A Voice For the Voiceless

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The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

The Colombia Factor

As if the destruction wrought by oil development over the past thirty years were not enough, Ecuador now must contend with the destabilizing effects of the war in Colombia, its neighbor to the north. In the past year the 37 year-old war has intensified as the government of Colombia tries to implement a plan to eradicate drug trafficking and end a multi-sided conflict. But Plan Colombia seems to be pouring oil on the fire.

In 2000, under Plan Colombia, the United States government approved a $1.3 billion grant to the Colombian government, mostly in the form military aid. This package is supposed to help Colombia fight drug production and trafficking on its territory. But Colombia is engaged in a war that involves two powerful guerrilla armies and a right-wing paramilitary force, in addition to the government army. Many of these forces are involved in drug production, trafficking, and attacks against civilians. It is a vicious and complicated war that has already left around two million Colombians displaced.

The effects of the war are already being felt in neighboring countries. They are widespread in Ecuador, and especially in areas of the Amazon near the border with Colombia.

First, guerrillas or paramilitaries are trafficking drugs through Ecuador in order to get them to market. Drug-processing laboratories have been constructed in several areas of Ecuador near the Colombia border. Secondly, arms are being trafficked into Colombia through Ecuador. The United Nations has reported the presence of Colombian guerrilla and paramilitary camps in northern Ecuador.

More recently, Colombian paramilitaries have taken to intimidating and attacking nearby communities, principally indigenous ones. In February 2001 paramilitary troops forced 500 Ecuadorian villagers from their land. The reason given was that the troops needed control of this territory to fight guerrillas. By spring of 2001 more than 1500 Ecuadorians were displaced, and the 600-kilometer border with Colombia had become increasingly militarized.

Colombian civilians who have been caught in the crossfire are taking refuge in Ecuador. In 2000, 2,300 Colombian refugees registered in Ecuador, but the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that 12,000 refugees crossed the border that year. The Ecuadorian government was preparing for as many as 20,000 refugees to arrive in 2002.

Plan Colombia includes a program to fumigate coca crops with herbicides. A large proportion of the coca farming in Colombia takes place in the southwest, not far from Ecuador. The fumigation causes the displacement of farmers in the area -- regardless of whether or not they were growing coca, since the herbicides kill any crop they land upon. Mayors in this region have called for an end to the fumigation because of the widespread damage it is causing.

The Lawsuit Against DynCorp: Plan Colombia Spills Over Into Ecuador

It appears that the international border separating Ecuador from Colombia means nothing to the private contractors who are helping to implement Plan Colombia. In September 2001, lawyers representing residents of northwestern Ecuador filed a lawsuit against this company for recklessly spraying herbicides across the border, causing great damage to the health and livelihood of these residents.

In a class action suit representing approximately 10,000 people, attorney Cristobal Bonifaz, together with Terry Collingsworth of the International Labor Rights Fund, filed a multi-billion dollar suit seeking reparations and an immediate halt to DynCorp’s anti-drug fumigation.

Filed in Washington DC, the suit names DynCorp and several of its subsidiaries as the private contractors that have implemented the fumigation element of Plan Colombia for the U.S. State Department. The lawsuit describes the damages suffered by Ecuadorian residents near the border with Colombia, and explains the ways that DynCorp broke many international laws in causing serious harm to the Ecuadorians and their environment.

In early 2001, airplanes operated by DynCorp employees appeared repeatedly along Colombia’s border with Ecuador and sprayed poisonous herbicides over farms and houses alike. At times, the planes came within a half mile of Ecuadorian homes. The fumigation took place day after day with occasional pauses, causing great clouds of liquid spray to fall on the homes of the plaintiffs.

In the ensuing months, it became clear that another environmental disaster had befallen the northern Oriente -- that same area that had for over 30 years been subjected to the poisonous effects of the work of Texaco and other oil companies. Now, the new pollution was the result of a United States attempt to stem drug cultivation in neighboring Colombia.

According to the legal complaint, the spraying affected 100 percent of the residents within five kilometers of the border, and almost 90 percent of those living within ten kilometers. From the description of the effects, it appears that the harm was even more atrocious, immediate, and complete than that caused by the long-term carelessness of the oil companies.

After the spraying, inhabitants of the affected area complained of headaches, skin infections, and respiratory problems. The medical clinic at Parroquia Farfan, for example, reported a 40 to 50 percent increase in these ailments. Fevers, intestinal bleeding, eye problems, and digestive problems with vomiting and diarrhea were also widespread. So many school children were poisoned that in Nuevo Mundo and San Francisco municipalities, 75 schools were closed.

Doctors at the hospital in Lago Agrio concluded that the illnesses had been caused by the fumigation. By the end of January 2001, four children had died of poisoning. In the next months, at least two women gave birth to deformed babies.

Medical problems persist to this day. Besides the immediate health problems, residents of the border area have seen their crops wither and die. Subsistence farms have been destroyed. Livestock and wild animals alike were killed. Many residents have fled the afflicted area.

Government contracts account for almost all of DynCorp’s business. The company’s largest contract is with the State Department, for $600 million. It operates State Department airplanes and helicopters, providing the pilots and technicians. The term most often used to describe DynCorp’s work is "outsourcing," primarily of military tasks. In Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru, DynCorp participates in drug eradication and interdiction. It also undertakes reconnaissance, search and rescue, and air transport missions.

Because of the secrecy surrounding DynCorp’s operations, it is difficult to know where its drug eradication programs stop and possible counter-insurgency activities begin. In any case, there is no hard division between the two in Colombia. The Department of State and the Defense Department are required by law to comply with human rights guidelines. But observance of human rights laws is weakened when private corporations are used in belligerent operations. At the very least, DynCorp has drastically violated the human rights of civilian farmers in Colombia and Ecuador.

For more information, see

• 'DynCorp In Colombia: Outsourcing the Drug War' on the Global Exchange website.
• 'Deadly Fumigation Returns to Colombia' on Witness For Peace's website.