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[This article was written in collaboration with AlterNet and originally appeared here.]
No more of this. (wikipedia.org)
The US has paid for the program as part of its multi-billion dollar, decades-long anti-drug campaign in the country that had been (and might be again) the world's largest coca and cocaine producer. US contractors paid by the State Department do some of the spraying.
Santos acted a little more than a month after the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the herbicide is probably carcinogenic and days after the Colombian Health Ministry, citing the WHO report, recommended that the program be halted.
Critics of the spraying program had complained for years that the herbicide not only killed coca crops, but also injured people, livestock, and other plant life exposed to it. Those claims got some backing last year when Daniel Mejia, chairman of an expert panel advising the Colombian government on its drug strategy, published research showing high rates of skin problems and miscarriages in areas sprayed with glyphosate.
The move comes in the midst of peace talks between the Santos government and the rebels of the FARC (Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces), who have been in rebellion against the government in Bogota for more than 50 years. The two sides had already agreed that aerial eradication should be used only as a last resort.
It was the strength of the rebels around the turn of the century that was a principal reason for the resort to aerial spraying. Their presence in coca-growing areas, where guerrilla fighters protected the crops, made manual eradication risky. At least 62 manual eradicators -- 48 of them soldiers -- have been killed since 2009 and nearly 400 injured, most of them the victims of guerrilla groups.
Colombian coca cultivation had declined for the previous six years, but jumped 39% last year, according to a US government report that came out last week. The conveniently timed report, which blamed the increase on new cultivation outside areas where aerial eradication was allowed, failed, however, to stop the Colombian government from suspending the program.
Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
Comments
it feels really good to stop hitting one's self with a hammer!
"Finally" is right!!
Now, only decades of intractable heath problems and environmental damage to deal with.
What makes us, as human beings, so goddamn stupid that we would spray that shit from helicopters in the first place? Well, I'll tell you: money. What else could it be? On that scale of human activity, we appear to have no conscience, insatiable greed, and little intelligence. Evil and Stupid, a lethal and repugnant combination.
And so, here we are now, pleasantly surprised when we find we are not behaving foolishly!
But I'll take it!!
My Thanks go out to all who have labored to end this so-called war on drugs.
coca spraying madness
Coca--a venerable and revered sacrament that has been used for thousands of years--being sprayed by fucking insane ,evil, hypocritic bastards who all deserve to be in jail and all their possessions payed out to drug war victims. Monsanto should be dismantled and burnt down--world-wide. Alcohol and tobacco have far worse health consequences than cocaine--so why not have Columbian air force spray our vineyards, etc. The hypocricy of the drug war knows no bounds as with the damage and ruination it has inflicted upon the world for more than 113 years. I pray that all the brain dead drug warriors and prohibitionists of this world receive brutal come- uppence when this friggin' drug war finally DIES!!!!!!!
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