Need for patience in crop programme

Farmers’ support vital to success

The Colombian government appears to be threatening a successful programme of crop substitution among the country’s hilltribe Indians. If the heavy-handed actions of Bogota stops the campaign to replace the poppies, it will be a double setback for Colombia. The forces behind the growing crop of poppies in the Colombian highlands are currently expanding the nation’s already huge trade in cocaine and heroin. They also happen to be the leftist force which has waged a long and deadly war in Colombia for years. Bogota’s recent actions play into into the rebels’ hands in both the drug and political wars.

The crux of the matter is simple. The United Nations is backing a crop substitution project to replace poppies with other cash crops among the Guambiano people. Such a campaign is possible — it has already been wildly successful in Thailand. But just as the Indians of the hills were accepting the programme and beginning to work with authorities, the government has displayed an ill-considered and harmful impatience.

Indians and independent sources say the government has begun spraying the opium crops with herbicides. The Indians oppose the spraying in principle, but their main complaint is serious. Government planes allegedly are bombarding herbicides on ordinary crops. This may be accidental in some cases, since many Indian farmers plant the poppies among their vegetables. If field reports are true, however, it appears that in many cases, there is no attempt even to target opium fields.

This puts the entire, highly promising campaign against heroin in Colombia under threat at a crucial time and for no good reason. The United Nations, which has protested and called for neutral observers, should immediately move to advise the government, and to publicise the dangers involved. For the moment, the Colombian courts have ordered a halt to all aerial spraying, but this is also a stopgap solution. NGOs are already on the ground, and in a position to report. The government should heed such international aid workers, who live with the Indians.

The spraying in Colombia may be excessive but it is clearly raising the opposition to Bogota among the Indians. The UN and NGOs said last week the Guambiano people were enthusiastic about crop substitution. As in Thailand, the idea of freedom to choose their crops, and easier access to markets were popular throughout the hill villages of Colombia. The sad part is that Bogota may be throwing away tonnes of good will. That is because the response of the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as Farc, has been worse than that of the government.

Farc soldiers kidnapped three German aid workers, claiming they were behind the aerial spraying. Villagers were outraged, and said the NGO representatives were helping them replace the poppies. They have threatened to try to attack the rebels to retrieve their German friends.

We in Thailand can relate to this campaign in many ways. His Majesty the King started the first such crop substitution programme for our hilltribes. The campaign was quickly recognised, and received international help. In less than a generation, opium disappeared from Thailand as a cash crop. Instead of hilltribes being forced to grow one crop and sell to criminal gangs at a fixed price, they could grow a variety of crops and take them to free markets.

One can only hope that cooler heads in Bogota will resume co-operation with the United Nations on crop substitution. Colombia should realise the project is not a quick fix to the growing problem of heroin. But neither is a massive spraying campaign, which has already angered hill people and may alienate them.

If applied right, with advice and forethought, crop substitution can wipe out all commercial opium. Farmers will move to more profitable and safer crops. We already know this can happen, because it has happened in Thailand. Such a feat in Colombia would be a double victory in the war against the leftists and drug traffickers.

Bangkok Post, Thailand, 30 July 2001