Cannabis News Media Awareness Project
  A Witness Against War on Drugs
Posted by FoM on July 16, 2001 at 14:01:50 PT
By Bronislaus B. Kush, Telegram & Gazette Staff  
Source: Worcester Telegram  

justice The first slide showed a once-thriving banana tree -- its wilting branches bending toward the peasant farmer's home, just a few feet away. The second showed a toddler with ugly lesions running along his legs.

Kathy Knight had hoped the powerful images would jolt those attending her presentation on America's war on drugs in Colombia. Apparently, they did. Many shook their heads in disbelief at the unintended effects of an aerial bombing of herbicides on coca fields.

“The United States' current war against drugs is just not winnable,” said Ms. Knight, addressing the Worcester Pleasant Street Friends Meeting yesterday. “A lot of innocent people are getting hurt.”

Colombia -- a South American country about the size of California and Texas combined -- has been home to cartels that have processed countless tons of coca leaves into cocaine for shipment to the United States.

In response, Congress has appropriated billions of dollars to eradicate the crops.

Last summer, lawmakers approved a $1.3 billion package to Colombia -- about 80 percent of which was funneled to the military.

Authorities used most of the money to buy helicopter gunships, to train counter-narcotics “battalions” and to fund spraying of drug crops.

The package made Colombia the number three recipient of U.S. military aid, after Israel and Egypt.

This year, President Bush wants another $1.1 billion to fund similar drug fighting strategies in other nearby countries.
Many believe, however, that the plan to cut the drug flow from the area is flawed.

“In many ways, it's like putting gasoline on hot coals,” said Ms. Knight, a Newton resident who visited Colombia recently with the watchdog group Witness for Peace. “Colombia is a complicated country, very much like a puzzle. There are many things that U.S. officials have to consider, if they seriously want to stop the cocaine trade.”

Ms. Knight said American policy-makers have to study Colombia's rocky political system, its history, and its nearly flat-lined economy.

Colombia has a population of 39.3 million. Its legal exports -- about $11.4 billion worth a year -- are derived mainly from coffee, coal, bananas and flowers.

Since the mid-19th century, two political parties have battled for control. The nation has been ravaged by civil war for four decades. The two parties managed to keep dictators out, but were not politically inclusive of other groups.

“Social justice issues were never addressed, so, by the mid-20th century, the pot was really boiling,” Ms. Knight told the local Quakers group.

The political uncertainty bred poverty and displacement, as more and more peasants lost their land to large commercial and agricultural interests.

Today, it's estimated that 2 million Colombians have no homes. About 56 percent live in poverty, with individuals subsisting on $500 or less annually.

The government is relatively ineffective, controlling mainly metropolitan areas, and regions are inaccessible because roadways have deteriorated.

Besides their political and economic woes, Colombians are caught in the struggle between the 120,000-member army, which has one of the worst human rights records in the world, and the guerrillas.

Besides the army and the rebels, Colombians must contend with paramilitary units, hired by landowners and others with vested commercial interests.

From time to time, the paramilitary has been used or aided by the formal military establishment.

Since 1991, 1,500 unionists have been murdered and hundreds of journalists, academics, clergymen and human rights advocates have been targeted.

With all the instability, the drug cartels established their presence, making millions cultivating the shrub-like coca plant, the dried leaves of which contain cocaine.

Coca was so profitable that several indigenous Colombians began growing it to make money for food or medicine.

“It was their only means of getting cash,” Ms. Knight said. “The drug traffickers would stop by three times a year to collect a few sacks of leaves.”

It's believed that up to 18,000 small farmers grow coca.

Ms. Knight and other delegates from Witness for Peace, which has been taking Americans to conflict spots since 1983, met with peasants, social rights activists, economists, military and government officials, as well as U.S. embassy staff.

“With the exception of Colombian and American officials, we received a very clear message,” Ms. Knight said. “People from all over told us that this war was not about drugs, but about power and money. There's no question that this strategy greatly increases America's foothold in Latin and South America.”

Ms. Knight said the American government would be better off spending money on drug treatment programs.

“As long as there's demand, you're going to have drugs,” she said.

Ms. Knight added that global debt relief and fair trade programs would cut into the drug trade by stabilizing the government and economy.

She said the crop eradication program has also failed, even though 74,000 acres are routinely sprayed.

Ms. Knight urged individuals to lobby Congress about changing America's drug fighting policy.

“We can fight the drug problem while helping the Colombian people,” she said.

Source: Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
Author: Bronislaus B. Kush, Telegram & Gazette Staff
Published: Monday, July 16, 2001
Copyright: 2001 Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Contact: letters@telegram.com
Website: http://www.telegram.com/

Related Articles & Web Sites:

Witness For Peace
http://www.witnessforpeace.org/

Colombia Drug War News
http://freedomtoexhale.com/colombia.htm

Good Morning, Colombia
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10319.shtml

Rights Group List Abuses by Guerrillas in Colombia
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10267.shtml


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Comment #4 posted by mikeal on July 17, 2001 at 21:19:06 PT:

The view from Ecuador
I've lived in Ecuador off and on over the course of my short life. I've also had the privlage to visit Colombia a few times as well. This (SouthAmerica) is a place where pictures and words cannot hope to capture the lifestyles of so many people there. I am not one to cry, for I have lost many loved ones and am quite used to it by now. However, just being among the people there. . . that makes me cry. Sometimes I wonder if the world would be better off without a North American presence all over the globe. Well, since the US basically (for this is an extremly complex issue)much owns Ecuador, Venezuela, and Peru I hope Colombia can withstand our IMF fueled onslaught. I remember when these countries where beautiful so beautiful that I could think of no place better to be. Now. . . I debate ever going back. It's sad really, sad what we have done. And it's sad that the majority of the American (north) people know nothing about our dealings in america del sur.

Well, those are just my thoughts, take them for what you will.

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Comment #3 posted by Kevin Hebert on July 17, 2001 at 13:50:46 PT:

My response to the Worcestor Telegram & Gazette
Dear Editor:

Bronislaus B. Kush's "A Witness Against War On Drugs" helped show how Plan Colombia is not helping Colombia or the United States.

None of the problems caused by drugs are solved by prohibiting them. Prohibition did not work for alcohol, it will not work for illegal drugs.

We as a society need to understand that putting people in jail for using drugs will not solve our drug problem. Neither will hiring mercenaries to spray the jungles of Colombia with RoundUp weed killer.

We need to elect legislators who will not boast about being "tough on drugs" -- a position that has made drugs cheaper, purer, and more readily available than ever before. We need legislators who will be smart of
drugs, smart enough to realize that the only way out of this mess is to legalize and regulate drugs, as we do tobacco and alcohol.

We can have a free society or a drug-free society, not both. I for one would prefer a free society.

Sincerely,
Kevin Hebert


[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #2 posted by kaptinemo on July 17, 2001 at 10:22:09 PT:

Deja vu, all over again...
Many of us at CNews are old enough to remember the progression of events which precipitated our slow slide into the Viet nam quagmire. All for the best of reasons, we were told...

Many antis have refused to even consider the parallels between then and now in Colombia. They keep sticking their fingers in their ears and shout that "It's not another Viet Nam, it's not another Viet Nam!" as if by repeating that incantation at th top of their lungs, the obvious will somehow disppear from view.

But 4D's comment about the paucity of news from Colombia regarding the US involvement there is especially disturbing...and as clear a warning as possible that something's about to break - the 'calm before the storm', if you will.

Prior to 1964, there were hardly any news stories about Viet Nam; after the French left, who cared? It was another jerkwater, a place where you sent journalists who were marginal screwups in hope that they'd get fed up and quit.

But the rumblings of the conflict were quite evident... to those who had ears to hear them.

The same thing, the exact same thing is happening down there. All the warnings are there. Next to no coverage about those warnings. But the situation is no less explosive.

And will blow up, some day.

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #1 posted by dddd on July 16, 2001 at 17:51:47 PT
loco-motive
...It is quite strange and discouraging to think about the
near zero media coverage of the situation in Colombia...
..I know I am always whining and beating the dead horse of
the "media" aspects of the drug war,,,but I still think it
is very central to the issue,,and a major factor in the
attempts to change things....The drug war issue is just a
small element of the much larger scandal of the media
being totally influenced by the unseen ruling overlords
of power in the Evil Empire.

This story reminds me of all this once again.......Kathy Knight
makes her slide show presentation,,and the viewers are
shocked and disgusted by what they see,and learn about this.
...In the same way,,most Americans would be appalled,shocked
,,disgusted,,and really pissed,,if they were allowed to see what's
going on....

The things that are happening down there are front page news type stuff!..instead,,there is an obvious,and scandalous absence of anything of substance concerning Colombia in the national press....
The spraying of RoundUp over large areas,,is the type of story 60 Minutes,,or Dateline,would jump on..Why do you suppose they have not????

Kathy Knight can be compared to someone standing by the tracks,,yelling at a frieght train as it goes by..

.......it aint pretty.....dddd

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