The Administration claims that the 60 helicopter gunships it is providing are essentially for agricultural purposes. We have no military objective. Afro-Colombian family in refugee camp in Antioquia, Colombia. Afro-Colombians and indigenous peoples make up a high percentage of displaced people of Colombia. Because the people who want coca come directly into our communities and purchase it from us.
Nobody comes into our communities to buy corn.
Coca is the only product we can sell to support our families. In Colombia, we've had aerial fumigation since 1994. To secure the coca growing areas for drug eradication, Washington plans to outfit the Colombian army to wage counterinsurgency war. We learned from visiting activist Matthew Knoester that Colombia's internal conflict predates the drug trade by several decades. A small and powerful elite that controls the government has refused to share power and implement agrarian reform.