Colombia, as a country that produces coca leaf and poppy, has engaged in intense fumigation through aerial spraying with the herbicide glyphosate since 1992; aerial spraying of marijuana crops dates back to 1978. At the same time, and in violation of provisions on environmental security and standards for herbicide use, Colombia has been a laboratory for experimenting with other chemicals for eradicating illicit crops, such as Paraquat (1978), Trichlopyr (1985), and granulates such as Tebuthiuron (1986) and Imazapyr (1998).
Despite the fumigation of coca and poppy from 1992 to 1999, crops which extend over the equivalent of 230,000 hectares - i.e. more than two-and-a-half million liters of glyphosate have been sprayed - Colombia is today the world's leading producer of coca, and has a significant area under poppies, used for the production of heroin. For example, in 1997, Colombia fumigated the equivalent of more than 50% of the coca crops, yet this had no impact whatsoever on the total area planted in coca the following year (see Table 1). Despite the intensity of the fumigation, the total area planted continued to grow.
The situation is paradoxical, considering that Peru, which was the leading world producer of coca leaf in 1992, reduced its coca crop from 155,000 ha in 1992 to 51,000 ha in 1998 without dumping a single liter of glyphosate on Peruvian soil. We know that the anti-drug policy was not the cause of this reduction. The change merely reflected the change in the monopolistic structure of the drug trafficking business that had been prominent up to mid-1995, when the main supplier of coca paste for the Colombian cartels was Peru. The structural change in drug trafficking meant moving from the centralized model to the decentralized, flexible structures of the today's organizations that export drugs from Colombia, who obtain the raw materials they need within Colombia: This is the stimulus to the current demand for coca paste and poppy latex.
Despite these realities, Colombia is preparing to repeat yet again a policy that has failed repeatedly for over 20 years. Prompted by the drug control authorities of the United States, Colombia is preparing to undertake a large-scale campaign of chemical spraying, apparently with a new commercial formulation of glyphosate, and has maintained its willingness to research and carry out trials involving the propagation of plant diseases to combat coca under the erroneous name of "biological control". As a result of more than two decades of fumigation, the areas where illicit crops are grown have moved to environmentally fragile areas in both the Amazon basin and the Andean and high Andean forest, which are strategic areas for the water cycle.
With this movement, there has been a proliferation of environmental impacts, and the social question has been aggravated in the face of the hard fact that hundreds of thousands of Colombians derive their income from that economy.
With no prospects for success, the re-militarization of the zones of production, the greater emphasis being placed on the weakest link in the chain, the indiscriminate macro-fumigation, and in general the offensive in areas under the control of the insurgency will all tend to escalate the conflict. As a result, the civilian population in these areas will be pushed under the control of the guerrillas, and will be under pressure to displace or take up arms, further de-legitimizing the Colombian state, and therefore the private powers that have been taking the place of the incapacity of state power to control the gravity of the situation will be strengthened. The unarmed population will be subject to those who wield the weapons and economic power.
More serious, the intertwining of this scenario with the unstable situation in the Andean region, and irresponsible decisions, such as propagating plant diseases in the Amazon region, may regionalize the conflict; this scenario confers legitimacy on the concerns of neighboring governments. In this context, no similarity can be found between the initial idea of what had been dubbed a "Marshall Plan for Peace" and Plan Colombia. The metamorphosis of Plan Colombia has led it to become a war plan. The paradox is that it is precisely the narcotics traffickers who will not be affected by this strategy.
On situating this question in the context of the degradation of the war in Colombia, and even if the significant areas of illicit crops under guerrilla control in southern Colombia were eradicated, those same areas will be replaced in northern Colombia (Catatumbo, northern Antioquia, Bolívar, and the middle Magdalena valley), under paramilitary control. Approximately 40% of total coca production is already in those regions. Yet in the debate on the anti-drug assistance for Colombia on Capitol Hill, no one spoke of a "push into northern Colombia". We know that it is not the solution either. The solution is to discuss and adopt policies that consider the complex dimensions of drug trafficking in the peace scenarios, and to do so with the participation of Colombian civil society. At the same time, clarity is needed, from the Colombian perspective and in the context of the peace process, as to what the responsibility of the international community should be? And what does that imply with respect to an aid policy?
A first step for clearly addressing the problem would be to stop reducing the drug economy to the illicit crops, as Plan Colombia does. Drug-trafficking capital continues to wield considerable power and influence in Colombia and internationally, as it is able to meet its need for raw materials to be processed into psychoactive substances for which there is a demand in world markets. Meanwhile, the offensive that is planned will have the greatest impact on the most socially sensitive parts of the drug-trafficking chain, which have the least impact on it. For these reasons, and given the evidence of yet another failure in the supply reduction policy, the social organizations of the areas dependent on this economy have made specific proposals to the anti-drug authorities for a more realistic approach to the problem:
1. Develop actions that guarantee protection for the life and personal integrity of the civilian population in the midst of the war, and prevent the mounting degradation and escalation of the armed conflict, so as to build confidence among the parties; these should be aimed at creating the conditions for facilitating a cease-fire.
2. Give new impetus to the conversations aimed at securing a negotiated solution to the conflict, in an effort to put in place a Peace Plan as an alternative to the military offensives featured in Plan Colombia. Such a process should include an assessment of the drug problem and possible solutions; the participation of the society in the regions with problems associated with the monoculture of illicit crops should be facilitated in that context.
3. Immediately halt the aerial fumigation and forced eradication generally. This is a necessary condition for building trust between the state and the communities, and for adopting agreements to implement viable alternatives, sustainable in the medium and long term, to the illicit crops. Simultaneous with suspension of the fumigation campaigns, a process is needed to evaluate the drug policy implemented in Colombia over the last 25 years, aimed at designing a new approach, based on the results of the assessment. The assessment should incorporate the trends in the international drug policy debate.
4. Abandon any and all research efforts, tests, or application of biological agents to destroy the illicit crops, mindful that their use is tantamount, first of all, to creating biological weapons directed against a crop, and not against a pest or weeds; and second, the introduction of biological weapons in the Colombian armed conflict means yet another military instrument with devastating consequences for the environment. Decisions to spread pathogens as instruments of destruction, and which will end up aggravating the problems sought to be resolved, also violate the constitutional guarantees that protect the rights to health, the production of food, and a healthy environment, and are a breach of the limits established at Article 81 of the Constitution, which prohibits the manufacture, import, possession, or use of biological and nuclear weapons.
5. As an alternative to chemical and biological fumigation, consideration should be given to analyzing manual eradication techniques, so long as their use is voluntary, agreed upon with the communities, gradual, and conditioned on sustainable economic investment as well as social and cultural investment. Actions are needed to help generate the social fabric, to strengthen an ethic based on respect for life and human dignity, and that fosters the creation of full guarantees for applying prompt and effective justice.
6. Recognize and specify the regions that have a problem of dependency on a single-crop illegal economy, making findings as to the social and economic causes that bring pressure to bear to establish such illicit structures, which should be addressed as a basis of a solution, and develop pilot programs that provide real support to manual eradication initiatives agreed upon with the communities.
7. For their part, the alternative plans should be considered under the search for self-reliance with respect to food production, and should promote investment in those crops that generate surpluses and for which there are good market conditions. To this end, land and environmental management processes should be the basis for determining the biophysical conditions for establishing viable alternatives in the medium and long term.
8. In preparing the alternative proposals, one must recognize that the illicit crops are in areas that are extremely fragile, environmentally, both in the moist forest and in Andean and high Andean forests. The depredation of these ecosystems as more and more crops are grown to meet the world demand for illicit drugs is a cost borne by the countries of the south, giving rise to an environmental debt that should be addressed under a scheme of international co-responsibility, supporting the re-establishment of environmental equilibria.
Normally, these areas are characterized by ethnic and cultural diversity and the presence of complex ecosystems that are fundamental for environmental balance. These areas require policies that take into account these characteristics, and decisions that guarantee:
- The collective nature of the traditional knowledge of the indigenous peoples;
- The right of the indigenous peoples to control and protect their resources and traditional knowledge;
- The intrinsic relationship between indigenous territories and traditional knowledge;
- The principle of informing communities, beforehand, of any plan that affects their territory;
- Legal protection, both national and international, of the cultural legacy of the indigenous peoples; to this end, a moratorium should be put in place on bioprospecting, and on access to and use of traditional knowledge.
In addition, one must guarantee that the benefits obtained by the research developments and the sustainable use of biodiversity flow back to the communities in the environmentally fragile areas, to generate alternatives to the extractive economies.
9. Clear distinctions should be drawn between small and large producers of illicit crops. In the case of the small producers, the criterion should be the will to make a change away from the illegal economy; the existence and commitment of the community organizations in that process of change; recognizing it as part of the solution through decisions such as decriminalization; and framing development policies aimed at peaceful solutions with the consensus of the communities affected. The search for alternatives will not be concluded in the short term. Therefore, development solutions should not be conditioned on prior total eradication of the illicit crops; instead, minimal areas for subsistence should be agreed upon, which will gradually be replaced by alternative crops. Citizen oversight mechanisms should be set up to ensure compliance with the programs.
10. The process of community organizing should be strengthened at the municipal and departmental levels, to help coordinate local responses, including manual eradication, implemented gradually, and with economic and social investments that recognize the social, political, and cultural diversity of the regions. One must recognize not only the existence of the many ethnic groups, cultures, interests, and world views that are expressed in the local construction of "Life Plans". In general, these dimensions are ignored by the representatives of the central state, which seeks to make homogenous economic and social proposals, without any attention to such recognition as contemplated in the National Constitution. Alternative development should incorporate the perspectives, interests, and world views of the communities and their ways of appropriating and managing their environment.
11. The weight of structural problems in the question of the illicit crops must be acknowledged. First, a comprehensive agrarian reform is needed to transform the current structure of land tenure, developed within the agricultural frontier, based on criteria of sustainability. In this connection, the concentration of landholdings that has resulted in the laundering of assets obtained from drug trafficking should be addressed by any agrarian reform. With this in mind, consideration should be given to implementing Law 333 of 1996. At the same time, comprehensive rural and social development policies are needed that seek to impact on the causes of migrations of peasants and urban dwellers, with no job or income, who seek alternative and immediate solutions to their problems.
12. The concept of international co-responsibility needs to be re-defined, and it needs to be acknowledged that the solution cannot continue to be resources for military support, or alternative development merely as a complement to the forceful actions, while the producer countries are hard hit by the implementation of the drug war. Co-responsibility should be based on drawing a clear distinction among the levels of the drug circuit: In the first place, the level of production related to the socioeconomic problem, as expressed in the small producers and indigenous communities.
In the second place, the drug-trafficking business, which encompasses activities such as the laundering of assets in the international financial system; the contraband of arms and chemical inputs for processing the psychoactive substances; the contraband of commonly-used merchandise to launder illegal resources, benefitting large multinationals; and illegal prostitution networks and other illicit enterprises. All of these are activities based primarily in the countries of the north, which should be subject to law enforcement actions in a framework of international co-responsibility.
In the third place, the problem of drug abuse as a matter for public health policy must be distinguished. In this regard, actions should be stepped up aimed at reducing the harm caused by drugs and by policies that criminalize addiction. Decisions from the "zero tolerance" perspective end up aggravating health problems to the extent that their decisions are based on the irrational criminalization of consumption. Co-responsibility in this respect should be aimed at developing cooperation policies that address the problem as a health issue.
13. Based on the foregoing criteria and proposals, the international community should adopt a new approach to solutions different from the counternarcotics policy that has been in place a long time, yet without showing results to justify its continuation. Colombian society, and the communities dependent on monoculture in this economy inn particular, have shown their will to change, through repeated negotiations with the state, yet have been met with long-standing failure by the state to perform, and subject to repression, as in the case of the peasant marches of 1996. The present circumstances of the peace talks are a timely moment for seeking viable, sustainable solutions based on respect for the life and dignity of persons who for economic and social reasons have been forced to depend on this activity.
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