‘I will be left with nothing’: Why Colombians are watching the U.S. election closely
Anxiety is growing over the revival of a controversial coca eradication strategy, backed by the Trump administration
Politico (US)
Monday, November 2, 2020
Monday, November 2, 2020
Coca fumigations started in Colombia in the early 1990s and intensified during “Plan Colombia,” a $10 billion U.S. campaign that ran from 2000 to 2015 and was meant to tackle Colombia’s armed leftist insurgents and the drug trade that funds them. During those 25 years, American-funded and -piloted planes sprayed herbicides over more than 4 million acres of land in coca-growing regions in an effort to stamp out the drug supply. “Plan Colombia” officially ended in 2015, when the Colombian government reached a historic peace agreement with the country’s largest leftist guerrilla organization, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. But two decades later, the threat of fumigation is back—and could depend on the U.S. election.
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