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Report: Colombia Coca Cultivation Remains

Report: Colombia Coca Cultivation Remains

Fri Apr 1, 8:18 PM ET World - AP Latin America
*** a little late to post ... but I had no time earlier ***

By ANDREW SELSKY, Associated Press Writer

BOGOTA, Colombia - President Alvaro Uribe vowed on Friday to press ahead with U.S.-financed fumigation of cocaine-producing crops, even as a White House report found an aerial spraying offensive in Colombia last year failed to cut the acreage devoted to coca cultivation.

Critics of Washington's effort to crush drug production in Colombia — the world's main cocaine-producing country and a major supplier of heroin — say the report indicated the Colombian and U.S. governments are losing the war on drugs, which has cost more than $3 billion in U.S. aid here since 2000.

"The U.S. government's own data provides stark evidence that the drug war is failing to achieve its most basic objectives," said John Walsh at the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank critical of U.S. drug policies in Colombia.

The report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said that despite a record-setting aerial eradication offensive, 281,694 acres of coca remained in Colombia at the end of 2004 — slightly more than the 281,323 acres that were left in 2003 after spraying.

Walsh pointed out that prices of cocaine and heroin have been steadily dropping over the years on U.S. streets, indicating availability of the drugs has not diminished.

Peasant farmers grow most of the coca, a bushy plant that provides the main ingredient of cocaine, convert it to coca paste and sell it to Colombian rebels, paramilitaries or other groups that traffic in drugs, who purify it into cocaine and export it.

Adam Isacson, a Colombia expert with the Center for International Policy in Washington, said the White House report demonstrates that the peasants — most of whom live in poverty and who have few alternate means of employment — are constantly replanting coca after their fields are sprayed.

"The inescapable conclusion we can draw from this data is that our fumigation program is not discouraging Colombian peasants from growing coca," Isacson said.

The Associated Press reported last month that large-scale coca production was moving for the first time into the extensive jungles of Choco state, in northwest Colombia, with peasant farmers felling chunks of virgin rainforest in order to plant millions of coca seedlings.

David Murray, a top official in the White House drug office, insisted there were positive signs, pointing out that coca cultivation is down from a peak of 419,575 acres in 2001.

"What you have now is hard-core cultivators ... who are faced with extinction of their business, and what they are doing is they're staying put and replanting as rapidly as they can and we're coming back and hitting them with eradication," Murray said in a telephone interview.

The United States said 337,427 acres of coca were fumigated last year, and Uribe told local RCN radio that the anti-drug campaign would be pursued. "Our will is to continue seizing the drugs and to continue with the fumigation," he said.

The White House drug office said that while the area under coca cultivation remained "statistically unchanged" last year, fumigation diminished potential cocaine output 7 percent to 430 metric tons, because newly planted fields produce less cocaine than mature coca.

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huh? are there now more or less coca plants, and is more or less cocaine produced? And doesn't this report prove that fumigation is ineffective? F***ing 7% less ... bah!

By Lionheart on Apr 4, 2005, 23:05 in Politics & the war.

greg says on Apr 5, 2005, 14:56:

U.S. sponsored terrorism. That is what it is.

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lpdiver says on Apr 21, 2005, 12:11:

You cannot Legislate morality nor abstinance. The volstad act proved that. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it!

antony

"cook some rice!"

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dwmte says on Apr 21, 2005, 17:13:

part of the formula for irradication... is based on acreage (hectares)... for the last 6-7 years, although the u.s. has paid for crop irradication...more each successive year, the total acreage under till, continues to grow.

i wonder if anyone is really surprised? would they want it any other way? where else would the colombian powers that be get their hands on an 'extra' 3-4 billiion dollars to split between themselves? not a joke! it is exactly what's happening.

corruption in colombia is as reliable as deficating and urination is for the human body. it is so brazen, it's almost carried out in the open. what a fricken pity.

all this talk about the farc, paras m-19 eln, etc. they and the thieves in government, ARE ALL THE SAME. THEY NURSE FROM THE SAME BREAST. and that breast is theft. they steal colombia blind and deprive the peoples of colombia their birthright and due.

the solution? get rid of all of them. start a movement to rid colombia of these vampires.

viva colombia

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platano says on Apr 21, 2005, 19:33:

dw, my friend, You say: "start a movement to rid colombia of these vampires."

There is a movement in Colombia which has my support and it had a woman candidate for President.

http://www.global.greens.org.au/colombia.html

Platano

plátano

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Sr Tertius says on Apr 22, 2005, 00:06:

Vampire Nation "start a movement to rid colombia of these vampires."

Rid Colombia of Colombians? That's a novel approach, worth considering.

"El que a hierro mata..."

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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Lionheart says on Apr 22, 2005, 02:24:

an old concept Sr Tertius Some German philosopher, I forgot who it was, wrote there is only one way to save earth ... rid earth of humans, and nature will survive. In the same breath you could say rid the USA of the gringos, and the drug problem will go away. More room for all the immigrants then again as well.

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dwmte says on Apr 22, 2005, 18:03:

un aplauso por sr. tertius... you, sir have rendered the solution philosophers have labored over for centuries. now it's clear.

no more bloody revolutions, no more coup d etat, etc. just rid every place of the placers and the problem's solved.

why didn't i think of that? why didn't kant think of that? why didn't tolstoy think of that? why didn't portnoy think of that?

why why why?

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Sr Tertius says on Apr 22, 2005, 18:14:

Dwmte Yours is all the credit. I'm merely a resonating box.

Time to go back to my coffin. Let me know when the country is emptied out.

"El que a hierro mata..."

"When the finger points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger" (Chinese proverb)

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gregshav says on Apr 22, 2005, 19:24:

William F. Buckley is right. Legalize the stuff, tax it and take the black market out of the picture.

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dwmte says on Apr 24, 2005, 13:32:

ya know, we're talkin a line.... that would stretch from here to outpast pluto and back...i'm not kiddin, they said 430 metric tons! i mean, a paultry 430,000 kilos.

does that qualify as personal stash? hmmmmm

well, i think that they could produce that much with out the chemical spraying, and redistribute the funds previously allocated to spraying into more ecologically and financially sound avenues. like health and education, to name just two. and another, infrastructure...in colombia, this can always use a lift. si o no?

dw

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