The Vicious Circle

The Vicious Circle
The Chemical Spraying of Drug Crops in Colombia
Martin Jelsma
Deposition at the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal on Global Corporations and Human Wrongs at the University of Warwick, 22-25 March 2000

The aerial fumigation cycle causes chemical pollution affecting humans, animals and vegetation destroying the livelihoods of peasant and indigenous communities, which leads to forced migration.
The displaced move further into the rainforest accelerating the pace of deforestation. The slashed and burned plots are planted with coca or poppy for illicit cultivation. The new plots are eventually fumigated and the cycle starts all over again, exacerbating the on-going armed conflict.

In the course of the nineties more than 230.000 hectares of Colombian coca and opium poppy fields have been sprayed from the air with herbicides. Between 1992-98, 140.858 hectares of coca were dusted with 1,897.357 liter of Glyphosate, and 41.468 hectares of opium poppy were fumigated with 540.979 liter of the same chemical. (1) For 1999, a fumigation figure of over 42.000 hectares of coca and 8.000 of opium poppy was reported, and 50.000 is again set as the minimum target for the year 2000. Despite the huge areas sprayed, net coca cultivation roughly tripled over this same period. The fumigations have only accomplished setting in motion a vicious cycle of destruction. The company Monsanto, which produces the Glyphosate or "Roundup" used for the fumigations provides the key element fueling this circle in motion.

Fumigation

Aerial fumigation takes place in the context of a "drugs supply reduction" strategy, aimed at diminishing the availability of cocaine and heroin and increasing their prices on the international markets. The ultimate objective is to reduce the levels of consumption of these illegal drugs. However, the basic figures clearly show that it is not working and in fact coca production has increased threefold.
The aerial fumigations were initiated in three waves in Colombia beginning in 1978 against marihuana, again in 1992 against opium poppy and then in 1994 against coca. Spraying began initially with the herbicide Paraquat and from 1986 onwards Glyphosate was used in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, ecologically, a very sensitive area. After many protests and a long process of negotiation, the decision was reached in 1993 to exempt the Sierra Nevada from further spraying.

Reflecting on the impact of the intensive fumigation campaign, the "Pro-Sierra" Foundation working with affected communities predicted what would eventually become the pattern for opium and coca in the nineties:

"This fumigation did not result in the definitive eradication of marihuana. To the contrary, it intensified the environmental damage, affected human health and more than anything, enlarged the distance
between the peasant sector and the State with a considerable increase in social discontent. Unforeseen, the State helped to prepare the ground for the presence of several armed groups". (2)

The "coffee belt" in the Colombian Andean mountain was the stage for a new concern in the early nineties, which lead to the second wave of aerial operations. Now it is expected to counter the opium poppy boom, which is the primary material for producing heroin. (3) Some 350.000 small coffee producers, with a total workforce of two million people, saw their income dramatically fall after the end of the International Coffee Agreement (ICA) in 1989. Prices were reduced to a quarter of pre-ICA levels, causing massive job losses. As many moved uphill and cut down plots of Andean cloud forest to survive the crisis, the cultivation of opium poppy exploded -mainly in the departments of Huila, Tolima and Cauca - from an estimated 1.500 hectares in 1990 to more then 19.000 in 1992.

That year the Anti-Narcotics Police started spraying these crops with Monsanto's Roundup. In 1993, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimated that 15% of the US heroin market was supplied from Colombia, but by 1999 the amount of heroin from Colombia on the US market has risen to 60-70%. Official statistics on 1999 estimate for opium poppy an amount of 15,500 hectares of which 8000 were eradicated. (4) Poppy figures, however, are known to be highly inaccurate for two reasons. Firstly, fumigation has dispersed the cultivation into even smaller and often intercropped plots and secondly the poppy plant can be harvested in only four months after planting.

The first indications of a more serious coca boom in the Amazonic southern parts of the country became apparent in 1993. In Bolivia and Peru then the two major coca producing countries, aerial fumigation is not permitted. There was no practical experience with the chemical combat of this crop, as was the case with cannabis and poppy from earlier aerial campaigns in Mexico and Guatemala. A series of field tests carried out in Panama on coca test plots, under US supervision, demonstrated the effectiveness of Glyphosate when applied to coca bush. On the 11th of February 1994 the decision was taken by the Colombian Narcotics Council to start aerial fumigations of coca fields. At that point total extension of coca cultivation was estimated at 40.000 hectares. At present, after spraying some 183.000 hectares of coca,
according to US figures on Colombia, there are 122.500 hectares left, (5) demonstrating the futility of the spraying exercise.

Pollution

The direct environmental damage of the spraying in terms of chemical pollution of soil and water in fragile ecosystems like the Amazon rain forest and the Andean mountain cloud forests is difficult to estimate. Compared to other herbicides, Glyphosate is promoted as "mild" as it allegedly breaks down relatively quickly. However, in 1997 Monsanto was forced to remove the terms "biodegradable" and "environmentally friendly" from the Glyphosate advertisements by the New York State Attorney General. (6)

Also a major unknown factor is the precise formulation of the sprayed substance
that contains other ingredients apart from Glyphosate. (7) Another unknown stems from the flagrant violation of the recommended dosage of use in the aerial spraying with Glyphosate. After several field trials, an average of 2.5 liters/hectare of the active ingredient Glyphosate was established for the destruction of marihuana and poppy fields. The coca bush however is a much stronger plant so the dosage was set at 10.41 liters/hectare, without providing technically sound arguments, in order to obtain a sufficient "real kill percentage". (8) Today, the average amount used has increased to 13.47 liters/hectare.

Roundup is a broad-spectrum herbicide and many other plants are severely affected and often killed by the sprayings, including food crops like banana, yuca, cocoa, maiz, papaya etc. Eating such affected crops or drinking polluted water leads to a whole range of temporary health complaints by the peasant population including vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, headaches, and the long-term affects are still unknown. Pastoral land turns completely yellow but ‘recuperates' in about half a year. Young cattle, especially, are known to lose hair after eating sprayed grass. Chickens often die after drinking Roundup-polluted water. Fish are particularly vulnerable to the herbicide in sprayed pools with slow or little water movement. There are many examples of complete fish stock extinction under such circumstances. (9)

On the level of environmental impact, one of the gravest concerns is related to the severe damage the fumigations cause to one of the strategic components of the Amazon ecosystem, namely the "cananguchales". Every "cananguchal" is like an oasis in open Amazon terrain. Groups of Canangucha Palm trees form the basis for the cananguchal and are home to a range of animals and birds. Each oasis also maintains a permanent pool of water surrounding the palm trees, which is used as drinking spots by cattle and wild animals. The Canangucha Palm is honored by local indigenous peoples and is in fact their "Tree of Life".

Indigenous people have named this palm precisely because of its many uses the tree offers for their survival. Apart from providing food and drink, the leaves produce a fiber used in clothing, roof construction and the stems are used to make bottles, bags etc. Many of these "cananguchal" oases have been
affected beyond recuperation by the fumigations, either because of wind driven clouds of Glyphosate, or through the soil. The "cananguchales" are also situated at lower points in the terrain so rain and soil water currents bring Glyphosate from nearby sprayed fields. Somehow, the Glyphosate makes the palm trees lose their sponge-like abilities, causing the "cananguchales" to dry out completely leaving the vegetation animals and the micro-ecosystem to perish.

Livelihood Destruction

The illegal agricultural sector is largely a colonization-driven frontier survival economy. There is a segment of the economy that is more directly operated by drug traffickers, acting as absentee, anonymous landlords for plantations up to 150-200 hectares deep into the Amazon. But, the majority of opium poppy and coca is cultivated at small and medium sized farms by poor peasant families for whom the illicit crops constitute the only available means of survival. During the eighties and nineties rural conditions continuously worsened resulting in a mix of economic and conflict related developments.

Two key causes were the diminishing prices of agricultural products on the international markets, and a counter agrarian reform agenda. The new concentration of land was the result of a violent process in which many farmers and families were forced off their land by paramilitary groups. In the absence of viable economic alternatives and fleeing from war, hundreds of thousands took refuge in illicit agriculture production and a new colonization process was set into motion. (10)
Fumigations destroy an essential safety net. This became clearly visible between July and September 1996 when, after intensive sprayings, 240.000 people depending on the coca economy revolted with marches, road blockages and occupations throughout the country.

The fumigations even destroy the few existing serious attempts to provide legal alternatives to coca farmers through alternative development programmes. A typical example is that of Mr. Bernardo Velásquez. Nine years ago, he started to participate in a crop substitution project coordinated by the Catholic Church in the Caguán region in southern Caquetá. Amidst his three hectares of coca, he planted rubber trees and after seven years, he could finally begin to harvest the latex. This process of "natural eradication", through which the shade of the rubber trees gradually eliminates the coca bush - which needs sun to survive - had advanced so much that the coca bush could not produce the amount or concentrations of cocaine necessary for processing due to lack of photosynthesis. He replaced these coca plants with cocoa bush that grows well in the shade.

And then on the 16th of April 1998, armed helicopters appeared on the horizon, followed by the spraying airplane. In half an hour his dream was gone. The work of a whole decade with the intention of being less dependent on coca was destroyed in one sweep. The Glyphosate also sprayed his family home, his orchard and the fishpond. The week after, his children had diarrhea and were nauseous, the entire fish stock in his pond had died, the cocoa had blackened, and the rubber plantation was seriously damaged. Many rubber trees were dead and of those that survived, weakened and shriveled leaves hang down.

The only plot that recovered completely in nine months was the one-coca plot that he had kept, on reserve, beside the rubber plantation. Bernardo and his family again were forced to depend almost entirely on coca. The nearby finca of Gerardo Moreno, engaged in the same rubber conversion programme, was equally destroyed by fumigations in 1998. He did not have a spare coca field left. Yet on 12 July 1999 the remains of his finca were destroyed in another spraying operation. (11)

Not only are there many examples of direct physical destruction of alternative development projects caused by fumigations, the policy also destroys completely any possibility of achieving a climate of trust and cooperation with the involved communities, necessary for the successful implementation of development programmes. Fumigations and alternative development are simply mutually incompatible strategies.

Migration

The loss of livelihood logically leads to migration. Derived of their only means of subsistence after their coca, opium poppy and food crops have been fumigated, the population is forced to move either to urban centers or other rural areas. Not only are the peasants driven away, but also the "raspachines", the temporary workforce hired to harvest coca leaf, and the service sector that developed around the coca economy are forced to migrate. The movement towards provincial urban slums generates inhumane living conditions, unemployment and misery. Rural migration mainly means searching for available land deeper into the Amazon or higher up into the mountains, to replant illicit crops.

This is particularly dramatic since for many of those driven away by fumigations, it is the second or third time surviving this forcible displacement. In a meeting with Colombian human rights and refugee NGOs, the US State Department estimated that the intensified eradication plans for southern Colombia, to be implemented with support of the new Anti-Narcotics Army battalion, would forcibly displace some 150,000 persons from the coca growing areas. (12) The US aid package for Colombia under its heading "Push into Southern Colombia Coca Growing Areas" reserves $31 million to aid 10,000 persons
that "will be displaced by the eradication campaign. Displaced persons will receive a 90-day emergency benefits package".(13)

The migration pattern now also starts to affect Colombia's indigenous communities.
Today, areas like the Nukak Natural Reserve located in the heart of the Colombian Amazon, are under extreme pressure caused by the displacement of fumigated crops on the banks of the Inírida, Tomachipán, El Capricho, Sabanas de Fuga, etc., in the Guaviare department located north and west of the Nukak reservation. To the south, intense conflicts are detected due to fumigation displacement from Miraflores (Guaviare) toward the indigenous communities inhabiting the Vaupés. More and more this vicious cycle draws the southeastern departments in the Amazon and Orinoco basin into the geopolitics of drugs and war.
(14)

Deforestation

The search for available land by those forced to migrate is focused on moving higher up into the Andean forests, or deeper down into the Amazon forest. This means that the "slash and burn" technique is used in order to replant illicit crops deeper in the rainforest in an attempt to hide from the next round of aerial fumigations. Every replanted hectare of coca or poppy requires between one and a half and two hectares of forest to be cut. According to official statistics from July 1999 of the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

"The cultivation of the coca plant alone has since it's inception destroyed between 160.000 and 240.000 hectares of tropical jungle in the Orinoco and Amazon basins; and () 30% of annual deforestation
estimated in Colombia. In the Andean zone, the cultivation of opium poppy has destroyed approximately 60.000-100.000 hectares of Andean woodland and high Andean woodland of great ecological value, and these figures represent some 15% of the deforestation rate mentioned". (15)

As these government figures far exceed the current numbers of hectares used for illicit cultivation, one must conclude that much of the deforestation is a direct consequence of the fumigation campaign and forced repositioning of coca and poppy fields deeper into the Andean and Amazon forests.

"At this rate, Colombia's woodlands will be depleted in forty years. Such deforestation has increased the rate of extinction for many plant and animal species, many of which are endemic to the country.
Furthermore, the social and economic fabrics of indigenous peoples who inhabit the forests are rapidly being destroyed. (...) Colombia's total forest coverage accounts for 10 percent of the earth's biodiversity.
Behind Brazil, the country is considered the most bio diverse in the world". (16)

Illicit Crop Cultivation

A basic assumption underlying the fumigation strategy is that one can, by force, intervene in the workings of the illicit market thereby substantially altering the demand-supply equation by simply cutting down the latter. In reality, however, supply restores itself as long as there are places to go to and people willing to grow the crop. In the case of Colombia, the Amazon has potential growing area that is
inexhaustible, (17) and there are significant numbers of impoverished and internally displaced people desperate enough to do anything to survive. "Every hectare fumigated means a hectare substituted", says Gloria Elsa Ramírez of the environmental section of the "Defensoría del Pueblo", the governmental human rights ombudsperson. (18)

An argument often used to legitimate the fumigations is that drug crop cultivation and processing itself is far more environmentally damaging than spraying the fields. A clear example of this twisted logic comes from a UN expert group:

"The group recognized that herbicides were commercially available for the effective control of illicit cannabis, coca and opium poppy, and that these had been proven to be environmentally safe and non-toxic to humans. In view of the significant damage to the environment (including the destruction of forest ecosystems) resulting from illicit narcotic plant production, very high pesticide use and toxic extraction chemicals, the United Nations should promote and co-ordinate the use of approved herbicides for
the control of coca, cannabis and opium poppy". (19)

There is no question that drug crop cultivation and chemical processing of the raw materials into cocaine and heroin causes great environmental damage. (20) But it is clearly incoherent to argue that the current fumigation policy is an antidote to the environmental impacts made by illicit crops, when chemical spraying only aggravates, both directly and collaterally, the already negative environmental effects of illicit crops themselves. The continuous displacement of crops caused by the aerial campaign, multiplies the pace of deforestation of the Amazon and Andean mountain forests, and spreads the polluting consequences of cultivation throughout those ecological sensitive territories.

More Fumigation, etc etc....

The displaced cultivation is then again fumigated and the vicious cycle comes full circle and continues again. The USA is conscious of the statistics, but denies the basic logic fueling the cyclical dynamic. The US has pressured Colombia to step up the intensity of spraying operations. "The United States has already donated six Black Hawk UH-60 helicopters, equipped with miniguns that fire 1,200 rounds per minute, to the Colombian police to protect the eight spray planes now in action. The proposed US aid package calls for 30 more Black Hawks, for the air force and army, and 15 more spray planes". (21)

The US has also pressured Colombia to introduce a stronger and more hazardous granular herbicides into the aerial eradication program. Illegal experiments with Imazapyr and Tebuthiuron have already taken place on Colombian soil, in spite of stated opposition from the Colombian Ministry of Environment. Even the manufacturer of Tebuthiuron (Spike), Dow AgroSciences, strongly opposes its use in Colombia: "Tebuthiuron is not labelled for use on any crops in Colombia, and it is our desire that the product not be used for coca eradication as well", the company says. (22)

Monsanto, on the other hand, has not made a similar statement despite knowing that their product is being used indiscriminately in Colombia and it is in fact the fuel in this vicious circle of the destruction of livelihoods, the rainforest and sensitive ecosystems. Between 1992 and 1998, Monsanto earned USD 24'483.783 in sales of Glyphosate for coca and opium poppy eradication in Colombia. The bill was paid in total by the US government.

Recently, the pressure from the US to use granular herbicides has been offset against Colombia accepting a program aimed at testing a biological control agent. A herbicidal fungus has been developed in US laboratories with the intention of destroying the coca bush. The idea is to fumigate coca growing areas with the "Fusarium oxysporum" fungus, thus intentionally creating an epidemic that would make the Amazon soil unfit for growing coca for many, many years. This new form of bio-warfare is considered to be the potential 'silver bullet' in the War on Drugs.

Little is known still about the possible dangers of a massive introduction of mycoherbicides into the ecosystem or of their potential to attack other plant species or the health risks caused by the toxins they produce. Introducing another eradication agent, be it less or more "environmentally safe" and however more "efficient" it is thought to be, will not address or change the logic driving the illegal drugs market operating in an impoverished and war-torn society. (23)

Fumigation and Conflict

An expanding chorus of voices in Colombia is urging the government and the United States to curb the policy on aggressive spraying. The "Defensoría del Pueblo" issued a strong report denouncing the environmental and social consequences calling for a suspension of fumigations. Jorge Devia, governor of the state of Putumayo, at present the scenery for the most intensive fumigation efforts said the US‑financed aerial eradication has displaced coca farmers ever deeper into the jungle, poisoned legitimate crops and created peasant resentment that may favour leftist guerrillas. "The peasant farmers will just cut down more trees and plant more coca".

Augusto Ramirez Ocampo, former foreign minister and member of the National Peace Commission, stated: "Drug trafficking is the fuel that keeps this conflict burning. (...) Peace negotiations will have to be based on a development plan, and that plan will have to include real alternatives to narcotics cultivation". It cannot be based on crop spraying, "that hasn't worked", he added. Juan Mayr, the Environment Minister, was cited: "We can't permanently fumigate the country". The chorus of opposition is supported by Klaus Nyholm, head of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) in Colombia: "the fumigation of crops is not effective", "he said on numerous occasions, "I don't think you can spray your way out of this mess". (24)

US officials, however, refuse to listen and continue to press again that they will only maintain support for Pastrana's peace efforts under the condition of a continued aerial fumigation programme. "The anti-drug efforts between the US and Colombia, including aerial eradication, are not negotiable and will continue". "We have made clear to all parties that the peace process must not interfere with counternarcotics cooperation, and that any agreement must permit continued expansion of all aspects of this cooperation, including aerial eradication". (25)

The problem is precisely the opposite in that the counternarcotic agenda is interfering with the peace process. The simplistic electoral rhetoric in Washington calling for more helicopters and spraying planes does not begin to address the complexities of the interaction between an illegal survival economy, anti-drugs operations and the armed conflict. "It is essential to eliminate the product where it is grown. Every day we delay eliminating these drugs, another hundred or a thousand kids could be addicted". (26)

By increasing fumigations the drug warriors threaten to torpedo a historic opportunity at ending a forty-year war with a negotiated settlement. In the course of the vicious circle, human rights are being violated, the legitimacy of the state is eroded, peasant support for the guerrilla increases,
the war extends to new areas, drug production continues to fuel the war economy of both guerrilla and paramilitary forces, and the anti-drugs mission is ever more blurred with counterinsurgency objectives.

As a leading Colombian newspaper stated in an editorial:

"The relationship between the guerrilla and coca cannot be denied and has contributed like no other factor to the escalation of the Colombian conflict. However, in its urge to combat this perverse relationship, the Colombian state should avoid deepening disastrous contradictions that erode its legitimacy, that intensify the conflict or that destroy the environment even more. If there are nowadays more then 100.000 hectares of coca and the Colombian Amazon disposes of 40 million of hectares for expanding the agricultural frontier, will this spiral of fumigations ever come to an end?" (27)

References

(1) Ricardo Vargas Meza, Fumigación y Conflicto. Políticas antidrogas y deslegitimación del estado en Colombia, Tercer Mundo Editores, Bogotá November 1999, isbn 958-601-874-1. This book is the outcome of a joint Transnational Institute-Acción Andina research project on the socio-environmental consequences of aerial fumigations and their impact on the armed conflict in Colombia. Information gathered in the course of this project forms the basis for this article.
(2) Fundación Pro-Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, "Los cultivos de marihuana en la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta: una reflexión sobre los métodos de erradicación", Santa Marta, noviembre 1993.
(3) Coffee grows at an altitude between 1.200 and 1.900 m; opium poppy grows at altitudes between 1.800 and 3.000 m.
(4) Figure taken from International Narcotics Control Strategy Report 1999; Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, US Department of State Washington, DC, March 2000.
(5) INCSR 1999 (ibid 4). The Colombian government maintains for coca a figure for 1999 of 106.000 hectares.
(6) "Monsanto: A Checkered History", by Brian Tokar; The Ecologist, Vol. 28, No 5, Sept//Oct 1998.
(7) Glyphosate is a systemic, broad-spectrum herbicide, used in the control of broad-leaved shrubs and plants. It inhibits the synthesis of amino-acids. The most common formula of this herbicide used in agriculture is Roundup, which, besides the active ingredient Glyphosate, contains a variety of unlabelled "inert" ingredients, including poliethoxylated tallowamin surfactant (POEA), having an acute toxicity three times larger than Glyphosate. For more about the controversy around environmental and health risks, see: "Roundup: The World's Biggest-Selling Herbicide", by Joseph Mendelson, The Ecologist, Vol. 28, No 5, September-October 1998, pp 270-275.
(8) Ministerio de Justicia, Dirección de Estupefacientes, "Procedimientos técnico-ambientales para la erradicación de cultivos ilícitos de coca en la Amazonia y Orinoquia colombiano", Bogotá 22 November 1994.
(9) For detailed examples of all these effects, see the results of the case study undertaken by Rodrigo Velaidez in the Medio y Bajo Caguán region, in "Fumigación y Conflicto" (ibid note 1).
(10) According to figures of the "Consultoría para los Derechos Humanos y Desplazamiento" (Codhes) between August of 1994 and June 1998, no less then 726.000 people were internally displaced as a result of the war, adding to the 700.000 displaced Colombians between 1985 and 1994. For 1999 Codhes reported a number of 288,127 displaced.
(11) Personal visit to several affected fincas, in El Jordán, Jardín and Camelias, Cartagena del Chairá, Caquetá, January 1999; and a meeting in Florencia, Caquetá, December 1999. Gerardo Moreno, along with several other families in this heavily fumigated region, officially filed a suit to get compensation for their losses, which was denied. A total of at least 42 families involved in the alternative development programmes under the direction of the "San Isidro" Parish in "Remolino del Caguán" were seriously damaged.
(12) The figure was mentioned by a representative of the Bureau of Refugee Programs of the State Department, in a meeting with Colombian NGOs on 14 February 2000. El Tiempo, Bogotá 23 February 2000.
(13) "Details of $1.3b in antidrug aid to colombia prompt questions", Boston Globe, 10 February 2000.
(14) In the department of Vaupés 45.2% of the population is indigenous; in Vichada 89%, consisting of eight ethnic groups distributed into 41 reservations that occupy 34.6% of the territory; and in Guainía 50% of the populations is indigenous divided into 18 reservations.
(15) Ministry of Foreign Affiars of Colombia, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Mail for Peace No 8, 23 July 1999.
(16) Colombia's forests are the home of 55,000 plant species, one-third of which are endemic. Over 2,000 plant species have yet to be identified, and an even greater number have yet to be analyzed for potential curative purposes. The country also possesses 358 mammal species, 15 percent of the world's primates, and 18 percent of the world's birds. See: Trade and Environment Database (TED): www.american.edu/projects/mandala/TED The Foreign Ministry estimates that "210 species of mammals, 600 species of birds, 170 species of reptiles, 100 amphibious and more than 600 species of fish are potentially exposed to extinction" (ibid note 15).
(17) The total area of the Colombian Amazon is 40 million hectares, of which 29 are rainforest; the Orinoco basin covers 25 million hectares, with 3.5 of them rainforest.
(18)Olor a desierto en la Amazonia y Orinoquia, El Espectador, 16 September 1998.
(19) Report of the Expert Group Meeting on Environmentally Safe Methods for the Eradication of Illicit Narcotic Plants, held at Vienna from 4 to 8 December 1989; E/CN.7/1990/CRP.7 14 December 1989, Commission on Narcotic Drugs.
(20) The TNI-AA project report (see note 1) contains clear and new evidence of these environmental costs, largely based on a scrutinous field study undertaken by Rodrigo Velaidez in the Medio y Bajo Caguán.
(21) Associated Press, 21 February 2000.
(22) Dow AgroSciences is a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Co. Tebuthiuron granules, sold commercially as Spike 20P, should be used ""carefully and in controlled situations,"" Dow cautioned, because ""it can be very risky in situations where terrain has slopes, rainfall is significant, desirable plants are nearby and application is made under less than ideal circumstances."" See: "Colombia to Test Herbicide Against Coca Crops", The New York Times, June 20, 1998
(23) For a detailed account of the Fusarium project, see: Martin Jelsma, Fungus Versus Coca: UNDCP and the Biological War on Drugs in Colombia, TNI, February 2000.
(24) See: ""Las Farc quieren romper con narcos"", El Espectador, 26 July 1998; "Drug Eradication Programme Fails", Associated Press, 16 August, 1998; "Colombian Farmers Cultivating More Coca Crops Than Ever", The Houston Chronicle, 23 August 1998; "Colombia Fights its Dependence on Coca Economy", The Miami Herald, 31 August 1998; and "Colombia's way to halt drugs and war at once", Christian Science Monitor, 16 September 1998.
(25) Philip Chicola, director of Andean Affairs at the State Department, quoted in: "Cuatro ases de Pastrana en busca de la paz", El Espectador 5 de enero de 1999; and Statement of Rand Beers, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control. September 21, 1999
(26) Statement of chairman of the House Appropriations Committee C.W. Bill Young, (Republican, Florida), when the committee approved the emergency aid package for Colombia of $1.7 billion. Boston Globe 10 March 2000.
(27) "Editorial: De la fumigación a la sustitución", El Tiempo, Bogotá, 1 March 2000.