|
Herbicide attempt colombia Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.americas.org/news/nir/20001210_herbicide_douses_u_s_senator.asphttp://www.americas.org/news/nir/20001210_herbicide_douses_u_s_senator.asp
HERBICIDE DOUSES U.S. SENATOR
U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN), one of the few senators who opposed a $1.3 billion U.S. aid plan ostensibly directed at Colombia’s drug trade, headed a November 28–30 fact-finding delegation to Colombia. While watching the Colombian National Police demonstrate its fumigation of coca plants, Wellstone and other members of his delegation were hit with a fine spray of the herbicide glyphosate from a helicopter flying less than 200 feet above them. Wellstone reportedly joked about the incident, but delegation member Pamela Costain, executive director of the Minneapolis-based Resource Center of the Americas, was upset: “I’m fearful about what they’re using, and I really didn’t want to get it on me,” she said.
Just before the incident, Lt. Col. Marcos Pedreros, the police official in charge of the spraying mission, had assured Wellstone that the spray posed no risk to humans, animals or the environment. Ironically, the U.S. Embassy in Colombia had just circulated materials to reporters, noting the “precise geographical coordinates” used to spray coca fields. According to embassy officials, a computer program sets precise flight lines with a 170-foot width, leaving little room for error.
“We did not spray on the people or on the senator,” said Gen. Gustavo Socha, anti-narcotics director for the Colombian National Police, speaking through an interpreter. But when told that a reporter witnessed the incident, Socha said: “What hit him was because of the wind, not because they had the intention.”
Police took Wellstone and the rest of the delegation to several sites to watch police destroy a drug laboratory and an airstrip used by drug traffickers. Costain said she was offended by the entire display. “I felt like the senator’s visit was used as a public-relations ploy for the eradication program,” she said. “And I think it’s ironic because I’m not at all confident that the senator supports the eradication program.”
Later, Wellstone flew to Barrancabermeja, becoming the first member of Congress to visit what embassy officials called the most dangerous city in Colombia. Under heavy security, he met with human rights groups who said the Colombian government is doing nothing to protect civilians. (Minneapolis Star Tribune 12/1/00; AP 12/1/00)
During the November 30 visit to Barrancabermeja, a regional Colombian police commander announced that his officers had foiled an assassination attempt against Wellstone and U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson. A report by Resource Center on the Americas suggested that the timing of the announcement “raised the prospect that the `assassination’ attempt was a ruse intended to disrupt” peace talks between the rebels and the government. The Colombian National Police and the U.S. government quickly denied that the two land mines discovered on November 30 on a highway near Barrancabermeja had any connection to Wellstone’s visit. (Resource Center of the Americas 12/1/00; AP 12/1/00)
At a post-trip news conference in Minneapolis on December 1, Wellstone told reporters he thought his Colombian hosts created the bomb story to dissuade him from traveling to other dangerous regions. “I don’t know whether I was targeted, but I certainly know that the human rights activists are targeted,” Wellstone said. “It’s a small story that tells the larger story of what’s happening in Colombia.” (Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRCNet), The Week Online #163, 12/8/00; AP 12/2/00) Wellstone said he would try to insist that Colombia gets no more U.S. aid unless it improves its human rights record. (AP 12/1/00)
|
|
