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Date: November 25, 2024 Mon

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Results for drug control (colombia)

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Author: Haugaard, Lisa

Title: Blunt Instrument: The United States' Punitive Fumigation Program in Colombia

Summary: The conditions attached to the FY2002 foreign operations law governing the US-funded aerial spraying program to eradicate coca production in Colombia require that procedures be available to evaluate claims by local citizens that their health was harmed or their legal crops were damaged by aerial fumigation, and that fair compensation be paid to valid claims. According to the State Department's report released in September 2002, entitled "Report on Issues Related to the Aerial Eradication of Illicit Coca in Colombia," while a procedure for verification exists, not a single farmer has received compensation, and only one case has so far been approved for compensation. The compensation system for legal crops exists on paper, but not in practice. The report details no such procedure for evaluating health claims. Citizens' only recourse is their right to take legal action against Colombian government agencies. The conditions also require that alternative development be developed in departments scheduled for fumigation and implemented in departments where fumigation has taken place. The State Department report interprets this provision to mean a single alternative development project in a given geographic department (i.e., province or state) of Colombia satisfies the requirement, permitting fumigation to take place anywhere in that department. Thus the report did not provide a serious treatment of this provision. The fact that in 2002, USAID claims to have supported only 4500 hectares of licit crops while in the same year, the US Embassy goal is to spray 150,000 hectares, is one of several rough comparisons that reveal that the aerial fumigation program far outpaces alternative development. Indeed, alternative development programs are only designed to cover a small subset of the farmers affected by fumigation

Details: Washington, DC: Latin American Working Group, 2002.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 12, 2014 at: http://www.lawg.org/storage/documents/blunt%20instrument%20(pdf)

Year: 2002

Country: Colombia

URL: http://www.lawg.org/storage/documents/blunt%20instrument%20(pdf).pdf

Shelf Number: 132335

Keywords:
Drug Control (Colombia)
Drug Policy
Drug Regulation