Joe Biden renews aid to Colombia to fight drug trafficking

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, issued an order on Tuesday that urges the Departments of State and Defense to continue providing assistance to the Government of Colombia in the fight against drug trafficking.

In a memo, Biden indicated that the interdiction of aircraft reasonably suspected of carrying out drug trafficking operations in Colombian airspace is “necessary” because of the extraordinary threat that illegal drug trafficking poses to Colombia’s national security. .

Biden also noted that Colombia has the appropriate procedures in place to protect itself from the loss of innocent life in the air and on the ground in connection with these interdiction operations. These procedures include effective means of identifying and alerting an aircraft before force is used against it.

The growth trend of coca crops in Colombia stopped in 2018, but the number of hectares planted remains at record highs despite going from 171,000 in 2017 to 154,000 in 2019, according to reports from the UN Office against Drug and Crime (UNODC).

In 2014, a ruling by the Colombian Constitutional Court ordered the suspension of aerial spraying after the World Health Organization (WHO) included glyphosate among the herbicides that can cause cancer in humans.

In mid-2015, during the government of Juan Manuel Santos, the National Narcotics Council (CNE) complied with the ruling of the high court, which two years later issued a new ruling establishing that it would be possible to resume aerial spraying if a scientific investigation , “objectively and conclusively, demonstrates the absence of harm to health and the environment.”

EFE