For nearly a decade, the Colombian military, fed by American dollars, has used crop-dusting planes to drop a dangerous herbicide where it believes coca and poppy fields may exist. In return for that favor, the United States government is giving the friendly generals items like Blackhawk helicopters, which the military promises to use to fight bad-guy drug dealers. The spraying is one piece of the highly controversial Plan Colombia, which the U.S. government has implemented to fight the drug war in the highly unstable South American nation. But opposition is rising in Colombia to this unseemly bargain.
For example, Bogotá Judge Gilberto Reyes recently ordered that the military suspend the spraying, taking seriously the indigenous people's complaints that the herbicide, glyphosate, causes them skin irritations, itchy throats, and nausea -- not to mention loss of their banana crops when the crop dusters accidentally spray the wrong fields.
As part of his ruling, the judge asked the government for extensive information about the effect glyphosate has on humans and on the environment. Preliminary studies show that the herbicide -- manufactured by the giant American biotechnology corporation Monsanto and sold in the United States under brand names like Round Up and Rodeo -- could be deadly for humans and destructive for the environment.
After the ruling, General Gustavo Socha Salamanca, head of the Colombian government's anti-narcotics forces, said he was going to spray anyway. Salamanca had received the first three of his promised Blackhawks the Friday before his announcement. (Reyes later clarified his ruling, explaining that the government must stop spraying in "indigenous reserves," a ruling with which the government says it will comply.)
Opposition to the spraying is mounting in Colombia despite the eagerness of the military establishment of that nation to continue pleasing the U.S. State Department, says Lisa Haugaard, legislative coordinator of the advocacy organization, the Latin America Working Group. "The Colombian government wants to carry out the fumigation campaign because it's believed that U.S. military assistance is tied to the campaign," she says. On paper, the two are "not directly" tied, she adds, "but, politically, yes, they are." In fact, the Associated Press reports that U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Anne Patterson has warned that if the Colombian government ceases the spraying altogether, it could jeopardize U.S. aid to the country.
Nevertheless, the Colombians are speaking out against the spraying. Eduardo Cifuentes, that nation's Defensorio del Pueblo, or national ombudsman, has taken a strong stand against continued spraying and has issued a number of public letters and decrees. Cifuentes charges that other, less drastic methods can be applied to eradicate the coca, and that alternative development plans could provide the small growers with legal ways to earn their living.
In July, the Controller General of Colombia issued a damning letter about the spraying, and just last week, two governors from the regions suffering the spraying came to Washington to make their case against it in person.
"Opposition is rising, certainly," says Haugaard. "That's just the official level of opposition. There's also a popular level of opposition. In Cauca, for example, a largely indigenous area, there are indigenous groups threatening to block the Pan American Highway if fumigation is not suspended."
Resistance is increasing because in recent years, the anti-narcotics forces have stepped up their spraying efforts. Since December, Colombian crop dusters have chemicalized at least 125,000 acres of southern Colombia with glyphosate. Some very rough estimates -- the only kind available -- indicate that as many as 40,000 indigenous people have been displaced by spraying in the last six months.
At the same time, research has been uncovering the dangers of the herbicide. Researchers in Sweden have drawn a correlation between herbicides and the alarming rise in non-Hodgkins lymphoma (a 73 percent increase in the United States since 1973). The European magazine New Scientist wrote that a group of patients studied were "2.3 times more likely to have had contact with glyphosate . . . The researchers suggest that the chemicals have suppressed the patients' immunity, allowing viruses such as Epstein-Barr to trigger cancer."
According to the Inter Press Service, "[Glyphosate] is an herbicide classified as a Category III Toxin, which calls for caution in handling because it can cause gastro-intestinal problems, vomiting, swelling of the lungs, pneumonia, mental confusion, and destruction of the red corpuscles in mucus membrane tissues."
When the U.S. military sprayed heavy doses of the herbicide Agent Orange in Vietnam to eradicate plant cover, people believed it was harmless to humans. But many Vietnam veterans now believe they suffer the effects of poisoning. Recently, environmental groups and groups representing the indigenous people of Colombia have begun drawing comparisons between Agent Orange and glyphosate.
"More than 15 scientific studies have linked Parkinson's disease in people to environmental conditions such as working in the agricultural or chemical industries," writes ecologist David Suzuki. And in Living Downstream, biologist Sandra Steingraber explains that dogs exposed to herbicides applied as weed killer to suburban lawns were "significantly more likely to be diagnosed with canine lymphoma than dogs whose owners did not use weed killers. Risk rose with number of applications. . . The incidence of lymphoma doubled among pet dogs whose owners applied lawn chemical at least four times a year."
Evidence about glyphosate's environmental destructiveness has also been rolling in. Like Agent Orange, glyphosate is a "non-selective" herbicide, which makes it particularly dangerous. The compound interrupts a biological process endemic to almost all plants, so that almost all plants that are dusted with the chemical are destroyed. As a result, there are bound to be a slew of indirect environmental problems. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has suggested there might be a correlation between the use of the herbicide and the disappearance of the Houston toad. David Olsen of the World Wildlife Fund and Luis Naranjo of the American Bird Conservancy point out the obvious: The eradication of plant cover in an area means the eventual eradication of all the animals as well.
There is enough evidence that glyphosate spraying can cause serious health problems and harm the environment that the growing opposition is well justified. The United States should ask the Colombian government to stop the spraying -- not reward the dangerous practice.
