Colombia spraying plan may be rethought, official says

By PAUL DE LA GARZA

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 17, 2001

WASHINGTON -- A senior State Department official said Thursday that a chemical solution used to spray illegal crops in Colombia "is not a totally benign product" and that Washington might reconsider the program.

Rand Beers, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, appeared to give at least some credence to complaints by peasants in Colombia that aerial spraying is making them sick, causing skin rashes and diarrhea.

"This particular mixture does cause slight irritation to the eyes and the skin," said Beers, who helps oversee a $1.3-billion aid package to Bogota known as Plan Colombia. "This is not a totally benign product."

His comments were surprising because as international pressure against the American-sponsored program has mounted, U.S. officials have flatly rejected any suggestion that the chemical solution used in Colombia is harmful.

"We were concerned that given all of the press that has come up about this, that we weren't doing a good enough job of keeping you all informed," Beers told reporters at a briefing.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found glyphosate, the main herbicide used in spraying in Colombia, to be safe. In the United States, it is manufactured by Monsanto and sold as the weed killer Roundup.

Beers said the active ingredient in glyphosate acts on plants. "It acts on an enzyme in a plant that doesn't exist in animals," he said. "So its active ingredient doesn't kill people. It kills plants.

"Having said that," he added, "if you take anything to excess, you can kill somebody."

Beers said a number of studies were under way in Colombia to reassure people of the chemical solution's safety. If tests find that it poses a health hazard, Beers said U.S. officials would consider compensation or rethink the program.

To prove that the solution is safe, Beers said he would be willing to stand in a coca field with his family while spraying was under way. Beers said he has done it with no adverse reaction.

Beers suggested that it was the dangerous chemicals Colombian peasants use in coca cultivation and in the making of cocaine, including paraquat and sulfuric acid, and not the spraying solution, that was making people sick. "There is a level of exposure that they are already experiencing before the first plane ever flies over any of their territory."

While insisting that he did not know why scores of peasants were complaining of getting sick, Beers did offer a theory.

"The individuals who are being affected by the spraying are being affected economically," he said. "If the spraying is successful, it kills their income."

In an apparent effort to challenge the image of peasants as victims, Beers said that in the past 20 years slash-and-burn agriculture to grow coca has contributed to soil erosion and destroyed more than 9,000 square miles of rain forest, "equal to the state of Massachusetts and another 10 percent."

"We're talking about a process here that causes significant damage on the rain forest," Beers said, "independent of anything that any government does."

Colombian military's power expanded

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Brushing aside human rights concerns, President Andres Pastrana signed "war legislation" granting Colombia's U.S.-backed military expanded powers to battle insurgents, his office said Thursday.

U.N. rights monitors, human rights groups and some members of the U.S. Congress have criticized the measure, fearing it will lead to abuses in Colombia's 37-year war.

The law, which Pastrana signed without fanfare on Monday, is expected to be challenged by its opponents in the nation's Constitutional Court and could affect deliberations on future U.S. military aid.

One of the law's most criticized articles allows the president to set up martial law zones called "theaters of operations," in which local civilian officials would be subordinate to regional police and military commanders.

The law also allows soldiers to detain suspects longer before handing them over to a judge.

Amnesty International, in a statement from New York, said: "There is serious concern that these provisions could facilitate torture or other forms of human rights violations of those captured during counterinsurgency operations."

The law also shortens the time allowed for completing investigations into alleged human rights abuses by security force members and requires civilian prosecutors to report to the military on their investigations into terrorism and war crimes including torture.

A leading Colombian human rights activist said the measure would militarize the country.

"There will be arrests without warrants, interrogations of civilians on military bases and impunity for soldiers and police who have violated human rights," predicted Gustavo Gallon, director of the Colombian Jurists' Commission.

Pastrana has not spoken publicly on his decision to sign the National Defense and Security Law, which Colombia's congress approved in June.

But one of the law's authors said Colombia needed tougher legislation given the nation's serious crisis. "The Colombian people are cornered by violence," Sen. German Vargas said. "We need instruments to defend ourselves."

- Associated Press

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