spike (active ingredient tebuthiuron) against coca and poppy crops. Available in granular form, Spike can be applied from higher altitudes than glyphosate, making it easier to spray in areas where hostile gunfire is likely.(9 )Tebuthiuron is used in the U.S. to kill vegetation in rangeland, near railroads and industrial facilities, and in other uncultivated areas such as airports and landing fields and non-agricultural rights-of-way. Tebuthiuron is persistent in the environment and mobile, making it likely to contaminate groundwater.(10) These characteristics make the herbicide particularly inappropriate for use in humid tropical environments. When the U.S. State Department attempted to initiate an aerial spraying program with Spike in the late 1980s, the head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's narcotics lab resigned in protest and Spike's manufacturer actually refused to sell the herbicide to the government for use against drug crops.(11) Undaunted by these setbacks, the U.S. State Department has continued to push for experimental spraying with tebuthiuron.(12)

The previous Colombian president, with support of NGOs including RAPALMIRA (PAN-Colombia), had opposed use of tebuthiuron. However, just prior to the end of his administration, the president authorized experimental spraying in 1998; the authorization is still in effect.

Colombian policy on spraying

The attitude of the Colombian government officials toward the aerial sprayings has fluctuated over time. Colombia came under pressure from the U.S. to undertake an aerial spraying crop eradication program as early as 1981. Despite significant public concern about the risks of such a program, the government approved the spraying of glyphosate in 1984. In 1986, a plan for the eradication of coca and marijuana was suspended due to environmental and health concerns, but in the following years spraying resumed. In 1992, a former president, Misael Pastrana Borrero, organized a campaign to force the government to suspend glyphosate spraying against poppy crops, but was unsuccessful.

In 1995, President Ernesto Samper ensured that the spraying would continue in his President's Plan for Alternative Development. Known as "PLANTE," this initiative promised to create alternative economic options for small farmers involved in drug production. Even its initial mission statement, however, emphasized crop eradication as the primary tool that would open the way for alternative economic development. Herbicide spraying increased dramatically under President Samper, whose declared goal was to eliminate all illicit crops within two years. The current president, Andrés Pastrana Arrango, who had protested the spraying of glyphosate in earlier campaigns, has allowed it to continue unabated under his administration.

Crop eradication with herbicides: expensive and ineffectual

Between 1990 and 1998, the U.S. provided some US$625 million to the Colombian National Police and the Colombian military for aircraft, weapons, ammunition and other support for the war on drugs. Beginning in 1996, the U.S. State Department identified herbicide spraying to eradicate opium poppy crops as a priority; the cost of this undertaking for fiscal year 1999 may be as high as US$68 million.(13) Yet the war on drugs is not only inhumane but actually counterproductive. According to conservative estimates, the area in Colombia planted with illegal crops increased by almost 400% between 1978 and 1998.(14) Between 1996 and 1998, despite consistent spraying, coca production in Colombia increased by 50% and poppy production remained approximately constant.(15)

Rather than ending drug crop production, forcible eradication serves to displace the crops from one location to another. Decreasing coca production in Peru and Bolivia has been mirrored by rising production in Colombia.(16)

June 1999: spraying of Yanacona Farms

Faced with illnesses and the loss of crops, the Yanacona indigenous community sent a delegation to meet with the Governor of Cauca this June, demanding a stop to the spraying of their community. At this meeting they were informed that glyphosate was not dangerous and that the spraying had been carried out with health department approval. The Governor did agree, however, that a fact finding commission would visit the community to verify the damage reported by the Yanacona delegation. This commission was to include representatives of the provincial government, the attorney general's office, the Environmental Commission of the Antinarcotics Police and the Red Cross. Some 1,500 members of the Yanacona community, along with invited observers, assembled on the designated day to present their testimony and engage in dialogue with the commission. Rather than the full commission that had been promised, just two representatives of the provincial government came to the meeting. Nonetheless, the Yanacona presented their testimony.(17)

Yanacona testimony

Men and women talked about their experience of being "sprayed like flies" and becoming ill. Mothers reported on illnesses among children, including respiratory distress, rashes, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, migraines and conjunctivitis. One child had lost consciousness temporarily. One pregnant mother with five children testified that all her children are sick and her livelihood has been destroyed, leaving her with no way to provide for them.

Others reported that their pastures were destroyed and their cattle became ill. The spraying has destroyed the crops they grow to feed their families, including corn, potatoes, peas, onions, cilantro and cabbage. The destruction of pasture land also means that people have nothing to feed the guinea pigs that they raise for food. To make things worse, the spraying has affected the Yanacona's ability to sell their farm products. Customers are unwilling to purchase the products, or pay only very low prices, for fear of possible pesticide contamination. The sale price of milk and cheese has fallen by 50% or more, because customers are afraid the cows have drunk contaminated water.

A Yanacona man's farm was destroyed by the crash landing of a crop duster in his pasture; now he has no food for himself or his animals. His farm had no poppies. In fact, the majority of the farms that have been sprayed do not grow poppies. The indigenous community has concluded that either the pilots do not know how to recognize poppy plants or they cannot see the crops from their planes.

Alternative development projects destroyed

Meanwhile, in towns such as Albania, Caquetá province, and Macizo Colombiano in Cauca spraying with glyphosate has undone the successes of small farmers who were working to establish ecologically and economically sound alternatives to drug crops. Caquetá, for example, is one of Colombia's principal coca producing zones. With funds from PLANTE, as well as church and NGO support, a group of farmers has been working to create a secure source of income that will release them from their dependence on coca production. They have designed intercropped gardens of native species, pasture areas with tree cover, and small-scale fish farming. Despite their efforts, these farmers have now become the victims of indiscriminate spraying. The herbicide is killing the seedlings in their nurseries and crops in their fields, contaminating their water and making adults and children sick. They are seeking help from the International Red Cross to set up a forum in which to present testimony on what they have experienced.(18)

Protests and proposals

Galvanized into protest in 1996, victims of the aerial spraying campaigns held demonstrations in the provinces of Caquetá, Putumayo and Guaviare. The Colombian army blocked roadways and cordoned off public parks to restrain the demonstrators. In the following year, many of the protestors made specific proposals for ways the government could work with them to reduce coca production. Small farmers in four municipalities of the province of Guaviare, for example, presented a series of proposals for aid that would allow them to end their dependence on coca for income.

Farmers from the Guayabero River Zone, which currently produces plantain, yucca and sugar cane, requested infrastructure for schools and fish farming. They also requested help in creating orchards to produce tangerines, lemons, papaya, guava and other fruits. Farmers from the Inirida River Zone asked for help in setting up roads, sanitary services and rural telephone service as well as irrigation systems for their orchards and subsistence crops. Residents of the Municipality of Miraflores, where sugar cane, rice, soybeans, sesame and cacao and other crops are currently produced on plantations, would like to create a Campesino Reserve Zone where they will have the freedom to produce fruit, vegetables and other crops, such as cashews, on a small scale. In return for assistance with the proposed development projects, the community will commit itself to protecting water resources, controlling deforestation and discontinuing drug crop cultivation.(19)

Herbicides are not the solution

Some proponents argue that the spraying programs are simply the lesser of two evils: herbicides may be bad for people and the environment, but so is the drug trade. In fact, crop eradication through the aerial spraying of herbicides serves to exacerbate the environmental and social problems associated with drug cultivation. Rather than discouraging drug crop production, it pushes drug crops further into previously undisturbed forest. Rather than promoting the transition to other crops, it destroys and contaminates the non-drug agricultural activities on which many small farmers depend for their daily food. Even projects set up specifically to promote the transition away from drug production have been disrupted by the spraying. And as increasing resources have been devoted to crop eradication, the volume of the drug trade in Colombia has risen. A war waged with herbicides is clearly not the solution to the drug problem.

RAPALMIRA is calling for the immediate suspension and long-term prohibition of aerial spraying to eradicate drug crops, and for the implementation of a genuine program of alternative, sustainable development.

Elsa Nivia is an agronomist and Coordinator of RAPALMIRA. Rachel Massey is a graduate student at Princeton University and an intern at PANNA.

Notes

1. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup. Exposure to glyphosate-containing products can produce symptoms including eye and skin irritation, headache, nausea, numbness, elevated blood pressure, and heart palpitations. The surfactant used in Roundup is more acutely toxic than glyphosate itself; the combination of the two is yet more toxic. See National Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP) glyphosate fact sheet, 1999, reproduced in the Global Pesticide Campaigner 9:1, April 1999, pp. 12-19.

2. General Accounting Office (GAO), Drug Control: Narcotics Threat from Colombia Continues to Grow (GAO/NSIAD-99-136). Washington, DC: GAO, June 1999.

3. del Olmo, Rosa. "Herbicidas y derechos humanos en América Latina." Memorias del III Encuentro Latinoamericano de la Red de Acción en Plaguicidas de América Latina (RAPAL). Ecuador: Fundación Natura de Ecuador, 1989; GAO 1999, op. cit.

4. Zornoza Bonilla, Juan Antonio. "Erradicación de cultivos ilícitos en Colombia: Intervención de la dinámica conflictiva." Paper presented at the National Environmental Conference Ambiente para la Paz, Colombia, July 1998.

5. Vargas Meza, Ricardo. "Cultivos Ilícitos y Desarrollo Alternativo en un contexto de Paz y Desarrollo en Colombia." Paper presented at the National Environmental Conference Ambiente para la Paz, Colombia, July 1998.

6. del Olmo 1989, op. cit.

7. McConahay, Mary Jo and Robin Kirk. "Over There: America's Drug War Abroad." Mother Jones February/March 1989, pp. 37-42; data collected by the Central American University Confederation (CSUCA), 1987. (2,4-D was a component of Agent Orange, the defoliant used in the Vietnam War. See 2,4-D Toxicology Fact Sheet, p. 14 of this issue.)

8. GAO, op. cit. Cockburn, Alexander, "Colombia: Our Next Guatemala?" The Nation, vol 269:6, August 23/30, 1999, p.8. Powers, John, 1999. "Colombia: The U.S. military is in danger of going to war on the wrong side," One World (http://www.oneworld.net/anydoc.cgi?url=http://www.oneworld.org/analysis/jonatpower/11aug99.html). U.S. drug czar, Barry McCaffrey has stated that heroin production is increasing and "enormous" drug resources are going to leftist guerrillas. He recently urged the U.S. to boost its anti-narcotics spending in the Andean region to US$1 billion, with nearly a third of the funds to go to Colombia. Gray, Kevin, 1999, "U.S. Czar: No U.S. Military in Colombia," Asociated Press, August 27.

9. Joyce, Stephanie. "Environmental Casualties of the War on Drugs." Environmental Health Perspectives 107:2, February 1999, p. A74.

10. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Reregistration Eligibility Decision (RED) fact sheet, 1994

11. Massing, Michael. "Coke Dusters: The Air War on Drugs." The New Republic 200:5, 1989, p. 21.

12. Joyce 1999; Sequera, Vivian. "Colombia Shelves Drug Crop Chemical." Associated Press, September 14, 1998.

13. GAO 1999, op. cit.

14. Data presented in the National Environmental Congress of Guaduas, July 1998. Ramirez, Constanza and Alfredo Molano, "Estructura agraria, conflictos armados, cultivos ilícitos y medio ambiente," in Ministry of the Environment and ECOFONDO, Memorias Congreso Nacional Ambiental "Ambiente para la Paz." Guaduas: Cundinamarca, 1998, pp. 125-146.

15. GAO 1999, op. cit.

16. Kraus, Clifford. "Coca Cultivation Surges in Peru after 4-Year Lull." San Francisco Chronicle, August 19, 1999, p. A10; McFarren, Peter. "U.S. Drug Official Praises Bolivia." Associated Press, August 25, 1999.

17. Information presented here on the current predicament of the Yanacona community is based on Yanacona testimony and events witnessed by Elsa Nivia.

18. Castaño, Guillermo. University of Santa Rosa de Cabal (UNISCARC), personal communication, August 1999

19. These proposals are reproduced in detail in Zornoza 1998, op. cit.