CPTNet
July 30, 2003
COLOMBIA REFLECTION: Freedom of Choice: Aerial Spraying in Sur de Bolivar

It's ironic that, one month after a field has been aerially sprayed, the
only thing still growing is coca, the plant from which cocaine is
derived. The light yellow leaves flourish in the heavy soils baking under
Colombia's hot sun. It's a hardy plant and it's easy to rescue if it does
get sprayed. It's said that if you can remove all the poisoned leaves on
all your plants within three days, you'll save your crop. Unfortunately
the price is high. It means exposing your entire family, everyone who can
lend a hand--a three year old, an elderly grandfather or a young pregnant
motherto chemical combination so toxic it's banned in the United States.

The policy of aerial spraying of illicit crops so far hasn't fulfilled its
intended purpose to eradicate the complicating factor of the cocaine trade
in funding both sides in Colombia's civil war. Even the U.S. drug czar
admits that the flow of drugs from Colombia to the U.S. has remained stable
despite fumigations according to an article in Colombia's leading
newspaper, El Tiempo (7/30/03). And recent studies by the conservative
U.S. think tank, the RAND Corporation, have shown that money put into
rehabilitation and prevention programs to reduce the demand for drugs is 23
times more effective than source country "eradication." Aerial spraying
poisons the air, the water and the land. It is inaccurate and sloppy. We
are only beginning to learn about the long term health effects on the
people on the ground below. On a recent exploratory visit to fumigated
areas in Sur de Bolivar, CPTers and members of other nongovernmental
organizations documented dead and dying food crops--rice, maize, yucca far
from any visible coca. We also photographed dead and dying food crops
which surrounded tiny plots of coca and plots of dead and dying food crops
which were interspersed with the infamous plant.

It's true that coca exists, that poor farmers here plant it and harvest it
and sell it to make a living. Why do they do that, knowing they risk
fumigation of their legal as well as their illegal crops? And why do they
risk the health of their families to save their crops after they have been
fumigated? Why does any one do anything apparently dangerous in
Colombia? The answer is, to stay alive and survive this deadly war.

"Hunger allows no choice," W.H. Auden says in his poem, September 1, 1939,
"to the citizen or the police." Is there a choice for the campesinos whose
families are desperately poor and who could not survive growing only yucca
and maize? Is there a choice for the young people who join the
paramilitary groups or the guerrillas? For the teenage boys who serve out
their obligatory term in the army? Where are the choices in a war zone?

In Deuteronomy 30 God proclaims that, "I have set before you life and
death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your
children may live." But for many of the world's poor majority, there seems
to be no choice at all. The rich minority, however, chooses freely and our
choices affect most of the world. What happens in the world when we choose
death instead of life? By pushing and funding the policy of aerial
spraying in Colombia, are we stepping between God and Her people to
eliminate options for healthy just relationships? There are few things
more arrogant than imposing our will over God's.

U.S. policy is making it nearly impossible for subsistence farmers here to
choose life and grow crops that nourish the body and soul instead of
destroying it. People here are forced to choose to produce something that
destroys the lives of others in order to preserve their own. They do just
what the hardy coca plant does: push ahead in poor, unforgiving soils in
the pursuit of life despite the ubiquitous poison of war.