Petroleumworld`s
Opinion Forum:
viewpoints
on issues in energy, geopolitics and civilization.
Sunday's
Feature
Ecuador
Finds the Courage to “Just Say No”
AFP
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa
By Kevin Alexander Watt / COHA
Anger grows as Bogotá resumes counter-narcotic aerial spraying
programs along its border with Ecuador in spite of protests from
Quito Iran’s President Mahoud Ahmadinejad and President
Hugo Chávez of Venezuela attend Ecuadorian presidential
inauguration of left-leaning Rafael Correa, as “Pink Tide”
wins one more recruit
Allegations
made that the methods and chemicals used in the fumigation programs
are likely to be dangerous despite U.S. and Colombian assertions
to the contrary
Throughout December of 2006, tensions began to flare between Ecuador
and Colombia over the latter’s continued policy of sanctioning
aerially-dispersed defoliants as a means to destroy narcotic crops
along the two countries’ shared border. Ecuador, along with
several other nations and non-governmental organizations, has
repeatedly asserted that the powerful chemicals and the purported
reckless methods of their dispersal pose a serious danger to the
environment, essential crops, and human health in areas where
they are used.
Tensions over such fumigations are not new. In
2005, Quito requested that Bogotá no longer allow the controversial
flights, which come from Colombian bases but are directed to targets
selected by the United States. The dispersal techniques currently
used allow the fumigants to periodically, depending on weather
conditions, drift onto farms and populations on Ecuador’s
side of the border. On December 7 of that year, the two countries
came to an agreement which created a six mile “buffer zone”
between areas scheduled to be fumigated and the Ecuadorian border.
“Good
Fences Make Good Neighbors”
However, in spite of what appeared at the time to be an equitable
diplomatic solution, Colombia’s President Álvaro
Uribe Vélez saw fit near the end of 2006 – due either
to pressures from the United States or personal stubbornness –
to allow aerial defoliations in the border area to resume, resulting
in some coming as close as 330 feet from the common border. Not
surprisingly, Ecuador’s newly inaugurated President Rafael
Vicente Correa Delgado responded by expressing his dissatisfaction
and called the renewed flights “a hostile act by Colombia
against Ecuador.” Quito’s frustration, over what it
sees as a blatant insult, even led Foreign Minister Francisco
Carrión to recall Ambassador Alejandro Suárez from
Bogotá in “a display of protest.” On January
11, 2007, some progress was made when an agreement was reached
in which Colombia settled to notify Ecuador prior to any fumigations
being scheduled to take place close to the border. However, the
deal fails to match the comprehensiveness of the December 2005
agreement and was criticized by Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Carrión,
who referred to it as a “backwards step.”
Ecuador’s protests have been overwhelmingly
supported by left-leaning, “Pink Tide” nations like
Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, and even centrist Peru. As a result
the conflict has been erroneously painted by some as a quarrel
between pro and anti-U.S. regimes. This suspicion has been aided
by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s ardent condemnation
of the fumigation program and the recent attendance by Iran’s
president, Mahoud Ahmadinejad, of President Correa’s inauguration.
These, coupled with Correa’s nationalistic inaugural address,
in which he promised to remove the U.S. military base at Manta
and to focus national funds on poverty relief rather than the
repaying of foreign debt, have strengthened the belief by some
that Quito’s protestations against Bogotá are merely
a ruse meant to stir disapproval of U.S. drug policies in the
region. But after examining the grievances vented by Ecuador,
one can reasonably conclude that the objections raised are both
tenable and apolitical.
Chemical
Warfare
Ecuador and those outside the country who are sympathetic to its
position have commonly voiced the concern that there is a tendency
for aerially-dispersed herbicides to be unintentionally carried
off course by air currents away from their intended targets and
onto areas dedicated to legal crops. Drift, as it is commonly
referred to, is especially hazardous in this case because the
chemicals used in the fumigations are designed to indiscriminately
kill any plant with which they come into contact. This can, of
course, be perilous for campesinos living inauspiciously close
to targeted areas. These small-scale subsistence farmers, who
usually live in near penury, rely completely upon their crops
for their survival and cannot be expected to recover easily, or
at all, from losing a dramatically large portion of their livelihood
as a result of adventitious sprayings. During a visit to Washington
in order to plead for an end to the fumigations, the Colombian
indigenous leader José Francisco Tenorio cried out to his
audience:
Our legal crops—our only sustenance–…have
been fumigated. Our sources of water, creeks, rivers, lakes, have
been poisoned, killing our fish and other living things. Today,
hunger is our daily bread. In the name of the Amazonian Indigenous
people I ask that the fumigations be immediately suspended.
The risk of pain and adversity is sadly compounded
by the pernicious effects to human health that many specialists
attribute to the questionable defoliation programs.
Serious accusations concerning the jeopardy to
those living in areas which are being fumigated have become commonplace.
These have been underlined by claims made by scientific, humanitarian,
and environmental groups that exposure to the defoliants employed
in such sprayings may lead to “gastrointestinal disorders
(e.g. severe bleeding, nausea, and vomiting), testicular inflammation,
high fevers, dizziness, respiratory ailments, skin rashes, …severe
eye irritation” and possible birth defects or miscarriages.
These dangers have been anecdotally corroborated by copious complaints
filed by affected populations.
In addition to the risks of direct exposure, recent
studies have posited that the consumption of food exposed to or
grown in fields that had earlier been sprayed with the chemicals
under discussion may also be leading to considerable health problems.
This comes as a result of a propensity of the fumigants to linger
in agricultural soil and leave measurable residues on crops .
These leftover deposits and the herbicide’s indiscriminate
destruction of plant life can also have a widespread effect on
the local environment. In addition to the plausible fears that
drift or accidental sprayings may adulterate fresh water sources,
there are good grounds to be apprehensive over the grievous impacts
on animal species relying upon certain plants or levels of biodiversity
.
In addition to concerns over the defoliant’s
active ingredient, glyphosate, repeated accusations have been
made regarding the additives with which it is mixed. Though there
have been credible concerns voiced that the concentrations of
glyphosate used in Colombia are dangerously potent, glyphosate
has been tested by the Environmental Protection Agency as well
as by its manufacturer and has been shown to cause little harm
to people when properly applied. However, the surfactant Cosmo-Flux
411f, which in Colombia is routinely added to the glyphosate-based
herbicide, has only had its ingredients speculatively examined
and remains unregistered with the EPA. In fact, the EPA was not
even provided with and did not study concentrations in the spray
mixture as a whole. As Dr. Milton Guzman, the Public Health Director
in the provincial capital of Popayán, describes, the danger
is that Cosmo-Flux 411f is used for its highly corrosive properties
that help the glyphosate penetrate the waxy protective coating
on plant leaves. But, as Guzman asserts, this property potentially
gives the defoliant the same ability to adversely affect human
skin . Concern over the possible dangers of Cosmo-Flux 411f prompted
the British multinational Imperial Chemical Industries, a supplier
of one of Cosmo-Flux 411f’s ingredients, to announce in
2001 that it would terminate its involvement in the chemical’s
manufacture as a precaution against being associated with U.S./Colombian
fumigation campaigns.
Real
Men Don’t Use Directions
Pushing to the side any suspicions that the chemicals being used
are dangerous, the U.S. Department of State and Colombian officials
continue to insist that the herbicidal mixtures they employ are
safe. But this belief is based on rather optimistic assumptions
that the chemicals are being used properly. Proponents of the
ingredients often cite a State Department report on the safety
of the fumigation program which argues that the chemicals that
are used “are acceptable provided that the labeled instructions…are
followed” . Unfortunately, the care taken to follow these
regulatory controls is not always a reliable axiom.
The
ineptitude or the ignorance of those who conduct and run these
fumigation programs has led to the systematic violation of proper
procedures mandated by the EPA. For example, in spite of the directive
that aerial fumigations should occur no higher than three meters
above the highest ground-level plant, fumigants have been regularly
observed being laid down by planes flying as high as fifteen meters
above the crops. Though this excessive altitude could have been
the result of a pilot responding to hostile gun fire from the
ground , the decision to continue the fumigations under all of
the circumstances shows a blatant, if not criminal, disregard
for the rules to which the State Department and the Colombian
Government have proudly pointed to.
No End, Save Embarrassment
Most appallingly, these potent herbicides may accidentally be
applied directly, or drift onto individuals unfortunate enough
to live near, or be working in, fields that are being fumigated.
The State Department rationalizes this as unfortunate “collateral
damage” by suggesting that in order to prevent the illicit
crops from being covered over or removed before the sprayings
can take place, the herbicides must be dispersed without any prior
warning. This cynical line of reasoning focuses primarily on narrow
U.S. interests and ignores the EPA’s clear instructions
not to “apply [these herbicides] in a way that will contact
workers or other persons.” With gross violations of regulations
regularly occurring, arguments which rely upon the correct use
of the herbicides are no longer sufficient.
After comprehending the potentially dangerous
nature of the defoliant’s chemical mixture as well as the
alarming infractions regarding safety regulations, Ecuador’s,
and for that matter the world’s, apprehension over the use
of these fumigations becomes entirely reasonable. Dismissing Ecuador’s
protests as a knee-jerk reaction by the political left aimed at
subverting U.S. influence ignores essential facts. Even if Washington’s
shortsighted counter-narcotic policies are called into question,
blame will only rest with the U.S. and its perfunctory anti-drug
strategies. In fact, a reconsideration of the United States’
ineffective and expensive supply-side drug reduction strategy
would be of tremendous benefit to citizens of the entire hemisphere.
However, even in the face of damning evidence, the likelihood
of any change in Washington’s methods is unlikely. The unfortunate
truth is that, no matter how many people are hurt or tax dollars
wasted, “staying the course” will likely continue
to define the current White House’s approach to the fictional
as well as real wars it appears to be losing.
Kevin
Alexander Watt is
a Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA),
a nonprofit, tax-exempt independent research and information organization,
that promote the common interests of Latin America. Petroleumworld
does not necessarily share these views.
Editor's Note: This commentary was originally published by COHA
web site, January 16th, 2007. Petroleumworld reprint this article
in the interest of our readers.
All
comments posted and published on Petroleumworld, do not reflect
either for or against the opinion expressed in the comment as
an endorsement of Petroleumworld. All comments expressed are private
comments and do not necessary reflect the view of this website.
All comments are posted and published without liability to Petroleumworld.
Fair use Notice:
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We
are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding
of issues of environmental and humanitarian significance. We believe
this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
All
works published by Petroleumworld are in accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit
to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. Petroleumworld
has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article
nor is Petroleumworld endorsed or sponsored by the originator.
Petroleumworld encourages persons to reproduce, reprint, or broadcast
Petroleumworld articles provided that any such reproduction identify
the original source, http://www.petroleumworld.com or else and
it is done within the fair use as provided for in section 107
of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use copyrighted material
from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use',
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Internet web
links to http://www.petroleumworld.com are appreciated.
Petroleumworld
News 01/20/07
Copyright
© 2006 Council
on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA).
All rights reserved.
Your
feedback is important to us!
We invite all our readers to share with
us
their views and comments about this article.
