Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2002 11:55:14 +0200 From: Vladimir =?iso-8859-1?Q?T=E1mara?= To: auribe@presidencia.gov.co Cc: mmm@mamacoca.org Subject: Por favor suspender fumigaciones Señor presidente Alvaro Uribe Velez Con copia a revista electrónica "Mamá Coca" Tal como lo sugiere el defensor del pueblo Eduardo Cifuentes, le solicito humildemente suspenda las fumigaciones con glifosato en el departamento del Putumayo, porque: * Tuve la oportunidad de hablar un instante con un indigena Xiona en Septiembre de este año, él confirmó el daño ecológico que están causando, como ejemplo dijo que después de las fumigaciones pasadas bajaron por el rio muchos pescados muertos. * De acuerdo a información publicada por El Tiempo el 2 de Oct., varias ONGs y cientificos afirmaron que el informe que dió via libre el congreso de EUA para continuar las fumigaciones, no evalua la toxicidad de los químicos ni el impacto sobre el medio ambiente y a la población. Para mí es triste que tenga tanto paso, la opinión de otro país, en la decisión de fumigar o no sobre áreas colombianas. * De acuerdo a información de la defensoría del pueblo el estado colombiano no ha cumplido con los compromisos que adquirió con los habitantes del Putumayo que han estado realizando erradicación manual de cultivos. Por ejemplo se habrían fumigado fincas de cultivadores que erradicaron sus cultivos, y hasta el momento sólo se ha desembolsado el 45% de los recursos que se habían destinado para la erradicación manual y recuperación de esta zona. http://www.defensoria.org.co/base_level2.php?Pageinfo=base_noti§ion=noticias¬i= De acuerdo a información que recibí y adjunto, en su respuesta al informe del defensor del pueblo dijo: "We have to examine the complaints of the community and the human rights ombudsman very carefully, but I call on my fellow citizens to not suspend any action against drugs," que en mi humilde opinión, es indolente porque desconoce por completo las quejas y la situación de las personas afectadas. En este instante no soy uno de los afectados, pero no quiero esperar a ser uno para pedir que se respeten los derechos fundamentales de todos los colombianos. En mi humilde opinión, cómo Dios nos regaló la libertad y la conciencia, cada quien es libre de decidir si usará o no drogas mientras no afecte a los demás. No estoy de acuerdo con la propuesta de hacer ilegal el porte de drogas en Colombia via referendo (http://www.presidencia.gov.co/discursos/frames/dis1.htm). ¿Por qué en lugar de invertir en campañas que desplazan a nuestros campesinos, no invertir para mejorar su educación y su salud? (En Putumayo en lo corrido del año van más de 8000 desplazados de acuerdo a datos de la RSS citados en la resolución defensorial 26). Precisamente leo hoy en primera página de www.presidencia.gov.co: "Bogotá, 17 oct (CNE).- Un primer paso en el programa de ajuste fiscal que puso en marcha la administración del presidente Alvaro Uribe Vélez, dio hoy el Congreso de la República al aprobar el proyecto de Presupuesto General de la Nación para la vigencia de 2003. La plenaria del Senado aprobó en último debate la iniciativa que contempla gastos por 67 billones 170 mil millones de pesos, de los cuales 33,8 billones de pesos se destinarán para funcionamiento, 25,8 billones para el servicio de la deuda externa e interna y 7,5 billones de pesos para inversión. El presidente de la República, Alvaro Uribe Vélez, destacó la aprobación del proyecto pero llamó la atención sobre la reducción en los gastos de inversión para sectores importantes como salud y educación." En definitiva menos inversión en donde más se necesita (salud y educación). Aunque no conozco la situación de todos los municipios de Colombia, en Septiembre de este año tuve la oportunida de ver cerca a Moniquira (Boyaca) un puesto de salud estatal que nadie atiende hace más de 3 años (cuando murió el enfermero). He leido sobre las muertes de profesores en diversos municipios y sobre las muertes de educadores sindcalistas, y entiendo porque pocos profesores quieren educar fuera de las ciudades. Eso sumado con la guerra que está impulsando, en mi humilde opinión, empeorará la situación de las zonas rurales. Aprovecho para solicitarle nuevamente de la manera más humilde buscar efectivamente salidas no armadas para solucionar los conflictos internos, también le solicito humildemente no seguir solicitando ayuda externa. Menos de USA cuyos militares no pueden ser juzgados por la corte penal internacional en caso de violación de derechos humanos. Por favor respetemos la vida, que es un regalo de Dios. Un colombiano que quiere la paz de Dios: Vladimir Támara Patiño ----- Forwarded message from Amazon Alliance ----- Envelope-to: vtamara@localhost Delivery-date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 09:48:25 +0200 To: amazon@amazonalliance.org From: Amazon Alliance Subject: Colombia: Ombudsman Calls for Suspension of Fumigation Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2002 21:10:36 -0400 Errors-To: Reply-To: amazon@amazonalliance.org X-Topica-Id: <1034644025.inmta008.1139.1001608> List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 X-Spam-Score: ******* (7.8) CLICK_BELOW,DISCLAIMER,FORGED_RCVD_FOUND,FROM_AND_TO_SAME_5,GAPPY_TEXT,MSG_ID_ADDED_BY_MTA_2,RCVD_IN_MULTIHOP_DSBL,RCVD_IN_OSIRUSOFT_COM,SPAM_PHRASE_01_02,USER_AGENT_OUTLOOK,X_OSIRU_DUL,X_OSIRU_DUL_FH X-UIDL: c5deb546484922380f806af70f915c22 1) Official: Eradiction Hurts Colombia, Oct. 10, AP 2) Colombia Ombudsman asks for Halt in Drug Spraying, Oct. 9, Reuters 3) Memo from Latin America Working Group with detailed excerpts of Colombian Ombudsman's Report, Oct. 10 =========================================================== 1) Official: Eradiction Hurts Colombia Thu Oct 10, 9:02 PM ET By JUAN PABLO TORO, Associated Press Writer BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Colombia's top human rights official said Thursday that a U.S.-funded program to eradicate drug crops should be suspended because it's endangering the health of peasants and damaging the environment. Human rights ombudsman Eduardo Cifuentes said he received reports from Putumayo state, where the government is spraying vast areas with herbicides, that peasants are suffering from skin irritation and respiratory problems. Spraying is key to the government's effort to eliminate fields of coca, the base for cocaine. The United States has provided chemicals, sprayer planes, and helicopters to protect the missions and is training anti-drug forces. Cifuentes told Radionet that besides spraying coca fields, the planes have dropped the herbicide glyphosate into rivers and streams, and on legal crops. President Alvaro Uribe said the spraying would continue. "We have to examine the complaints of the community and the human rights ombudsman very carefully, but I call on my fellow citizens to not suspend any action against drugs," he said in a statement. Uribe, who took office in August, has backed an aggressive fumigation campaign to wipe out the coca crops as part of his effort to end the war here. Leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries finance their fight with drug profits. Fumigation was suspended for several months this year so that peasants could voluntarily pull up their coca crops. Those who did so were to receive aid to help them plant legal crops, but it never arrived. The United States suspended most of its crop substitution programs after determining that the soil in Putumayo state wasn't suitable for commercial agriculture. The Colombian government program got tied up in red tape. Spraying resumed in late-July after officials determined most peasants had failed to pull up their crops. ------------------------------------------- 2) Colombia ombudsman asks for halt in drug spraying BOGOTA, Colombia, Oct. 9 ~W Colombia's top human rights official asked the government on Wednesday to suspend a U.S.-backed campaign to forcibly eradicate drug crops, saying recently intensified aerial spraying needed to be assessed for possible health and environmental damage. Ombudsman Eduardo Cifuentes said policy-makers needed to assess if the forced eradication was violating agreements with small peasant growers under which they voluntarily ripped out their crops of coca, the raw ingredient in cocaine. ''We believe the spraying should be suspended until these issues ... are reviewed: protect of the environment, health rights, and the fulfillment of manual eradication accords,'' Cifuentes said. President Alvaro Uribe, whose hard line against drug trafficking and Marxist rebels has won broad U.S. support, is authorizing spraying of all drug crops. Uribe, who took office on Aug. 7, says he will offer peasants the chance to participate in government-funded reforestation programs as an alternative to coca, but has dropped the previous administration's attempts to persuade peasants to agree to rip up their crops in return for aid. U.S. government officials in Bogota, faced with so-far meager results for its multibillion war on drugs in Colombia, have applauded Uribe's spraying campaign. Cifuentes, echoing popular opposition to spraying voiced under the previous government of President Andres Pastrana, said peasant growers should have some protection. ''Narco-trafficking has to be wiped out, the production and crops have to be eradicated ... but with a base of humanitarian support and economic and social aid for communities of (coca) growers,'' he told reporters. He said in Putumayo, center of Colombia's fight against the cocaine industry, the ombudsman's office had received 6,5OO complaints this year of health problems allegedly caused by spraying the powerful herbicides. Crippling the cocaine trade is key to the combined U.S. and Colombian strategy for smashing the country's Marxist rebels and far-right paramilitaries, who use drug money to pay for a 38-year-old guerrilla war which claims thousands of mainly civilian lives a year. U.S. officials have forecast that at the new, intensified rate of spraying, the amount of land planted with coca in Colombia will drop to a third or less of present levels by 2004 or 2005. Colombia is by far the world's largest cocaine producer. Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. ------------------------------- 3) October 10, 2002 From: Latin America Working Group Re: Colombian Government Ombudsman Releases Report on Putumayo, Calls for Suspension of Fumigation In a press conference in Colombia on October 9, the Colombian Government's Ombudsman, Eduardo Cifuentes, called for the suspension of the aerial spraying program in Putumayo province due to serious problems with the eradication program. He released a 42- page report, available on the web at www.defensoria.org.co, which contained the following information which may be useful in analyzing compliance with the fumigation conditions included in the FY2002 foreign operations appropriations law. --"The intensification of the armed conflict and the fumigations have provoked a severe humanitarian crisis which affects communities of small farmers, Afro-Colombians and indigenous peoples in the region." (p. 6) --The Colombian government has not lived up to its commitments in the eradication pacts signed with 37,775 families. By September 2002, only 55% of the promised aid had been delivered. By October 2001, shortly before fumigations resumed and ten months after the signing of the first pact, only 3.45% of the aid had been delivered. --The Ombudsman's office has received a total of 6,553 claims regarding damage to food crops, more than six times the quantity mentioned as received the DNE (Colombia's anti-narcotics agency) in the State Department's report to Congress regarding compliance with the fumigation conditions. This covers the period of late 2001 to the present. --The process for filing claims for damage to legal crops "is an inadequate and ineffective process." (p. 22) Small farmers' claims are often rejected because the farmers can't describe in terms that are accepted by the authorities the precise location of their farms (this may help to explain why in the State Department report, 800 out of 1000 claims were ruled out as not taking place where fumigation occurred). In very few instances are inspectors actually sent to review claims because of the security situation and scarce resources. The personeros or local ombudsmen, responsible for registering claims have not received training, the forms or maps that they need in order to carry out the procedure for registering claims. --A number of alternative development projects, including those funded by AID, were fumigated. "It is not comprehensible how the authorities continue to deliver resources from the national budget -such as those to municipal and indigenous entities- and from international aid, especially from Plan Colombia, to carry out diverse substitution projects and alternative development, only to have them harmed by indiscriminate fumigations..." (p. 25) This included the much-heralded palmito project. Thirty-four beneficiaries of the palmito alternative development project claim to be affected by fumigations, for a total loss of 42 million pesos (p. 25). There are claims of poultry killed and fish killed in fish pond projects. The Colombian government alternative development agency PLANTE gave to the DNE a computerized record of the location of the alternative development projects and the indigenous reserves, but some of these were nonetheless fumigated, according to the claims presented to the Ombudsman~Rs Office (p. 27). --The fumigations have caused some population to be displaced, without help from the government agency responsible for providing humanitarian aid to the displaced. "The population harmed by aerial eradication in many cases are forced to be displaced and, currently, are left without protection because they do not have access to the benefits of the System of Attention to Displaced People, given the difficulties of registering since they are linked to an illegal activity..." (p. 25-26) --The fumigations are carried out "without knowledge of the norms of the Colombian juridical order." (p. 26). A health plan to monitor epidemiological impacts was not put into practice; the environmental management plan for fumigation is not followed, which requires, for example, no aerial spraying of homes, bodies of water, indigenous reserves, productive projects and eradication pacts (p. 27). --The Ombudsman reiterates that health impact claims allegedly attributed to fumigation continue to be received, including respiratory problems, gastrointestinal problems, skin problems, and others. --The lack of coordination among the various governmental agencies responsible for implementing Plan Colombia has a negative impact upon the small farmers and indigenous communities subject to fumigation. ******************************************************************* Distribuido por: Distributed by: 'AMAZON ALLIANCE' FOR INDIGENOUS AND TRADITIONAL PEOPLES OF THE AMAZON BASIN 1367 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 400 Washington, DC 20036-1860 tel (202)785-3334 fax (202)785-3335 amazon@amazonalliance.org http://www.amazonalliance.org Disclaimer: All copyrights belong to original publisher. The Amazon Alliance has not verified the accuracy of the forwarded message. Forwarding this message does not necessarily connote agreement with the positions stated there-in. Todos los derechos de autor pertenecen al autor originario. La Alianza Amazonica no ha verificado la veracidad de este mensaje. Enviar este mensaje no necesariamente significa que la Alianza Amazonica este de acuerdo con el contenido. La Alianza Amazonica para los Pueblos Indigenas y Tradicionales de la Cuenca Amazonica es una iniciativa nacida de la alianza entre los pueblos indigenas y tradicionales de la Amazonia y grupos e individuos que comparten sus preocupaciones por el futuro de la Amazonia y sus pueblos. Hay mas de ochenta organizaciones del norte y del sur activas en la Alianza Amazonica. La Alianza Amazonica trabaja para defender los derechos, territorios, y el medio ambiente de los pueblos indigenas y tradicionales de la Cuenca Amazonica. The Amazon Alliance for Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the Amazon Basin is an initiative born out of the partnership between indigenous and traditional peoples of the Amazon and groups and individuals who share their concerns for the future of the Amazon and its peoples. There are over eighty non-governmental organizations from the North and South active in the Alliance. The Amazon Alliance works to defend the rights, territories, and environment of indigenous and traditional peoples of the Amazon Basin. ==^^=============================================================== This email was sent to: vladimir@tamarapatino.com EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://igc.topica.com/u/?aVxiiZ.a2i7Q2 Or send an email to: amazoncoal-main-unsubscribe@igc.topica.com T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^^===============================================================