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July 5th,
2001 - Anti-Coca Fumigation Takes Toll in Border Area |
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Anti-Coca
Fumigation Takes Toll in Border Area By Kintto Lucas Inter Press Service July 5, 2001 Quito - Colombia's
Environment minister, Juan Myer, maintains that aerial fumigation of coca
plantations causes ''no real harm,'' though the environmental group
Ecological Action stated Wednesday that the practice has meant health
problems for more than 6,000 people living along the Ecuador-Colombia border. ''The effects of the
fumigation are evident in the 36 symptoms of illness present in the border
communities,'' reported Adolfo Maldonado, a Spanish doctor who participated
in conducting a study sponsored by the Quito-based Ecological Action. Every one of the Ecuadorian
residents living within five kilometers of the Colombian border presented
symptoms of pesticide-related ailments, he said. At 10 km, the portion of the
population affected fell to 89 percent. The people suffering the
impact of the coca-eradication efforts on the Ecuadorian side of the border
number nearly 2,000, while there are an estimated 4,000 on the Colombian
side, according to the study. As part of Plan Colombia, an
anti-drug trade and pro- development plan championed by Colombian President
Andrés Pastrana, that country's military forces have been spraying coca
plantations in the department of Putumayo, located on the Ecuadorian border
and home to an estimated 60 percent of the country's coca fields. Ecological Action's report
seeks to refute the statements made by Myer, who stated Tuesday that
glyphosate, the herbicide used in the aerial spraying, causes no real
problems for human health or the environment. According to the Colombian
minister, just 15 percent of the glyphosate used in Colombia goes toward
eradication of coca, the raw material for cocaine production. The rest, he
said, is utilized in wiping out weeds in plantations of sugarcane and of
other crops. The research conducted by
the environmental group includes an analysis of the substances implemented in
the fumigation of coca plantations and the effects of these chemicals on the
health of the residents of Ecuador's Amazon province of Sucumbíos, on the
Colombian border. The herbicide used contains
RoundUp Ultra, manufactured by the agro-chemical transnational Monsanto, with
the active ingredient glyphosate. Cosmo-Flux 411F is added to the Roundup
Both are highly toxic, says the environmental organization. Lucía Gallardo, head of
Ecological Action's biodiversity campaign, pointed out that Roundup Ultra
contains 26 percent glyphosate, instead of the one percent recommended for
use as an herbicide. ''That percentage is
exceptionally dangerous to human health, but even worse is the use of
Cosmo-Flux, which the United States Environmental Protection Agency has
classified as 'extremely toxic','' Gallardo told IPS. Ecuador's Ministry of
Environment, meanwhile, has formed a commission - with delegates from the
ministries of Health, Defense and Foreign Relations - to assess the problems
that have arisen along the country's northern border since Plan Colombia was
launched last year. The commission will turn to
the Pan-American Health Organization. for assistance in conducting its evaluation,
the results of which will determine what course Ecuador's government will
take with respect to the aerial fumigations, announced Environment minister,
Lourdes Luque. But Luque stressed that no
damages have been incurred in the Ecuadorian region bordering Colombia as a
result of the spraying and she described Ecological Action as an
''extremist'' organization. For her part, Gallardo
defended her group's research, saying ''it confirms what the residents and
the border authorities had already reported.'' Environment minister Luque
is ''turning a blind eye to an obvious reality,'' she added. ''It would be important for
the minister to visit the areas affected and not just speak from her office,
because her attitude and that of the Colombian minister (Myer) contradict the
principles they claim to defend,'' said the activist. Myer and Luque made their
statements during the Andean Conference of Environmental Authorities, held
Monday and Tuesday in Quito, an event that also drew Venezuela's assistant
minister of environment, Alejandro Hitcher, and the ambassadors of Peru and
Bolivia in Ecuador. The Andean countries -
Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela - together are home to 25
percent of the planet's biodiversity and share a common destiny in the
natural heritage that they must protect, Luque said. Also entering the debate on
coca fumigations is the Ecuadorian Congress. Its International Affairs
Committee has asked the National Polytechnic University and the Central
University to study the effects of the herbicide on human health and the
environment in the area along the Colombian border. The Committee's chairman,
Hugo Moreno, said it is imperative to determine whether harm is being caused
in Ecuador by the chemicals used in the fumigation of coca plantations in the
nearby areas of Colombia. ''If human ailments are
verified, the national government will be called upon to provide the
corresponding reparations to the farmers and peasants of that area,'' he
said. © 2001 IPS. External link: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0705-02.htm |