Drug fumigation plane crashes in Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Drug fumigation plane crashes in Colombia
Police say plane apparently came under fire

Friday, September 30, 2005 Posted: 1542 GMT (2342 HKT)
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A drug fumigation plane crashed in northeastern Colombia Friday after apparently coming under fire, killing the pilot, police said.

The crash happened near the town of Tarra, 470 kilometers (290 miles) northeast of Bogota, while it was fumigating crops of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine, said Col. Henry Gamboa, head of the eradication unit of the Colombian Counter narcotics Police.

The United States funds the aerial fumigation of coca in Colombia, the world's main source of cocaine, and some of the pilots are Americans. The dead pilot's nationality was unknown.

An official at the U.S. Embassy said he was unaware of the report of the crash and had no further information.
(snip/...)

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/09/30/colombia.plane.ap/

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

Almost exactly two years ago, same thing happened, only the pilot was acknowledged:

ANOTHER U.S. ANTIDRUG PLANE SHOT DOWN


An unknown party shot down a U.S. government plane that was fumigating drug crops September 21 in northeastern Colombia, a spokesperson for a U.S. government contractor told the Associated Press. The crash killed the pilot, Costa Rican citizen Mario Alvarado, DynCorp spokesperson Chuck Wilkins said. The OV-10 plane went down about 280 miles northeast of Bogotá near the village of El Tarra, Norte de Santander Province. The State Department contracts DynCorp, based in Reston, Virginia, to fumigate coca crops in the country using State Department aircraft. Alvarado, according to Wilkins, worked for a U.S. subcontractor of DynCorp that the Associated Press did not name. Alvarado became at least the sixth U.S. government contractor killed in Colombia this year. On April 7, a U.S. pilot died when his drug-fumigation plane crashed in southwestern Colombia. Three other U.S. citizens died when their plane crashed March 25 in southern Colombia while searching for another three U.S. citizens held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the nation's largest guerrilla group. The FARC captured those contractors when their plane crash-landed February 13. The FARC executed a fourth U.S. citizen who was aboard, along with a Colombian army sergeant. The mother of one of the captives, Marc Gonsalves, blamed President George W. Bush's administration for the deaths and abductions. "Did the United States think that something like this would never happen, or is it just that they don't care?" Jo Rosano told the Miami Herald on September 21. "The U.S. should not be paying for these flights. They should keep the money where it belongs, in the United States to stop the drugs from coming into the country." SOURCES: Associated Press, 9/21/03, 9/22/03; El Espectador, 9/22/03; El Tiempo, 9/21/03, 9/22/03; Miami Herald, 9/22/03; Reuters, 9/21/03.
(snip/)

http://www.colombiaweek.org/20030929.html

[benburch]

1. I hope they ALL crash.

This is not about eradicating drugs! This is about keeping the CIA monopoly on drugs.

[dhinojosa]

2. Whoever killed him (if American) will be hearing from George W. Bush......

with a pardon.

[Angry Girl]

3. I thought they were using mercs, who are not under U.S. oversight n/t

[flordehinojos]

4. doesn't georgie boy need the drugs and ain't he the king of say one thing

do another? he doesn't want his drug to be taken away.

[bemildred]

5. "Drug fumigation plane shot down in Colombia"

Just a minor correction to the headline.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Absolutely! It's not as if it ran out of gas, is it? Sheesh. n/t

[Say_What]

12. True!! n/t

.

[sniffa]

6. HA HA!

[Dark]

8. Godammit! I'm tired of my taxes being wasted on this shit.

It does nothing to help me, and, even worse, it ruins the lives of so many people.

Why not help those fucking people get out of their squalor with the money?

[High Plains]

9. Tough shit

Quit spraying the poison, you mercenaries.

No tears for any of these assholes.

[John Q. Citizen]

10. They spray everything including people and food crops. It's

a chemical weapons program that makes Monsanto rich.

Food can't be grown for months after spraying but coca can be replanted in a few weeks. (much hardier crop)

These aren't plantations they spray but small family farmers 5 and 10 acres plots that include there food crops.

The farmers replant coca to buy the food they can't produce to feed their families.

It's a really stupid counter productive program, but the corporations love it....

[BeHereNow]

11. BULLSHIT! They are commiting GENOCIDE on Indigenous People!

http://www.labyrinthina.com/kogi.htm
They are KILLING the KOGI Indians of Columbia!
The oldest pre-Columbian tribe on the planet.
FUCK!
FUCK!
FUCK!


"Fifteen days later, on July 17th, a plane from Dyncorp passed only once to fumigate La Luna. That was enough to provoke a complete disaster. Some days ago, I saw the rushes of a second movie we have made on the Kogis.
Ê
Now, La Luna is like some places in Asia after the tsunami... I could not believe it.
Ê
The Kogis took five years to regenerate the soil, now they will have to wait, at least, five more years to replant. Everything is contaminated and the streams are dry because there are no more trees to retain water. What are they going to eat? What are they going to drink? Where to go? Tchendukua's director in Santa Marta organized some time ago with the Kogis and the farmers around, the eradication of coca by hand. There was no coca in La Luna.
Ê
It is impossible that your sophisticated planes are unable to detect Indians villages.
Ê
In the movie there is a scene with a Kogi shaman sitting in front of his house, in the middle of the devastation. He is crying.
Ê
This image is unbearable and it will remain in my memory forever. Yes, Mr. Bush, an image can turn people really angry.
Ê
Remember the picture of Nick Ut showing a little girl naked, burned by US Napalm, running on a road in Vietnam. This image had an incredible impact in America.
Ê
Condolezza Rice wants Colombia to change its laws and spray in National Parks such as La Macarena, El Catatumbo, La Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, etc...
Ê
To achieve that dirty job, a new aerial base for fumigation planes will be build, $125 million US.
Ê
The fumigation of La Luna on July 17th 2004 was completely illegal.
Ê
In the Sierra, Kogis, Arsarios-Wiwas, Kankuamos and Arhuacos are starting to have health problems , especially children (see notes-page 14). "

[Judi Lynn]

14. Thanks for posting this information. It simply overwhelms me.

These people have NOWHERE to go to escape the destruction. They know of no other place, and aren't conditioned to live elsewhere, either.

This is an enormous sin against humanity.

[IndianaGreen]

15. Exactly, the spraying has killed or injured people and livestock

I won't shed any tears for anyone that gets killed while carrying out the genocidal Plan Colombia.

[Say_What]

13. Colombia says FARC shoots down coca spraying plane

Dollars to donuts the USSA will try to involve Venezuela in this.

<clips>

BOGOTA, Colombia, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Left-wing Colombian rebels shot down a small police airplane near the Venezuelan border on Friday as it sprayed coca crops with defoliants, killing the Colombian pilot, police said.

The attack happened in Norte de Santander province in northeast Colombia where Marxist insurgents and far-right paramilitary militias fight over control of land used in the Andean country's lucrative drug trade.

Spraying coca -- the crop used to make cocaine -- is key to Colombia's U.S.-backed cocaine fighting strategy. The United States has given Colombia more than $3 billion in mostly military aid since 2000 aimed at fighting the illegal drug trade and the rebels.

Police blamed Colombia's biggest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, for Friday's attack.

The guerrillas often shoot at aircraft used in the spraying and are holding three civilian U.S. Defense Department contractors captured when their light plane crashed on a mission to find drug crops in 2003.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N30474390.htm




Colombian children's portrayal of fumigation--before and after