PEOPLE ARE BEING HARMED

I am very glad to see that the government is reconsidering the
Colombia spraying plan. Officials are now investigating if and how
much this aerial spraying is affecting human beings. But of course,
even if people do not get sick or develop rashes, the spraying is
harming people. One cannot control the winds when planes fumigate,
and so the herbicide chemical solution also damages fruit trees and
other food crops. It affects the soil and the rivers and the animals.

Since we would not permit such spraying in the United States, we
should not do it in Colombia -- or don't we think that their lives
are as valuable as ours?

I concur with those who say that the spraying in Colombia is not
about drugs, but rather a way to dislocate the people who live in
certain territories.

A few years ago, I went to Colombia with a delegation of the Latin
America Working Group from Washington to investigate human rights
abuses. Now I fear that I should have stayed in the United States and
investigated our own human rights abuses. -- Lucy Fuchs, Brandon