For Immediate Release: December 17, 2001
Contact: Janet Hostetler, Witness for Peace (202) 588-1471

Following Second Round of Fumigation in Putumayo, NGOs Issue Letter to State Department; Witness For Peace Report Documents Government Violations of Pact Agreement, Health and Environmental Impact

Washington, DC: In a letter issued to Secretary of State Colin Powell last week, a diverse group of sixty-two organizations, including the Center for International Environmental Law, the United Church of Christ, Veterans for More Effective Drug Strategies, and the Institute for Science and Interdisciplinary Studies expressed grave concerns regarding the most recent round of US-sponsored aerial fumigation in Putumayo, Colombia.

Following the spraying, which began on November 13th of this year, staff of the US NGO Witness for Peace traveled to Putumayo to view the impact of the fumigation. Among their findings were that the spraying violated pact agreements signed with coca-growing farmers in the region; violated Colombian law 0005, which mandates that only land holdings larger than two acres will be sprayed; that the spraying hit community residents, bodies of water, and legal crops, also in violation of law 0005; and that the spraying ignored recent US congressional criticism of the policy.

The pact agreements, which were signed in June of this year, obligate farmers to manually eradicate their coca within 12 months in exchange for alternative development aid and a halt to the spraying. According to USAID and the Colombian development agency PLANTE, as of late September, only 586 of the 37,000 families that had signed pacts in Putumayo had received any alternative development aid. In their investigation, Witness for Peace documented that there was no visible attempt by Colombian authorities to determine which families had signed pacts before spraying; indeed, the report documents one case where a new alternative development project was destroyed by the fumigation.

The letter to Secretary Powell expressed concern at these findings, and questioned Administration support for the campaign, especially in light of recent criticism of the fumigation policy by the US Congress. The Senate version of the foreign operations bill included several provisions on fumigation, including an amendment calling for alternative development programs to be in place before fumigation begins. While this initiative will not go into effect for another six months, the signers of the letter found State Department support for the current fumigation campaign in Putumayo to go directly against the expressed concerns of Congress.

In their letter to Secretary of State Powell, the signers state the following:
The fumigation of pact signers, even before aid arrives… casts severe doubts on the pacts' viability and increases the local peasants' deep-rooted suspicion of the Colombian government's ability to deliver on its promises. The spraying is nearly certain to prove counterproductive, inspiring coca-growers to ignore the pacts and grow more coca in new zones, out of the spray planes' current reach.
We call into question a government policy that is contradictory to the expressed concerns of U.S. citizens, the U.S. Congress, and Colombian law. We urge you to order the cessation of all U.S.-funded fumigation of communities who have signed social pacts for alternative development. No U.S.-funded fumigation should occur at least until communities have been given a good-faith opportunity to manually eradicate illicit crops.

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