Were peasant farmers poisoned by the U.S. war on drugs?
A jury has the case
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
After a 15-year legal battle, a U.S. jury will begin deliberations over whether a U.S. security contractor must pay damages to 2,000 Ecuadoran farmers who say they were poisoned by the U.S. and Colombian governments’ years-long, coca-eradication campaign. During a trial in Washington a lawsuit against McLean, DynCorp probed one of the bitter legacies of America’s war against Latin American cartels and its own insatiable drug appetite. The peasant farmers, represented by International Rights Advocates, say their families, animals and crops were collateral damage in recklessly executed aerial spraying efforts using glyphosate, the active ingredient in the weed killer Roundup, when aircraft or clouds of fumigant drifted south over the Colombia-Ecuador border.