“I am cold because I have no skin.”
By Suzanna Collerd

“I am cold because I have no skin.” Alfredo* told us on a ninety degree
day. As I looked at the peeling skin all over his body, head and face, I
wondered what could have caused this complete breakdown of the skin.
Alfredo began to explain.

Two and a half years ago, without warning, small planes arrived surrounded
by helicopters. The planes began to spread a horrific-smelling white dust
over all of the land. Alfredo and his family watched as they worked in
their fields. The arrival of these planes and helicopters continued
several times a week for more than two months. Once the white dust fell,
they no longer saw any physical sign of the herbicide, apart from the
effects. Fields of yucca, plantain, corn, all died. Furthermore, family
gardens of fruits and vegetables dried up and perished. Slowly the fish
of the lake began to die. Then, after a month, Alfredo’s body began to
feel the effects. At first his skin blistered, and then the blisters
popped and left his skin destroyed, dried and flaking.

The planes and helicopters that flew over Alfredo’s land are products of
the United States funding of Plan Colombia, wherein the Colombian army
sprays herbicides over where coca is grown to eradicate the crops. Thus
the money for the fumigations comes from the same place where there is the
largest market for cocaine. In fact, it is the high price that cocaine
users are willing to pay in the United States that makes the cultivation
of coca crops a lucrative option for farmers. Plan Colombia includes
fumigations as a central and foremost part of the strategies to limit the
entrance and consumption of the drug into the United States.
Unfortunately, the herbicides kill all other plants, contaminate water and
land, and affect animals without getting at the root of the cocaine
problem: the high demand drug market.

Non-governmental organizations have helped Alfredo receive treatments that
recuperated his skin. Nonetheless, sun exposure causes relapse of the
effects in the skin, and, unfortunately, farmers receive a lot of sun.
Alfredo is now in relapse with the same symptoms and no options for work.
“At this point, I can only wait for death, I have no other options,” he
said to me. Alfredo’s 48 year-old body is affected to such an extent that
he can not move comfortably. Even if he could work, his land will no
longer support the cultivation of crops and there are no fish to be found.
“I don’t worry about myself as much as my family.” I looked at two of
his daughters and four of his grandchildren as he told me he no longer has
a peso to his name. Alfredo has gone to various state agencies that help
people displaced by the conflict, but they will not recognize his
displacement or his illnesses as effects of the war because the
fumigations are a Colombian government policy.

In the last two weeks the fumigations started anew in the area of his
town. I asked myself, and Alfredo, why people cultivate coca. He told
me: one acre of coca will earn about 2 million pesos (more or less 1
thousand dollars) while the traditional crops of yucca, plantain, and corn
are sold at a loss because of the high transportation cost. “We don’t
cultivate coca because we want to, but because we need to eat.”

*Name has been changed.