Colombian Officials Speak Out Against Drug War; U.S. Officials Waffle

In response to the visit of a high-ranking U.S. delegation, prominent Colombians are voicing their frustration with the U.S. funded drug war. Recently, the front-runner in the upcoming presidential election, Colombian governors, lawmakers, and high-ranking members of current President Andres Pastrana’s administration have all criticized the fumigation strategy. Fumigation is a key component of the $1.3 billion Plan Colombia. Critics contend that toxic herbicides are sprayed indiscriminately from above, hitting water supplies, staple crops, and people. The aerial eradication campaign drives peasants further into the Amazon basin, which in turn leads to unnecessary rainforest destruction.

Many Colombians are openly discussing legalization. Possession and consumption of drugs is already legal in Colombia. A pending bill in the Colombian Senate calls for the legalization of production and sale of narcotics in order to eliminate the inflated black market profits that finance the various armed factions currently terrorizing the country. A sponsor of the bill, Sen. Viviane Morales, has stated that “a few years from now, we will look back on the drug war as one of the stupidest wars that humanity has ever waged.” Former president Ernesto Samper noted that “the problem is that the law of the marketplace is overtaking the law of the state.” Backers of fumigation in the U.S. Congress, many of them staunch advocates of free market economies, apparently feel that the laws of supply and demand do not apply to drug policy. Venezuela has expressed concern that U.S. efforts to eradicate coca cultivation in Colombia will lead to increased production throughout the region.

In response to growing criticism of fumigation and calls for the United States to reduce demand at home rather than wage war against source countries, Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana remarked that it is a “misnomer that the United States is only pointing the finger” at drug producing nations. Critics contend that the financing of civil war in Colombia and wholesale destruction of the environment in coca producing regions constitutes far more than finger pointing. In defending his commitment to eradication, Souder noted that the U.S. House of Representative's approval of an additional $676 million for an Andean eradication initiative was passed despite concerns that the money would be better spent on fighting the worldwide AIDS epidemic and other health programs.