Rep. Burton on Eradicating Coca Crops in South America
What arrogance Burton displays! To suggest that the United States should undertake to wipe out the coca fields in South America “with or without the cooperation of its (elected) leaders,” reveals a contempt for democracy.
How would Americans feel if some self-righteous foreign nation undertook to wipe out our tobacco fields “with or without” the consent of the American people?
Why do the impoverished people of South America grow coca? During the last few decades, the United States applied strong economic pressures for countries like Bolivia to adopt economic policies that would encourage “export crops” like sugar and, yes, bananas.
As a result, the U.S.-backed governments pushed the poverty-stricken people off the good land where they could raise their own potatoes, then pushed them off the land where they could survive on corn, and on and on until they found themselves on land where they couldn’t grow food very well. What grows well there? Coca.
Burton expects “hostility by the international community.” How astute you are, Mr. Burton, especially given the results of previous U.S. plans. He wants to destroy the ecology of Latin American in a harebrained scheme to wipe out a robust native plant. Trying to eradicate coca in South America would be about as successful as trying to wipe out crabgrass in Washington.
MIGUEL MUNOZ
Pasadena
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