Colombia wearies of war on drugs

By Michael Petrou

Aug. 31— A growing number of prominent Colombians — including a leading presidential candidate — are attacking the US war on drugs and adding momentum to a push for decriminalization of marijuana, heroin and cocaine.

A recent flurry of pro-legalization pronouncements culminated this week in a scathing attack by Horacio Serpa, front-runner in next May’s presidential elections, on the US-backed policy of eradicating drug crops through aerial spraying.

“Today there is more cocaine being produced, more trafficking, more traffickers and larger areas under cultivation,” said Serpa on the eve of a visit by US officials believed to be assessing the effectiveness of Washington’s anti-drug partnership with the Colombian government. “New and alternative formulas are needed along with a recognition that the ( anti-drug ) policies applied to date have been a failure.”

Serpa’s comments came only days after Colombian Senator Viviane Morales introduced a bill to legalize the production and sale of heroin and cocaine.

And other politicians have introduced a series of bills in Colombia’s congress that would reduce or eliminate penalties for people in the drug trade.

“The problem is that the law of the marketplace is overtaking the law of the state,” former president Ernesto Samper said recently. “We cannot continue to fight this war alone. If the consuming nations do nothing to curb demand, to control money laundering, to halt the flow of chemicals that supply the drug-production labs, then in a few short years, the world is going to see legalization as the answer.”

The publisher of Colombia’s largest daily newspaper has also publicly backed decriminalization.

In an essay published in the Los Angeles Times, Enrique Santos Calderon said US-backed strategies to fight drug cartels and eliminate cocaine crops have failed. He said “legalization and decriminalization tactics should be considered.”

The debate on decriminalization is taking place just as the US delegation, including top State Department, White House and Pentagon officials, meets with the administration of Colombian President Andres Pastrana to discuss both the war on drugs and the battle against leftist guerrillas who tax and protect cocaine producers.

Last year, the United States launched Plan Colombia, a $1.3-billion project to reduce drug production through military operations, crop destruction and social programs.

Critics say fumigating coca crops destroys the environment and simply pushes peasant coca farmers deeper into the jungle, or into the arms of leftist guerrillas.

Individuals in Colombia can now legally possess small amounts of cocaine, hashish and marijuana.

Rafael Orduz, a Colombian senator, wants to expand the law to remove criminal penalties for small landholders who grow less than seven acres of coca or opium.

“We are now a full year into Plan Colombia and we can see the results: Peasant farmers are wiped out economically, people are being displaced, suffering is on the increase,” Orduz said. “Just because we support decriminalization does not mean we support guerrillas or drug traffickers. We are tired of all of them. We want to get rid of them,” he said.

But Orduz said attacking peasant coca farmers is an unethical way to fight the drug trade.

“The idea should not be to treat them as criminals, because they are not. All they are trying to do is survive.”

When the American delegation arrived in Bogota Wednesday, about 60 demonstrators protested outside the US Embassy and called for the United States to end its military support of the Colombian government.

The exact purpose of the American delegation’s visit, headed by Marc Grossman, undersecretary of state for political affairs, is not clear.

US officials have said they oppose any moves toward decriminalizing drug production in Colombia, and a spokesman for the State Department said the visit is to “underscore our continuing US support for Colombia.”

But the Bush administration has also said it will review its approach to combating drug use.

Last week, Peter W. Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, said the administration is in the process of making “some agonizing decisions” about how its drug policy in Colombia serves American interests.

Source: The Ottawa Citizen

Shell group may face lawsuit on toxic waste

By Mario Osava

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, Sep. 2 (IPS/Tierramérica)— The 181 residents of a neighborhood in the Brazilian municipality of Paulinia, 120 km from Sao Paulo, waited anxiously during a seemingly endless month to find out the results of a series of toxicology tests.

Finally, the State University of Sao Paulo’s Toxicology Center came up with the numbers that everyone had feared: nearly 80 percent of the residents presented varying degrees of chronic intoxication from industrial waste.

The groundwater in the Recanto dos Pássaros neighborhood, made up of a cluster of 60 houses, was contaminated by a chemical company belonging to Shell Group.

The contaminants, known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and heavy metal residues that invaded the district’s underground water supplies are known to cause cancer and serious damage to the human nervous, immune and reproductive systems.

The elimination of POPs worldwide is the aim of a convention that 90 countries signed two months ago in Stockholm.

“My mother-in-law died of cancer, my wife also developed cancerous tumors, and even my dogs have tumors. Nobody can convince me that the cause wasn’t the chemical contamination,” said Antonio de Padua Mello, who has lived in Recanto for 23 years.

After the toxicology test results were announced, the Health Secretariat of Paulinia said it would relocate the Recanto residents to another neighborhood if Shell does not take the initiative, given that the POPs continue to pose a health threat.

The test results could also determine the legal course of action in the case. The Public Ministry (prosecutor) is to decide whether it will sue the Shell Group for damages to public health and the environment. For now, the neighbors affected by the contamination have decided to seek reparations themselves from the British-Dutch transnational.

“There are documents proving that Shell omitted data in its report, such as information about the ditches where it buried the toxic waste, which is itself a crime,” said Padua Mello.

Beginning in 1977, Shell produced aldrin, dieldrin and endrin at the Recanto plant, three of the 12 POPs condemned by the Stockholm convention. The sale of these agricultural toxins was banned in Brazil in 1985, but production for export continued until 1990.

The firm admitted responsibility in 1994 for the contamination of the land around the chemical plant in an audit prior to the Shell agro- chemical group’s sale of the plant to the US-based Cyanamid. As such, it is still responsible for the environmental problems of the property that was subsequently acquired, last year, by the Germany-based BASF chemical company.

Shell acted in a manner that is “at least irresponsible, if not criminal,” stated Karen Suassuna, Brazilian coordinator of the campaign against toxic substances waged by the international environmental watchdog Greenpeace.

In addition to failing to take measures to contain and eliminate the contaminants, Shell waited until this year to analyze the ground water of the chemical plant’s neighboring community. In some wells, dieldrin levels were 16 times greater than what is permitted under Brazilian law.

For years, the residents of Recanto have been complaining about the strange color, odor and taste of the water, and have sought medical attention for problems including memory loss, fatigue, headaches, allergies and insomnia. In this small community there were five cases of cancer in the last 10 years, four of which proved fatal.

But Shell representatives maintain that the “low levels” of chemical residues detected do not pose a threat to human health and that medical studies conducted on behalf of the firm did not find individuals contaminated with dieldrin or endrin.

Paulinia Health secretary, José Nino Meloni, announced he would seek health tests of other potential victims, such as former employees of the chemical plant, a pool of approximately 2,000 individuals.

Paulinia is just one example of many health and environmental disasters involving the chemical industry -- and there is still potential for future catastrophe in this case: Shell built its plant here just 150 meters from the Atibaia River, which supplies water to several nearby cities.

Greenpeace’s Suassuna pointed out that, in their countries of origin, transnational companies like Shell are subject to very strict regulations. These are standards they should have to comply with wherever they operate, she commented.

Oil companies internationally condemned for assault on Ecuadorian activists and journalists

Quito, Ecuador, Aug. 31— Nine women environmentalists were violently assaulted when they attempted a peaceful protest at the offices of the Oleoducto de Crudos Presados (OCP) Consortium in Quito, Ecuador. The sit-in was in support of a general strike underway in the oil-producing region of Lago Agrio to protest the construction of the new heavy crude pipeline by the Consortium.

Company security guards destroyed cameras, assaulted the activists and three journalists while taking possession of their photographic equipment in an attempt to prevent coverage of the incident. One journalist, Gustavo Abad from El Universo, a leading national daily, was reportedly beaten and detained by OCP employees. International human rights and environmental organizations quickly denounced the actions of the Consortium with calls and emails urging the Ecuadorian and international media to expose this incident.

The demonstrators were from Accion Ecologica, an Ecuadorian grassroots NGO opposed to the construction of the OCP, and Oilwatch International, which is a Quito based network of communities in South America, Asia, and Africa affected by the oil industry.

“The OCP Consortium has clearly demonstrated how it intends to treat Ecuadorians who exercise their legitimate right to protest the impacts of the company’s operations,” said Alexandra Almedia, Accion Ecologica.

The $1.1 billion, 500-mile OCP pipeline would transport heavy crude from the Ecuadorian Amazon to a refinery in Esmeraldas on the Pacific Coast. With the OCP, Ecuador intends to double oil production from the Amazon region. The Ecuadorian Government, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) tout the project as the corner stone of the economic plan aimed at alleviating the country’s burgeoning external debt.

The consortium of international companies includes Alberta Energy, Repsol-YPF, Agip, Perez-Companc, Kerr-McGee and the Los Angeles based Occidental Petroleum, whose operations on the U’wa people’s land in Colombia have been the subject of widespread controversy. Germany’s largest public bank, WestLB is the lead financier behind the project, providing a $900 million syndicated loan to the Consortium.

The pipeline faces growing resistance from both Ecuadorian and international groups concerned over the project’s adverse impacts, such as soil and water contamination from spills and leaks, threats to intact rainforest ecosystems and indigenous lands, and the opening up of vast areas of the Amazon rainforest to oil exploration. Activists and citizen’s groups also cite ongoing environmental problems with the current pipeline in Ecuador as cause for concern about the OCP. In May, the country’s existing pipeline ruptured due to a landslide, spilling 7,000 barrels of oil. This accident was the 14th major oil spill since 1998. In the past year, at least five bombings of Ecuador’s oil pipelines have occurred, adding to the environmental risks of the OCP.

Source: Amazon Watch

Mexican indigenous declare independence

Mexico City, Mexico, Aug. 31— More than a dozen Mexican indigenous communities on Friday declared independence and announced their refusal to recognize a recently enacted Indian rights law.

Legal adviser Joaquin Ortega said that the communities have signed a “declaration of communal property and autonomy” on behalf of more than 300,000 indigenous people from more than a dozen ethnic groups.

Ortega also announced that 60 communities in seven Mexican states will challenge the constitutionality of the Indian rights law before the Supreme Court on Friday.

After Congress approved the law in April, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) broke off peace talks with the government.

Friday’s declaration of independence “is an act which decrees the communal appropriation of land, water and natural resources, as well as the lands surrounding Indian villages,” Ortega said.

“In addition, (the decree) establishes the communities’ autonomy as public bodies, their solidarity for the defense of their basic rights and a pledge to resolve land disputes that will guarantee the unity of all Indian people,” he said.

According to Ortega, the Indian rights law violates an International Labor Organization (ILO) convention, which Mexico signed and that is constitutionally binding.

“The law suppresses the heritage rights of Indigenous people and their capacity for self-rule,” Ortega said.

In addition, it fails to respect “the rights of these people to exploit their own natural resources and take part in the governing of the nation as public bodies,” he said.

In recent weeks, the Supreme Court has been flooded with constitutional challenges to the law, which is titled the Indian Rights and Culture Law.

The challenges have come from dozens of city, state and legislative authorities in states with the largest Indian populations.

Source: Agencia EFE SA: www.efe.es

Riot police prevent GM crop destruction in France

By Claude Canellas

Sigalens, France, Sept. 1-- Police in riot gear prevented activists (pictured left) opposed to genetically modified (GM) crops from hacking down three fields of experimental maize on Saturday.

It was the first time French police have stopped GM crop sites being ransacked since protesters began a campaign in late June to rip up bio-engineered plants.

The police action came after Prime Minister Lionel Jospin publicly criticized the destruction of GM crop tests on Tuesday, describing the protests as illegal and urging activists to stop.

“When it’s illegal, it’s illegal. We said it nicely. They didn’t understand, so now we’re saying it less nicely,” farm minister Jean Glavany told reporters on Saturday at a meeting of Jospin’s Socialist party in the seaside resort of La Rochelle.

Some 100 activists from radical farmers’ union Confederation Paysanne, anti-globalization movement ATTAC, and other groups arrived at a test site in Sigalens in southwest France, wielding sickles and scythes to chop down the maize plants.

But between 100 and 150 police carrying riot shields and truncheons waited at the field, which belongs to French biotechnology firm Biogemma.

The protesters placed their tools on the ground in front of the police, but said they would be back.

“There is no question of having a confrontation. If we can’t act today, we’ll come back another day,” one of the protest organizers said.

A similar police reception awaited the 100 or so activists who had planned to cut down two fields of maize near the village of Saint-Martin-la-Riviere, in western central France.

The maize was being grown by US biotechnology giant Monsanto, which has been the target of several anti-GM protests this summer.

Small squads of police were present at previous protests, but had not intervened while activists razed fields.

Confederation Paysanne, which has accused the government of underestimating the possibility of cross-pollination between genetically modified and natural crops, criticized the government’s show of force.

“This shows the government has chosen force with no regard for consumer safety, which is scandalous,” said a spokesman for the farm union founded by globalization foe Jose Bove.

French biotechnology industry groups said they regretted it had taken so long for the government to decide to protect the test crops. They urged the authorities to prosecute those responsible for prior crop destructions.

“The decision to make public forces intervene has finally been taken and we hope it will dissuade a small group of extremist foes,” the groups said in a joint statement.

“We now expect authorities to keep their commitment and bring the appropriate legal proceedings, so as to respect the rule of law in our country,” they added.

While GM crops are common in the United States, France and other European countries remain highly reluctant to sanction new genetic technology in agriculture.

France nonetheless grows experimental GM crops on around 100 sites, all of which have been approved by the farm ministry.

On Monday, Biogemma said it would file a civil lawsuit following what it described as “intolerable” destruction of a GM maize crop at Cleon d’Andran, in southeastern France.

Source: Reuters

US “COINTELPRO” program brought before UN Human Rights commissioner

Durban, South Africa, Sept . 2— In a meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney presented two documents as evidence of US government violations of both US and international law and, in particular, specific violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

The first document given to Robinson was confidential memorandum 46, written by National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski on March 17, 1978. It details the federal government’s plan to destroy functioning black leadership in the United States. This document provides a critical insight into the federal government’s concern at the apparent growing influence of the African American political movement.

The second document is a report entitled “Human Rights in the United States [The Unfinished Story- Current Political Prisoners -- Victims of COINTELPRO]” and it was compiled by the Human Rights Research Fund, headed by Kathleen Cleaver. This document provides an overview of the counterintelligence program which, from the 1950s to the 1980s, was run in the United States against political activists and targeted organizations. The excesses of the counterintelligence program were first exposed in 1975 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, known as the Church Committee.

“From as early as the 1950’s and right up until the 1980’s the US government directed the machinery of state against the African American political movement and, in so doing, effectively put an end to the civil rights movement inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King. COINTELPRO was in clear violation of the US Constitution and a wide range of US laws, as well as, in clear breach of internationally accepted standards for human rights and fundamental freedoms. That our government would turn its full resources against its own law abiding citizens is unforgivable and ranks us among those rogue nations of the world who have chosen to kill hope and sow misery in its place,” stated McKinney.

Source: truthout: www.truthout.com

Israeli soldiers shoot at UN food convoys to Palestine refugee camp

Aug. 30— Two separate United Nations convoys traveling to a refugee camp in Gaza were blocked by an Israeli checkpoint today and forced to turn back without reaching their destination.

The convoy of Peter Hansen, Commissioner General of the UN Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), was blocked at a newly erected Israeli checkpoint near the Rafah refugee camp, a UN spokesman said.

Hansen got out of the car and was threatened at gunpoint by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers and was told to immediately return to his vehicle. The convoy was forced to turn back and travel to Rafah by alternate roads.

Earlier in the day at the same checkpoint, four UNRWA trucks were fired at and were also forced to turn back. The trucks, clearly labeled as UN vehicles, were carrying 60 tons of foods for distribution to special hardship cases.

Source: United Nations website: www.un.org

Gov’t prosecutor investigating paramilitary massacre murdered

Bogota, Colombia, Sept. 1— Gunmen on a motorcycle assassinated a government prosecutor investigating one of Colombia’s bloodiest paramilitary massacres in years, and a US human rights group said Saturday that two of her colleagues are missing and feared dead.

Yolanda Paternina, 50, was shot twice as she was returning home from work Wednesday in the city of Sincelejo, 330 miles northwest of the capital, Bogota, according to police.

Two investigators working with Paternina on the case disappeared in June and are feared dead, said Robin Kirk of Human Rights Watch.

The three were probing allegations of state complicity in a massacre in which dozens of paramilitary gunmen hacked to death 26 people in the northern village of Chengue after accusing them of collaborating with leftist guerrillas.

Even though residents in the region pleaded for protection from the paramilitary army months before the January massacre, authorities failed to prevent the killings.

On Friday, Human Rights Watch sent a letter to Colombian Attorney General Luis Osorio urging him to investigate the crimes and to protect the prosecutor now heading the investigation.

The massacre raised fresh doubts about the government’s willingness to rein in the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC. Curbing paramilitary violence is a key condition for continuation of military aid and training from the United States under a $1.3 billion regional anti-drug package.

The 8,000-strong AUC is responsible for most of the human rights atrocities committed in Colombia’s 37-year civil war.

Source: Associated Press