The Narco News Bulletin
"The
Name of Our Country is América"
--
Simón Bolívar
Today's
Press Briefing
September
20, 2000
RHETORIC
OF PEACE AND ACTS OF WAR
Governments
and Media Deceive Public Over What Plans Colombia and Bolivia
Have Wrought
Today's Reports From:
Bogotá, Colombia;
La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, Bolivia; and London, England.
Narco News Summary: The development of the antidote
to Fusarium Oxysporum -- reported by La Folha de Sao Paolo in
Brazil and brought to the English-speaking world yesterday by
Narco News -- should have been predicted by the very US forces
trying to impose the mycological herbicide upon the Amazon.
The history of war holds
one truth to be self-evident: every new weapons system provokes
an equal and opposite reaction.
That was true of the Cold
War and the nuclear arms race. And it is true of biological warfare.
Today we draw your attention to an Observer of London report
that documents how the Fusarium anti-coca herbicide was developed
precisely by US financed technicians and then passed on to British
and Russian experts in biological weapons so that the US could
avoid international embarrassment.
Meanwhile, Niko Price
of the Associated Press joins the Hall of Shame (along with NY
Timesman Larry Rohter) as publicist for war criminals. An article
by Price claims that Colombia now will have kinder, gentler paramilitaries.
The irony of that story
-- quoted in today's press briefing -- is that as Price was typing
those incredulous words, the paramilitaries were rounding up
and assassinating peaceful indigenous civilians. The facts are
brought to you here on Narco News.
And the story comes from
Spanish-language AP reports: the US desk decided not to report
this news -- we accuse AP of withholding this information to
save face on the embarrassing report by Niko Price. Only the
Colombia Support Network, so far, has alerted on this story in
English. We expand upon it today.
Narco News Update: 15
minutes after we filed this report, AP correspondent Margarita
Martínez reported the story in English at 1:25 p.m.
Peace talks between the
Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla forces are breaking
down over the government's obstinate insistance that the fate
of peace in Colombia shall hang upon one man's case: that of
an escaped prisoner who hijacked a plane back into FARC territory.
It's clear that the US-imposed policies on Colombia's unpopular
President Andrés Pastrana are not aimed at bringing about
peace, but, rather, using the civil war as a pretext to inflame
and expand it until it reaches beyond the borders of other nations.
In a conflict that has
a daily toll of death, kidnappings, disappearances, massacres
of civilians and other atrocities by all sides, the focus on
this one escaped prisoner demonstrates: Plan Colombia and its
puppet Pastrana are not serious about seeking peace; the statements
of US officials that the plan is aimed to force negotiations
are lies with a high cost in blood and liberty.
Meanwhile, in Bolivia,
peasant coca growers have begun a campaign of nonviolent resistance
-- a la Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King -- to the
militarization of their regions. Here are the reports from the
front.
From somewhere in a country
called América,
We shall overcome,
Al Giordano
publisher
The Narco News Bulletin
From Associated Press
Tuesday, September 19,
2000:
"Gentler
War Promised in Colombia"
(AP
really used that headline)
By NIKO PRICE, Associated
Press Writer
LA MARINA, Colombia (AP)
- Right-wing paramilitary forces waging a bloody battle in the
mountains of west-central Colombia pledge to be more civil in
their war against leftist guerrillas and boast that business
owners are flocking to their cause.
His field hat cocked stylishly
and his camouflage uniform impeccable, Commander Santos said
his 500-man militia in the hills overlooking the city of Tulua
were making a push to win over the people in the valley below.
"In this area, we
want to be an example, a model, for the paramilitaries,"
he said in an interview Friday. "And let the good of what
we do spread throughout the country."
No more, he said, will
his men kill civilians - at least not without pinning a letter
to their chests describing their offenses. No more will his fighters
violate human rights, he said after meeting with a Swiss representative
of the Red Cross. Well, at least not as often.
"We want to respect
human rights as much as it's possible," Santos explained
with the steady smile of a true believer. "Of course, we
can't always abide by everything."
The United Self-Defense
Forces of Colombia, as the militias are known, are waging a brutal
war against the two main guerrilla groups that control much of
the country....
"We are something
like private security," Santos said. "Rich people,
people with investments in this area, couldn't allow the guerrillas
to take away everything. They sought out our maximum leader and
said, `We have money, and we need your help."'
Business support for the
paramilitaries is a hot-button political issue in recent days.
Testifying in congress
this month, Defense Minister Luis Ramirez said the army shouldn't
be judged so harshly for having ties to the paramilitary, when
many business people support them too.
While Santos wouldn't
say how much business owners contributed to his local force,
he said they paid far more than the $250,000 it costs each month
to maintain his unit, the Calima Block....
Tell
it to the Families of the Dead
5:17 p.m. Tuesday, September
19, 2000:
from AP in Spanish to
El Universal online, Mexico City
United Self-Defense of
Colombia (AUC) Paramilitaries Kidnap 22 Indigenous
Bogotá, Colombia
19/09/00
17:19 Indigenous peoples
of the Embera Katía tribe of Northern Colombia denounced
the assassination of four of its members and the kidnapping of
22 indigenous in recent days.
The United Self-Defense
of Colombia (AUC), the principal paramilitary group, were responsible
for three of the deaths and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) for the fourth assassination, said the National
Indigenous Organization of Colombia (UNIC) today.
In addition to the assassinations,
the Embera tribe denounced the kidnapping of 22 of its members
in a roadblock. Fifteen people are still being held by the paramilitary
group, said the spokeman of the community. The Embrea, like any
other group of Colombians, have not been able to escape the escalation
of the civil war that has now lasted 36 years. (AP)
Communique
from the Mayor of the Indigenous Embera Katio Community
Indigenous Ebera Katios
Assassinated and 22 more Kidnapped
The municipal governments
of the Sinu and Verde rivers call to national and international
public opinion:
Today, Sunday, September
17, 2000, were assassinated inside the Ebera Katío Indian
Reservation:
JAQUELINO JARUPIA BAILARIN
and his ANTONIO DOMICO in the town of Widó, located on
the Esmeralda river. The facts occured, according to community
members, in the morning hours when a group of heavily armed men,
presumably members of the Autodefensas paramilitaries, arrived
at the community in a helicopter and retained ANTONIO DOMICO
and a son of his, who was later freed. At the same time MAISITO
DOMICO was retained and when the paramilitaries left town they
were assassinated. Their bodies were found lifeless on Sunday
afternoon. The helicopter continued to fly over the reservation.
Yesterday three canoes
that arrived with people and supplies necessary for development
of the fishing industry in the indigenous communities of the
Sinú and Verde rivers were kidnapped at 11 a.m. in the
Bocas de Río Verde area and their equipment taken. The
kidnapped individuals are:
RICARDO BAILARIN, captain
of canoe
NARIÑO DOMICO,
Nokó Mayor of the Río Verde
EFRAIN CHAMARRA, Municipal
Secretary de Río Verde
ELKN RUBIANO, Education
Coordinator
AMADO DOMICO, Professor
RIGOBERTO DOMICO, Professor
ALVARO RUBIANO, Professor
RUBIT DOMICO, Student
of Teaching
MIGUEL DOMICO GARCIA,
President of the Territorial Council of Río Verde
SAUL BAILARIN, Jenené
Mayor of Río Verde
ORAIME DOMICO, Jenené
Menor
MARTÍN CASAMA,
Jenené Menor
ALGARIN DOMICO, Jenené
Menor
DOMICILIO GUASARUCA, Canoe
captian
LUIS ALBERTO CABRERA,
Canoe assistant
AGUSTÍN PERNIA,
Canoe captain
IRENIA DOMICO CHARA, LOLIRIA
DOMICO, DIANA DOMICO, MARITZA DOMICO (a minor), HORACIO BAILARIN,
GERMAN DOMICO, community members.
In the community of Doza,
Río Verda, the community traditional leader Maximiliano
Domico was kidnapped and taken from the community. According
to sources he was brought to the Esmeralda river zone with the
other kidnapped individuals, except for RICARDO BAILARIN, canoe
captain, and NARIÑO DOMICO, Rio Verde´s Nokó
Mayor, who were liberated after 4 p.m. The location and state
of the kidnapped persons is unknown.
Also in the municipal
seat of Tierralta MIGUEL BAILARIN, Jenené Mayor of Rio
Esmeralda was imprisoned. The facts occured at 6 p.m. when the
indian bathed in the river with his wife and was kidnapped by
four heavily armed men who later beat him and put him in a taxi.
His location is still unknown.
These events join those
which happend on Friday, when a group of armed men put up an
illegal roadblock in the El Gallo section of Urrál, a
roadblock that was also but higher on the road in Bocas de Río
Verde. The community reports that surveillance flights have been
overhead since Friday. The indigenous communities are isolated
right now and the ingress and egress of canoes is banned.
We must protect the security
of the Ebera Katío people because the presence of armed
groups has intensified in our territory bringing a large military
force in violation of the declaration of Sambudo.
We demand that the armed
groups abandon our territory, that they don't turn it into a
battlefield. We demand that the captors respect the lives and
physical safety of the kidnapped. We solicit the state entities
to investigate these facts and the Human Rights organizations
to demand the liberty of our indigenous brothers and respect
for our territory and our culture.
from the daily El Tiempo
Wednesday, September 20, 2000:
CONFLICT
More
than 200 Indigenous Refugees in Quibdó
Yesterday the regional
indigenous organization Embera Wounaan, Orewa, denounced the
forced displacement of more than 200 of their brothers who escaped
from the paramilitaries and the guerrilla in Chocó.
More than 200 Embera Indians
remained yesterday in the Central Park of Quibdó after
escaping from their lands. They sought the protection of the
government and the end of bombings on their land and want the
paramilitaries and the insurgents to abandon their territory.
"On August 20th in
Tutunendo, Quibdó, civilians who identified themselves
as police detained the Indians Obdulio and Alberto Carupia and
threatened to kill them for being guerrillas," the Orewa
denounced.
They also accused that
on August 22nd, the paramilitaries assassinated the municipal
governor of Abejero, José Belarmino Carupia Domicó,
a 60-year-old Embera indian, who "was amputated of all his
limbs including his genital organs."
After the assassination,
the community of Abejero said that the paramilitaries threatened
to kill them all if they collaborate with the guerrilla.
The Orewa also denounced
the constant recruitment of indigenous by the guerrilla. They
demanded that the FARC stop obligating them to carry merchandise
and that they not be included in the conflict.
"We believe that
the guerrilla is using the indigenous communities as a shield
with these actions and putting the life of our people in danger
and violating our right to territorial and cultural autonomy."
The
FARC Speaks
Narco
News Translates the Latest Communiqué from the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia - Popular Army (FARC-EP)
"The Command of the
Southern Bloc of the FARC-EP reports to public opinion:
1. That the citizen who
hijacked the passenger plane to San Vicente del Caguán
is a soldier of the Teófilo Forero column of the Southern
Bloc.
2. That the FARC are not
responsible for the action, it was an individual act.
3. That the facts obtained
in the investigation reveal that the hijacking was prepared with
the complicity of high officials of the INPEC agency, as an act
of provocation to the peace process which is underway with the
government of Mr. Pastrana with the FARC-EP.
4. We reject the demands
made by the Attorney General and some politicians, among them
some substitute officials, to deliver the responsible person,
because the FARC has made no previous agreements with the government
to deliver escaped prisoners of the regime, the majority of which
are unjustly condemned.
5. The Minister of Justice
and the Director of INPEC owe the country and the FARC a public
explanation about this provocation.
6. Peace is not obtained
with impositions nor ultimatums to the other side. If Mr. President
wants to make this isolated incident an excuse to rupture this
process and evade his responsibility to solve the most urgent
problems of the Colombian people, it will be he that will have
to answer to the nation. In this manner he will place a simple
and circumstantial act over the problems of unemployment, health,
education, agrarian reform, paramilitarism, privatizations, displaced
peoples (on the rise with Plan Colombia), the foreign debt and
other problems.
The Command of the Southern
Bloc, FARC-EP
September 17, 2000".
Statement by Carlos Antonio
Lozada, FARC Spokesman in Los Pozos, Caquetá:
"Our position is
catagorical: we will not return the comrade because it is a right
and a duty of all revolutionary prisoners to seek escape from
the prisons."
Plan
Colombia Briefs
From the daily El Tiempo
Civil Society
The NGO members of Paz
Colombia continue preparing the Costa Rica conference for October
16, 17 and 18. There, they will discuss social projects regarding
Plan Colombia... In Putumayo, was presented a proposal for manual
erradication of coca crops, a cease fire and humanitarian agreements.
ELN
The five friendly countries
to the peace process with the ELN (France, Cuba, Spain, Norway
and Germany) who belong to the Facilitating Commission of Civil
Society, visted the south of Bolívar State last weekend
to evaluate with the local people the possibility of a dialogue
zone. The results of the mission are secret and will be delivered
to the parties in less than a month.
Government
Before the end of the
year, the Armed Forces will have 172 helicopters, double the
number that they have now, and will have 42,000 professional
soldiers compared to 10,000 today.
Chronology
of Nonviolent Resistance by Bolivian Coca Farmers
from La Razón,
La Paz, Bolivia
September 19, 2000
The
Coca Growers Block the Military Bases with Stones
COCHABAMBA (LA RAZÓN).-
Trunks and stones served the cocaleros (coca growers) of Chapare
today to block at least 20 points along the new highway to Santa
Cruz.
The interruption of traffic
begins in Cristal Mayo and extends to Bulo Bulo. The cocaleros
reject the construction of military bases in the region and demand
the commercialization of their products.
The peasants placed stones
and trees across the asphalt. Journalists present in the region
said that men, women and children participated in the action.
from the daily Los Tiempos,
Cochabamba, Bolivia
Tuesday September 19, 2000
Blockades:
Government Announces "Cleansing"
Cochabamba and La Paz.-
The climate of social protests in the country intensified yesterday
in various regions of the nation. As the peasant farmers and
coca producers maintained their blockade of highways and roads
in Chapare and the highlands, the striking teachers opted for
protest marches in La Paz and Santa Cruz and a hunger strike
in Potosí.
The situation has made
the government furious. The interior minister Guillermo Fortún
announced today the "cleansing of all roads and highways
of the country by uniformed troops."
There was no vehicular
traffic in any of the towns of the Cochabambino Tropics.
from Los Tiempos, Cohabamba,
Bolivia
Wednesday, September 20, 2000
Troops
Sent to the Highways
The
Armed Forces Deployed its Agents
Meanwhile,
mobilizations occured in seven states of the country yesterday
Today,
the problems could become more acute
La Paz, Cochabamba and
Santa Cruz | Los Tiempos.- Surrounded by problems and with the
impossibility of tending to so many fronts of conflict that have
seven states of the country in suspense, the government decided
to deploy various groups of operatives from the Mobile Rural
Patrol Unit (UMOPAR) and the National Police to the places that
now have a total blockade.
Meanwhile, the Armed Forces
are ready to intervene in the blockades and cut the chain of
conflicts that have brought the government to one of its worse
crises.
The official argument
is that negociation and dialogue did not work and to defend the
policies of the State no option is left but to make those who
promote protest acts "feel the hand." According to
the constitution, the Executive Branch cannot declare a state
of siege twice in the same year, thus it will have to use other
methods to decapitate the mobilizations.
The secretary general
of the coca growers federations asked the President of the Republic
to resign and call new elections.
The peasant farmers demand
land reform, support for agricultural development, creation of
a specialized university and support for the cocaleros of Yungas
and Chapare states.
In the Cochabambino Tropics
the tension is caused by the rejection of the construction of
military bases, the forced erradication of recent coca crops
and opposition to the current agricultural reform law. The teachers
seek a 50 percent pay raise.
Tension
and the Dry Law
Cristal Mayu | Los Tiempos.-
"Here come the soldiers," shouted a ten year old boy,
provoking an immediate state of alert among the cocaleros.. standing
guard all night at the bridge of Cristal Mayu...
The trunks laying in the
middle of the highway, each of them 40 feet long, prevented the
circulation of any type of vehicle...
The strategy has changed.
If last April the cocaleros made lightning-strike blockades (returning
to blockade as soon as the uniformed troops left), now they have
decided on a new tactic. That is, although the troops arrive,
it will take them at least a day to clean away the trunks.
... the troops didn't
come. It was a false alarm.
But the cocaleros don't
think it a reason to lower their guard. To the contrary, local
authorities declared a dry law in their regions, the cocalero
leaders have given the orders to cut off potable water to urban
populations....
Developing...
The Observer, London,
England
Sunday September 17, 2000
UK in
secret biological war on drugs
Plan
to spray lethal fungi in Colombia
By Antony Barnett, public
affairs editor
Britain is playing a key
role in developing lethal fungi that could be
sprayed over countries illicitly growing cannabis, opium and
coca
plants, destroying their drug crops, secret US government
documents have revealed.
Critics have described
the programme as 'biological warfare' and
likened it to the disastrous use of Agent Orange by the US in
Vietnam. They warn the fungi will kill food crops, destroy the
environment and endanger human life while having little impact
on
the world drug trade, which will simply move production
elsewhere.
US State Department documents
obtained by The Observer name
British scientist Michael Greaves as a key player in its programme
to spray a fungus known as Fusarium oxysporum over Columbia's
rainforests in the hope of destroying it coca crops - the source
of
80 per cent of the world's cocaine. Until recently Greaves worked
for the government-funded Institute of Arable Crop Research in
Bristol. He is also the co-ordinator of a secretive UK-funded
research project located
in the former Soviet republic of
Uzbekistan. This is developing another type of fungus aimed at
wiping out opium poppies in places such as Afghanistan, where
half the world's heroin comes from.
The programme is based
at the Institute of Genetics in Uzbekistan
and run by many scientists
who used to work on the Soviet germ
warfare programme during the Cold War. The Foreign Office has
provided pounds 100,000 of funding for the project, set up in
1998
under the United Nations Drug Control Programme.
In 1999 three scientists
from the Uzbekistan Institute came to the
Long Ashton research centre in Bristol where Greaves was
based. UN documents confirm that since the project began it has
been extended to look at fungi to kill cannabis plants. The
documents also reveal that, despite widespread concerns from
environmentalists and scientists, this fungus has already been
field-tested in three Central Asian states: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan
and
Kyrgyzstan. Two other states, Kazakstan and Turkmenistan, have
so far refused.
Disclosure of the extent
of British involvement in what some see
as 'biological warfare' in
breach of the global Biological Weapons
Convention will be
highly embarrassing for the government. Only
last week Cabinet Minister Mo Mowlam was in Colombia voicing
opposition to the use of biological agents there. International
criticism of the US plan to use the fungus, dubbed Agent Green,
has forced President Bill Clinton to backtrack from tying aid
to
Colombia with spraying of the fungus. The US government has not
wanted to be seen as the initiator of this programme and
persuaded the UN Drug Control Programme to take responsibility.
But the US and UK are the main sources of finance for the multi-
million-pound programme.
US State Department documents,
signed by Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright, urge the UNDCP to set up testing for 'large-
scale implementation' of fusarium on coca in Colombia and to
get
other countries involved
'in order to avoid a perception that this is
solely a US government initiative'.
The documents say: 'We
would urge the formulation of the UN
project to take advantage of the extensive US research using
fusarium to target illicit coca Dr Mike Greaves of the UK has
already evaluated the host range and exploration data the US
has
developed.'
The fungi work by secreting
toxins into a plant's roots, forcing the
coca plant or opium poppy to wilt and eventually die. But these
fungi can survive in the soil for years and some scientists believe
they could be toxic to humans and animals. There is also concern
that they spread rapidly, mutate and kill other crops.
In Peru in the late Eighties, after an epidemic
of fusarium wilt in a
coca-growing area caused by this fungus, thousands of peasant
families could not grow food. Indeed,
a proposal to use the fungus
against cannabis crops in Florida was postponed after the state's
department of environmental protection warned 'it is difficult,
if not
impossible, to control the spread of fusarium species. The mutated
fungi can cause disease in a large number of crops, including
tomatoes, peppers, corn and vines.'
Jenny Tonge, the Liberal
Democrats' international development
spokesman, said: 'Under no circumstances should the UK support
these initiatives. They will damage people, rainforests, and
pollute
the land. Past experience shows that drug production will just
move elsewhere. It is time the West looked at how they can curb
the demand for drugs from their citizens.'
A spokesman for the Foreign
Office said: 'There is nothing secret
about the project. The UNDCP is seeking safe crop-eradication
techniques. This project could lead to a major breakthrough in
this
field. But these are early days of the project, and much careful,
lengthy research is still required.' The Observer was unable
to
contact Greaves who, according to his wife, is in Uzbekistan.
September
19, 2000
Swiss
Invent Antidote for Anti-Coca Herbicide
US "Plan
Colombia" Biological WarfareR Strategy vs. Amazon Faces
Neutralization from New Technologies
¡Hasta
La Vista, Fusarium Oxysporum, Baby!
from the daily Folha de
São Paulo, Brazil
Sunday, September 17, 2000
Translated from the original
Portugues by Al Giordano
BIOTECHNOLOGY
Gene Patented that Kills
Anti-Coca Fungus
Swiss Novartis Company
Invents Fungicide that Will be Able to Eliminate the Micro-organism
Created to Destroy Colombian Plantations
by ANDRÉA DE LIMA
The Folha News Agency
Colombian narco-traffickers
can hope now for a future with an antidote against a species
of fungus named Fusarium, the fungus that the government of the
United States has impulsed to destroy coca plantations in that
Latin American country.
The antidote will be able
to destroy a protein produced by fungus with a gene patented
by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis.
"Plan Colombia"
had planned for the biologicial control of coca, although the
government of Andrés Pastrana has so far refrained from
using the fungus.
"The advance of biotechnology
research will be able to guarantee the narco-traffickers that
within two or three years there will be access to an antidote
capable of paralyzing the noxious effects of the Fusarium Oxysporum
fungus on their plantations," said professor of the Federal
University of Uberlandia, Frenando Cezar Juliatti.
The spokesman for new
technologies and public relations of the Brazilian division of
Novartis, agronomist Wilhelmus Uitdewilligen, said that the anti-fungal
protein is being tested among wheat and corn crops of the USA.
"The first results indicate that it is effective,"
said Uitdewilligen. "The products continue in the experimental
phace and are not commercially availalbe at this moment."
Novartis declined comment
on the possibility that traffickers will use it to invent new
products. Uitdewilligen disregarded the idea that the product
of his company will be used to protect coca leaves -- from which
the base paste of cocaine is made.
According to him, the
protein produced by the patented gene controls only a few types
of Fusarium that produce toxins classified as tricoteneces.
"One of the most
important species of Fusarium that produces tricotecenes is called
Fusarium Graminearium, a species that attacks wheat, barley and
corn.
According to professor
Juiliatti, nothing prevents that in short time and with the resources
of trained professionals, this product can be used to neutralize
the effects of Fusarium Oxysporum on coca.
The gene patented on December
23, 1997 by Novartis, is not registered among brands and patents
of the United States, but will be available for commercial use
for third parties if the company buys or sells the product internationally....
This
is your war. This is your war on drugs. Any questions?
From Dr. Albert
Hoffman's Bicycle Ride to Novartis Today, Swiss Technology Changes
the World