|
|
|
| |
| |
Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
July 19, 2005
|
|
| site design imagesparkle.com |
| September 17, 2004 |
Plan Colombia - Sanho Tree |
|
| |
 |
| Sanho Tree discusses Plan Colombia |
Sanho Tree first began working on his Colombia project in 1999, the same year that the US adopted Plan Colombia, a multi-billion dollar strategy to rid Colombia of its cocaine trade. Colombia is now the third largest recipient of US aid (after Israel and Egypt) for military and police assistance. As of 2000, Colombia was receiving more US military aid than the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean combined. Sanho Tree is a Fellow and Director of the Drug Policy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. nd his project works to end the US's domestic and international "War on Drugs" by replacing it with policies that promote public health and safety as well as economic alternatives to the prohibition drug economy. During a lecture onboard Peace Boat Tree emphasized that much like the domestic "War on Drugs," Plan Colombia has failed to address the need for social alternatives like employment, infrastructure development, and healthcare, and he believes without addressing these issues the broader "War on Drugs" is impossible to win. |
|
|
 |
| Sanho Tree explains the "War on Drugs" |
After being at civil war for more than four decades (the longest running war in the Western Hemisphere), the US backed military intervention in Colombia still continues to produce regular massacres and atrocities today. Fueling this war are two opposing sides; the guerillas, namely FARC and the ELN; and the opposing paramilitary and Colombian military. Clarifying any misconceptions about these groups Sanho says that it is important to understand that all involved have terrible human rights records. "These are not the guerillas of the 1960s, like Che Guevera or like Ho Chi Minh. In the past ten to fifteen years, both the paramilitary and guerillas have become very rich because of the drug trade. Both sponsor the selling and trafficking of drugs. And the paramilitary, often referred to as 'death squads,' commit even more atrocities while historically linked to the military." As a result, each year some 300,000 new refugees are driven from their homes, with a death toll of roughly 3,000. People are driven off their land and become internally displaced people. Colombia has the most internally displaced people in the hemisphere - about 3 million of the country's 43 million people." |
| |
 |
| A woman standing outside a farm destroyed by crop spraying |
Originally in 1999, before Plan Colombia was approved by the US Congress, the Clinton Administration proposed sending one billion dollars in aid to Colombia to fight the drug war. Tree explained that the original version of Plan Colombia had almost no mention of military assistance. It was designed to build schools, hospitals, and roads and address social and economic concerns in addition to the drug war. "Along with the US, the European community was initially excited," said Tree, "Because finally the developing world was designing a plan that addressed social issues. But as the drafting of Plan Colombia was finalized it became clear that the US was not interested in social spending, only in military funding, and in the end European donors gave up in disgust." |
| |
 |
| A woman who has been sprayed with herbicide |
As a frequent visitor to Colombia, Tree pointed out that it is important to understand Colombia's terrain and demographics to understand why the campesinos grow coca. The majority of the population (70%) lives in 10 major urban areas, and the country is divided by the Andean mountain range. To the east and south is the Amazon basin, an area of predominently rainforest that the Colombian government has historically abandoned. Tree explained that throughout this area there are very few roads, markets, or infrastructures for legal crops and overall it is very underdeveloped. It is in this area where the majority of drugs or coca bushes are grown. A decade ago the majority of Coca was grown in Peru and Bolivia, but the US forced harsh eradication policies and pushed the trade to Colombia. "Some people refer to this as the balloon effect, if you squeeze one side of the balloon, the other side expands," said Tree. In all of the years of the War on Drugs, the US has never been able to achieve eradication, the problem simply moves. Tree argues that as long as coca can be grown with ease, and there is an export market, there will always be poor people willing to cultivate coca to survive. But, alarmed at the drastic rise in coca cultivation in Colombia, Sanho explained that instead of spending money on social development the US response has been to use crop duster airplanes to spray a very powerful herbicide that kills anything green. Since Plan Colombia began, more than one million acres have been destroyed, spraying chemicals over vast areas of the countryside. |
| |
 |
| Close-up of the rash resulting from being sprayed |
For small farmers in Colombia growing coca makes economic sense. Most live in poverty, in fact two thirds of the country lives below the poverty line of two US dollars a day. "So farmers grow coca to produce a paste," said Tree, "Which can be made on the farm with a few simple chemicals, and sold to traffickers to produce cocaine. Once it is made it very easy to transport, the farmer can walk to sell paste or a trafficker will come get it. The US tells the farmers to grow fruits and vegetables, but fruits and vegetables must be transported on vehicles they do not have, over roads that do not exist, with no access to an export market." Tree also explained that these crops have to compete with subsidized products (products grown with financial assistance) coming into the country from developed nations. |
| |
 |
| A young boy walks on family farm destroyed by crop spraying |
Tree believes that without major investment in infrastructures; the development of roads, schools and economic market equality, it is very unlikely that things will change. "But, none the less, the US government continues to spray, to destroy crops. At the same time the crop dusters are attempting to eradicate coca, they are also killing food crops, pastures for cattle, and fishponds. People's homes are ruined and often babies are killed from the chemicals. In addition to human suffering, environmentally this has irreversible effects. The Amazon basin of Colombia is the second most bio-diverse region in the world, with more bird species than any in the world. On average 1000 hectares of this ecosystem is sprayed per day. As the spraying continues, farmers are forced to plant coca in different provinces and to go deeper into the Amazon." Tree has personally witnessed many of these atrocities. One example he elaborated on was the irony of the destruction of an agriculture school created to teach farmers to grow fruits and vegetables. The spraying leads to severe human suffering and as Tree showed pictures of people with skin rashes from the spray, he spoke of a woman whose farm has been sprayed four times in the last five years, destroying her crops and livelihood. He has even witnessed farms destroyed in areas where the nearest coca was more than a kilometer away. |
| |
 |
| Sanho Tree: "No family is willing to watch their children starve." |
To make matters worse, since September 11th, hardliners in the Bush Administration who had always wanted to fight the guerillas used the global "War on terror" as an excuse to get involved in the counter-insurgency war and enabled previous counter-narcotics aid to now be used to fight the guerillas. "But is important to remember these farmers are human beings, but when discussed in the US, Congress refers to them as narco-terrorists." Tree pointed out that by referring to people only as drug traffickers and as narco-terrorists it is easy to dehumanize them and violate their human rights.
Ending his discussion Sanho reflected on why Plan Colombia will not achieve its goal. "After more than four years and three billion dollars to Colombia the price of cocaine, and availability of cocaine, has not changed at all. One reason is that coca production is being pushed into neighboring regions and countries. "Coca is very easy to grow," says Tree, "Can be grown almost anywhere, and in any climate that doesn't freeze, which is most of the Amazon, Africa, and much of Asia. With 1.3 billion people in the world earning less than one US dollar per day, and half of the planet living on less than two US dollars per day, Tree pointed out that it is not hard to find areas with little government presence, and enough human desperation, for drug crops to be grown. Ending the discussion on Plan Colombia, Tree re-emphasized his belief that social and economic alternatives to the drug war must be provided, because in his opinion, when it comes to growing a plant or not to survive, no family is willing to watch their children starve. |
| |
|
|
|
