Ecuador's Correa assails Colombia fumigation drive
Source: Reuters
(Updates with Ecuador letter of protest, paragraph 4) BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Ecuadorean President-elect Rafael Correa said on Thursday Colombia's renewed program to fumigate illegal drug crops on the border was a "hostile act," escalating a diplomatic spat between the South American neighbors. Correa said he was ratifying comments made by the foreign minister for Ecuador's outgoing government a day earlier when Ecuador threatened to recall its ambassador to Bogota over coca-leaf fumigation. "We consider it a hostile act by the Colombian government, we cannot accept fumigation on our northern frontier," Correa told reporters at a news conference in Buenos Aires, where he met with President Nestor Kirchner on Wednesday. Ecuador delivered a letter of protest to Colombia's envoy in Quito to demand the immediate suspension of fumigation, an Ecuadorean Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Correa, a leftist who is close to anti-U.S. leader Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, was elected in November and takes office in mid-January. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a Washington ally, receives millions of dollars in U.S. aid to fight a massive illegal drug trade and to battle leftist rebels fighting a four-decade conflict. Uribe urged Ecuador's understanding, but insisted the crop spraying was necessary to fight drug trafficking that helps the Marxist FARC guerrillas finance their insurgency. "In the end, everyone will have to understand that Colombia cannot allow the FARC to keep growing drugs in the area," Uribe told reporters in Bogota. Colombia, the world's top cocaine producer, halted herbicide spraying in a 6-mile (10-km) zone near the border a year ago after Ecuador and rights advocates complained about the impact on local residents and legal crops. Colombia renewed the spraying of herbicides on Monday and says studies show the product used is not toxic. Correa said he had spoken to Kirchner about Ecuador's stance on the fumigation and that he would seek other South American governments to back Ecuador in asking Colombia to halt fumigation of crops of coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine. "Colombia's government has supposed studies, without much basis, that say it's not harmful, but ethics demand that as long as there is not certainty you should not use the product," Correa said. "The planes pass to the Ecuadorean side of the border, and I insist they kill crops and sometimes Ecuadorean farmers," he said.
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