Part One Of A Three Part Special On Colombia

COLOMBIA REVISITED

To much of the world, Colombia is seen in terms of black and white oil and
cocaine being the two bestknown exports to emerge from the country. Yet
Colombia is a deeply complex nation that has been built upon and often
against the wishes and ways of life of many peoples.

Here we examine the multifaceted Colombia: first Peter Bunyard provides an
overview of the country's social, economic and environmental status; from
page 40 we present a twofold view of the revolutionary guerilla movement,
the FARC; and finally, filmmaker Alan Ereira returns to the homelands of
the Kogi to discover how these remarkable people have fared since they
invited him to film them for the first time 10 years ago.

Flying over the Colombian Amazonas, it's hard to imagine there's much wrong
with the world. There below, like a giant anaconda, is the Caqueta river,
making its journey over the equator, first into the Amazon, far beyond the
borders of Colombia, and then, thousands of kilometres later, with all the
other accumulated rivers, pouring into the Atlantic Ocean. Everywhere, as
far as the eye can see, nothing but forest, rivers and creeks, until our
arrival at Leticia, a city built after the 100daywar with Peru in the 1930s.

Leticia is the capital of Colombia's Amazonas. Within the region are vast
areas of indigenous lands the resguardos national parks such as the
Cahuinari, forest reserves and various colonist settlements, particularly
in the piedmonte regions of the upper Putumayo and Caqueta. Colombia's
Amazonas encompasses 42 million hectares, not far off double the size of
Great Britain. Even so, it occupies just 5.5 per cent of the 7.8 million
square kilometres of the entire basin.

The ecological biodiversity in the area is legion, unparalleled in terms of
quantity, with more than 6,600 species of flowering plants from 277
families, 868 species of birds, 147 species of reptile, 95 species of
amphibian, 210 species of mammal and 343 distinct species of bees and
wasps, quite apart from all the other insects, numbered in their thousands.

Cargo planes make daily flights to Leticia, providing virtually all the
consumer goods you find in the shops, from fresh vegetables that don't grow
too well in the humid tropics to the latest scooters. The planes then load
up with fish for the return journey. Amazon fish, such as pirarucu, the
largestscaled freshwater fish in the world which lives off fruit failing
from the trees into the many lakes that branch off from the Amazon is
highly prized for its flavour and texture. But overfishing has taken its
toll, and pirarucu taken now tend to be well under half normal weight, such
as one I saw being expertly filleted by a Tikuna Indian across the waters
in Peru. He told me he no longer came across the bigger specimens.

Leticia, with its 24,000 inhabitants, lies on the border between Colombia,
Peru and Brazil. Its population is made up in part of indigenous peoples,
mainly Tikuna, and the rest of Colombians, who for one reason or another,
are seeking a life away from conflict, away from paramilitaries and
guerrillas, away from the violence, from the drugtraffickers and sometimes,
where threats have been made, from death itself. But life in Leticia is not
easy. It's hard trying to scrape a living in a place where unemployment is
rife and where, in some instances, those employed by the regional
government have not been paid for more than a year.

Coming Back For More

Ten years ago, in the company of Juan Manuel Renjifo, a renowned
herpetologist from Bogota, I tried to meet with Tom Defler, who had
established the Caparu biological station in an isolated island of forest
fed by the Apaporis River. Tom had a reputation for trying to protect
monkeys from being hunted and of caring for orphans, young monkeys whose
mothers had been slaughtered for bush meat.

Juan Manuel and myself had spent the previous two months making our way
first to La Chorrera on the Igaraparana and then from Araracuara on the
Caqueta to La Pedrera close to the border with Brazil. Our mission was to
review the impact of the new 1991 Constitution of Colombia on the
indigenous communities of the Amazon and the conservation of the forest and
natural resources. The hope of sociologists, anthropologists and biologists
was that the granting to the indigenous communities of title to large
sectors of land in Colombia's Amazonia, would serve two purposes: the
recognition of a priori indigenous rights and therefore protection from
colonisation; and the regeneration of traditions that would serve the aim
of conservation. But floods prevented us getting to our destination, and we
returned emptyhanded.

Now, in 2001, in Leticia, I finally meet Tom. More than 20 years before,
armed with his PhD from the University of Colorado, he had arrived in
Colombia with the Peace Corps. His aim was to get as far away as he could
from human impact on the forest and study the life and behaviour of
primates. Meanwhile, he and his thenwife Sara fought to get Caparu accepted
as a biological station in the hope of protecting it from hunting.
Gradually they built up a remarkable system of more than 120 km of trails,
to make forays easier into the forest and to save wouldbe researchers from
vanishing forever.

Colombia, as Defler points out, is megarich in primates compared to most of
the rest of the world, The same applies to its flowering plants, its birds,
its reptiles, its butterflies. In Colombia's Amazon alone, there are 19
distinct known species of primates and new species are still being found
across the border in Brazil. There may well be more to be discovered in
Colombia. According to the distinguished ethnobotanist, Richard Schultes,
even though Colombia's Amazonia is onefifteenth the size of the legal
Amazon of Brazil, it has close to equal biodiversity.

Over the years, Tom has accumulated a wealth of information on the foraging
habits of the different species in the forest around the station, including
howlers, woolly monkeys, capuchins, spider monkeys, the blackheaded uakari
and marmosets, such as the diminutive redhaired pygmy. In addition he has
studied their behaviour with regard to territory and whether the presence
of one species or subspecies has an impact on the presence of others,
whether for instance woolly monkeys keep spider monkeys away or whether,
based on their locomotory abilities and consequently different feeding
strategies, they avoid competition and tolerate each other. In fact, spider
monkeys are far more agile and can therefore get to fruits at the ends of
branches that the woolly monkeys leave alone. Not much friendliness between
the species, but they do seem to tolerate each other.

Destruction

But as so often in today's world, the real enemy of wildlife is man. 'Time
and time again, whether indigenous communities or colonists, all have had a
devastating impact on wildlife, not least on primates', Tom told me,
'leaving little but "empty" huntedout sections of forest. In the past,
after some 30 years of settlement, an entire indigenous community would up
sticks and move. That gave forests time to recover. In those traditional
times the shamans imposed hunting restrictions; now communities tend to
stay put, hunting without restraint, or concern that today's feast will be
tomorrow's famine.'

The primates are affected by the loss of habitat and the larger ones, such
as woollies and howlers, by hunting. One of the richest areas in terms of
biodiversity, is the piedmonte of the Andes, especially that in the upper
Putumayo and Caqueta That entire region has been savagely degraded,
particularly in recent years, through the invasion of coca and poppy
growers who moved in in their droves when the US succeeded in rooting out
coca production in Bolivia and Peru during the 1990s, Meanwhile, hunting is
putting a lot of pressure on primate populations throughout Colombia's Amazon.

As much as 12 per cent of Colombia's Amazon has now been degraded, with
some important regions such as La Macarena, legally a national park, having
lost onefifth of its forests. Some 5.5 million hectares of the Colombian
Amazon, or 13 per cent of the whole, are supposedly protected in the form
of national parks, but very often these parks, such as the Cahuinari,
overlie indigenous areas and are considered 'fair game' for hunting.

According to Tom's observations, the spider monkey population is plummeting
throughout the Amazon. 'As a species', Tom told me, 'our own survival is at
stake, and we'll only survive if we come to respect life other than our
own. In the Amazon, we couldn't do better than look to our primates as a
marker of what we are doing.'

Monkeys And Guerillas

Tom Defier knows what it is to be hunted. Not all that far from the
station, in the Guainia, on the border with Brazil, is a gold mine, which,
more than 15 years ago, came under the control of FARC guerrillas. Tom paid
his dues and was on reasonable terms, but then, three years ago, a small
group of guerrillas, quite likely acting independently, entered his house.
They were not friendly; they gave him two hours to get out, forcing him to
leave without any of his possessions, not even his notebooks, nor his boat
with its outboard motor. 'If we see you again you're dead,' they told him.

Tom didn't argue; he took a small dugout and paddled down the Apaporis to
the Brazilian border. At the border post, he decided to call his colleague
by radio in La Pedrera. At that moment, the guerrillas arrived, in his
launch, laden with his possessions computer, solar panels, laboratory
equipment. They took him captive and walked him towards the forest. But not
being one to die without a struggle, he tore himself free and ran for his
life into the jungle, diving over spines, splashing and swimming through
the flooded forest until he felt safe.

'They came after me,' he said, 'but 1 suddenly realised they were afraid of
the forest and 1 could shake them off.' For three days, Tom swam through
the forest, until he made it to an outpost. He has not returned to Caparu.
But neither has he given up. He has located a tract of forest in the
Trapecio which, if not as isolated as Caparu, is currently free of the
FARC, the paramilitaries and any others with nefarious backgrounds. 'The
sad part of it all is that, even if 1 didn't actually support them, in the
past 1 sympathised with a good part of the ideology and aims of FARC.'

The FARC now has control over much of the Caqueta and Putumayo, a
significant swathe of land. When 1 was there 10 years ago the guerrillas
kept themselves hidden for the most part, but they now move around openly
and control small towns. In particular, they now have under their
jurisdiction many of the colonists in the piedmonte region of the Caqueta
and Putumayo, as well as to the north in Guaviare. In the past,
colonisation led inexorably to clearing of the forest for cattle, but more
recently the new waves of colonists are those seeking to make a living out
of coca plantations.

In the Putumayo, between 1985 and 1997, the area cleared for cattle
ranching, but mainly for coca production, grew by 130,000 hectares, and
that in the Caqueta just to the north by a similar amount. The quality of
the soils is simply not good enough to sustain constant ranching or
monocultures of coca, and every year some 16,000 hectares are abandoned.
That means that wherever forest is cleared, within a matter of years the
land will have to be abandoned. That sort of development is therefore a
cancer, eating its way through the forest. Violence is endemic in the
region. If you are a male, aged anywhere between 15 and 44 years old, your
chances of dying a natural death are pretty minimal: 65 per cent of all
deaths in that age group are through homicide, and the paramilitaries play
their part , with mass slaughter of peasants whom they believe to be FARC
sympathisers or simply as an excuse to grab their land.

A particular problem is that for each hectare of coca planted, four
hectares of forest are destroyed, mostly by fire. Currently some 120,000
hectares are exploited for coca; hence 480,000 associated hectares of
forest have been lost, mostly during the past five years. Add to that
illegal timber extraction to the tune of 328,000 cubic metres of wood each
year, and one is seeing a swathe of destruction that is for ever eating its
way further into the Amazon.

In addition, coca production requires the use of toxic chemicals, which
seep into the rivers. Every hectare of coca needs some 1.3 tonnes of
precursor chemicals, all of which are imported from the US and Europe. Some
150,000 tonnes of toxic chemicals now flow into the Caqueta Putumayo and
Guaviare Rivers each year, resulting in significant soil deterioration.

With multimillion dollar aid from the US, Colombia has embarked on a
'fumigation' campaign, using glyphosate, to wipe out the illicit crops.
Monsanto must be over the moon, since glyphosate is none other than its
notorious 'Roundup', of which it has exclusive production. The intention is
to eliminate the drug crops, leaving chemically scorched earth behind, as
was achieved in Bolivia and Peru. But the Colombian situation is far more
complicated. Much of the coca production is now in areas that are overrun
by FARC guerrillas. They have a double interest in protecting the crops,
first because it provides a substantial source of income for the
acquisition of arms and other 'necessities', and second because they are
winning the battle for political support from those colonists whom they are
now protecting. Over the past couple of years they have managed to shoot
down several of the planes used for spraying.

Moreover, the FARC provides a system of justice and administration in the
areas over which it has control, with the result that crime and violence
have been substantially reduced. Indeed, in some areas, the FARC has taken
over the functions of the mayor's office, including pocketing money
allocated for the region's administration. But at least the FARC is
building some reasonably decent roads.

Coca eradication has been going on in Colombia for several years, but has
been accelerated over the past few months, with some 30,000 hectares having
been destroyed so far. Socially and environmentally, the eradication
campaign is having disastrous consequences. The campesinos are left with
next to nothing and become little better than refugees, or, in desperation,
they unleash a new wave of forest destruction. Eyewitnesses told me of the
savage effect on people who had been sprayed. They go temporarily blind and
their eyes became inflamed. Their skin becomes ulcerated, their lungs are
affected. Many of the victims are young children who are caught out in the
open when the spraying begins.

Talking To The Top Brass

Juan Mayr Maldonaldo is Columbia's environment minister. I have known him
for more than 12 years, having hiked with him on several occasions up the
arduous trails into the land of the Kogi and the Sierra Nevada of Santa
Marta in northern Colombia.

To be environment minister in a country five times the size of the UK, with
more biodiversity for its size than anywhere else in the world, and with a
rich cultural heritage, including 80 distinct ethnic groups, is no mean
responsibility. But when I spoke to Mayr in Bogota on my recent trip to
Colombia, I had the distinct impression that his current role is to give
credibility to the Colombian government in its promotion of US interests in
the region.

Mayr's ministry has given Occidental, the Los Angelesbased oil company,
permits to explore for and extract oil in the region that straddles U'wa
indian territory. His ministry has also agreed to the USsponsored
eradication of coca plantations in the Upper Putumayo and Caqueta areas
where the FARC now reigns supreme. Of course, if Mayr had opposed the
government his days as minister would have been numbered.

Yet instead of voicing concerns about the environmental and social impact
of the fumigation programme, Mayr rather insisted that the consequences
would be shortlived. He had just returned from a visit to the region and he
denied that he had seen anything which particularly worried him. 'Only ten
per cent of complaints concern health,' he said, and when 1 asked him what
was to happen to those peasants who were left with nothing after the
eradication, he said, 'they have the right to seek compensation.' It turned
out that the peasants had to call the police to validate the destruction of
their crops and then take their claim to a tribunal. Somehow, it's hard to
imagine a peasant who has just seen his crops destroyed by government
sources taking his case for compensation to an official tribunal.

The Spiral Goes On

To make matters worse for the coca growers, few grow vegetables for local
consumption. The net result is the importation of food from Ecuador, which
is then sold at elevated prices, forcing the peasants to increase their
coca harvests to afford it. Altogether, some 347,000 people are involved in
the coca business in Colombia's western Amazonia, and 450,000 in Colombia
as a whole.

Meanwhile, the disparity in prices for cocaine, depending on where it's
finally sold, is astronomical. If a peasant barely gets his subsistence
from coca, the trafficker who lays his hands on a kilo of cocaine in
Colombia will pay US$2,000; in Frankfurt or the US, that same kilo will go
for $50,000. No question that the eradication programme is making cocaine a
high value commodity, and the stakes for processing a successful crop
increase proportionately. That does not bode well for total eradication nor
for the western Amazon of Colombia.

So What Is The Solution?

Many Colombians I spoke to said that effective action to limit coca
production while protecting both peasants and the environment will happen
only if drugs such as cocaine are made legitimate. That is not to say they
would be freely available, but that their production and distribution would
be statecontrolled. Meanwhile, a programme of crop substitution could be
elaborated in which the peasants would want to cooperate fully, even to the
extent of pulling up coca plants by hand.

Most biologists, quite apart from the public in general, see the fumigation
programme as an abomination which serves US interests above all. It is seen
as wholly counterproductive in terms of causing untold human misery while
not solving the fundamental problem of drug abuse. Tackling that is the
first step in bringing sanity and stability back to this remarkable country.