An August 6 press release issued by Bogota paper 'El Espectador' announced the start of fumigation of coca crops in the Putumayo zone as part of “Operation Onix IV”. This operation is part of a regional plan to eradicate coca plants supported by the U.S government, in cooperation with the governments ofColombia, Ecuador, Perú, Bolivia and Brazil. The coca plant is important to the cultures of many indigenous peoples of the region. Coca leaves have nutritive and medicinal value, in addition to the sacred value that the plant has carried since at least the time of the Incas. Many indigenous communities are concerned about the effects the toxic chemicals will have on humans and other crops.
Evo Morales, an Aymara leader who came in second place in this month's presidential elections in Bolivia, has said that “the use of coca as part of our culture -to chew as stimulant and to quell hunger- has been central. Its eradication is a violation of sovereignty,” he has claimed, “and American-financed programs to wipe out the crop are a smokescreen to take over the nation.”
The risks posed by the program to the physical and economic well-being of the local population have been dismissed as negligible by U.S. officials. These statements, however, are difficult to square with stories such as that of San Francisco 2, an Ecuadorian Amazon town inhabited by 2,000 Quechua. The town is located on the border with Colombia, and the wind blows the U.S.-manufactured herbicides intended for coca plants in Colombia to their fields.
“This liquid comes out and covers verything,” said Mr. Tanquila, who is the president of the Indigenous Association of San Francisco 2. “It wrecks our agriculture. It affects everything we grow.” Local residents argue that the herbicide kills crucial crops such as coffee, yucca and mango, and could potentially pollute water supplies. There have been many reported cases of illnesses and diseases in people exposed to the chemicals. Quechua Judith Rodriguez came down with a strange fever upon exposure. She told reporters, “I have body aches and intense headaches. I had rashes on my skin.” San Francisco 2 residents have filed a class-action lawsuit in Washington D.C. against the Virginia-based DynCorp and DynCorp International, headquartered in Ft. Worth. Dyn Corp oversees the aerial spraying operations in Colombia.
Military actions undertaken in conjunction with the spraying are also a source of concern. The residents of Chapare, a Quechua and Aymara town in Chimore, Bolivia, can attest to this troubling facet of the eradication program. Eighteen months ago the Expeditionary Task Force, an armed unit of 1,500 former Bolivian soldiers, with the financial and logistic support of the U.S. government, arrived in Chapare. Since then, many human rights abuses by the military have been documented and denounced by indigenous organizations, scholars, professionals and national and international organizations.
A U.S. official summed up the cold logic of such operations thus: “You have to understand, in Chapare, we are dealing with something like the Soviet Union in the 1930's. These are Marxists and communists, they are dangerous for both (the United States) and Bolivia. But there's an added problem. They are also narco-traffickers.”
U.S. funding for the coca eradication programs is close to $15.4 billion. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has stipulated that the process of eradication “must meet the same health and safety regulations that would apply if the herbicides were being sprayed in the United States.” The mixture used in Colombia carries handling instructions that correspond to the highest EPA toxicity rating, Class 1, while most conventional herbicide products used in the United States (such as Roundup) fall into the more benign Class 2 or 3. Many argue that even if the product were proven to be safe there is no way to ensure that it is applied in other countries according to EPA standards.
Meanwhile indigenous leaders of the Putumayo region in Colombia declare that they are not drug traffickers and must not be treated as such. They seek recognition from their own governments and from the U.S. of the significance of coca for their own cultures and local economies, and also action to address the very real dangers posed by the spraying. “We are willing and committed to being part of the solution to the problem,” they have stated, “but we demand that the government and the police force also comply” with the needs of their communities.
