The Santos Gouvernement Does NOt Keep it Promises and the Colombian State is Still Destroying communities' Lives with
Its Indiscriminate Aerial Spraying with Glyphosate
Prensa Rural
23 de febrero, 2015
Indiscriminate Aerial Spraying with Glyphosate in Tarazá, Department
of Antioquia
http://prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article16187
Lower-Cauca
Region
Peasant Association
Since the year 2008, the Lower-Cauca
Region
peasants have been faced with the need to carry out several agrarian strikes due
to indiscriminate aerial spraying with Glyphosate by the National Antinarcotics
Police on coca crops. The protests carried out by the peasants led to an
agreement with the government that there would be no aerial spraying; commitment
which the government, in time, has failed to fulfill. Meanwhile, in the
Peace Talks in Havana between the government and the FARC guerilla group, an
initial joint document was drafted; “Solution to the Illicit-Drugs Problem” ”
point "4.1.3.2 “Agreements with the Communities” states: “An indisputable
fundamental element of the definitive solution to problem of crops used for
illicit purposes is to be found in the concerted and voluntary means and,
therefore, in the manifest will of the communities to walk alternative paths to
those of crops used for illicit purposes and the government’s commitment to
generate and guarantee dignified standards of living and employment for it
people and provide for their well-being and decent living. With the aim of
formalizing this decision to substitute crops used for illicit purposes, the
communities, the national government and territorial bodies will sign agreements
prior to implementing a Program on their territories”.
Likewise, in the Agrarian Summit’s list of demands, point number 4 paragraph 2,
there is a demand regarding “a social, gradual, concerted, structural and
environmental substitution program for coca, marijuana and poppy
crops which goes beyond the implementation of violent and Glyphosate- aerial
spraying eradication programs which clashes with the right to life of
Indigenous, afro-Colombian and peasant communities”. Accordingly, we are
denouncing the following events which are occurring in our municipalities:
According to information received from the communities on February 16, 2015,
several coca crops were sprayed by the National Antinarcotics Police in some “veredas”
(administrative division smaller than the municipality) in the Taraza
Municipality; the following veredas were sprayed: Dos Canóas, La Linda,
Quinterón, Estrella and Urales; in Urales, several cocoa crops were affected..
This is situation for great concern, since it is not only affecting the coca
crops but the ecosystem and licit crops. We wish to reiterate the fact that the
National Government has on several occasions committed itself with the peasant
to not carry out aerial spraying and it has not fulfilled its part of
these agreements.
We demand that the National Government under the administration of
President Juan Manuel Santo Calderón, State Secretary /Minister of the Interior
Juan Fernando Cristo, fulfill what has been agreed to with the peasants of the
Taraza Municipality and that the Minister of the Environment, Gabriel Vallejo
López, verify the collateral damages to the ecosystem, and are appealing as well
to CORANTIOQUIA, the National Ombudsman and the United Nations..
.................
Prensa Rural
24 de febrero, 2015
Denuncian fumigaciones indiscriminadas con glifosato en el sur de Córdoba
http://prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article16201
Southern Cordoba Peasant Association
Since February 15, 2015, peasant communities form the Southern sector of
the Cordoba Department (bordering on the North with the Antioquia Department)
from the “corregimientos (an administrative division below the municipality but
a bit above the “vereda”) of Juan José and Tierradentro have seen their staple
crops, creeks, rivers and, of course, their whole lives fumigated.
The stated goal of the sprayings is none other than exterminate the coca crops
which are planted in the Paramillo Massif (Nudo de Paramillo) as part of the
strategy “Zero Illicits in the Paramillo Massif” carried out by the National
Defense Ministry in concurrence to the Plan Colombia.
Diverse agrochemical studies and post illicit-crops-Glyphosate- spraying
verifications have shown that this practice is harmful not only for the human
beings that live in these communities where these actions are carried out but
they also adversely impact staple crops, water sources as well the animals the
peasant use as their means of transportation and to feed their families.
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Es que hoy es mañana!
Mar. 4 años.
traducción MMMoreno