NO 'FAIR TRADE' IN DRUG SMUGGLING

It's great that David Aaronovitch (Comment, last week) says that the film
Maria Full of Grace made him think about ordinary Colombians placed in
danger by being 'mules', transporting cocaine out of the country at huge
risk to their own health. But the 'human cost of the drugs trade' is far
worse than that.

Colombia's civil war has cost the lives of millions of civilians over four
decades, and it is perpetuated by the drugs trade. Both sides (the
guerrilla movements and the right-wing paramilitaries) are directly funded
by cocaine, both protecting and profiting from its trade. It is blatantly
described as a 'tax'. Both sides are wealthy, state-of-the-art movements,
with sophisticated satellite communications and military hardware.

More than two million Colombians have fled their homes, internally
displaced by violence and massacres (UNHCR). Many more have left the
country altogether.

Furthermore, Colombia's drug-dealing armed groups are among the worst
violators of international norms against use of child soldiers.

Bee Rowlatt

London NW3