Colombia Flight

This latest tragedy brings to three the number of U.S.-citizen civilian State Department pilot contractors who have died in Colombia since 1998. Two perished on July 27, 1998, in an aviation accident when their T-65 aircraft crashed during a training flight. ... [Read More]

Colombia

The Government did not prohibit membership in most political organizations; however, membership in private organizations that espoused or carried out acts of violence--such as the AUC, FARC, and ELN--was illegal. Paramilitaries and guerrillas routinely interfered arbitrarily with the right to privacy. Both groups forcibly entered private homes, monitored private communications, engaged in forced displacement (see Section 1.g.) and conscription, and punished family members for the alleged violations of individuals. The FARC, which employed large numbers of female combatants, prohibited pregnancies among its troops and ordered forced implantation of intrauterine devices and forced abortions. g. Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian Law in Internal Conflicts The country's 40-year-old internal conflict—-among Government forces, several leftist insurgent groups, and a ri ... [Read More]

A Report to Congress on United States Policy Towards Colombia and Other Related Issues

Since 1998 three U.S. citizen civilian contractors have died in Colombia, two on July 27, 1998 in an aviation accident when their T-65 aircraft crashed during a training flight, and a third in an August 2002 runway accident. Another U.S. citizen civilian contractor died of natural causes on August 15, 2000, as a result of a heart attack. In 1999 a U.S. military aircraft crashed in Colombia resulting in five U.S. military fatalities. ... [Read More]

Aerial Eradication of Illicit Crops: Frequently Asked Questions

The DIRAN decides which areas of the country may not be sprayed and notifies the NAS Aviation Office. Spraying is conducted only in those areas that the Government of Colombia has approved. If the DIRAN has approved spraying in a given area, spray pilots then fly down the prescribed flight lines set up by the computer program and spray the crops located there. A light bar mounted on the spray aircraft tells the pilot if he is more than three feet off the flight line. Although the pilots fly along a predetermined flight line, they release the spray only when they have visually identified coca in the flight line. ... [Read More]

Plan Colombia and the Andean Regional Initiative

Generally, reconnaissance flights are conducted over areas identified by the CNP in their quarterly coca crop estimates. With the use of SATLOC, an aircraft-mounted global positioning system, these flights identify the precise geographical coordinates where coca is being grown. Areas with large concentrations of coca are then plotted, and a computer program sets up precise flight lines, calibrated for the width of the spray swath of the spray plane to be used. Once the Government of Colombia has approved spraying in a given area, spray pilots then fly down those prescribed flight lines and spray the coca located there. ... [Read More]

Plan Colombia: An Initial Assessment

The flight of any displaced Colombians into Ecuador or any of Colombia’s other neighbors raises questions about the risk for spillover effects in all the countries in the region. Spillover, whether it is in the form of displaced people, violence, or drugs, threatens the goals for which all our nations are working. Those goals, which include the strengthening of institutions, the development of sustainable economies, liberalized trade, and an end to corruption, are meant to form the foundation for prosperity in this hemisphere and will benefit the United States as well as the people of the Andean region. ... [Read More]

1) Memorandum of Justification

The Kenneth M. Ludden Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2002 (P.L. 107-115) ("FOAA") lays out conditions under which assistance using funds appropriated under the FOAA may be made available for the purchase of chemicals for the aerial eradication of coca in Colombia. The legislation’s requirements and the Administration’s summarized responses are below. 1. That the coca spraying is being carried out in accordance with regulatory controls required by the Environmental Protection Agency as labeled for use in the United States:Tab 2 of the report illustrates that the glyphosate formulation used to spray coca in Colombia is used in accordance with the EPA label instructions for non-agricultural use. In Tab 3 of the report, a letter from EPA Assistant Administrator Johnson EPA confirms that a ... [Read More]

Andean Regional Initiative

Generally, reconnaissance flights are conducted over areas identified by the CNP in their quarterly coca crop estimates. With the use of SATLOC, an aircraft-mounted global positioning system, these flights identify the precise geographical coordinates where coca is being grown. Areas with large concentrations of coca are then plotted, and a computer program sets up precise flight lines, calibrated for the width of the spray swath of the spray plane to be used. Once the Government of Colombia has approved spraying in a given area, spray pilots then fly down those prescribed flight lines and spray the coca located there. ... [Read More]

South America

The GOV decision in 1999 to monitor and track on its own suspected drug smuggling aircraft using Venezuelan airspace on their way to or from drug deliveries in the Caribbean and to prohibit U.S. aircraft from carrying out such operations over Venezuela, led to many flights successfully evading detection. While the Venezuelan military continued to cooperate closely with U.S. forces with regard to information on suspect aircraft and launched their own aircraft, aerial interdiction efforts were largely unsuccessful. An apparent change in drug trafficking air operations, however, led to a major reduction in such flights through Venezuelan airspace in the second half of the year. ... [Read More]