BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombian authorities have for the first time used U.S.-supplied planes to spray a pristine national park used by leftist rebels to grow coca -- the raw ingredient for cocaine -- despite environmental concerns.
A turning point? Perhaps, and not the good kind. Take your pick: public health problems for the people living nearby, environmental problems, the sticky issue of US involvement...
Washington has long urged Uribe to extend spraying to parks and provided the glyphosate herbicide, as well as Black Hawk helicopters used for protection, during the missions. (Mainichi News)
This latest twist came about because the past six months of efforts to remove the coca plants manually were met with guerilla violence against the workers; poor, hard-up for a job workers to a man.
A total of 32 workers, soldiers, and police have died since the government started a program in January of manual erradication under the protection of 3,000 soldiers. Even so, some 200 erradicators quit because of fear of the guerillas (El Nuevo Herald article in Spanish).
(Mainichi News)
Those who think fumigating La Macarena, and perhaps other parks, will wipe out coca production are wrong," the normally pro-government newspaper El Tiempo said last week. "Instead, there will be more coca, and less park, as rebels destroy more forests, deeper inside the park, to continue planting.
Critics say that the anti-narcotic program known as Plan Colombia -- which has cost American taxpayers more than US$4 billion since 2000 -- is falling well short of its goal of halving coca production in five years.
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