Fumigación y conflicto

Fumigación y conflicto
Politicas antidrogas y deslegitimación del estado en Colombia
Ricardo Vargas Meza
TNI/Acción Andina/Tercer Mundo Editores, Santafé de Bogotá, November 1999
ISBN: 958 601 8741

• Prologo: Un circulo vicioso by Martin Jelsma
• Prologue: A Vicious Circle by Martin Jelsma
• English summary: Drug Cultivation, Fumigation and the Conflict in Colombia

With 'Fumigation and Conflict - Antidrugs Politics and Delegitimation of the Colombian State' sociologist Ricardo Vargas Meza goes right into the heart of current political debates and controversies over the nature of the relationships between illicit drugs and the armed conflict in Colombia, over finding a balance between the 'carrot and the stick' in drug control policy, over key issues on the table for negotiations between the Pastrana government and the FARC guerrillas, and over the Plan Colombia - supposedly designed to financially seal a lasting peace.

The introduction of the drugs issue on the global agenda and the prohibitionist hegemony imposed on this agenda by the United States has resulted in a gradual but increasing loss of autonomy of Colombia and of its legitimacy as a state. The strategy of forced eradication of illicit crops deteriorates the social and political order of Colombia, especially in the production zones: it intensifies the armed conflict; aggravates environmental damage caused by displacement as a result of indiscriminate aerial fumigations; and harms alternative development programmes to substitute drug crops, as well as the social order of local communities. Despite the serious state of affairs, the Colombian state continues to lack the necessary political will and the basic infrastructure to weigh the real costs of 25 years of useless fumigations which has not led to a decrease of raw material for the production of illegal drugs. On the contrary, coca cultivation in Colombia has more than doubled over the last five years in spite of the fumigation programme. Nevertheless, the country continues to be caught in the vicious circle of the present day 'war on drugs' because of outside political pressure.

The report unravels with unprecedented detail and irrefutable clarity why fumigation of drug crops doesn't work; Ricardo Vargas identifies the fundamental flaws in the strategy by showing the consequences of its implementation in practice and concludes it sets in motion a destructive vicious circle. The study makes the viciousness of the circle fully apparent, in terms of its futility, its social and environmental impact and the negative consequences for state legitimacy and peace prospects. The argument often used to legitimate the fumigations, that 'drug crop cultivation and processing itself is far more environmentally damaging then spraying the fields' is convincingly countered. The report does contain clear and new evidence of the environmental damage caused by illicit cultivation, largely thanks to a scrutinous field study undertaken by Rodrigo Velaidez in the Caguán area. But at the same time it makes clear that those devastating consequences are only multiplied by the fumigations.

Ricardo Vargas' study scientifically substantiates the grave concerns already present within Colombian society over the impacts of the current policy, and that it will contribute to a change of course. He imparts information and analysis to reconsider actual drug policies and, consequently, points to the need to dispose of one of the factors that affects the internal conflict in Colombia. In synthesis: the peace process in Colombia needs a change in the actual anti-drugs strategy imposed by the United States.