(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/