Under both Andrés Pastrana and Alvaro Uribe the Colombian government has regularly dismissed claims that its policy of wholesale fumigation has had a number of seriously adverse side-effects. The issue will now be put to the test, at the insistence of the Ecuadorean government. Parallel commissions will be set up to look into charges of harm to people, livestock, legal crops, and the environment generally, on both sides of the border.
Ecuador has already announced the names of its 12 commissioners, among whom are the agriculture minister, Rodrigo Lasso, and representatives of the national agricultural research institute, the Pan-American Health Organisation, Instituto Izquieta, Fundación Natura, and the academic and scientific community.
The starting-point for both commissions will be the complaints filed in Colombia, but their specific remit will be to `evaluate the consequences of the fumigations [carried out by Colombia] on the northern border [of Ecuador]'.
This will not be a protracted study; the commissions are expected to produce a joint report by 22 November, when it will be submitted to the bilateral Comisión de Vecindad. The findings will be relayed to the two governments via their foreign ministries.
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