Sunshine Project

Seattle and Hamburg, 29 August 2000. In an August 22 memorandum, US
President Bill Clinton has conceded that the US plan to use microbial
agents to eradicate drug crops may have an impact on biological
weapons proliferation. This is the first time that US officials have
publicly admitted that the use of biological agents like Fusarium
oxysporum (dubbed "Agent Green") raises arms control concerns.

The Sunshine Project has convincingly argued that F. oxysporum and
other mycoherbicides are biological weapons. Because of its illicit
coca crop, Colombia is on the front line of US biological warfare
plans. Other projects on biological agents to kill opium poppy and
marijuana are also funded be the US and the British Governments.

The Presidential memo waives several conditions for US assistance to
Colombia. In particular, Clinton overruled the US Congress and
severed the link between Colombian acceptance of Agent Green and the
overall implementation of the US 1.3 billion dollar bilateral
assistance package for Plan Colombia.

Clinton states that the US will not use Agent Green until "a broader
national security assessment, including consideration of the
potential impact on biological weapons proliferation and terrorism,
provides a solid foundation for concluding that the use of this
particular drug control tool is in our national interest." (from
Memorandum of Justification for Presidential Determination 2000-28).

According to the Sunshine Project's Edward Hammond, "This is an
important step forward. While important parts of the US Government
stubbornly refuse to withdraw support for Agent Green, President
Clinton has eased the bilateral pressure on Colombia and admitted
that this may have been a bad idea from the start."

Adds Sunshine's Jan Van Aken, "Agent Green is a biological weapon. It
was developed with a hostile purpose, intended to be used in an armed
conflict in Colombia. Use of Agent Green threatens to undermine
international agreements prohibiting biological weapons. It must be
stopped immediately, worldwide.."

It is important to note that the presidential memorandum does not
necessarily signal a change in US policy. "Pro-fungus parts of the
schizophrenic US Government could easily rebound.  The memorandum is
a window of opportunity.  Governments should take fast action and
exploit the possibilities for progress before the window closes."
says the Sunshine Project's Susana Pimiento.

The Sunshine Project is calling on governments and international
agencies to take the following steps:

o    The United Nations Drug Control Program (UNDCP), which
administers the US-funded work in Uzbekistan and is promoting
Fusarium testing in Colombia, should immediately freeze all of its
international projects on crop-killing biological agents and withdraw
the contract it offering Colombia. No government, much less a United
Nations agency, can take risks with bioweapons proliferation. Work
cannot resume until the arms control issues have been resolved, a
broader range of expert UN agencies have independently evaluated the
program, and UNDCP's governing body has fully reviewed the work.

o    With aid no longer conditional on acceptance of Agent Green and
with the US publicly admitting that it is uncertain about bioweapons
links, there is no reason why the Government of Colombia has to
proceed with the US-inspired biological eradication idea.  Colombia
may now heal regional unease with the plan and publicly withdraw from
negotiations with UNDCP, halting any planned research on Fusarium and
other biological agents.

o    The US Government must conduct a transparent review of the US
Department of Agriculture program that funded and developed F.
oxysporum and other crop-killing weapons. The USDA worked for more
than a decade on projects.  A dangerous policy failure has taken
place if serious assessment of the treaty compliance and
proliferation aspects of this program have not been reviewed until
now - after agent identification, work on virulence enhancement,
delivery systems, and field testing.

o    The current situation offers a remarkable opportunity to
strengthen the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BTWC),
updating it to reflect new and different political realities and type
of conflict prevalent in the post-Cold War era. With the US
leadership having conceded there are proliferation concerns raised by
the drug war biological agents, during the next Review Conference of
the BTWC in 2001, states parties should leap on the opportunity to
insure that all crop-killing biological agents, especially those used
with hostile intent in an armed conflict, are banned by the
convention.


Opposition Increasing    In July, the Ecuadorian Government banned
the introduction and use of Fusarium oxysporum.  In an editorial in
its August 7th edition titled "Agent Orange and F. oxysporum", the
Managing Editor of Chemical and Engineering News, the magazine of the
American Chemical Society, called for a halt to drug war bioweapon
research. Accusing the US of developing "dubious weapons systems",
the editorial condemns the program, saying, "There is an unavoidable
moral component to scientific research, and development of F.
oxysporum as a weapon in the war on drugs or any other war violates
it. Scientists should just say no to participating in this research."

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For more information, visit the Sunshine Project online at
http://www.sunshine-project.org