The Narco News Bulletin
"The
Name of Our Country is América"
--
Simón Bolívar
September 25, 2000
Special to
The Narco News Bulletin
Three summers
ago we met Jeff Conant at the edge of the Lacandon Jungle. Later
we entered a Tzeltal indigenous village deeper in the selva where
Jeff was already well known and liked by the townspeople: he
had helped to construct a potable water system there. A year
later, like 400 other foreign journalists and human rights observers,
Jeff was expelled from Mexico.
Jeff Conant
then went to Ecuador where he investigated this important report.
As Conant demonstrates with facts, Fusarium Oxysporum is not
the only herbicide used in the drug war that threatens the rainforest.
Narco News is proud to present this work of authentic journalism
to our readers.
Agent
Green Over The Amazon
Drug War Policy
Threatens to Unleash Havoc in South America
An Investigative
Report from Lago Agrio, Ecuador
By Jeff Conant
Special to
The Narco News Bulletin
The Curse of
Lago Agrio
Rumors
of the impending release of a genetically
modified fungus as part of
the War on Drugs in Colombia have been raising concerns among
environmentalists and regional officials that a grave ecological
and social
crisis may be unfolding in the region. At the same time, heightened
violence on the ground in Colombia is putting pressure on bordering
nations
as they anticipate the arrival of thousands of refugees from
the growing
civil war.
On July 19 the Ecuadorian daily paper
El Comercio ran a front page article
entitled "Exodus Arrives at Sucumbios: the Wave of Refugees
Grows."
According to the article, 5000 Colombian refugees had recently
arrived in
the Ecuadorian state of Sucumbios, on the border of the two Andean
nations,
and an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 more were expected in the following
weeks. The cause of the mass exodus was heightened violence in
the
Colombian civil war. More specifically, this wave of refugees
was coming
from the Putumayo region of Colombia, where massive doses of
the U.S.-made
pesticide glyphosate, better known as Roundup, are being sprayed
to destroy
coca and poppy plantations as part of the U.S.-sponsored War
on Drugs.
A few weeks later, arriving in Lago Agrio,
the capital of the state of
Sucumbios - and capitol of the Ecuadorian oil industry - I found
that the
Comercio had exaggerated the figures, but not the fear. According
to Luis
Yanez of the Frente de la Defensa de La Amazona (The Front for
the Defense
of the Amazon), there were as yet no "official" refugees,
although the
fumigations were, and are, well under way. With constant newspaper
reports
about the pesticide spraying, the refugees, and rumors of a mysterious
fungus being dumped over the Amazon basin by the U.S. DEA, people
across
Ecuador fear the worst. On the eve of a prolonged conflict between
Colombia's many factions and the growing U.S. military presence
in the
region, Ecuador has little choice but to watch itself be dragged
into the
melee against its will.
The bishop of Sucumbios, Monseñor
Gonzalo Lopez Mareñon, denied the
newspaper reports of 5000 refugees. But he had recently formed
a group
called the Asemblea de la Sociedad Civil (Assembly of Civil Society),
which, together with the Frente de la Defensa de La Amazona and
the UN High
Commission on Refugees, was meeting to begin preparations for
the impending
crisis. Barring the closing of the border - which will only exacerbate
the
situation -- nobody doubts that refugees will arrive, and in
ever-increasing numbers.
Lago Agrio is not prepared to receive
these refugees. The city itself has a
troubled history, and is one of the poorest and most violent
cities in
Ecuador. As little as thirty years ago Lago Agrio, then known
as Nueva Loja
- was the heartland of the Cofan people, an indigenous tribe
renowned for
their bravery, skill at warfare, and knowledge of traditional
medicine. But
when Texaco struck oil there 1962 and changed the town's name
to Lago Agrio
- after Sour Lake, Texas, site of their first oil deposit back
home - the
region's history took a sharp turn for the worse.
Forty years later the Cofanes have been
reduced to a few thousand proud stragglers clinging to their
traditions, and Lago Agrio, on the border of Colombia, has become
one
of the most polluted and fearful areas in this small, poor, but
relatively
peaceful nation. Regular border crossings by Colombian drug-traffickers
and
the presence of low-paid migrant workers, along with the difficult
conditions of work in the oilfields, causes a general instability
in the
town, and warnings to stay in at night. The complete absence
of facilities
for an impending flood of refugees - especially refugees whose
only
livelihood is growing, processing, and transporting cocaine --
has begun to
raise fears, not only in Lago Agrio but throughout the nation,
that the
effects of Plan Colombia will spill over the border, deepening
Ecuador's
already grave social and economic crisis. The wave of pesticide
fumigations
rumored to increase at any moment, but which, until now, seem
to be
shrouded in secrecy, will only make matters worse.
Plan Colombia
The fumigations, aimed at destroying plantations
of poppy and coca and the
livelihoods that depend on illicit cultivation, are part of Plan
Colombia.
Plan Colombia, developed by the U.S. and
the European Union with the
support of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,
has as its
objective the opening of markets and the stimulation of foreign
investment
in Colombia. According to its critics, the plan is given a different
face
depending on its audience. But it seems to have several specific
objectives
which remain more-or-less fixed:
o
The implementation
of measures to attract foreign investment and to
promote the expansion of markets, strengthening treaties that
protect
foreign investment and free trade as promoted by the World Trade
Organization.
o
Destruction of illegal
cultivars in the region of Putumayo and other
zones in Southern Colombia, and their substitution with "productive
projects, principally permanent cultivars [coffee, banana, sugar,
African
palm]…by way of strategic alliances" between investors
and large and small
landholders which will offer "alternative employment opportunities
and
social services to the population of areas under illicit cultivation."
o
Reestablishment of
military control in these zones, and modernization of
the Armed Forces.
o
Institutional reform,
including the struggle against
corruption and the defense of human rights.
o
Reactivation of the
economy.
As basic tenets of globalization and WTO
unilateral policy, these same
principals, applied in Mexico in the mid-1990´s, led to
destabilization of
the rural population and widespread civil unrest. The implementation
of
NAFTA in Mexico hinged upon fundamental policy shifts, such as
the erasure
of article 27 from the Mexican Constitution. Article 27, the
right to hold
land in common, protected ancestral indigenous territories from
being
bought and sold. Its removal from the constitution aimed to increase
investment and stimulate the economy. Instead, it lead to the
Zapatista
uprising of January 1994 and a prolonged war of attrition that
continues to
the present day.
It is hard to imagine that further militarization
of the
War on Drugs, and the leveling of prices that will come with
Plan Colombia
and the pending Free Trade Agreement for the Americas will not
have a
similar effect. As the example of Mexico has shown, Free Trade
favors the
corporations and large landholders - those that can show immediate
profit
and whose economies of scale can withstand the leveling of prices
on the
global market. The small landholder is moved off his land and
the landless
peasant is forced to work at less-than-subsistence wages. The
landless
peasants and small landholders in Southern Colombia, who currently
subsist
by planting and processing coca, and who have been increasingly
caught
between the guerillas and the paramilitaries, will continue to
be forced to
migrate to other zones, both to find work and to escape the escalating
violence and the aerial fumigation.
Over the past ten years more than 1.5
million Colombians have been
displaced, and at least 35,000 have been killed. An estimated
2 percent of
Colombia´s population - some 800,000 people - have fled
the country since
1996, most of them to the United States. But while the middle
classes take
refuge in the U.S., those with less resources are forced across
the border
into Panama and Ecuador. A refugee community of some 800 people,
and
growing, has taken root in Panama´s dense and nearly impassable
jungle
province of Darien, at the bottom of the Central American isthmus,
bringing
a new source of destabilization to that wracked and recently
demilitarized
nation. And, like in Ecuador´s impoverished Oriente, the
existing
infrastructure barely supports the local population, let alone
the arrival
of immigrants and refugees.
As long as cocaine remains at once illegal
and in high demand - primarily
in the U.S. - it will be impossible to compete with its viability
as a cash
crop. Its destruction may in fact have the reverse effect - it
will raise
prices and increase the incentive to produce. Despite the massive
campaign
to destroy illegal cultivars in Colombia over the last several
years,
production has doubled, and the violence accompanying it has
increased.
U.S. State Department figures show that
in spite of intensive herbicide
spraying and other forms of forced eradication, the area in production
increased by 200% between 1992 and 1999. In 1999 alone, the area
under
cultivation increased by 20,200 hectares (50,500 acres). It seems
clear
that a strategy of eradication, without the accompaniment of
a plan to
reduce poverty and secure livelihoods for the people of the zone,
is bound
to fail.
Operation Roundup
David Hathaway, a U.S. economist and expert
in matters of biosecurity
working in Brazil, affirms that "the application of Roundup
in rural areas
has been a disaster overall. It is a disaster because the problem
is badly
diagnosed. Or, I should say, the problem is well-diagnosed: the
problem is
to sell more Roundup."
He continues, "It is possible and
viable to eradicate coca and poppies in a
given field. This much is true. What is not possible is to eradicate
these
cultivars in general."
Monsanto´s Roundup, chemical name
glyphosate, was introduced to the market
in 1974 as a wide-spectrum herbicide. It is currently one of
the most
widely used herbicides in the world, with sales reaching twelve
billion
dollars annually. It is also one of the most toxic. According
to the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the ingestion of 200 mililiters
of
Roundup is immediately lethal. Aside from such immediate effects
of acute
exposure, long-term exposure has been shown to cause damage to
human
reproductive systems and genetic material. Among the effects
of exposure
are convulsions, acute respiratory problems, loss of muscle control,
unconsciousness, destruction of red blood cells, cardiac depression
and
loss of fertility. The EPA has shown Roundup to increase levels
of
phosphorous, potassium and Urea in the blood, and to produce
pancreatic
lesions and abcesses in the kidney, liver and heart.
Among its unfortunate side effects in
the environment is high toxicity to
earthworms, bacteria and rhizomatic fungus - all of which are
essential to
the long-term health of agricultural soils. It is up to 100 times
more
toxic to fish than it is to humans and, like other pesticides,
it is
subject to bioaccumulation - meaning that the level of toxicity
grows with
each step up the food chain. A person who regularly eats fish
poisoned with
Roundup receives a dose much greater than direct exposure. A
1993 study by
the University of Colorado revealed that Roundup is the leading
cause of
pesticide poisoning in home gardeners in the U.S., and the third
most
dangerous pesticide in commercial agriculture.
Due to such high toxicity both to humans
and to the natural environment,
the use of Roundup as an agent in the War on Drugs bears strong
resemblance
to the infamous use of the defoliant Agent Orange in South Vietnam.
Operation Ranch Hand - the code name for
the application of Agent Orange
over 6 million acres of Vietnamese jungle between 1961 and 1972
- has left
a legacy of at least 500,000 reported birth defects, as reported
by the Tu
Du hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Saigon. The use of
Roundup over
Colombia threatens to leave a similar legacy.
In 1998, under pressure from the U.S.,
Colombia began the testing and
application of a second herbicide in the Putumayo region. The
herbicide,
tebuthiuron, manufactured and sold by Dow Agrosciences as Spike
20P, is
used in the U.S. mostly to control weeds on railroad beds and
under high
voltage lines far from crops and people. American and Colombian
officials,
complaining that the liquid Roundup has only destroyed about
30% of the
plants sprayed, have been moving toward use of tebuthiuron, which
comes in
a granular form. Because Roundup must be sprayed from a low-altitude
early
in the morning when winds are calm and temperatures are lower,
guerillas
often fire at the low-flying planes. Tebuthiuron pellets, dropped
from
higher altitudes in any weather, day or night, make planes less
vulnerable
to ground fire.
However, the environmental risks of this
chemical agent make Colombian
officials wary. Former Colombian Environmental Minister Eduardo
Verano has
said the effects of tebuthiuron on agricultural areas are still
unknown,
and its use will increase deforestation by forcing coca growers
deeper into
the jungle.
In a 1998 interview with the New York
Times, Mister Verano said, "We need
to reconsider the benefits of chemical warfare. The more you
fumigate, the
more the farmers plant. If you fumigate one hectare, they´ll
grow coca on
two more. How else do you explain the figures?"
Even Dow Chemical, the manufacturer of
the herbicide, has spoken out
against its use in Colombia. "Tebuthiuron is not labeled
for use on any
crops in Colombia, and it is our desire that the product not
be used for
coca eradication," the company said in a public statement.
Dow cautioned
that the chemical should be used "carefully and in controlled
situations,"
because "it can be very risky in situations where terrain
has slopes,
rainfall is significant, desirable plants are nearby and application
is
made under less than ideal circumstances."
After years of lawsuits and public outcry
over the use of Agent Orange -
also produced by Dow - the company said that it would refuse
to sell
tebuthurion for use in Colombia. However. According to the New
York Times
report, American officials have noted that Dow´s patent
on the chemical has
expired, allowing others to manufacture it.
Agent Green
The application of a second "Agent
Orange" over the Colombian Amazon, has
caused tremendous alarm among international environmentalists
and
inhabitants of the region. But residents of Southern Colombia
and the
Ecuadorian border region of Sucumbios are now expecting a new
and even
greater threat to their health and their ecosystem - the release
of a
biological control that environmental activists are referring
to as "Agent
Green".
Fusarium Oxysporum is a fungus native
to temperate and tropical zones. In
its natural state it is well-known as a plant pathogen that affects
the
roots and vacular systems of a variety of cultivated plants,
causing
disintegration of cells leading to withering, rot and death.
Doctor David
C. Sands, a plant pathologist at the University of Montana and
one of the
chief researchers on Fusarium Oxysporyum (FO) calls it "an
Attila the Hun
disease," noting that there are strains of fusarium for
virtually every
cultivated plant and many wild ones. Some species of fusarium
have also
been known to cause illness in humans, especially those with
depressed
immunity from cancer or HIV-AIDS.
The fungus was first identified as a possible
weapon in the drug war by CIA
scientists in the early 1980´s. In 1987 Doctor Sands was
working in his
Montana laboratory when he received a call from the U.S. Department
of
Agriculture, asking him to contribute his knowledge of plant
pathology to
the War on Drugs. The department had been experimenting on a
legal coca
plantation in Peru - previously owned by the Coca Cola company,
but
abandoned for greener, and safer, pastures in Hawaii. The USDA
had taken
over the plantation from Coca Cola to use as a test plot for
herbicides.
Ironically, the control plot that was
not being sprayed was infected and
largely destroyed by a mysterious pathogen. When Doctor Sands
came down to
investigate, he found that it was a naturally-occurring strain
of fusarium.
Dr. Sands took a culture of the fungus and tested it on a three-acre
plot.
Nearly all of the plants died. Since then,
the fungus has been isolated,
tested and developed as a biological herbicide at the University
of
Montana, in conjunction with the USDA and U.S.-based transnational
Ag/Bio
Con, Inc. In 1999, the Federal Government hoped to use fusarium
to
eradicate marijuana plantations in Florida, but the proposal
was shot down
by the Florida State EPA with the support of many private and
public sector
environmental groups. The director of the Florida EPA said, "It
is
difficult, if not impossible, to control the dispersal of fusarium
species. The fungus can mutate and damage a wide variety of crops.
Fusarium species
are more active in warm soils and can remain active in the soil
for years."
Despite these conclusions, on July 6 of
this year - in the shadow of the
U.S. approval of a $1.3 billion aid package to Colombia - the
New York
Times reported that Colombia had agreed to begin using the fungus
"under
pressure from the United States." Colombia's acceptance
Fusarium Oxysporyum
was one condition of the aid package's approval. However, on
August 22,
President Clinton overruled Congress and retracted this condition,
severing
the link between U.S. aid and the use of FO, stating that the
U.S. will not
use Agent Green until "a broader national security assessment,
including
consideration of the potential impact on biological weapons proliferation
and terrorism, provides a solid foundation for concluding that
the use of
this particular drug control tool is in our national interest."
Juan Mayr,
the Colombian Minister of the Environment, assured that Colombia
would
begin "a program of research -- and only research -- on
the use of
biological controls."
But many environmentalists and people
living in the
region are still concerned that the fungus will be released without
sufficient testing, and despite its known hazards. Lucia Gallardo,
Coordinator of the Biodiversity and Biosecurity Campaign for
Accion
Ecologica, a Quito, Ecuador-based environmental advocacy group,
affirms
that the fungus is catalogued as a biological weapon in the list
of the
Protocol to the Biological and Chemical Weapons Convention.
Biological Warfare
Doctor Raul Moscoso, Ecuadorian magistrate
and candidate for Attorney
General, has given an extensive analysis of the regional and
international
accords violated by the fumigations both of chemical herbicides
and of the
fungus. The fumigations are in direct violation of the Cartagena
Agreement
of Andean Nations, the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity,
and the
globally ratified Convention Prohibiting the Development, Production
and
Storage of Bacteriological, Biological and Chemical Weapons.
Doctor Moscoso
is a vocal critic of Plan Colombia, stating that "This plan
will not
eradicate narco-trafficking. This plan will not terminate drug
dependency.
What this plan will do is bring about irreversible and irreparable
social
and environmental costs."
In refuting the use of the fungus under
international law, Doctor Moscoso
cites primarily Decision 391 of the Cartagena Agreement (a treaty
between
the Andean nations Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia and
Peru), which
specifically deals with "Access to Genetic Resources."
This decision
strictly prohibits the use of genetic material in the fabrication
of
biological weapons or any practices that may be harmful to the
environment
or human health. He cites as well the Biological and Chemical
Weapons
Convention, which states that the ratifying bodies - nearly all
of the
nations on the globe - "agree not to develop, produce, store
or in any form
acquire or retain, under any circumstances, microbial agents
or other
biological agents or toxins, regardless of their origin or mode
of
production, in kinds or quantities that are not justified for
prophylactic,
protective, or other peaceful ends."
A third agreement breached by this joint
policy of the U.S. and Colombia is
the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, signed by 157 nations
during
the historic meeting in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. Article
3 of this
convention confirms "the obligation to ensure that activities
carried out
within the jurisdiction of a state or under its control do not
threaten the
ecological balance within other states." Article 8 binds
member parties to
"Promote the protection of ecosystems and natural habitats
without
introducing exotic species that could threaten ecosystems, habitats
or
species." Article 14c states that "Each member nation
will promote the
notification and exchange of information regarding activities
in its
jurisdiction which could foreseeably have adverse effects on
the
biodiversity of another state, and will notify immediately in
case of the
emergence in its jurisdiction or control of imminent dangers
for
biodiversity under the jurisdiction of other states."
That is to say, both Colombia and the
U.S. are engaged in chemical and
biological warfare in violation of international law and their
own
constitutions.
According to the July 6 New York Times
report ("Fungus Considered as a Tool
to Kill Coca in Colombia"), lawyers at the White House and
the State
Department spent years debating whether or not the use of Fusarium
Oxysporyum violated international conventions on biological warfare.
They
came to the conclusion that international law would not be violated
if
Colombia made its own decision to test or use the fungus. One
U.S.
intelligence official who maintains a stance against the fungus
is quoted
by the New York Times as saying, "I don´t support
using a product on a
bunch of Colombian peasants that you wouldn´t use against
a bunch of
rednecks growing marijuana in Kentucky. And there is definitely
less than
unanimous support for this in Colombia."
Colombian officials say that the first
step is to see if this fungus
already exists in Colombia, to ensure that they are not introducing
an
exotic species. "If fusarium is not there, we won´t
study it," said Mister
Mayr, the Environmental Minister.
However, rumors abound that a transgenic
variety of Fusarium Oxysporum has
been developed for use against coca plantations. According to
the USDA, a
variety of FO found on potatoes has been used as the basis for
a
genetically modified fungus with heightened virulence against
coca plants.
At a conference on July 24 at the Centro
Internacional de estudios
superiores de comunicación para America Latina (CIESPAL)
in Quito, U.S.
biosecurity expert David Hathaway affirmed, "Transgenic
spores of this
fungus have been developed in U.S. military laboratories. If
transgenic
varieties of this fungus are being tested in Ecuador, or have
been tested
in Colombia, we don´t know. No one knows…and if they
do know, they´re not
telling. We don´t know but we are very worried."
If in fact this fungus is being tested
in Colombia, residents of that
nation and its neighbor states have good cause for alarm. As
a species with
a high degree of variability the fungus can mutate rapidly, infecting
a
wide variety of cultivars in a short time. In its natural form
it can
survive in the soil from ten to forty years, and different varieties
of the
fungus are pathogenic to a vast number of cultivated plants,
including:
potato, vanilla, sunflower, date, coffee, avocado, cabbage, celery,
squash,
grape, soy, tobacco, melon, sesame, beet, African palm, eggplant,
cotton,
clover, eucalyptus, and many more.
The release of fusarium in the Amazon
basin, one of the world´s most
biodiverse regions and the home to innumerable species not found
anywhere
else on the planet, puts at risk not simply a list of staple
crops and the
human inhabitants of the region, but the entire ecological balance
of the
Amazon. According to scientists working with the Sunshine Project,
an
international watchdog group devoted to the study of biotechnology
and
environmental law, four plants of the genus coca erytroxylum
-- wild
relatives of coca native to Colombia -- are on the endangered
species list
and will likely be among the first to be affected. One of these
is host to
a rare butterfly - Agrias spp. - which is also on the endangered
species
list, and whose center of speciation is in the region of the
Upper Putumayo
- precisely the region of most intense fumigations, and where
the strongest
release of fungus would be slated to occur.
This is only one example of the potential
risk of species loss that the
release of Fusarium Oxysporyum would bring about. Once released
into the
environment, the fungus can mutate and migrate widely and there
is no known
control. Colombia's Upper Putumayo region is just over the border
from
Ecuador and upriver from Brazil and Peru. One of the chief complaints
of
Colombia's neighboring nations is that the fungus - like U.S.
foreign
policy - does not respect borders or political sovereignty. Wind
and water
can carry the fungus far from where it was intended, so laws
which prohibit
its use in Ecuador or Peru are unlikely to be effective.
Aside from traveling by wind and water,
the fungus can travel on the
clothes of those who handle it. As Plan Colombia develops, the
people who
handle the fungus may well be U.S. soldiers flying out of the
Ecuadorian
military base at Manta. Manta, on the Pacific Coast, is hundreds
of miles
from the Putumayo, in another rare and delicate ecological niche
known as
neo-tropical dry forest.
On July 18 Ecuador's Minister of the Environment
Rodolfo Rendón declared
that he would not permit Fusarium Oxysporyum to be tested or
used in
Ecuador, and promised to contact other Amazonian Environment
Ministers to
discuss regional concerns. On August 14, Ecuador passed a law
banning the
introduction of Fusarium Oxysporyum. While these are crucial
steps in
opposing the introduction of the fungus, U.S. Drugwar legislation
still
threatens both the ecological and social balance of the region.
The Airbase
at Manta
On December 12, 1999 the Ecuadorian Minister
of Exterior Relations, under
the authority of President Jamil Mahuad, signed a convention
giving the
United States Military legal rights to use the airbase at Manta
as the
center of local operations. Six weeks later Mahuad was deposed
by a popular
uprising and exiled in the U.S., but this highly contested convention
still
stands as law. The base at Manta is at the heart of what many
Ecuadorians
see as a U.S. attack on their nation's sovereignty, and a set
of policies
which may sooner than later pit Ecuador against its Colombian
neighbor.
Since early 1999, the War on Drugs has
suffered a major setback. Until last
year, Howard Air Base in Panama was the center of U.S. anti-drug
activity
in Latin America. Two thousand surveillance flights left Howard
every year
until May 1999, when the U.S. was forced to abandon the base
as part of the
pull-out required by the Panama Canal Treaty. This shift caused
the U.S. to
begin the search for a new base of operations. With the third
candidate,
Venezuela, flatly rejecting the establishment of a base within
its
territory, the most promising sites are El Salvador and Ecuador.
But, according to Ecuadorian critics of
the plan, the establishment of a
U.S. base at Manta is not merely an insult to national sovereignty,
it is
unconstitutional as well. Doctor Julio Vallejo Prado, ex-Chancellor
of
Ecuador and an expert in constitutional law, speaking at the
July 24
conference at the Centro internacional de estudios superiores
de
comunicacion para America Latina (CIESPAL) in Quito, "this
convention has
been inscribed in Ecuadorian law, but it has no base in law because
it was
agreed to directly between ex-president Mahuad and the U.S."
In other
words, Ecuadorian law dictates that international conventions
must be
submitted to, and ratified by, the congress of the nation. The
use of the
Manta airbase was given without any such congressional authority.
Doctor Prado, clearly indignant at this
breach of constitutional law and
national pride, elucidated the problem. According to the convention,
up to
430 U.S. soldiers can enter the base at any time, by air, sea
or land.
Doctor Prado notes, "They don't need
a passport, they don't need a visa.
They only have to give notification, once they are here, that
they have
arrived, and to notify the military authorities of their name
and their
age. Nothing more."
"We cannot impede their entrance.
The only thing we can do is receive the
news that they have arrived and a list of their names."
Beyond the use of the base, the U.S. has
put certain restrictions on
Ecuadorian interference in U.S. military affairs in the zone,
including the
designation of a restricted area at Manta where not even Ecuadorian
military are permitted to enter. A second convention, signed
on July 2 of
this year between the military authorities in Guayaquil, Ecuador
and the
U.S. Southern Command, gives the U.S. armed forces the right
to detain any
Ecuadorian citizen inside the base for any reason whatsoever.
Doctor Prado continues, "Once detained
in the base, this Ecuadorian citizen
will stay detained during the process of investigation. Once
the process of
investigation is complete, the individual will be returned to
the military
authorities of Ecuador. This totally violates the principles
of sovereignty
of the country. There is no judicial process - simply the right
to capture
and detain any individual, maintain him for the length of the
investigative
process - whether it be days, weeks, or months - and, after this
process,
deliver him to military authorities."
The future use of the base at Manta is
uncertain. No one outside of U.S.
military and government has any idea whether the base will be
used for
surveillance, interception, or to direct U.S. operations inside
Colombia.
But what is certain is that the nation
of Ecuador, until now considered an
island of peace in a sea of violence, is being drawn into a regional
conflict against the will of its citizens and beyond the control
of its
government. From the impending refugee crisis, pesticide drift
from
fumigations over the Putumayo, and the potential of ecological
havoc caused
by the release of Fusarium Oxysporum in the Amazon basin, the
future of
Ecuador, and of the whole Andean region, seems to be in the hands
of global
free trade policy and the U.S. War on Drugs.
Jeff Conant is a writer
and activist based in the SF Bay Area, and has published
articles, poetry and stories in a variety of magazines and journals.
He
lived for several years in Chiapas, Mexico, until being expelled
from the
country along with eleven other foreigners in April 1998 as part
of the
Mexican government's campaign against human rights workers. Since
then he
has been involved in public art projects in the Bay Area. North
Atlantic
Books recently published his translation (from Spanish) of a
book on
contemporary Mayan medicine, entitled Wind in the Blood: Mayan
Healing and
Chinese Medicine. He is currently working for the Hesperian
Foundation,
publishers of Where There Is No Doctor, coordinating the
production of a
manual about environmental health. He is also working on a book
about the
communiques of Subcomandante Marcos, to be titled The Poetics
of Resistance.
This
is your war. This is your war on drugs. Any questions?
"They Had
to Destroy the Rainforest In Order to Save It?"