Caught in the Crossfire

Omayra was talking about the chemical herbicide Ultra Glyphosate, which was sprayed on 45,000 acres of Colombian coca fields in the summer of 1996. The children vomited and, later, their hair fell out.

To survive, she organized the first demonstration against aerial fumigation in Milleflores, a town in the Guaviare department, a large state in the remote southeastern part of Colombia where an estimated 97 percent of the local economy is derived from coca. "We organized a women's group that was open to everyone: farm women, prostitutes, professors.... We joined hands and put ourselves on the highway of Milleflores and the helicopter launch pad."

The protest movement mushroomed. By the end of November 1996, an estimated 241,000 people had participated in marches Ñ one of the largest peasant mobilizations in Colombian history. According to Coletta Youngers of the Washington Office on Latin America, they were protesting not only aerial eradication, but lack of government support for economic development and the increasing presence of the Colombian military.

I traveled to Colombia with delegations from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the Colombia Support Network, and the Colombia Media Project. My impression is that this rich and beautiful country has been singled out for punishment in the war on drugs. Former U.S. Ambassador Myles Frechette told us that he refused to communicate with President Ernesto Samper, who was suspected of having knowingly accepted campaign financing from drug lords. Yet the Samper government has acquiesced to U.S. demands for aerial fumigation -- unlike Bolivia and Peru, where a historic relationship with the indigenous coca plant has made fumigation an almost impossible political option. Nevertheless, the Clinton administration decertified Colombia in 1996 and 1997 for perceived shortcomings in its anti-narcotic efforts and because of Samper's tainted campaign funding. As a result, tiny environmental and population projects have been cut, while military assistance continues to flow. In fact, U.S. assistance to the Colombian anti-narcotics police and military increased more than fivefold last year to over $100 million.

Omayra lives in the vast southern half of the country that drains into the Amazon river basin. Transportation is confined to boat or plane. Until recently, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a left-wing guerrilla group, has been the de facto government there. The presence of this guerrilla organization has restricted the growth of paramilitary death squads, often allied with the military, that have increasingly gained control in other parts of the country to combat the guerrillas.

But struggles for health and freedom from violence are not unique to the Guaviare department. Our delegation interviewed women displaced from various regions and visited the besieged mayor of Apartado, Gloria Cuartas, in northern Colombia. There, drug lord Carlos Castano has launched a campaign of terror in the surrounding rural zones, forcing thousands to leave their homes and crowd into refugee camps. No coca or poppies are grown in this area, but it is a strategic and agriculturally rich piece of turf. Bordering both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, it provides important transshipment connections for drugs and guns through the Gulf of Uraba and the Pan-American highway.

Although women generally are not directly involved in the hostilities, they are the most affected by the trauma of displacement. According to an Amnesty International report "Refuge Colombia," they are "forced to flee their rural homes with their children, abandon their livestock and possessions, and take precarious refuge in shanty towns surrounding towns and cities. There, they, but particularly their children, may be preyed upon by urban death squads or forced into a life of crime or prostitution in order to survive."

In Bogota, a displaced woman recounted how the war culture has become embedded in the youth. "A young paramilitary told me, 'In this country, we don't have work; they pay us a salary to kill each other.'" She continued in anguish, "What can I say to them? What are our options? Our boys are being turned into salaried killers."

Her cry is echoed by mothers in inner cities throughout the United States -- the demand side of this war. Lacking employment, the only option their male children see is to join a gang and/or become a dealer. This is what struck us most profoundly: the common suffering at both ends of the drug war, and the similar themes of violence, family breakup, and hopelessness.

Without an international approach, the struggle for a more compassionate drug policy is not likely to succeed. The Clinton administration's military policy in this hemisphere is driven by the imperatives of its war-like policy. In Colombia, however, the Clinton policy appears to be a smoke screen covering U.S. support for a reactionary and vicious military. Unless bridges are built between reformers north and south, and unless the use of words like "narcoguerillas" and "crackheads" are exposed as tools to demonize the victims, we cannot build the solidarity needed to bring this war to an end.

With this in mind, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom is planning a U.S. tour of women from both Colombia and the United States. Appearing together, they will talk about the effects of the drug war in their communities, highlighting harm reduction alternatives in the United States, and alternatives to military support and fumigation in Colombia. The goal will be to bring women's voices into the debate, adding a sorely needed perspective to the struggle to end prohibition.

About the author

Robin Lloyd is chair of the Drug Policy Committee of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and publisher of Toward Freedom magazine in Burlington, VT.