GLOBAL AFFAIRS Activist cites harm of US policy in Colombia BY STEVEN STYCOS

US-financed aerial spraying of coca plants impoverishes small farmers and poisons children in rural Colombia, human rights leader Nancy Sanchez Mendez told students at the University of Rhode Island on Tuesday, October 14.

Calling the US drug eradication policy "a crime," Sanchez Mendez says indiscriminate spraying in the southern province of Putumayo destroys food crops and leaves small rural farmers and their families hungry. Even farmers who receive grants to grow legal crops have their land sprayed with Roundup@, a herbicide made by the St. Louis-based Monsanto Company, she says.

Aerial spraying uses Roundup@ in twice the concentrations allowed in the US, Sanchez Mendez adds, causing rashes, diarrhea, and vomiting among children who are exposed to the chemical. Since spraying began, Sanchez Mendez says, violence has also increased. Once their crops are killed, small farmers move elsewhere, she explains, and armed right-wing paramilitaries take over their land and homes. A better policy, Sanchez Mendez told a URI political science class, would finance hand-eradication of coca plants, blocking cocaine-processing chemicals from crossing the Ecuadorian border, and pursuing drug trade financiers.

Sanchez Mendez visited Rhode Island this week on a New England tour sponsored by Witness for Peace. The Washington, DC-based organization advocates for peace in Latin America, sending North American volunteers to conflict zones to discourage violence. A former journalist who currently works as a human rights investigator, Sanchez Mendez recently received the Letelier-Moffit Human Rights Award, an honor commemorating two human rights leaders assassinated in Washington, DC, by the Chilean secret police.

Colombia has been plagued by civil war since World War II. In 2002, according to Amnesty International USA, 4000 civilians were killed for political reasons by right-wing paramilitary forces and left-wing guerrillas. Another 500 people were "disappeared" by armed groups. Amnesty also estimates that during the first nine months of 2002, 350,000 Colombians were displaced from their homes by violence and anti-drug efforts

Major US involvement began under President Bill Clinton’s "Plan Colombia." In 2000, the US sent almost $1 billion to Colombia, including funds to purchase helicopters from Providence-based Textron. Although the aid package was conditioned on human rights improvements, Clinton overrode the conditions, citing "national security." At the time, US aid was limited to stopping cocaine production, but in 2002, under prodding from President George W. Bush, Congress allowed Colombia to use American funds to fight two guerrilla groups. In 2003, the US will give Colombia $742 million in aid, estimates the liberal Center for International Policy, almost all for the military, police, and anti-drug enforcement.

"We all know the war against coca and against the small farmers is for other interests," Sanchez Mendez states. By forcing farmers from their homes, spraying enables wealthy Colombia families to control the oil-rich Putumayo region and eastern areas of Colombia that also have large oil reserves, Sanchez Mendez contends. American involvement in Colombia oil is certainly increasing. In February, Congress approved Bush’s proposal for $93 million to protect an Occidental Petroleum pipeline in Colombia.

Sanchez Mendez urges Americans to question US Colombian policy, noting that World Bank loans and other forms of economic leverage allow the US to control the Latin American nation. "Essentially, we say our president is Bush," she says.