With the initiation of the Plan Colombia,  the issue of crops used for illicit purposes has become the central topic of Colombian politics.  This will continue to be so in the years to come. If the future of peace and war depends on the decisions made regarding this issue, it is imperative for civil society to propose peaceful alternatives towards promoting sustainable development, social justice and the respect of the individual and communal rights of the peoples living in regions where Coca, poppy and marihuna are grown. Those of us who are searching for peace have the moral and political obligation to thwart a military offensive against Colombian peasants carried out in the name of "the war on drugs and against violence", which permits narcotics mafias to maintain their hold on international havens and to increase their wealth thanks to the high prices, violence and corruption which accompanies prohibitionism.

We wish to present the following programatic proposals regarding the relationship between "'Ilicit' Crops and the Peace Agenda" to Colombia's civil society, political parties, insurgency, government and to the international community.

I. Halt Fumigations Inmediately!

• Putting and end to fumigations against peasants, settlers and indigenous communities is today one of the priorities towards defending the Human Rights and the integrity of these communities and their families, their health, staple crops, and the region's ecosystems and biodiversity, which are all being endangered by the repressive policies applied against crops which have come to be considered illicit.

• Categorically reject all projects geared at carrying out research or using biological weapons to eradicate marihuana, Coca or poppy crops. To this end, the United Nations Narcotics Commission and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Conference shall be petitioned to impose a global ban on the use of biological agents against crops.

II. Design a Fresh Approach to International Co-responsibility

• A renewed concept of shared international responsibility —that not only addresses the negative effects that the demand for narcotics has on producing countries—  but that also covers the effects generated by the punitive policies imposed to control narcotics.
• An equitable pratice of co-responsibilty cannot therefore consist of allocating military "aid" for counternarcotics purposes to supplier countries nor can it be minimal resources for an "alternative development" which solely complements the use of force against peasant populations. It should rather be the promotion of peaceful solutions and structural reforms with sufficient funding from the countries which consume, produce and supply the chemical precurssors and/or serrve as laundering havens to the profits of the narcotics traffic.

III. Assess Counternarcotics Policies

• Conterdrug strategies and prohibitionism created the problem suffered by producer countries such as Colombia. Accordingly, prestigious intellectuals have promoted an international debate on legalization, they advocate depenalization and insist that criminal organizations involved in the drug phenomenon will only be defeated when their finacial structures —built on the profits generated by prohibition— are dismantled.[3].
• Aside from being useless, "drug policies" sponsored by the United States are dangerously fostering increasing levels of domestic lawlessness, regional militarization, and the spill-over of Colombia internal conflict.
• Colombian civil society has an important role to play if its voice is heard on the international scene; as an expression of decades of experience on the recieving end  of "drug policies". Thus the importance of convoking ad constituting a High-Level World Commission on the Drug Issue that would assess 30 years of the "War on Drugs" and on the pontential benefits of depenalization and legalization, as proposed at the International "Peace for Colombia" Summit held in Costa Rica on October 2000.

IV. Decriminalize and despenalize: the basics towards concurrence

• Apart from halting fumigation, another basic condition required to establish a fair dialogue with the producers of  this raw material used for illicit purposes is to consider them as legitimate social interlocutors in the search for peaceful, gradual and compromised solutions. To attain decriminalization, civil society should lobby in the Congress of the Republic of Colombia to have the National Narcotics Statute (Estatuto Nacional de Estupefacientes) or Law 30 of 1986 modified.
• Agile, unbiased and efficient mechanisms to process civil law suits for damages from fumigation —suffered by peasant and indigenous communities under "counternarcotics operations"— need to be implemented.
• The rights of indigenous peoples to their traditional use of the Coca Leaf need to be fully recognized, and no prohibition whatsoever should be imposed on these crops for medical, foodstuff and licit industrial uses. In order to keep these crops from falling into the hands of the narcotics mafia, the state and the international community could buy the marihuana, Coca and poppy harvests while the mid and long-term regional development and crop-substitution projects take hold.
• Considering the impossibility of totally eliminating drugs, educational initiatives should be undertaken to promote social self-responsibility among young people, and drug addiction should be dealt with as a public health problem, much as tobacco and alcohol. Demand countries should take into consderation the fact that depenalization of drug consumption is not an integral policy as long as the war continues to be carried out in supplier countries.
• Focus “legitmate repression legítima” -Law Enforcement- on the financial links of the illict trade chain, precussor supply and narcotics traffic by eliminating the legal and tax facilites which allow for the repatriation and legalization of illicit earnings through the development of international co-responsibility accords.

V. Progressive, shared and equitable

• Depending on the type of illicit crop refered to, the state and the international community should apply differential strategies: concerted substitution, gradual, manual, clean-cut and with financial reparation for peasant crops; and uncompensated, manual, uncontaminating eradication for industrial plantations. This implies repealing articles 3 and 4 of  Resolución 005 of August 11, 2000, which authorizes the National Narcotics Council to fumigate fractioned and/or mixed illicit crops, without regard to the area planted.
• Experience indicates that peasants cannot expect much of state subsidies. Within a global notion of progressive or gradual implementation, the significance of the illicit economy, including the number of hectares planted, should be considered an advancement and not a necessary prerequisite to social investment.
• For this reason, manual eradication proposals —put forward by the state or by the communities themselves— but which are born out of the intimidation of fumigation, food shortages or the threat of war, are neither just nor feasible. The structural problems which confront the Colombian countryside require long-term solutions that have nothinbg to do with the peremptory ten-month deadlines stipulated by the government. The question is:  as regards alternative development, who has the responsibility of showing results?  Peasants confronted by adverse economic factors or the state which has fostered rural injustice and the critical situation of Colombia´s agricultural sector?
• A pact is an act of goodwill among the parties, which on equal standing define its contents, processes and results. Civil society should advocate for manual eradication pacts which honor their goals by keeping the use of force from weakening the abilty of peasants, settlers and indigenous communities from arriving at true compromises with the government. From the standpoint of the defense of Human Rights, we  must be vigilant so that the strong actors of counternarcotics policies do not manhandle the rights of highly vulnerable populations.

VI. Substitution or competitive policies?

• In fragile ecosystems, substituting with licit crops does not necessarily constitute a sustainable and productive reconversion endeavor. Depending on the type of soils, instead of substituting crops it would be advisable to develop activities which would compete with  those agricultural activities which are related to the narcotics trade with others which, although not necessarily aiming at similar profitability, would guarantee secure food sources and the wellbeing of the local inhabitants.  One proposal would be to improve farming and cattle ranching through sustainable means such as arboreous fields, stabled cattle, reforesting, fisheries, animal breeding, and other alternative and  biodiverse models of agriculture.
• Another socially, economical and environmental viable alternative is to substitute not the plant itself but it use towards food, medical and other purposes.

VII. Self-management, solidarity and environmental sutainability

• Local empowerment, participative democracy and self-management are essential prerequisites to the implementation of competitive and sustainable socia models.
• This focus would strengthen communal solidarity and coexistence and would foster a more harmonious relationship whith the natural environment. Afro-Americans', indigenous people's and peasant communities' experience in the field of successful productive models, organizational traditions and life planning (planes de vida) should be incorporated into the design of local and regional development policies and programs.

VIII. Agrarian Reform, Territorial Planning, and Employment

• A new development model which encompasses opportunies for the poorer sectors. This includes an a agrarian reform,which, in a period of no longer than 5 years, would democratize land tenure there where the soil can be destined for agricultural uses; recompose peasant economies so as to secure the country's food sources; stabilize colonization processes, revert migratory flows, and stem forced displacement of populations.
• Incentivate environmentally-sound territorial planning which would distinguish between occupied areas and protected areas, ban from colonization territories located on fragile ecosystems o  which cannot be reconverted to sutainalbe productive use. The ensuing  population relocation programs should be voluntary and gradual with due guarantees for a dignified and secure life in the areas of reception.
• Land-distribution policies can be intitiated through forfeiture of narcotics traffickers' rural landholdings. [4], the expropriation of private landholdings wich are idle, and through the development of Peasant Reserves (Zonas de Reserva Campesina)  in those areas where land is meant for agricultural uses and not solely in colonization zones.
• It is absolutely necessary to design rural development, economic reactivation, employment and training policies of a preventive nature in order to keep young people from poorer urban centers from migrating and turning to the planting, harvesting or servicing in the regions producing Coca or poppy for illicit purposes.

IX. Rocognition of Indigenous People's Autonomy

• A special set of laws  must be enacted towards the protection of  cultural and biological biodiversity namely, protecting knowledge, innovations and traditional practices of indigenous peoples, peasant and Afro-American communities; in accordance with common and international law as under  the 1991 Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization and the Biological Diversity Convention.
• It is absolutely imperative that the autonomy, territorial rights and collective nature of traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples be recognized. To this end, a moratorium on biosprospection must be declared until the cultural legacy of indigenous peoples and communities is duly protected by national and international law. [5].

X. Actions by the peace and negotiation tables

• Multilateral ceasefire and backing for a negotiated settlement to Colombia's armed conflcit with the aim of creating a propitious environment for peaace talks and negotiation, with the participation of civil society and the international community.
• Public Fund for Promoting Peace in Colombia, coordinated by the national government, the insurgency and social organizations in order to sponsor social development proyect with funding by the international community together with the existing Peace Investment Fund.
• “Alternative development, peace and environmental protection laboratories”, on the basis of three-party agreements between the government, the insurgent forces, and the local communities within a multilateral armed truce, compensation for the maintenance needs of the insurgency and crop substitution in predetermined areas. An Oversight and Verification Commission would accompany this process.
• Latin American Peace Commission to assess the impact of the Plan Colombia on the Andean and Amazon Regions and to support the peace process and seek alterantives to chemical fumigation and to the threat of biological warfare from foreign governments and multilateral agencies.

XI. Social Mobilization, support for regional oversight and processes

• To strengthen the peace process and peaceful solutions to illicit use of crops, social national and international mobilization must be incentivated against fumigation with herbicidesand in favor of Colombian sovereignty and of the defense of basic rights of Colombians to their lives and secure food sources, health and a sound natuaral environment.
• Likewise, regional integration processes as alternatives to the Plan Colombia must be sponsored, as in the case of the Alliance of the Governors of the South; support given to local, regional, national and international oversight over the impact of fumigation against crops used for illicit purposes and in order to carry out follow-ups on the manual erradication pacts signed by the government and the local comunities.

[2] Defensoría del Pueblo (Ombudsman), Informe Defensorial # 1, 9 feb/01; Resolución # 4, 12 feb/01. www.defensoria.org.co

[3] “Coca which was once chewed solely by the indigenous peoples of our isoltaed mountains, became a luxury intem thanks to US government policies. Something we had little say in, neither in its origins nor in its fatal results. But now we are ‘The Colombian Connection’”, said the ex-president Alberto Lleras Camargo (EL TIEMPO, Bogotá February 1979).

[4] Law 333 of 1996

[5]Bioprospection seeks to shortcut and lower the costs of identifying genetic resources, or active principle of living organisms, in order to transform them, for example, into pharmaceutic products. To this end, the collective knowledge of local and indigenous communities is used. The problem rises when this genetic knowledge and resources —which are inalienable—  is usurped through patenting, including that of living organisms, and through shady “economic retributions”. It is at this point that biosprospection becomes piracy.