U.S. Drug Crop Duster Crashes in Colombia

[salin]

U.S. Drug Crop Duster Crashes in Colombia

Sunday September 21, 2003 11:29 PM


By VANESSA ARRINGTON

Associated Press Writer

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - A U.S. drug-spraying plane crashed Sunday in northeast Colombia, the army said. Government troops were attempting to get to the crash site and could not immediately verify whether the Costa Rican pilot survived.

Authorities were investigating whether the crash was an accident, or if rebels operating in the in the mountainous, jungle area shot the plane down.

``We're not discarding any possibility yet,'' army Gen. Jairo Duvan Pineda told RCN Television. ``What we do know is there is very bad weather in the area.''

more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3175398,00.html

[bemildred]

1. Deja vu all over again.

[WilliamPitt]

16. Right?

Creepy. Weird. Almost fucking mystical how we're in the 80s again, but way way way worse.

[Sick of Bullshit]

2. What would Americans say if foreigners in helicopters

were spraying shit on their property?

[aneerkoinos]

3. Hooray!

No sympathy for those mercenaries destroying people's livelihood and enviroment. Let them all crash down!

[leetrisck]

4. Is it DynCorp, Northrup or

another company - we already have at least 2 planes that have gone down there and several hostages and several dead.

[leesa]

5. Good.

[IndianaGreen]

6. Another CIA contrator shotdown!

Considering the health problems our "dusting" has brought about to Colombian peasants and livestock, I'll say that anytime these war criminals are shotdown it is a good day for freedom loving peoples everywhere.

[Occulus]

7. Score one for karma.

edit: that was wrong. I shouldn't have posted it.

My apologies to anyone who saw my post before it was edited. These people do have families, too.

[IndianaGreen]

8. And the peasants they kill have families too!

Besides that, they are nothing but mercenaries, and mercenaries are not protected by international law.

[lostnfound]

9. I despise the spraying but ..

they do have families as someone pointed out. Also you can't really tell how young they are and how totally duped they are..

Two horrifying facts stick in my mind about the spraying -- aside from the refugees -- first, I heard on Pacifica radio program that something like 19% of the land in Colombia has been sprayed. Incredible. http://www.americas.org/News/Features/200211_Colombia_Fumigation/200211_index.htm
Second, I wonder if the type of 'Roundup' (etc.) they are using includes atrazine -- frog populations are plummeting all over the world and there's a good probability that atrazine is to blame. Colombia has many unique species of tree frogs. I know that might not seem important in comparison but darn it, frogs are miracle animals and it's just so darned sad.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

10. Weren't these the same cropdusters that sprayed Wellstone

when he went down to investigate the ROUNDUP claims?

[Judi Lynn]

11. Delighted to see you mentioned that!

(snip) Senator Wellstone fumigated in Colombia
Senator Paul Wellstone, (D-MN), was accidentally sprayed with herbicide during a police demonstration. According to some accounts, Sen. Wellstone and his traveling delegation were sprayed with a mist of herbicide as they watched the Colombian National Police demonstrate a new approach to fumigating coca, the raw product used to produce cocaine.

Wellstone was allowed too close to coca bushes in a remote area near the Tarasa River and was hit with a fine mist of the chemical from a helicopter flying less than 200 feet above him. He winced and rubbed his eyes later, but managed a joke, saying he could become a case study on possible dangers linked to the chemical.

Asked whether he was stunned to get hit, the Minnesota Democrat said, "Oh, yeah, and I'm imagining that I'm itching a lot, too." Police officials said it was an accident, blaming the wind for blowing the chemical - known as glysophate - from its intended path.(snip)

(snip) Wellstone is one of the few senators to oppose a $1.3 billion U.S. aid plan approved ostensibly to help Colombia fight its drug war. The plan is a pet project for Colombian President Andres Pastrana, as well as US defense contractors selling helicopters and other military equipment. Wellstone insisted that accepted economic principles - good gains made for risking illicit production - explain why peasant farmers will keep growing coca as long as few legitimate jobs exist in a country where unemployment hovers at 20 percent. (snip/...)

http://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/22/22013.html



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(snip) A prominent U.S. Senator and other government officials from both Washington and Bogotá stood on a Colombian mountainside above fields of lime-green coca -- the plant sacred to Andean Indians, but also the source of the troublesome drug cocaine. They were awaiting a demonstration of aerial herbicide spraying, part of the U.S. drug war in Colombia.

The spectacle, put on by the U.S. embassy in Bogotá last December, was supposed to address Senator Paul Wellstone's doubts about the accuracy and safety of the U.S.-sponsored drug fumigation program. Wellstone, a Democrat from Minnesota, is a fierce critic of military aid to Colombia and the demonstration needed to come off without a hitch, to win him over to the use of aerially sprayed herbicides.The night before,U.S. officials had responded to the Senator's skeptical questions by assuring him that the spraying would target coca fields without harming food crops.

"They had said that by using satellite images they could hit very precisely targets without any chance of danger to surrounding crops" said Jim Farrell,Wellstone's spokesperson, who was also there. However that turned out not to be the case. "On the very first flyover by the cropduster, the U.S. Senator, the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, the Lieutenant Colonel of the Colombian National Police, and other Embassy and congressional staffers were fully doused -- drenched, in fact -- with the sticky, possibly dangerous (herbicide) Roundup."

"Imagine what is happening when a high-level congressional delegation is not present," Farrell noted, pointing out that careful preparation had gone into the botched flyover. Wellstone left Colombia completely unconvinced by the Embassy. (snip/...)

http://csf.colorado.edu/forums/pfvs/2001II/msg02404.html

(There are 384 entries for Wellstone Colombia sprayed. It seems few people know about this, or have remembered hearing about it.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(snip) Colombia: Mr. Wellstone Goes to Barrancabermeja 12/8/00
Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) visited Colombia last week to inspect preparations for the government's US-sponsored Plan Colombia and to show support for human rights workers in that country. And what a trip it was.

Wellstone is a leading congressional critic of Plan Colombia, the $1.3 billion (so far) US effort to simultaneously defeat both long-lived guerrillas and a flourishing coca and cocaine industry. He offered unsuccessful amendments in the Senate to divert the funds into domestic drug treatment programs. His was also one of the few voices in Congress to challenge President Clinton's decision to waive certification that Colombia was complying with US human rights standards.

He got a very spooky reception from his Colombian hosts. First, there was the bomb scare. As Wellstone's party, including US Ambassador Anne Patterson, prepared to land in Barrancabermeja, an oil-refining city of 200,000 where nearly 500 people have been killed in political murders this year, a Colombian police colonel announced that a possible assassination attempt had been thwarted.

Two bombs had been found along a possible route and a man identified by police as a leftist guerrilla was arrested. The colonel did not explain to reporters why leftist guerrillas would wish to kill an opponent of US military aid to Colombia.

http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/163/wellstone.shtml

(867 entries for Wellstone Colombia bomb. Few people seem to know about this event, as well.)




Bomb discovered in Colombia before visit of U.S. senator, ambassador

U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone

December 1, 2000
Web posted at: 12:41 p.m. EST (1741 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Police in Colombia said Friday they had discovered a roadside bomb outside a town hours before a U.S. senator and U.S. ambassador were to visit.

Sen. Paul Wellstone, a Democrat from Minnesota, and U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson were the likely targets, Police Col. Jose Miguel Villar said.

However, a U.S. State Department official in Washington said Patterson told department officials by telephone that she did not see it as an assassination attempt. Another official, also asking for anonymity, added that it is not unusual for such devices to be found in Barrancabermeja, considering the town's reputation for violence.

Villar said officers found two shrapnel-wrapped land mines alongside the road leading from Barrancabermeja's airport into the town just hours before Wellstone and Patterson were scheduled to arrive on Thursday. {snip/...)

http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/12/01/colombia.wellstone.03/

[WilliamPitt]

17. Jesus shrieking Christ

I knew about the bombs. This:

"On the very first flyover by the cropduster, the U.S. Senator, the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, the Lieutenant Colonel of the Colombian National Police, and other Embassy and congressional staffers were fully doused -- drenched, in fact -- with the sticky, possibly dangerous (herbicide) Roundup."..."Imagine what is happening when a high-level congressional delegation is not present," Farrell noted, pointing out that careful preparation had gone into the botched flyover. Wellstone left Colombia completely unconvinced by the Embassy.

...is priceless.

[Judi Lynn]

12. Later article from Reuters says the pilot's dead

(snip) 22 Sep 2003 01:30:23 GMT
Pilot killed on anti-drug mission in Colombia


BOGOTA, Colombia, Sept 21 (Reuters) - A pilot on a U.S.-backed counter-narcotics mission was killed in Colombia on Sunday while spraying drug crops over a Marxist rebel combat zone, Colombian and U.S. officials said.

A U.S. embassy spokesman in Bogota declined to speculate on the cause of the crash of the light propeller aircraft -- the fifth downed plane so far this year in Colombia's war on the world's largest cocaine industry.

But President Alvaro Uribe told local television that there had been fighting between counter-narcotics forces and Marxist rebels in the northeast zone where the accident took place.

The pilot, Mario Alvarado, was identified by Colombian authorities as a Costa Rican national working for U.S. government contractor DynCorp. The United States has poured more than $2 billion in mainly military aid into Colombia in recent years. (snip/...)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N21143522.htm

[nannygoat]

13. Wouldn't tobacco farmers just die if

Columbian crop dusting planes sprayed their fields?

[Judi Lynn]

14. I don't believe this!

Just found this story, which is old, looking around the L. A. Times site, and reminded me instantly of this thread and some of the comments here from the posters.

Why don't we ever hear of these things when they are happening? Why are American contractors directing bombing missions in Colombia? Please check this story:

(snip) August 26, 2003

Colombian Air Force Chief Quits
General resigns amid U.S. pressure and new evidence suggesting that pilots knowingly fired on civilians during a 1998 bombing raid.


By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer


BOGOTA, Colombia — The head of the Colombian air force resigned Monday after growing pressure from the U.S. State Department and startling new evidence suggesting that Colombian pilots knowingly fired on civilians in a 1998 bombing raid directed by private American contractors that left 18 people dead.

Government officials confirmed late Monday that President Alvaro Uribe had accepted the resignation of Gen. Hector Fabio Velasco but denied that the move had anything to do with the bombing in the small town of Santo Domingo, which occurred after a Colombian army unit came under fire from leftist rebels in the area.Velasco "has been saying for some time that he wanted to resign for personal reasons," presidential spokesman Ricardo Galan said. "This time it went through."

The Santo Domingo incident has become one of the country's most notorious human rights cases and the biggest obstacle in relations between the United States and Colombia, normally close allies.

U.S. officials said that former Ambassador Anne Patterson approached Uribe in June to offer him proof that Velasco had deliberately stonewalled the investigation into the bombing. Late last year, the State Department had suspended all U.S. aid to the air force unit involved in the bombing, citing the stalled probe. (snip/...)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-colomb26aug26.story

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[IndianaGreen]

15. Those are excellent points you are making, JudiLyn

Those of us that have followed the human rights crisis that the so-called War on Drugs, and Plan Colombia in particular, have brought to the indigenous population in Central and South America, have little sympathy for American mercenaries engaged in acts that would be labeled as genocide were they wearing the military uniform.

I have no sympathy for any of these contractors!