Chemical Warfare in Colombia

Chemical Warfare in Colombia
Author: Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Publisher: Latin America Bureau Short Boo
Total Pages: 140
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN:

"This path-breaking book of investigative journalism lifts the veil on fumigation: why is it happening, and who really benefits? The authors travel to the Putumayo and Bolivar departments of Colombia, where most of the spraying takes place, to talk to those affected. A complex and disturbing story emerges, one which connects the fumigation programme to Colombian politics, US hemispheric interests, and international drugs policy. Through first-hand investigative reporting Branford and O'Shaughnessy draw a vivid and damning picture of a futile and indiscriminate chemical war, waged largely on the poor."--BOOK JACKET.

America's Other War

America's Other War
Author: Doug Stokes
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2013-07-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1848136129

This controversial book maintains that in Colombia the US has long supported a pervasive campaign of state violence directed against both armed insurgents and a wide range of unarmed progressive social forces. While the context may change from one decade to the next, the basic policies remain the same: maintain the pro-US Colombian state, protect US economic interests and preserve strategic access to oil. Colombia is now the third largest recipient of US military aid in the world, and the largest by far in Latin America. Using extensive declassified documents, this book shows that the so-called "war on drugs", and now the new war on terror in Colombia are actually part of a long-term Colombian "war of state terror" that predates the end of the Cold War with US policy contributing directly to the human rights situation in Colombia today.

Hostage Nation

Hostage Nation
Author: Victoria Bruce
Publisher: Knopf
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2010-08-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307593584

A blistering journalistic exposé: an account of government negligence, corporate malfeasance, familial struggle, drugs, politics, murder, and a daring rescue operation in the Colombian jungle. On July 2, 2008, when three American private contractors and Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt were rescued after being held for more than five years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the world was captivated by their personal narratives. But between the headlines a major story was lost: Who exactly are the FARC? How had a drug-funded revolutionary army managed to hold so many hostages for so long? Had our costly War on Drugs failed completely? Hostage Nation answers these questions by exploring the complex and corrupt political and socioeconomic situations that enabled the FARC to gain unprecedented strength, influence, and impunity. It takes us behind the news stories to profile a young revolutionary in the making, an elite Colombian banker-turned-guerrilla and the hard-driven American federal prosecutor determined to convict him on American soil, and a former FBI boss who worked tirelessly to end the hostage crisis while the U.S. government disregarded his most important tool—negotiation. With unprecedented access to the FARC’s hidden camps, exceptional research, and lucid and keen insight, the authors have produced a revelatory work of current history.

Colombia's Forgotten Frontier

Colombia's Forgotten Frontier
Author: Lesley Wylie
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 1846319749

Coming to prominence during the rubber fever of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, the Putumayo has long been a site of political turmoil, a place of mass immigration, exile, subjugation, insurgency, and violence, all of which have fostered a long, international literary history. Colombia's Forgotten Frontier maps a literary map of this history for the first time. Lesley Wylie looks at works by writers from Latin America, the United States, and Europe— including works by Roger Casement, José Eustasio Rivera, and Williams Burroughs—in order to examine Colombia's literary legacy of marginality and conflict.

Marijuana Boom

Marijuana Boom
Author: Lina Britto
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2020-03-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520325478

Before Colombia became one of the world’s largest producers of cocaine in the 1980s, traffickers from the Caribbean coast partnered with American buyers in the 1970s to make the South American country the main supplier of marijuana for a booming US drug market, fueled by the US hippie counterculture. How did Colombia become central to the creation of an international drug trafficking circuit? Marijuana Boom is the story of this forgotten history. Combining deep archival research with unprecedented oral history, Lina Britto deciphers a puzzle: Why did the Colombian coffee republic, a model of Latin American representative democracy and economic modernization, transform into a drug paradise, and at what cost?

Evil Hour in Colombia

Evil Hour in Colombia
Author: Forrest Hylton
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2020-05-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1789602610

Colombia is the least understood of Latin American countries. Its human tragedy, which features terrifying levels of kidnapping, homicide and extortion, is generally ignored or exploited. In this urgent new work Forrest Hylton, who has extensive first-hand experience of living and working in Colombia, explores its history of 150 years of political conflict, characterized by radical-popular mobilization and reactionary repression. Evil Hour in Colombia shows how patterns of political conflict, from the mid-nineteenth century to today's guerilla narco-traffickers and paramilitaries, explain the wear currently destroying Colombian lives, property, communities and territory. In doing so, it traces how Colombia's "coffee capitalism" gave way to the cattle and cocaine republic of the 1980s, and how land, wealth and power have been steadily accumulated by the light-skinned top of the social pyramid through a brutal combination of terror, expropriation and economic depression.

Public Health Response to Biological and Chemical Weapons

Public Health Response to Biological and Chemical Weapons
Author: World Health Organization
Publisher: World Health Organization
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2004-01-21
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9241546158

This is the second edition of this publication which focuses on the public health aspects of the possible deliberate use of biological or chemical agents. Issues discussed include: the key principles for public health planning, risk assessment, hazard identification and evaluation, risk management strategies, and response planning as part of existing national emergency plans, disease surveillance and early warning systems, the national and international legal framework, and international sources of assistance. Technical annexes cover a range of issues including chemical agents, toxins, biological agents, principles of protection, precautions against the sabotage of drinking water, food and other products, information resources and the affiliation of WHO Member States to the international treaties on biological and chemical weapons.

Handbook of Toxicology of Chemical Warfare Agents

Handbook of Toxicology of Chemical Warfare Agents
Author: Ramesh C Gupta
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 1199
Release: 2015-01-21
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0128004940

Handbook of Toxicology of Chemical Warfare Agents, Second Edition covers every aspect of deadly toxic chemicals used in conflicts, warfare and terrorism. Including findings from experimental as well as clinical studies, this essential reference offers in-depth coverage of individual toxicants, target organ toxicity, major incidents, toxic effects in humans, animals and wildlife, biosensors and biomarkers, on-site and laboratory analytical methods, decontamination and detoxification procedures, and countermeasures. Expanding on the ground-breaking first edition, Handbook of Toxicology of Chemical Warfare Agents has been completely updated, presenting the most recent advances in field. Brand new chapters include a case study of the Iran-Iraq war, an overview of chemical weapons of mass destruction, explosives, Ricin, the human respiratory system, alternative testing methods, brain injuries, and more. - Unites world-leading experts to bring you cutting-edge, agent-specific information on Chemical Warfare Agents (CWA) and their adverse effects on human and animal health, and the environment - Provides you with all the information you need on CWA modes of action, detection, prevention, therapeutic treatment and countermeasures - New to this edition: a full update to reflect the most recent advances in the field and new chapters on emergency preparedness, the chemical warfare agents used in Syria, and the use of the Novichok agent in the UK