<html>
<body>
<font size=3><br>
</font><h2><b>New Coca Fumigation Program Drives Poor Colombians Off
Lands<br><br>
<br>
</b></h2><h4><b>Locals See Supposed “Anti-Drug” Operations in Chocó as
Part of a Decade-Old Campaign by the Government and Corporations to
Displace Them <br><br>
<br>
</b></h4><h3><b>By Sean Donahue<br>
Special to the Narco News Bulletin<br><br>
<br>
</b></h3><h6><b>February 16, 2005</b> <br>
This report appears on the internet at
<a href="http://www.narconews.com/Issue35/article1177.html" eudora="autourl"><b>http://www.narconews.com/Issue35/article1177.html</a></b></h6><font size=3>Since
early January, pilots from DynCorp, working under contract to the U.S.
State Department and under the supervision of the Colombian National
Police, have been spraying glyphosate over indigenous and Afro-Colombian
villages in the fragile rainforests of Chocó on Colombia’s Pacific Coast.
Ostensibly they are working to eradicate the coca crops that have sprung
up in the region in recent years, as fumigations to the south in
Putumayo, Guaviare, and Narino have pushed coca cultivation into new
areas, and the utter destruction of local communities and economies has
forced more and more people into the lower rungs of the cocaine economy.
Rain recently forced a temporary halt to the fumigations, but they are
slated to resume once the rain stops.<br><br>
<img src="cid:6.1.2.0.2.20050216183114.02262ec0@66.103.156.66.0" width=250 height=375 alt="392e5d.jpg"><br>
A displaced family in Chocó, forced off their land by
paramilitaries.<br>
<i>Photo: Pablo Serrano D.R. 2005<br>
</i>Wherever fumigations have occurred in Colombia, they have had a
devastating impact on the land and the people. Glyphosate is a “broad
spectrum” herbicide – it will kill anything with leaves. Sprayed from
crop-dusting planes it becomes an indiscriminate weapon, wiping out food
crops and severely damaging the forest. There is growing evidence that it
damages soil microbes and
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/bigwood08232003.html">promotes the
growth of toxic fungi</a>. It is persistent in water where it can poison
fish, birds, amphibians, and livestock. In humans it causes rashes,
respiratory problems, nausea, and temporary blindness. Long-term exposure
<a href="http://www.naturescountrystore.com/roundup/page8.html">has been
linked to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma</a>. There is strong circumstantial
evidence that fumigation has been used as a strategy to force people off
<a href="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2004/12/17/124459/55">land
coveted by oil companies in southern Colombia</a>.<br><br>
Local leaders see the fumigations as the latest phase of a ten-year old
campaign to drive indigenous people and Afro-Colombians off the land in
order to clear the way for mining, logging, hydro-electric projects, and
the construction of a dry canal to replace the Panama Canal. In a formal
denunciation
<a href="http://www.codhes.org.co/dbreves.php?breve=492">re-published by
the human rights group CODHES</a> and the Colombian affiliate of
<a href="http://www.censat.org/A_A_Noticias_Nacionales_113.htm">Friends
of the Earth</a>, members of the Chocó organization <i>Fundación Las
Mojarras y Consejo Comunitario Mayor de Condoto</i> wrote that:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>“The appearance of illicit crops and their eradication through
fumigations with Glyphosate in the department of Chocó, are a political
decision of the state that adds in the long run chain of facts that in
the conjuncture of the past eleven years from 1996 are leading to the
Black and indigenous towns of Chocó towards a total genocide.”<br><br>
</i>
</dl>They fumigations are the culmination of a carefully orchestrated
program of forced displacement – and by extension the eradication of a
culture.<br><br>
<br>
<h5><b>Five Hundred Years of Genocide and
Resistance</b></h5><font size=3>Africans were brought to Colombia to
replace indigenous people as slaves in gold mines and on sugar
plantations starting in the early sixteenth century.<br><br>
They began resisting slavery as soon as they reached this continent. Luis
Alberto Murillo, the first Afro-Colombian to serve as governor of Chocó
(now living in exile in the U.S.,)
<a href="http://isla.igc.org/SpecialRpts/SR2murillo.html">wrote in
2001</a>:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>“In pre-abolition Colombian society, Afro-Colombian slaves fought for
their freedom from the beginning of their arrival to the country. It is
clear that there were strong, free African towns called palenques where
Africans could live as cimarrones – that is Africans who escaped from
their oppressors. Some historians view the Chocó as a very big palenque
with a large population of cimarrones, especially in the areas of the
Baudo River.”<br><br>
</i>
</dl>Following the abolition of slavery in 1851, many freed slaves fled
the culture that had enslaved them, joining the palenques and forming new
communities in Chocó. Here they forged a new culture and carved out a
degree of freedom and independence. Murillo writes:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>“Afro-Colombian people were forced to live in jungle areas as a
mechanism of self-protection. There, we learned to live harmoniously with
the jungle environment and to share the territory with Colombia’s
indigenous communities. Our Afro-Colombian communities developed their
own living patterns, which are very respectful of the environment and
emphasize social values such as peace, friendship and solidarity, rather
than money and capital accumulation. <br><br>
<dd>“This Afro-Colombian way of living has enabled us to conserve our
rich, biologically diverse ecosystem to the present day.<br><br>
<dd>“From 1851, the Colombian State promoted the ideology of ‘mestizaje.’
This meant the necessity of mixing African and indigenous people with
white Spaniards and their descendants. The purpose was to disappear, or
minimize, the historical links with Africa and pre-Columbian America. In
fact, the Colombian government purposely ignored and neglected the newly
free Black population.<br><br>
<dd>“The only way for Africans and indigenous peoples to maintain their
cultural traditions was by living in isolated jungle areas. But it was
not easy. The history of Black people in Colombia is the history of a
struggle for freedom and land, and against discrimination and
invisibility.”<br><br>
</i>
</dl>The nineteenth and twentieth century were marked by struggles
against armed groups backed by wealthy ranchers who wanted to seize land
in the lush rainforests of Chocó to build coffee, banana, and sugar
plantations.<br><br>
In 1991, the Colombian Constitution granted Afro-Colombian and indigenous
communities collective title to their traditional lands. Rather than
marking a victory in the struggle for land and freedom, however, the new
law brought a wave of violence down on communities that dared to assert
their rights.<br><br>
<br>
</font><h5><b>A Decade Of Massacres</b></h5><font size=3>In 1993 the
Colombian Congress passed “Law 70” which laid out the process for Black
communities to apply for formal recognition and formal title to their
land. Three years later, in 1996, the community of Riosucio became the
first of the former palenques to file for recognition under the law.
Almost as soon as Riosucio began the process, the paramilitaries attacked
and drove nearly everyone off their land. Marino Codroba Berrio, a
community leader from Riosucio who went on to form the Association of
Displaces Afro-Colombians (AFRODES) in Bogotá and is now living in exile
in the U.S.,
<a href="http://www.newsandletters.org/Issues/2002/May/afro-colombia_May02.htm">wrote
in 2002</a>:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>“The community organizations met resistance from those who had been
exploiting natural resources in our region such as gold and wood.
Communities demanded title to the land. Since then we’ve experienced
assassinations and expulsion by military groups paid by political and
business interests. <br><br>
<dd>“My organization won the first collective titles in that region.
Seven days later, at 5:00 AM on Dec. 13, 1996, paramilitary groups
arrived in my town, Riosucio, intent on murdering the leaders and their
families. Many were taken from their beds and paraded naked through the
streets. Anyone who resisted was killed. The shouts woke me up. I ran to
take refuge in the swamp along with many others.<br><br>
<dd>“At 8:00 AM, army helicopters started patrolling. The paramilitaries
radioed the pilots to attack the swamp, claiming the people were
guerrillas. The army attacked us with bombs and rifles, killing many
people. Those who survived stayed in the water for three days until
hunger and desperation forced us out. Some of us sneaked through the town
and reached a rural community across the river. I recuperated there, then
fled to Bogotá…<br><br>
<dd>“Two months later, in February 1997, the paramilitaries and army
attacked the rural communities in the region and massacred an unknown
number of people. More than 20,000 people left the area. Not a single
person remained. Today, some are living in Panama, Ecuador, Venezuela,
and many are in the big cities.”<br><br>
</i>
</dl>After a decade of massacres, Afro-Colombians now make up the
majority of Colombia’s two million internal refugees. Paramilitary
violence has followed them to the shantytowns outside Bogotá and
Medellín, where death squads are trying to wipe out the survivors to
prevent them from telling their stories and from fighting for their right
to return to their homes.<br><br>
<br>
</font><h5><b>The Political Economy of
Genocide</b></h5><font size=3>Timber and gold interests have played a
tremendous role in driving the violence in Chocó, but larger economic
forces are at work here as well. As economist Hector Mondragon
wrote:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>“The genocide actually has a theorist. A Canadian economist, Lauchlan
Currie, has advised 5 successive presidents in this theory, called
‘Accelerated Economic Development’. The theory is that there are two
obstacles to development. The first is kidnapping. The second is the
population of campesinos [peasant-farmers]. For Colombia to develop,
according to this theory, the population of campesinos must be reduced
dramatically. There are two ways to accomplish this. Pull and Push.
<br><br>
<dd>“The pull method is to attract campesinos to the city with jobs. The
housing plan by Pastrana senior [the father of President Uribe’s
predecessor, who ruled from 1970 to1974], for example, enabled people to
get houses with high interest credit. Many lost their houses in the
banking crisis that ensued. The banks happily took the houses, and then
their smiles faded because they have houses and no one to buy them. But
banks, unlike citizens, are eligible for state help and bailouts. The
upshot, though, is that unemployment is well over 20%, underemployment
much higher. Pull isn’t happening.<br><br>
<dd>“What’s left is push. Which we know about.”<br><br>
</i>
</dl>Massacres are the most direct form of pushing people off the land.
But there is an economic dimension to the push as well.
<a href="http://www.gratisweb.com/ciclocrisis/polarization.htm">According
to Mondragon</a>, President Uribe has begun introducing a kind of reverse
agrarian reform:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>“The subsidies that the recently closed Institute for Agrarian Reform
– INCORA used to give to campesinos are now only handed over to
‘income-generating projects within larger business production systems.’
The land ‘abandoned’ by campesinos can be given over to any
‘producer.’”<br><br>
</i>
</dl>These “larger business production systems” enter into agreements
with campesinos which require the farmers to plant
<a href="http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantations/material/oilpalm2.html">African
palm trees</a>, and to put their land up as collateral for the loans they
need to get into the palm oil business. International lenders have been
pushing increased palm oil production around the world, driving the
prices down. When the prices fall, the campesinos lose their
land.<br><br>
The land is the real investment that wealthy Colombians and multinational
corporations are interested in. Chocó’s geographical location is even
more important than its resources. The department borders Panama, and is
being eyed by developers as the site for a system of wet and dry canals
to replace the Panama Canal. It also has a crucial role to play in
Uribe’s plans to build a gas pipeline to Panama, and to build a massive
new electrical grid that would carry electricity from dams throughout
Colombia to the U.S.<br><br>
Gold and timber companies will plunder the land for its resources first.
Bio-prospectors might comb the forest for traditional herbal medicines
that they can synthesize and patent. And when the forests and the people
are gone, Chocó’s role as the ecological corridor connecting South
America to Central America will give way to its new role as the corridor
that will allow gas and electricity to move north while goods move over
land from the Atlantic to the Pacific.<br><br>
The massacres were the first stage in removing the people who stood in
the way of development. Fumigations serve to starve out the people who
remain by eradicating their food crops and the wild plants they depend on
along with whatever coca is now growing in Chocó. The push is almost
complete.<br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><font size=3><a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">www.freedomarchives.org</a></font></body>
</html>