COLOMBIA-ECUADOR: 'There Are No Plants or Animals Left'

[MH1]

(Cross-posted in GD-P.)

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38067

Apologies for chopping this up, trying to meet the spirit of copyright. You need to read the whole thing, you really do.

COLOMBIA-ECUADOR: 'There Are No Plants or Animals Left'
By Constanza Vieira

Credit: Acción Ecológica

BOGOTA, Jun 6 (IPS) - A new U.S. government report acknowledges that coca crops expanded last year in Colombia, despite the heavy herbicide spraying carried out under Plan Colombia, which has been loudly protested by neighbouring Ecuador for causing damages to human and animal health and food crops in border areas.

(snip)


The umbrella group's first study found that a large number of animals, mainly fish, had died. No one has specifically studied the impact of the spraying in rivers and other water sources. "All of the campesinos (peasant farmers) mentioned that a large number of pregnant farm animals had miscarried," said Maldonado.

(snip)

Meanwhile, "among the Colombian population what we found was an extremely high level of depression. The people knew it was the state that was doing this to them, and as a result there was no chance of turning to any official body for help, so they felt abandoned and neglected, and felt the need to leave the area," said Maldonado.

(snip)

But two years later, when they were once again asked to make drawings about the spraying, "the children began to show the bloodshed. What stood out in the drawings were the shooting and armed clashes. There was a major military presence, airplanes that practically filled the entire sheet of paper," he described.

In 2006, when the children were asked to draw a family, "we were absolutely shocked and shaken," said Maldonado.

"First of all, they stopped using colours. They abandoned colour. And second, they stopped drawing mouths. They no longer drew smiles. The only thing they put in were big open eyes, but no ears or mouths. That is a reflection of the children's inability to express what is happening," he said.

(snip)

One little boy, Diego Gonzaga, from the village of El Cóndor near the San Miguel River that marks the border, painted a pig lying upside down, and wrote: "My piggy died. I loved him very much. I was going to buy my uniform to go to school. I ask whoever sees and reads what is in my drawing to help me to be able to finish primary school. There are no plants or animals left."

Next to the San Miguel River is a warning sign that reads: "River polluted by Plan Colombia".

I ask you, what right do we have to do this? People may say we have to stop drugs coming into this country because drugs hurt OUR youth. But how does that give us the right to poison someone else's ground and hurt someone else's children?

GOD DAMN IT WHAT GIVES US THE RIGHT?

And now they want to do it in Afghanistan, to the opium crop...because for some reason we can't buy up the opium to use in our hospitals for people in pain...instead we will put more people in pain... and we will say we are "fighting terrorism."

Even if it somehow would stop drug abuse in our cities and somehow reduce the risk to US of terrorism...

WHAT GIVES US THE RIGHT?

Please tell me, because I sure as hell don't know.

[IndyOp]

1. Bless the beasts and the children - : ( (n/t)

[MH1]

4. ..

When I read this article...

:cry:

[immoderate]

2. Arrogance of empire...

Disrespect for the planet.

--IMM

[truedelphi]

3. It is the rights STOLEN that allow for this to happen

Stolen Presidency

Stolen Procedures that allow for Monsanto and others to put whatever they want in these poisons
and label them as mere "herbicides"

[Peace Patriot]

5. Oh, it's much, much worse than sacrificing their children for our children.

The cocaine trade dramatically increased in 2005, and again in 2006. So much for "Plan Colombia." It is is a complete failure. And it never was about stopping the cocaine trade. In fact, the rightwing paramilitaries with close ties to the top echelons of the Colombian goverment, the beneficiaries of our "war on drugs" money--the chief of the military, the former chief of intelligence, and many Uribe office holders--have been exposed in a huge scandal in Colombia, by courageous prosecutors and judges, for slaughtering thousands of union organizers, peasant farmers and leftists, and dumping them in mass graves, and for large-scale drug trafficking. So, one of the things they are doing, with the $4 billion of taxpayer dollars that Bush has larded on Colombia, for the absolutely failed "war on drugs," is driving the poor peasant farmers out--people who grow food for their families and local communities, and may also grow a small crop of leaf for local use, and have been doing so for a thousand years (it's vital to survival in the high altitudes and icy tempertures of the Andes). The U.S.-backed government poisons the land, then the big growers come in, for the big profits that fund more death and destruction; they also want to use the land for biofuel production (Bush's big "trade deal" with Colombia), which, in corporate hands, is extremely bad for the land and the environment.

It is NOT a trade-off of their children for our children. It is utterly destructive of all children. The Colombian children will become part of wandering 'diaspora' of landless peasants, who often end up in urban squalor. Our children will be paying the debt for that $4 billion, among other items in Bush's $10 trillion deficit, to the 7th generation; they will have war profiteers and mercenary armies to reckon with (the big beneficiaries of Bush policy on war and drugs); and they have MORE exposure to cocaine than they ever did before.

There is a reason that the new leftist (majorityist) governments of Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela have rejected the U.S. "war on drugs." For one thing, they know what it's really about. It's not a war on drugs. It's a war on the poor. For another, they utterly oppose the poisoning of farm land and the displacement of peasant farmers. And they also fear the rightwing paramilitaries, mercenary armies and fascists that Bush has armed and empowered, in the name of the "war on drugs." One of the plots of these groups, recently exposed, was to assassinate Hugo Chavez and possibly also Evo Morales (first indigenous president of Bolivia, and an ally of Chavez) and destabilize the Andean democracies (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador), for a rightwing military takeover of the region--on behalf of the Bush Junta and its oil cartel buds.

The "war on drugs" is bad, bad news, there and here.

[bonito]

6. Not my world, not in my name,but here I am, it gives me shame

What can i do?

[MH1]

8. spread the word

lobby your reps to stop funding plan colombia.

Spreading the word is so important...I think most americans don't realize how stupid and immoral this is.

[undergroundpanther]

7. Force

Might makes right to SOME people.

To others might does NOT make right,and we are the ones who die when the so called mighty trample to get what they want to take from us.

The world is ruled by a white eyed a monster..

[wildbilln864]

9. Kick...

I hate that it's too late tp recommend it also! Thanks for posting!