Herbicide spraying in Belize
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Herbicide spraying in Belize was the destruction of marijuana fields in Belize by spraying herbicide from the air. It began in October 1983, when two helicopters hired from Mexico sprayed paraquat over the Orange Walk, Corozal, Cayo and Toledo districts.[1]: 35 Belize did not spray in 1984 and decided in 1985 against paraquat. It took up aerial spraying again in October 1985.[2][3]: 19 From 1987 the spraying was a regular programme assisted by the United States State Department, which reported that it had destroyed virtually all of the country's marijuana.[4]: 20, 28 By 1991, according to the Belize police, the marijuana fields had been largely eradicated and the trade had turned to cocaine.[5] The campaign is one of several described at Herbicide spraying of cannabis.
Background
United Press International reported in 1991 that in the early 1980s marijuana exported illegally to the United States had been worth $100 million a year to Belize, more than all its legal exports. Belize had become the fifth supplier of marijuana to the American market after Mexico, Colombia, Jamaica and Bolivia.[5] In 1983 Mexico, whose spraying programme the United States State Department called "our most successful crop eradication program in the world", lent aircraft and pilots to Belize (see Herbicide spraying in Mexico).[6]: 19
The paraquat campaign of 1983
On 9 October 1983 The Reporter of Belize City wrote that large-scale aerial spraying of paraquat in the Orange Walk, Corozal, Cayo and Toledo districts that week marked the start of the government's "second offensive in the War on Marijuana". A tanker had brought 30,000 litres of the herbicide to the town of Orange Walk, where it was stored near the fire station. Two Mexican helicopters, registered XC-BES and XC-BAT, were doing the spraying under contract. More than 300 soldiers of the Belize Defence Force had been sent to occupy the villages of Orange Walk district after a British reconnaissance helicopter surveying marijuana fields was shot at. The paper wrote that many people were dismayed that paraquat was being sprayed over land also used for ordinary farming and that nothing in the Caribbean Basin Initiative obliged the government to use it.[1]: 35
Amandala had reported on 7 October a source's claim that Mexican helicopters guarded by Mexican soldiers had begun spraying paraquat in Corozal, where, the source said, almost every cane farmer also grew marijuana. Another source told the paper that the operation was on the ground, with fields burned by the police, the Defence Force and the Mexican army and helicopters used to find them. Radio Belize described a joint operation of the police, the Defence Force and the Mexican government.[1]: 34 On 21 October Amandala reported that Orange Walk had been in a state of siege for two weeks, with roadblocks on the roads in and out and four helicopters spraying paraquat every day; growers were harvesting in a panic.[1]: 36
The Toledo Star of Punta Gorda reported on 16 October that Mexican helicopters guarded by the Defence Force were spraying all the marijuana fields from Corozal to Toledo. It claimed that the government of George Price had launched the campaign with Mexico's collaboration and with American money. In its account the help the administration of Ronald Reagan had promised for the country's economic crisis depended on it. The paper reported that paraquat had touched corn and beans and turned coconut trees yellow, that people feared for the creeks and waterholes they used for washing and drinking and that soldiers searching for marijuana took money and goods from homes in Toledo. It also reported talk that the health minister, Shoman, had objected to the spraying in his Cayo constituency.[1]: 36
At hearings on 12 and 13 October 1983, Jon R. Thomas, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of International Narcotics Matters, told the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control: "At this very moment, the Government of Mexico is spraying cannabis crops in the country of Belize with paraquat."[6]: 19 His written statement said that one of these operations had begun the week before and would destroy an estimated 800 hectares or more.[6]: 111 Thomas added that since December 1982, when the United States published an environmental impact statement on paraquat, it had been able to support governments of the Western Hemisphere in using paraquat against cannabis.[6]: 18
The pause and the change of herbicide
After 1983 Belize stopped spraying paraquat. In September 1985 the Minister for Home Affairs, Curl Thompson, said on television that the government had decided not to use paraquat for aerial spraying against marijuana and was looking at "Glythosat", a systemic herbicide; The Reporter noted that the decision would leave the marijuana fields unsprayed for a second year running.[2]: 53 The Belize Times reported in October 1985 that the Foreign Minister, Dean Barrow, had taken the United States government to task at the United Nations General Assembly over its "methodology in drug eradication". The paper argued that marijuana could not be eradicated without aerial spraying, recalled that the Home Affairs minister had announced with an American expert a test of spraying with a new chemical, and summed up the choice: "Spraying or no economic help".[2]: 53–54
An aerial eradication effort began in October 1985 and destroyed about 500 hectares of cannabis that year; a second round of spraying in 1986 destroyed about 2,400 hectares.[3]: 19
Regular spraying, 1987–1989
In 1987 Belize changed its strategy, according to the State Department, to meet new patterns of growing. Three aerial eradication campaigns assisted by the United States government destroyed an estimated 80 per cent of the crop.[4]: 35 The Bureau of International Narcotics Matters, which flew spray aircraft in its own aviation programme, wrote that in Belize it had moved from occasional intensive spraying campaigns to regular spraying, which destroyed about 870 hectares and left the traffickers no gap in which to replant or save part of a crop. It wrote that Belize had shown that regular spraying could control "virtually all marijuana production". It planned to keep chemical eradication going there.[4]: 20, 26 In 1989, by United States intelligence estimates, 353 of the 436 hectares of cannabis grown in Belize were sprayed; production fell to about 66 tonnes from about 120 the year before.[7]: 70
Effects on growers and the trade
The 1989 intelligence report found that the persistent spraying had made the growers more skilful at hiding their fields and that many traffickers had turned to suppliers in Guatemala.[7]: 70 The State Department had already reported in 1988 that Belizean traffickers deprived of marijuana were using their routes to smuggle cocaine to the United States.[4]: 35 In 1991 a police investigator told United Press International that people still planted marijuana, but not on the scale of ten or twelve years before. The agency wrote that a joint American and Belizean aerial spraying programme had "devastated the marijuana fields", and reported that the growers had switched to cocaine and that marijuana from the Petén in northern Guatemala was being smuggled through Belize.[5]
Map
Timeline
| Date | Category | Event | District | Locality | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| News:1983-10-16/Eradication/mexican-helicopters-reported-spraying-paraquat-on-marijuana-in-toledo-district | Eradication | Mexican helicopters reported spraying paraquat on marijuana in Toledo District | Toledo District | ||
| News:1983-10-09/Eradication/two-mexican-contract-helicopters-spray-paraquat-on-marijuana-in-orange-walk-district | Eradication | Two Mexican contract helicopters spray paraquat on marijuana in Orange Walk District | Orange Walk District | ||
| News:1983-10-09/Eradication/aerial-paraquat-spraying-of-marijuana-reported-in-cayo-district | Eradication | Aerial paraquat spraying of marijuana reported in Cayo District | Cayo District | ||
| News:1983-10-06/Eradication/mexican-helicopters-reported-spraying-paraquat-on-marijuana-in-corozal-district | Eradication | Mexican helicopters reported spraying paraquat on marijuana in Corozal District | Corozal District |
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Joint Publications Research Service (2 December 1983). Government steps up war on drugs, meets criticism of tactics. Latin America Report (Report). Foreign Broadcast Information Service. pp. 34–36. JPRS 84872 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Joint Publications Research Service (26 November 1985). Paraquat spraying, ties with U.S. subject of disagreement. Latin America Report (Report). Foreign Broadcast Information Service. pp. 53–54. JPRS-LAM-85-098 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 National Narcotics Intelligence Consumers Committee (June 1987). The NNICC Report 1985–1986: The Supply of Illicit Drugs to the United States from Foreign and Domestic Sources in 1985 and 1986 (with Near Term Projections) (PDF) (Report) – via National Criminal Justice Reference Service.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Bureau of International Narcotics Matters (1 March 1988). International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (PDF) (Report). United States Department of State. Retrieved 21 October 2026 – via National Criminal Justice Reference Service.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Otis, John (2 May 1991). "Marijuana growers who at once made pot Belize's largest..." United Press International. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, U.S. House of Representatives (1984). Effects of Drug Trafficking and Drug Abuse in the South Florida Community: Hearings, October 12 and 13, 1983 (Report). 98th Congress, 1st Session. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office. SCNAC-98-1-5 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 National Narcotics Intelligence Consumers Committee (June 1990). The NNICC Report 1989: The Supply of Illicit Drugs to the United States (PDF) (Report). Retrieved 21 October 2026 – via National Criminal Justice Reference Service.