cannabisnews.com: Questions of U.S. Drug War Plans





Questions of U.S. Drug War Plans
Posted by FoM on June 28, 2000 at 14:34:52 PT
By The Associated Press
Source: New York Times
Washington's escalating drug war in Colombia is expected to come under sharp attack at an international peace conference opening Thursday in this tiny village in the country's coca-growing south. Hosted by leftist guerrillas as part of negotiations to end the Andean country's 36-year conflict, the Conference on Illegal Drug Crops and the Environment will be attended by delegates from 21 countries, including Britain, Spain, France, Canada and Japan -- but not the United States. 
The U.S. government declined, citing a prohibition on official contacts with Colombia's largest rebel band, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. U.S. officials would probably not have enjoyed themselves. The rebels, who have fought the Colombian government for decades, intend to use the two-day event to rail against U.S. policy in the country. They also will try to cultivate resistance to a planned military push into Amazonian jungles where peasants grow coca, the plant used to make cocaine. The FARC welcomes its visitors at a time when Washington is ``using the excuse of fighting drugs to try and defeat Colombia's popular movement and insurgents,'' rebel negotiator Carlos Lozada said in Los Pozos. On Capitol Hill this week, lawmakers were finalizing the $1.3 billion aid plan the rebels object to. The package aims to help Colombian troops retake jungles near San Vicente del Caguan, where the FARC and rival paramilitary groups guard and tax cocaine-producing plots for huge financial payoffs. The bulk of the funds would pay for military helicopters and Green Beret training for Colombian army battalions. Those battalions will be given the task of securing rebel-held areas while fumigation planes eradicate coca from the air. Critics of the plan abound. Environmentalists contend fumigation is destroying the rain forest, while rights activists worry the military push will fuel violence and upset peace efforts in Colombia. Despite record spraying, Colombia's coca crop has doubled since 1995 and moved deeper into the Amazon. Some experts believe it would be more effective to attack drug demand in the United States and Europe, while devoting more funding in Colombia to help peasants find alternatives to the drug crops. At this week's conference, rebels will accompany ambassadors on flights over denuded jungles and invite them to hear shoeless coca farmers describe how fumigation is killing their livelihood. ``This is a long-standing wish of the FARC ... to show people how the peasants live, how they have no alternatives, how aerial fumigation doesn't work and how the government had done next to nothing,'' said Klaus Nyholm, director of U.N. anti-drug programs here. But, Nyholm said, ``there's a lot of nonsense being said about fumigation. It's not killing off people and cattle or destroying the soil.'' He said fumigation is a reasonable strategy for killing off about half the coca crop in Colombia, located in large commercial plantations run by drug traffickers. Criticism of fumigation should resonate with some countries openly critical of the U.S.-backed approach. ``In Switzerland, we believe that the drug problem is something that has to be attacked on the consumption front,'' said Geneva's ambassador to Bogota, Victor Christian. But it will be difficult for the FARC to drive a wedge between the United States and major allies. Diplomats going to San Vicente del Caguan say they have no intention of becoming rebel propagandists. Some are expected to carry stern demands for the FARC to halt kidnappings as a show of its sincerity about peace. And with an estimated 40 percent of Colombia's cocaine now going to Europe instead of the United States, governments there have a compelling reasons to support get-tough efforts. Los Pozos, Colombia (AP) Published: June 28, 2000Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company Related Articles:Colombia Chopper Wars http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6203.shtmlSenators Plunge US Into Colombia's Civil War http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6181.shtmlTroubles Build as Colombians Await New Aid http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6169.shtmlInto the Quagmire http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6162.shtmlDrug Control or Bio Warfare? http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5616.shtml 
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Comment #2 posted by R.Earing on June 28, 2000 at 15:56:38 PT:
Fumigation is good for anything?
How would you like it if Canadians showed up and sprayed Vermont for tomatoes , 'cause us Canucks felt like having a war on tomatoes? Get a life USA! If ya wanna be world policeman,yer gonna gonna have to set up a world police complaints commision.Look at Rampart,Rodney King,L.A. Riots.The rest of the world is SICK of Americans posing as if they give a damn about the WAR ON DRUGS.Read "DARK ALLIANCES" by Gary Webb or "BIG WHITE LIE" by Mike Levine(he was even on Oprah) if you still think America wants to win the WOD.Now y'all just go watch REGIS and try to behave yourselves and PRAY to your God us Canucks don't come down from the north and straighten y'all out about a lot of things.New Jersey won the Stanley Cup,haa-remember we got biological weapons too.
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Comment #1 posted by CD1 on June 28, 2000 at 15:07:11 PT
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Isn't it ironic that the administration who claim to have such concern about the environment would sponsor the fumigation of Andean forests for the sake of the War on Drugs? The Administration claims that the fumigation will not harm animals or humans. Several postings on this site remark how similiar the rhetoric sounds to the rhetoric at the begining of U.S. involvment in Vietnam. Does anyone remember the last time the U.S. said that a fumigation effort would not harm humans? Does the phrase "Agent Orange" ring a bell?Write your newspapers and Congressmen, and especially Presidental Candidate Al Gore and ask him why the administration is so keen on destroying the environment.
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