Anger rising
This pisses me the fuck off. From an open letter to the almighty POTUS regarding the United States' actions in Columbia to stop the cocaine trade:

I work for a French NGO , "Tchendukua" whose goal is to recuperate land for the Kogi Indians living in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia.

In 2000 we bought, La Luna, a land, with access to the sea, It was the first time since the Spanish invasion, the Kogis had a low land. They where so happy, full of hope.

At the end of June 2004, La Luna became an " Indigenous Reserve" , a protected area...

The Sierra is also one of the UNESCO's "Biosphere Reserves". 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. Now, La Luna is like some places in Asia after the tsunami... I could not believe it.

I'm all for taking down coke cartels. They are like despots, only can't be bothered to draw official country borders. This does not excuse the wanton destruction of land that is both protected and known to not have any drugs in it. The Dutch paid to have La Luna cleared of coca by hand. Forgive me for thinking that a search done by hand and with people might be more reliable than a blanket passover with noxious chemicals.

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... To achieve that dirty job, a new aerial base for fumigation planes will be build, $125 million.

The fumigation of La Luna on July 17th 2004 was completely illegal.

In the Sierra, Kogis, Arsarios-Wiwas, Kankuamos and Arhuacos are starting to have health problems , especially children (see notes-page 14).

In Vietnam, after 45 years, Agent Orange is still active. The new poison cocktail is called Agent Green. If you take the ingredients one by one, it doesn't seem so dangerous. If you mix them, highly concentrated, it is a terrible weapon. The mixture is made with Monsanto Round Up Ultra, Cosmoflux 411F (illegal in the US), POEA and fusarium oxysporum EN-4.

And of course, we all know how awesome-tacular Agent Orange was. Hooray for chemically induced illness.

I just hope that it doesn't take the death of a culture to send a message and I sincerely hope that if that message gets sent, it doesn't fall onto deaf ears.  ¶ 8:39 p.m.