THE DRUG WAR
Biden Backs Revival of His Brainchild: Plan Colombia 2.0 Set to Begin Next
Month
Colombia is set to return to a massive aerial campaign of spraying
Monsanto's glyphosate across the country, a plan Biden once fought hard with
his Republican colleagues to enact.
by Alan Macleod
March 23rd, 2021
Mint Press
By Alan Macleod
BOGATA, COLOMBIA - In an effort supposedly aimed at reducing cocaine
production, Colombia is set to return to a massive aerial campaign of
spraying Monsanto's glyphosate across the country. Defense Minister Diego
Molano confirmed that the highly contentious practice of fumigation -
shelved since 2015 - will resume in April. "
The constitutional order is clear: the Colombian military must develop
operations all over the country to ensure the safety of Colombians," Molano
announced. "That's why we're using every tool at our disposal to protect the
entire population." How spraying a known carcinogen across a nation nearly
twice the size of Texas would protect citizens, he did not explain.
The news was greeted with applause in Washington D.C, a State Department
report describing it as a "most welcome development." The new administration
also confusingly described Colombia as a "bright spot" in regional
counter-narcotics, despite also noting that the country had seen "explosive
growth" in cocaine production in recent years, rising to become "the world's
top cocaine producer and exporter."
Decades Later, America's Meddling in Colombia is Still Costing Lives
From the drug war to Plan Colombia, the effects of decades of US
interference in Colombia are still being felt.
MintPress News | Alan Macleod | Sep 11, 2020
The report also singled out Venezuela and Bolivia - socialist-run states
with nothing like the drug production Colombia has - as problem cases
refusing to cooperate in the war against drugs.
Colombia's move signals a return to the policies associated with the
controversial Plan Colombia era (2000-2015) and far-right president Alvaro
Uribe. What was originally developed as a reconciliation and development
proposal by former president Andres Pastrana in 1999 was radically altered
by the Clinton and Bush administrations, who turned it into a massive,
militarized drug war, supplying arms, money, and political support to the
hardline government and its paramilitary allies to go after the leftist FARC
guerillas who controlled much of Colombia's extremely fertile countryside.
The result was a nationwide chemical defoliation regime, not unlike that
seen during the U.S. bombardment of Vietnam and other southeast Asian
nations, forcing huge numbers of people off the land and into overcrowded
urban slums.
Colombia glyphosate
A Colombian farmer shows skin problems he developed after being sprayed by
glyphosate while working his rice field, May 11, 2015. Fernando Vergara | AP
Under Plan Colombia, government troops and associated paramilitaries were
given a free rein to kill whom they liked, later framing their victims as
FARC guerillas. Under Uribe's watchful eye, over 10,000 innocent people -
many of them farmers' union leaders and indigenous activists - were
slaughtered, the government only later admitting they had no connection to
FARC. The U.S. directly funded the slaughter; the more dead
"narco-terrorists" that were reported, the more money and weapons the U.S.
would supply. Under Plan Colombia, the country also became the most
dangerous place to be a trade unionist, according to Amnesty International,
with more unionist murders happening inside Colombia than in all other
countries combined.
The United Nations estimates that 7.4 million people are internally
displaced to this day because of the ongoing civil war and Plan Colombia,
with millions more leaving the country altogether. All the while, classified
U.S. government documents identified Uribe as one of the nation's most
important drug traffickers, an employee of the infamous Medellin Cartel and
a "close personal friend" of drugs kingpin Pablo Escobar. Profits from
drug-running funded Uribe's elections in 2002 and 2006.
While cocaine production did drop in Colombia (temporarily), producers
simply moved across the unguarded borders to neighboring nations. Cocaine is
extremely portable and simple to produce, with barely more than a few
cooking pots and household chemicals needed. Thus, the overall trade was
largely unaffected by over a decade of bombing, spraying and violence. What
was achieved, however, was that organic, unspoiled land was cleared for
large agribusiness and mining companies to move in.
"The guy who put together Plan Colombia"
In his own words, Joe Biden is "the guy who put together Plan
Colombia.straighten[ing] that government out for a long while." When the
bill came to the Senate floor, Biden worked with Republicans to push for a
hardline strategy, declaring that, "What is at stake is whether or not
Colombia becomes a narcostate or not," warning that if the bill was not
passed, the hemisphere would turn into a haven for terrorists and drug
dealers.
Biden is also proposing a plan for Central America based on his Colombian
model. It is therefore unsurprising that the new administration is welcoming
the return to chemical spraying.
Mass Incarceration to Plan Colombia: Biden's Role in the War on Drugs
Former VP Joe Biden has a sordid history of opposing progressive criminal
justice legislation and played a central role in the war on drugs.
MintPress News | Alan Macleod | Sep 28, 2020
The War on Drugs gets a revival
Plan Colombia was ditched by President Juan Manuel Santos, in power between
2010 and 2018. Santos stopped the defoliation campaign in 2015 in part of a
broader move to negotiate with the FARC. The next year, his administration
signed a peace deal with the guerilla group, which saw them formally disband
and give up their arms. Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
However, with the election of Uribe protege Ivan Duque in 2018, the
government began to renege on its promises, and a new wave of violence
reemerged. Government authorities or far-right paramilitaries closely
associated with them began to use the list of former FARC members who signed
the accord as a hit list. At least 259 have been killed, according to
Colombian human rights group Indepaz, who notes that there have already been
17 massacres in 2021 alone, with many of the victims' social leaders and
activists. Ten former FARC members have been murdered in the past three
months.
To this day, the Duque administration is still using them as a justification
for violence against its own population. Earlier this month, it conducted an
airstrike against a FARC splinter group in the southern province of
Guaviare. 12 children are feared dead from the attack. Defense Minister
Molano confirmed the military knew there were children in the area, but
insisted all those dead were forced child soldiers and part of a "war
machine who were planning terrorist attacks."
Mass Incarceration to Plan Colombia: Biden's Role in the War on Drugs
Former VP Joe Biden has a sordid history of opposing progressive criminal
justice legislation and played a central role in the war on drugs.
MintPress News | Alan Macleod | Sep 28, 2020
The news of a return to spraying is particularly striking, as Monsanto's
parent company Bayer announced last year that it was putting aside up to
$10.9 billion to settle lawsuits from cancer patients, a tacit admission
that it knows its product is carcinogenic. U.S. courts have already
concluded the same. Thus, the decision to expand its use in Colombia is yet
another starling fact about the return to what amounts to chemical warfare.
Ultimately, very little about the war on drugs, from the demonization of
Bolivia and Venezuela to propping up a known drugs trafficker as president
to now cheering the return of the discredited and harmful practice of
fumigation makes any sense, if we assume the U.S.' goal is to uphold human
rights or reduce the flow of illegal narcotics. However, if viewed through a
cold realpolitik lens, where the U.S. is attempting to destroy resistance to
its rule and keep the enormous wealth of the equatorial country in just a
few -mostly Western - hands, then the confusing Colombian case becomes
considerably clearer.