DRUG WAR GOES IN WRONG DIRECTION

Imagine a house on fire and firefighters throwing gasoline on it in the
hope of extinguishing it. The United States does just that in Colombia with
its over $1.3 billion in support for Plan Colombia.

According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, "political
violence has markedly increased since the first installment of the United
States' $1.3 billion Plan Colombia aid package was dispersed in August to
an average of 14 deaths per day by combat and political violence.

There were at least 27 massacres in the month of January alone, claiming
the lives of as many as 300 civilians. The majority of the killings are the
work of right-wing paramilitaries with close ties to the Colombian military.

Today, U.S.-supplied helicopters using U.S. tax dollars are spraying
glyphosate or Round-up on subsistence crops such as corn and bananas in
southern Colombia. Soon there will be widespread hunger in the states of
Putumayo and Caqueta. All of this is done in order to destroy coca production.

The rationale given to the U.S. public for the more than $1 billion for
Plan Colombia is that this is part of the "War on Drugs." And yet, decades
of scientific evidence have shown that source-country eradication efforts
have no significant effect on drug use in the United States. A recent Rand
Corporation study suggests that drug treatment is 23 times more cost
effective in fighting drugs than aerial spraying on coca in source countries.

The United States is rapidly being drawn into a quagmire such as that of
Vietnam and El Salvador: American advisers, well-armed death squads with
ties to the military, aerial defoliants and human rights violations.

The Bush administration should end all military aid to Colombia and stop
aerial fumigation of crops and instead provide funds for crop substitution
for small farmers, work to strengthen the Colombian state, expropriate land
of narcotrafficers, be clear and specific about breaking the ties between
Army and paramilitaries and support the peace process. This conflict cannot
be won militarily.

Noreen Ordronneau
Carrboro