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Plan Colombia Criticism Leads to Increased Spending on Andean Initiative

http://www.drugpolicy.org/lindesmith/news/DailyNews/03_13_01Colombia2.html
Plan Colombia Criticism Leads to Increased Spending on Andean Initiative
Wednesday, March 13, 2001
In response to criticism that Plan Colombia will create a spillover effect
and spread coca production and instability throughout the region, the Bush
administration announced on Monday that it plans to expand Plan Colombia to
include neighboring countries. According to William Brownfield, Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for western hemisphere affairs “You cannot deal
with Colombia in isolation... We need a more regional approach to address the
issues, the crises that are emanating from Colombia today.” President George
W. Bush will introduce a budget to Congress next month that provides for
increased spending for Colombia's neighbors.

President Bush recently admitted that American demand for illegal drugs
fuels production and trafficking. Nonetheless, George Wachtenheim, Director
of the US Agency for International Development Mission in Colombia, claims
the new program, titled the Andean Initiative, will be a social program to
address the root causes of drug cultivation. The Andean Initiative will
include Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela and Panama and comes on
the heels of scathing European Union criticism of the mostly military aid
that makes up Plan Colombia, along with protests from Southern Colombian
governors on the environmental impact of fumigation. A group of European
countries is seeking to monitor Plan Colombia's program of aerial crop
fumigation in order to gauge its overall effectiveness and environmental
impact.
In related news, past attempts at promoting alternative crops have had
limited success at best. The fumigation strategy currently being used in
Colombia makes a phasing-in of alternative crop development problematic.
Plan Colombia is exacerbating an already chronic refugee problem by
fumigating staple food crops along with coca. With coca crops being
destroyed in Colombia, the price of coca is expected to rise along with
production in neighboring countries. Instability in Peru and Bolivia make
the two Andean countries likely candidates for increased production. The
indigenous populations of the Andean region have grown and used coca for
millennia. However, coca was not grown for export until the relatively
recent advent of cocaine use in industrialized countries.
As part of a U.S. funded plan, farmers have been paid $2,500 for each acre
of hectare of Bolivian coca destroyed. However, rising hardship in Bolivia
is causing many farmers to return to coca growing. The profits from the
alternative crops introduced are significantly lower than those obtained
from growing coca. Coca buyers not only pay more, but they also buy crops at
their source. Limited infrastructure makes transport of alternative crops to
receptive markets difficult. Last Fall the coca growers union blockaded
roads and forced the government to airlifted supplies to the capital.
Intensified conflict is expected if troops try to eradicate the remaining
coca.
Should the Andean Initiative attempt to pay farmers throughout the Andean
region not to grow coca, it may have to be broadened to include Africa as
well. There have been reports of coca cultivation on Mount Kilimanjaro in
Kenya, destined for European consumption. Additionally, the increased
emphasis on coca eradication has shifted resources away from opium poppy
eradication and allowed production to flourish in Colombia. Opium is the raw
material used to make heroin. According to the most recent Monitoring the
Future survey, heroin use among high school seniors has reached record
levels.


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