Colombia, America's fourth largest trading partner
in Latin America, is the world's largest exporter of cocaine and
heroin and a focal point for money laundering and arms trafficking
in the Western Hemisphere. Its government has waged a losing battle
against insurgents and drug traffickers for over two decades, and
drug-related violence is now spilling into neighboring
countries.
In
1999, the Clinton Administration backed new Colombian President
Andrés Pastrana's agenda to curb drug smuggling. Plan
Colombia included provisions for more aggressive eradication
and interdiction efforts, encouraging rural guerrillas to disarm
through peace talks, replacing coca farmers' lost income with
alternative crop and employment programs, and strengthening the
country's historically weak government.1 Of the plan's
expected $7.5 billion cost, the Clinton Administration committed
$1.3 billion for eradication and interdiction, the European
Community was asked to commit $2 billion for alternate crop
development and government reform, and Colombia committed $4
billion.
In
the two years since it was introduced, however, Plan
Colombia has failed to move the country toward these goals. The
reasons are rooted in a number of deficiencies embodied in the plan
itself. For example, the plan treats narcotraffickers and rebels as
separate problems when in fact their activities are deeply
intertwined. It also neglects the issue of trafficking and violence
spilling over the borders into Colombia's neighbors and does little
to strengthen crucial layers of government.
Moreover, the United States has turned out
to be plan's the only reliable backer. The allied nations have been
slow to commit their funds, and the Colombian government--strapped
for cash by a depressed economy--cannot pay its share. More
troubling, Plan Colombia relies on a peace process that is
based on poorly structured dialogue between the government and the
rebels. So far, however, no one seems to have devised a better
alternative.
Already, the Bush Administration is
seeking $731 million in addition to President Clinton's earlier
request (see Table 1). But no money should be released until the
Administration finds a better way to reduce the consumption of
drugs that come from Colombia, help Colombia rein in drug-related
violence, and encourage this nation of 40 million people to deal
more forthrightly with its troubles. The new approach should build
on the strongest elements of Plan Colombia while correcting
its weaknesses. The Administration should also take steps to foster
regional cooperation on drug and arms interdiction and promote a
regional working group to develop the protocols for sharing
intelligence and coordinating army and police activities, offer to
help Colombia's neighbors bolster their security forces to help
reduce violence and trafficking along their borders, and ask
Congress to consider helping the region develop more democratic and
accountable governments through civil society programs and economic
strength through trade preferences.
COLOMBIA'S PROBLEMS AFFECT THE
HEMISPHERE
No one can doubt that Colombia's difficulties affect the rest of
the Americas. North America--particularly the United States--is the
number one consumer of Colombian cocaine and heroin, followed by
South America and Europe.2 Drug use elevates the cost of
public health care and the level of criminality and violence
wherever it is prevalent. In the United States, millions of users
spend about $63 billion on cocaine each year, and one in four
prison inmates are narcotics offenders. Pure cocaine is worth about
$100 million per metric ton on U.S. streets,3 which
means the wholesale industry is capable of earning as much as $50
billion annually4 --or as much as the gross domestic
product (GDP) of Peru.
Coca
cultivation has tripled since 1996, and Colombian producers
reportedly collect from $3 billion to $8 billion in
revenue5 --the larger figure being roughly equivalent to
the economy of Bolivia. Not only do these immense sums enable drug
kingpins to corrupt public officials at every level of Colombia's
government, but they prop up an economy that is battered by 20
percent unemployment and the constant destruction of infrastructure
by marauding guerrillas.6
Colombia has a long history of tolerating
impunity within its borders. Since gaining its independence from
Spain in 1819, it has experienced numerous revolts and two major
civil conflicts that took hundreds of thousands of lives. Since the
1960s, it has tolerated Latin America's longest-running insurgency.
The two largest groups of Colombian insurgents are the
Revolutionary Armed Force of Colombia (FARC) and the National
Liberation Army (ELN). The FARC is the largest organization, with
some 17,000 armed combatants and perhaps 10,000 followers in
support roles.7 The ELN, which now boasts about 4,000
members, regularly bombs oil pipelines and the electrical power
grid.8
Initially, the FARC purported to represent
squatters and established an agrarian agenda for seizing power,
redistributing land, nationalizing key industries, and abolishing
free market policies. Member fronts supported themselves through
extortion, kidnapping, and protecting drug crops. Today, the FARC
attacks police and army units and civilian municipalities, forces
rural farmers to grow drug crops, and even engages in cultivation
itself.
The
ELN has suffered a number of military defeats since 1998 and is
losing followers. Nevertheless, President Pastrana has tried to
entice it into dialogue by offering it control of a safe haven or
despeje in southern Bolívar department (state). Local
residents have forced the government to put this effort on hold by
vigorously protesting the establishment of the
despeje.9
In
addition to the insurgents, paramilitary self-defense groups are
operating throughout Colombia, and their ranks are growing as rural
inhabitants become increasingly impatient with the government's
inability to neutralize guerrilla activities. These paramilitary
groups originally were inspired by the military as an aid in
counterinsurgency efforts, but they became synonymous with death
squads and were outlawed in 1989. Nevertheless, their ranks have
grown from about 800 in the early 1990s to more than 8,000 in 2000.
The largest of them, the United Self-Defenses of Colombia (AUC),
acts as an umbrella for several small groups operating in
north-central Colombia. They protect drug traffickers and attack
rebels and suspected sympathizers. The AUC is led by Carlos
Castaño.
According to the government, paramilitary
groups were responsible for 53 percent of the attacks on civilian
populations last year, while the FARC and the ELN committed the
other 47 percent and accounted for more than 1,600 kidnappings.
The
drug- and guerrilla-inspired violence also spills over into Brazil,
Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela:
-
Last August, Brazilian President Fernando
Henrique Cardoso established a $10 million Plan Cobra to
help secure his country's border with Colombia against traffickers
spilling into the largely unpatrolled upper Amazon River basin.
Arms pipelines running through Brazil and Paraguay reportedly
involve Iranian-backed Hezballah terrorists.
-
FARC rebels are so prevalent in
northeastern Ecuador that the Sucumbíos district is known as
the "storehouse of the FARC" where insurgents go to relax and
obtain supplies.
-
Although the ELN and the FARC have
operated out of Panama's isolated Darien province for years, the
pace of their kidnappings, murders, and skirmishes has increased.
Though officially neutral toward Colombia's civil conflicts, Panama
has asked the United States for assistance in training security
forces to combat these activities and gain greater territorial
control.
- FARC guerrillas also have invaded western
Venezuela to the point that Colombian paramilitary groups are
training Venezuelan counterparts to repel them.10
In
addition, Mexico is fighting a difficult battle against its
domestic cartels that are responsible for moving two-thirds of all
Colombian cocaine into the United States, and U.S. embassy
officials in El Salvador complain that increased trafficking and
drug violence taxes the resources of that country's fledgling
civilian police force.11
Millions Flee the
Violence.
Colombia's problems have encouraged large-scale migration. Within
the last decade alone, some 3.5 million citizens have left the
country. About 300,000 continue to flee each year, and an estimated
100,000 seek safety in the United States.12
Should narcoguerrillas succeed in controlling
Colombia in the future, these displacements and migrations could
turn into a human tidal wave that would depress the economies and
destabilize the societies of Colombia's South American and Central
American neighbors and significantly affect Mexico, Caribbean
states, and the United States. High poverty and unstable
governments in the northern Andes already offer fertile ground for
"criminocracies." If the United States and Colombia's other
hemispheric neighbors fail to help Colombia resolve its problems,
their costs for dealing with the consequences will increase
significantly.
|
A Chronology of
Inconsistent U.S. Policy
From 1989 to 1993, the United States helped the Colombian
government pursue the Medellin and Cali drug cartels. But in 1993,
the Clinton Administration and Congress cut the staffing level of
the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and slashed
budgets for interdiction assistance. Since then, counternarcotics
support from Washington has had little long-lasting effect.
The election of President Ernesto Samper (whose campaign
reportedly received $6 million from drug traffickers) in 1994 led
the White House both to decertify Colombia as a nation that was
cooperating on counternarcotics and to withhold needed training and
equipment from the Colombian security forces. Eventually, the
security assistance was restored, but only to support
counternarcotics operations.
1993: President Clinton signs Presidential Decision
Directive No. 14, ordering federal agencies to destroy
transnational crime organizations.
1994: U.S. military and law enforcement assistance is
scaled back in Colombia; ONDCP staff is cut from 112 to 25.
1996: The White House replaces the ONDCP director and
begins adding staff.
1996-1997: The Clinton Administration decertifies
Colombia on counternarcotics cooperation and withholds security
assistance.
1998: Security assistance is restored with the election
of President Andrés Pastrana but is restricted to use
against traffickers.
1999: Colombia's security situation deteriorates; U.S.
officials advise Pastrana on an expanded agenda called Plan
Colombia.
2000: The Clinton Administration calls for a $1.6 billion
emergency assistance package for Plan
Colombia-makingColombia the world's third largest recipient of
U.S. aid.
|
Since the 1980s, the U.S. relationship
with Colombia has concentrated almost exclusively on how to reduce
drug trafficking rather than on the root problems of weak
governance. Plan Colombia was novel in that it introduced
issues like the rule of law and economic recovery as objectives.
Even so, when U.S. officials advised the Pastrana administration in
writing the formal plan in 1999, both sides recognized that a
threefold increase in coca production was strengthening the hands
of drug lords and guerrillas. Colombia was becoming increasingly
unstable, and a blueprint was needed to guide the government's
response and to convince the U.S. Congress that quadrupling
assistance was warranted. Thus, Plan Colombia was written
with a North American audience in mind.
Therein lies the problem. To appeal to a
broad segment of the American public and the U.S. Congress, the
plan had to focus on stemming the tide of illicit drugs, not on
fuzzy notions of how to strengthen a wobbly government or on old
ideas of how to defeat communist insurgents. To neutralize
opposition from liberal lawmakers or the international human rights
community, the plan had to separate the treatment of traffickers
from punishment of the rebels and pretend there was little linkage
between them. To make it even more attractive, it had to suggest
that the bulk of financial assistance would come from Colombia and
other countries rather than from the U.S. Treasury.
This
orientation emphasized marketing strategies at the expense of
substance and created a flawed agenda. For example:
- Plan
Colombia fails to address the state's responsibilities to
citizens effectively. Although it seemed
comprehensive--listing strategies to bolster the Colombian economy,
combat narcotrafficking, reform the judicial sector, and encourage
social development--the plan lacked details on how the government
would address violence and its own weaknesses, which the polls say
concern ordinary Colombians the most.13 Last year,
Colombia reported 25,660 murders,14 a steep increase
from 10,000 in 1984, which correlates to the boom in drug
trafficking.15 Guerrilla and paramilitary attacks
against civilians and kidnapping also increased drastically.
Plan Colombia promised to address
these problems largely by curbing the illegal narcotics trade, but
it presented neither a plan for expanding Colombia's security
forces nor details on reforming the backlogged and opaque civil
justice system. It failed to address the key problem of weak state
and municipal governments and a highly bureaucratized, centralized
system. Without public security and the delivery of government
services beyond the major urban areas, most of Colombia will remain
besieged.
-
Linkages between
drug traffickers and rebels are suppressed. The closest
Plan Colombia comes to describing the
insurgents' ties with the illicit drug industry is to claim that 30
percent of their income comes from "taxes" they collect to protect
coca crops.16 That may be a low figure considering
monthly earnings of between $75 million and $100 million, which
guerrillas would be hard-pressed to achieve through extortion and
kidnapping ransoms.17 Moreover, insurgents have made
money by protecting crops, airstrips, and cocaine labs for nearly
three decades, and there are now complaints that the FARC is
producing cocaine inside its own safe haven.18 The
distinction is crucial, because Plan
Colombia deals with the guerrillas through a "peace process,"
while narcotraffickers and members of self-defense groups are
subject to arrest.
- The purpose of the peace dialogue is
vague and its scope too broad. Three months after Pastrana took
office, he withdrew police and army units from a 16,000-square-mile
area south of Bogotá and created a safe haven
(despeje) for the FARC. Moreover, he has proposed another
for the ELN that would be the size of Delaware. Pastrana neither
set preconditions nor established an agenda for the peace talks,
perhaps hoping the guerrillas would agree to a cease-fire and
eventually bargain for permanent peace. The seemingly bold move
failed to produce any progress beyond temporary truces while
guerrilla-perpetrated massacres and kidnappings remained at a
constant level. (See box on page 8.)
This year, President Pastrana has sided
with the FARC on its request to give international observers seats
at the dialogue table. Most of the observers came from
Europe19 and met together for the first time on March 8.
Their presence has helped to create a surreal atmosphere of
legitimacy for the FARC by endorsing its proposal for manual coca
eradication that would never be certifiably implemented in the
areas the FARC controls but would give the rebels a break from the
more effective aerial efforts.20 Thus, while dragging
their heels to help Colombia financially, European diplomats are
persuading Pastrana to make conflicting commitments that eventually
could derail Plan Colombia altogether.
Colombians overwhelmingly disapprove of
the government's dialogue with these rebels. Most recently, 88
percent of Colombians polled believed that the FARC despeje
failed to achieve its purpose. A Gallup poll showed that FARC
leader Manuel Marulanda and ELN chief Nicolas Rodríguez
Bautista have a 3 percent favorable rating, compared with 11
percent for AUC leader Carlos Castaño and 75 percent for
former National Police Chief General Rosso José
Serrano.21
-
Plan Colombia glosses over regional
worries. Objective Number Five in Plan Colombia's
counter-drug strategy calls for the integration of national efforts
into a regional and international strategy. Those vague
arrangements supposedly were to be facilitated by the United
States, which manages aviation tracking radar in Colombia, Ecuador,
Brazil, and elsewhere, but coordination and cooperation with police
and army units in surrounding countries has yet to take shape.
Local security forces are lacking in Panama's Darien province.
Ecuador, preoccupied with domestic unrest, has done little to push
the FARC out of its northeastern quadrant. Venezuelan President
Chávez has been unwilling to herd the FARC out of western
Venezuela. Brazilian President Cardoso is attempting to strengthen
Brazilian forces and keep violence and trafficking out of the upper
reaches of the Amazon basin. Without a regional and international
strategy supported by all of Colombia's neighbors, Plan
Colombia will not succeed.
- Funding
commitments for the effort were based on hope. The United
States provided its full share of $1.3 billion in an emergency
spending package passed in August 2000. The Colombian government,
however, has admitted that its conflict-inspired recession will
prevent it from covering its $4 billion commitment, and the
European community announced last December that it would
appropriate only $250 million of the $2 billion it was to
contribute because it objected to aerial fumigation and U.S. aid to
Colombia's security forces.22 Spain--which has major
investments in Latin America--recently broke with that policy and
has spearheaded an effort to obtain additional funds from Germany,
Norway, and the United Kingdom. Even so, Plan Colombia is likely to fall short by
some $1 billion.23
|
Dialogue Without a
Road Map
When Andrés Pastrana campaigned for president of
Colombia, he pledged to bring peace to an embattled nation. His
vision in the original Plan Colombia included an economic
stimulus package of foreign assistance and a dialogue with rebel
forces that were operating in about 40 percent of Colombia's rugged
countryside. Three months after taking office, Pastrana offered the
FARC autonomous authority over a safe haven (despeje) the
size of Costa Rica, in accordance with a 1997 law to promote
negotiations with rebel groups. He proposed a similar arrangement
for the ELN, but protests by local residents have blocked its
creation.
Despite the establishment of the FARC despeje,
negotiations failed to produce even the framework for a peace
agreement. Pastrana has indulged the FARC without receiving
anything in return, largely giving it the upper hand. The rebels
operate in about 70 percent of Colombia, earn about $75 million a
month from criminal activities such as drug trafficking, and cannot
be defeated by the current Colombian security forces. The object of
the peace dialogue has been to reach an accommodation to stem the
violence without bringing the rebels to justice or incorporating
them into Colombian society. Thus, Colombia has embarked on the
road to Balkanization.
1998: Pastrana withdraws police and military units from
five communities near San Vicente del Caguán and cedes the
area to the FARC for 90 days. FARC patrols reportedly steal 8,000
head of cattle from local ranchers.1
1999: After talks initially break down, Pastrana extends
the despeje. Both sides present agendas, and the dialogue
continues over procedural issues.
2000: The government arranges for FARC leaders to visit
six European countries to see examples of democratic socialism.
They return unimpressed. Government and ELN leaders meet in Geneva
to discuss creating a second demilitarized zone. Envoys from Cuba,
France, Norway, and Spain attend the July meeting. Talks with the
FARC continue over procedural matters until November, when the FARC
accuses the government of doing nothing to halt the activities of
the self-defense groups targeting the FARC and walks out.
2001: On February 8, Pastrana renews the despeje
for seven months and personally meets with FARC leader Marulanda in
San Vicente del Caguán. Pastrana concedes that Colombian
self-defense groups are the common enemy of both the guerrillas and
the government and agrees to allow foreign diplomats to observe the
dialogue. On March 8, observers from 22 countries sit in on the
talks. On February 16, local residents in Barrancabermeja block
roads to protest government plans to cede a despeje to the
ELN.
1. Cesar García, "As Colombian
Troops Pull Out, Residents Await Rebels," Associated Press,
November 7, 1998.
|
A BLUEPRINT FOR U.S.-COLOMBIA
ASSISTANCE
For all its problems, Colombia is still one of Latin America's
oldest and hardest-working democracies. The fourth largest trade
partner of the United States in Latin America, it accounts for
about $11 billion in two-way trade. It is the eighth largest
supplier of crude oil to the United States, and with Venezuela and
Ecuador accounts for 20 percent of the petroleum the United States
imports each year.24 Not all of its politicians are
corrupt, nor all of its citizens outlaws. In the past 10 years,
more than 5,000 poorly paid police officers have valiantly given
their lives trying to contain the country's drug-inspired
violence.
Despite its drawbacks, Plan
Colombia offered a fresh, comprehensive approach to solving the
country's problems and reducing its significant role in
transnational crime. However, it is based on a shifting railbed of
aimless peace talks and is close to jumping the track. The policy
of drug interdiction is too limited when the problem is
multidimensional. Plan Colombia envisions aid from a
community of supporters, but those donors are now reluctant to
invest in it, and some are even working against a democratic
solution at the dialogue table. Without a course correction,
several billion dollars of U.S. assistance to curb criminality and
violence in the region may be lost, making the sacrifice of
countless Colombian lives in vain.
To
help reshape Plan Colombia into a more effective strategy,
the Bush Administration should signal a clean break from the past.
Specifically, it should:
- Encourage Pastrana to transform the
dialogue into a credible peace process. Current talks with the
FARC rebels are aimed only at accommodating them by giving them
space and engaging them in discussions over procedure to the
exclusion of vital interests. The focus must change. The guerrillas
and self-defense forces should negotiate only the terms of their
re-entry into a law-abiding pluralistic society.25
The Bush Administration should withdraw
previous U.S. endorsements of President Pastrana's "land-for-peace"
approach. Instead of extending the FARC's stay in the demilitarized
zone south of Bogotá (see
map), a timetable should be created to reestablish government
authority, designating a smaller area within the zone for
demobilization. The Pastrana administration should be encouraged to
convert plans for a proposed despeje for the ELN in southern
Bolívar and Antioquía departments into a plan to
provide a similar location for demobilization and
reintegration.
The Administration should also encourage Pastrana and foreign
parties involved in the process to play a more responsible role by
(1) contributing their fair share to Plan Colombia; (2)
helping to bring all parties, including the paramilitaries, to the
negotiating table; and (3) establishing a timetable for
disarmament. Any non-contributing nation or diplomatic entity that
finds this arrangement unacceptable should be encouraged to
withdraw from any role in deciding the outcome.
- Help Colombia to strengthen and
professionalize its security forces. For the government to be
successful in negotiating peace, it must gain the upper hand by
retaking the monopoly of force that it once exercised but that is
now in the grip of criminal and militant actors. New estimates put
the combined FARC and ELN strength at close to 21,000 combatants,
with half again as many providing some kind of logistical support.
Paramilitary forces that numbered less than 1,000 in 1992 now have
as many as 8,000 armed members as public outrage grows over the
government's inability to curb guerrilla massacres, kidnappings,
thefts, and destruction of infrastructure. The Colombian army's
strength is about 121,000, but only 40,000 are effectively in
combat positions, including three projected counternarcotics
battalions. There are about 112,000 Colombian police officers for
the entire country. This might sound impressive, but the police are
needed for public security everywhere, and the army must defend
static positions.
Both the army and police need to boost
their troop strength. The only strategy that can reduce the level
of violence in the long run and serve both Colombian and U.S.
interests is to encourage Colombian efforts to strengthen and
professionalize these institutions. This is not a military
solution, but no other remedy can be effective without public
order. Only when the army has established an effective presence and
provides the cover for civilian law enforcement will the police be
able to spread a more durable permanent public security net to
arrest traffickers and support a permanent government presence in
Colombia's many rural municipalities.26
- Renew trade preferences but condition
liberalization on market reforms to unleash individual
productivity. When Pastrana met with President Bush in
February, he asked for trade preferences to stabilize the Colombian
economy and for more money to pay for the parts of Plan
Colombia his government could not afford. The President should
sign the new Andean Trade Preference Expansion Act (S. 525),
sponsored by Senators Bob Graham (D-FL), Mike DeWine (R-OH), and
nine other cosponsors, which would replace the one due to expire in
December 2001. Moreover, he should explore further liberalization
efforts to stimulate Colombia's recovery from its current 5 percent
economic contraction.
The Administration also
should encourage the Pastrana government to ease regulatory burdens
on the creation of small to medium-sized businesses and to simplify
procedures for registering private property. This would allow more
jobs to be created and increase the individual capacity for
productivity.27 The Administration should reevaluate
U.S. support for crop substitution programs, which prod farmers to
grow alternative crops for already saturated markets. The fact is
that 75 percent of Colombians live in urban areas while most coca
is cultivated by itinerant farmers on land that is typically
unsuitable for other marketable crops.28 It would make
more sense to open up new opportunities for these individuals in
other sectors of the economy.
- Reallocate U.S. assistance to strengthen
local governments, the rule of law, and civil society. Most
local governments depend on the national government for revenue;
they manage few services on their own and are predictably
unaccountable to their constituents--all of which makes them prey
to criminals and illegal armies. Colombia's overloaded justice
system functions neither effectively nor transparently. It is
backlogged to the point that half of its 21,000 prisoners have not
yet been sentenced. Many citizens distrust the government
altogether.
To enhance governability, the United
States should encourage Colombia's political establishment to
devolve more authority to subordinate levels of government in order
to enhance local decisionmaking. Through its Administration of
Justice program, the United States should help Colombia improve the
judicial process, enhance prosecutorial functions, and permit
transparent oral trials. Furthermore, Casas de Justicia, a
promising concept already providing access to mediation services
and public defenders in 14 marginal neighborhoods, should be
expanded beyond the urban areas into the more than 1,000 rural
municipalities.
Since better government is possible only
when civil society expects and supports effective institutions,
Washington should fund relatively inexpensive civic education
programs to help inform politicians and citizens of their rights
and responsibilities. The National Endowment for Democracy, through
its affiliated organizations, the National Democratic Institute and
the International Republican Institute, should offer to assist
Colombia's political parties to renew grassroots contacts and
strengthen the democratic process. But time is growing short: The
FARC is already recruiting members for its Bolivarian Movement for
a New Colombia--a Marxist urban front dedicated to cultivating
guerrilla support in the cities.29
-
Encourage regional cooperation and develop
a comprehensive Andean strategy. Washington should foster real
regional cooperation in drug and arms interdiction. The Bush
Administration should offer to help surrounding states bolster
their security forces along the Colombian border to reduce violence
and trafficking, should promote the formation of a regional working
group to devise arrangements to share intelligence and coordinate
army and police actions, and should establish a U.S. interagency
working group to develop a comprehensive Andean strategy. Congress
should consider ways to address some of the same problems that
Colombia's neighbors face by providing trade preferences as well as
civil society programs that would encourage the development of more
democratic and accountable governments.
- Show good faith
by reducing the domestic demand for cocaine and heroin. In
the wake of former President Clinton's pardons of convicted drug
offenders like Harvey Weinig, who reportedly laundered money for
the Cali cartel, President Bush must do more to reduce domestic
demand for cocaine and heroin. His Administration should make a
wholehearted effort to bring U.S. money launderers to justice. It
should clear the clogged, inefficient assistance pipeline that so
far has failed to deliver most of last year's $1.3 billion
emergency request to Colombia.30 The program managed by
the Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs continues to send outdated ammunition to the
Colombian National Police to use in new, U.S.-supplied Blackhawk
helicopters.31 The Bureau should be reorganized to
develop a better purchasing and delivery mechanism. Finally, both
the White House and Congress should review the effectiveness of
aerial eradication with a general-purpose herbicide that kills
plants indiscriminately but has only a temporary effect. Definitive
research on naturally occurring mycoherbicides that remain active
over several years, like the fungus attacking coca plants in Peru,
should be accelerated.
CONCLUSION
The politics of making deals with violent unaccountable actors is
subverting Colombia. Drug kingpins and rebels have incomes rivaling
the economies of small countries. Their firepower matches that of
the government's security forces. They operate in nearly half of
the national territory, and the FARC has dominion over an area the
size of Costa Rica. As the strength of the irregular armies
increases, the Pastrana government will find it ever more difficult
to deal with them, let alone to cooperate with neighbors like the
United States to reduce the flow of illicit drugs. If the balance
of power shifts in favor of the outlaws, the breakup of Colombia
into zones controlled by local chieftains and narcobandits will
become inevitable.
The
White House must abandon the Clinton Administration's scattershot
approach in dealing with Colombia's contributions to drug
trafficking and international crime. However unfocused, Plan
Colombia is still viable. Better defined, its measures could
help to solve some of the country's most urgent problems and reduce
the threat that crime and violence pose to the region and the
hemisphere. The plan must clearly seek to disarm the country's
irregular armies, make the elected government the sole proprietor
of the use of force, improve weak governance, restore the
once-vibrant economy through market incentives, and coordinate the
efforts of neighboring governments to prevent the spread of
drug-related violence.
Although bleak, the situation is not
hopeless. Colombia is a country rich in natural resources and
native talent. A model for establishing a new social contract, a
more transparent government, and an open economy now exists in
Mexico. Few observers would have thought that was possible a decade
ago. The United States should encourage Colombia's leadership to
demonstrate the same resolve and walk a new path.
Stephen Johnson is Policy Analyst for
Latin America in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for
International Studies at The Heritage Foundation.