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Views from the Inside Out by Robert Taliaferro
News & Letters, June 2001
War on drugs
The war on drugs in this country expands well beyond its borders, and
Americans are not the only people paying the price of community
militarization.
In Colombia, government-backed "illegal" paramilitary forces often lead the
strikes against rebel forces who are said to expedite the drug trade. The
operation is funded-in part-by over a billion dollars of mainly military
aid from the U.S.
Some of that aid is in the form of Vietnam-era Huey helicopters, and
defoliant that brings to mind the Agent Orange used in Vietnam. The
defoliant is dumped on the fields of coca leaf in Colombia, but is
indiscriminate in its destruction, killing "legal" crops as well.
Prior to spraying, however, the paramilitary forces are charged with the
task of "relocating" the population of the area, and this relocation has
resulted in reports of massacres of suspected sympathizers of guerrilla
units in the target areas.
According to human rights groups, at least 100 people are massacred each
year in one province in Colombia that is said to be the stronghold of FARC
(Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrillas. This province is also,
reportedly, responsible for over half of Colombia's annual cocaine
production.
The military has a quaint phrase called "collateral damage" that is often
used when describing the destruction of property-or people-that is not part
of the main objective.
The war on drugs in Colombia also has its collateral damage, not only with
legal crops being destroyed by defoliant, but in people being illegally
arrested, and often killed, simply for being at the wrong place, at the
wrong time.
AID OF PARAMILITARIES
Though it is said that the U.S. has been placing pressure on Colombia to
distance itself from paramilitary groups, it was only after repeated UN
complaints about human rights abuses that Colombia-at least on the
surface-made efforts to curb its affiliation with such groups, yet military
leaders on the ground often use such groups as the spearhead of other
military actions. In fact, many members of the paramilitary groups are
former soldiers of such units as Colombia's 24th Brigade.
The brigade is under investigation in Colombia for human rights abuses, and
though it is restricted from receiving U.S. aid because of those abuses,
its former commander is currently up for promotion.
In the United States, the war on drugs has led to the incarceration or
judicial sanctions of millions of people, affecting the lives-with its
collateral damage-of millions more. It has spawned an industry that has
become self-perpetuating, a feeding frenzy of fear that has strangled this
country in razor wire, steel doors, and concrete walls.
In the United States, the war on drugs has become synonymous with cultural
genocide, especially as it relates to African Americans. Though we do not
see the massacres of whole villages such as one might see in Colombia, the
loss of a person killed in a hail of bullets because they were driving
while Black or Brown, can seem like a massacre to a family that depended on
that person for financial or emotional support.
One of the ironies of the war on drugs is that 100 years ago cocaine was a
popular drug in this country, used in everything from everyday remedies to
a popular soft drink that is now sold in a bright red can.
White Southerners, in particular, were at the forefront of outlawing
cocaine-not because of its addictive properties but because of stories of
how the drug made Blacks almost impervious to bullets, and how they became
aggressive and unruly when confronted with traditional law enforcement
techniques of white police at the time.
Equally ironic is that the largest population of abusers at the time were
white middle class men and women.
WAR ALONG RACIAL LINES
One hundred years later, the war on drugs is still fought on racial lines,
even though the largest percentage of drug abusers in the country are still
white, while the largest population of incarcerated and abused people are those of color.
And in Colombia, the coca plants are resilient, while "legal" cr
ops may never recover from the defoliants that were sprayed to destroy
their horticultural relatives. Even if the war on drugs could be won on the
ground through militarization of communities both here and abroad, one
wonders what the effect will be on such places like remote provinces in
Colombia that were battlefields for that war.
What future is there for a country's growth potential if their land is
spoiled by airborne poisons sprayed over fertile land, lending the
cultivation of "legal" crops as a relatively impossible task in an
impoverished area. And most of all, what good are legal crops, if all the
farmers that can grow them are dead?
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