SPRAYING POISON IN COLOMBIA

Children in southern Colombia have developed sores on their skin.
Potatoes and onions, a staple of poor families in rural provinces
there, are drying out. Colombians have been stricken with bloody
diarrhea from contaminated drinking water.

Governors, senators, farmers, Indian groups and others from the
region are blaming those ailments, along with environmental and
agricultural fallout, on a U.S.-funded anti-narcotics program of
aerial fumigation under way there. The U.S. and Colombia dispute the
claims that the local population is at risk from an American-made
chemical-- glyphosate, used in herbicide products like RoundUp--that
is being sprayed to eradicate illegal crops of coca and heroin poppy.

But the people on whom the stuff is falling disagree. They want it
stopped. They argue that it has harmed communities, livestock, fish
and food supplies.

The Bush administration should listen to them. The aerial spraying is
a centerpiece of its $1.3 billion Plan Colombia assault on cocaine
and heroin production in Colombia. However, after fumigating 128,000
acres of coca, indications are the effort has only succeeded in
pushing growers to relocate their crops.

"All of us involved in this process are enemies of narcotrafficking,"
observed Gov. Parmenio Cuellar of Narino province, one of two
governors who recently visited Washington, with Colombian
legislators, to lobby for an end to aerial defoliation in their
provinces. Instead, they propose a program of manual eradication
(such as spraying on the ground), combined with alternative crop
development programs. Cuellar said that despite years of fumigation,
the size of the coca crop in Colombia has continued expanding. The
U.S. General Accounting Office concluded the same thing in a 1999
report.

As for Plan Colombia, Gov. Floro Alberto Tunubala Paja of Cauca
province said, "The great majority of Colombians don't agree with it
because they were not consulted." Colombia's human rights ombudsman,
Eduardo Cifuentes Munoz, has demanded a suspension of fumigation. He
questions the lack of an environmental management plan and
information about the effects of the chemicals used in the spray.

On top of that, now the United Nations has demanded an audit of the
crop-dusting, calling it "ineffective." Neighboring Ecuador has asked
that fumigation be kept 6 miles away from its border, due to concerns
about the spray drifting.

The health concerns are grave enough. But members of Congress
increasingly question U.S. military aid under Plan Colombia, given
the Colombian military's human rights record and its links with
right-wing paramilitary groups accused of committing 70 percent of
the nation's political murders. That violence has grown since U.S.
aid started flowing.

President Bush and Colombian President Andres Pastrana invested much
in this policy, but it's becoming a disaster.

Bush came into office quite correctly questioning the value of waging
war on foreign drug traffickers without a strong program at home to
quash demand. What happened? If Plan Colombia proves anything, it's
that spending the money in the U.S.--on drug education and treatment
programs--would be wiser.