- guardian.co.uk, Sunday July 29 2001 00.15 BST
More than 50,000 hectares have been sprayed this year with chemicals designed to kill coca bushes, the raw material for cocaine.
Circuit Judge Gilberto Reyes, acting on an application from native groups such as the Kofans, Awas and Huitotos, told the government to halt the operation. It was argued that spraying their land breached International Labour Organisation rules.
They said that the fumigation, which kills all plant life, was ruining peasants, many of whom live below the poverty line.
The verdict follows revelations in The Observer of the environmental and health effects of Roundup Ultra with Cosmo-Flux 411F, made with ingredients supplied by ICI among others.
The bid to kill off all coca bushes forms part of the $1.6bn Plan Colombia initiated by the Clinton administration and pushed by President George W. Bush.
The US has yet to make a statement on the judge's ruling.
Columbia's President Andrés Pastrana had not yet decided whether to call off the spraying. He has 48 hours to comply with the ruling.
