Plan Columbia

Plan Columbia

U.S. involvement in the drug war in Columbia

3/16/06

Prepared for Latin American Politics

by Shaine Hack

Filename: C:Documents and SettingsShaine HackMy DocumentsdocumentsDocumentsLatin American-Plan Columbia.wpd

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The battle for control on the war on drugs has been a constant part of litigation on both domestic and foreign policy in the U.S. In 1999 the U.S. drafted a piece of legislation called "Plan Columbia" in an attempt to help the Columbian government combat drugs in their country that eventually work their way to the U.S. Unfortunately, up to this point the attempts made under this plan have been unsuccessful. This paper will show what this plan attempted to do and why it is not working. This plan needs to be withdrawn and reexamined in a way that may hold to be more effective in its general course of action.

Plan Columbia is a new policy towards the country to aid in combating drug production and distribution. Historically, this is not our first involvement in Latin American politics in an effort to combat the drug war. Dating back to the early 1960's, during the Kennedy administration, we can see programs that are designated to combat internal problems in foreign areas. During the Kennedy administration the threat was deemed as communism where as today it is the drug threat. Both of these instances are stated to be a total denial of the historical-sociological basis of the conflict. The sheer size of the intervention is a major differential factor. The current actions of the plan is a long-term billion dollar plan involving large scale operations where the Kennedy plan was on a significantly smaller scale. During the 60's the U.S. intervention was concentrated in countries such as Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia. This involved the supporting of military coups and overthrowing the governments. It wasn't until the 90's that the focus shifted from the southern South America and moved to northern. This included Ecuador, Venezuela and Columbia.

The regional conflicts are a key motivator for U.S. intervention throughout its history. Plan Columbia comes after the completion of the "peace accords" and is highly influenced by such. Washington's past success in the reassertion of hegemony in Central America through whatever means were convenient is part of the reason they feel they can repeat the terror aspects in Latin America for a peace formula. The plan designed in 1999 and passed by Congress in July 2000 authorized 1.3 billion dollars to fight this newest drug war. The European Union was asked to match the funds since the drugs penetrate their border also but disagreed with the military aspects and along with other Latin American countries feared spill over into other regions. Roughly 35 percent of the anti drug operations funds went to Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. The rest of the amount went to mainly military aid for Columbia; $642 million went for sixty Blackhawk and Huey attack helicopters and 500 U.S. military advisors and 300 civilian personnel to train three counter-narcotics battalions of Columbian soldiers. The remaining money goes towards alternative development, assistance for displaced persons, human rights and judicial reform.

The plan implies that the massive amounts of agricultural loss and slowness in the modernization of agriculture during the 90's are the reasons for the social problems. In turn it says that this slow development is due to illicit drug activity. Although this could be valid it does not explain the other South American countries that have suffered the same conclusion. Many other countries that are not drug producers have suffered the affects of globalization and exploitation. They all struggle with the problems of what to do with the poor and unemployed.

The U.S. intentions are one of economic investment in the country as shown by the testimony that was put forth before Congress by such people as the vice-president of Occidental Petroleum, who had operated in Columbia for over thirty years, "Columbian Oil", he stated, "is of vital strategic importance to the United States because it reduces our dependence on oil imports from the volatile Middle East. This leads into the claims that this plan strictly benefits the power elite and multinational corporations.

The fiscal conditions that present themselves in Columbia are supposed to be addressed in this new legislation. Unfortunately, very little if any of the monetary distribution go towards the advancement of social programs and issues. Over the past ten years the disparities between the poor and the rich have grown even substantially. This increasing number of poor is only going to deal with this for so long and their answer to this is to grow these illicit crops. Due to the poor, as a group, feeling ignored by the government lots of lower class citizens welcome the cartels because they put money into the community to help appease the locals.

The plan sees crop spraying as part of the solution to the problem. By spraying these crops not only are they killing the illicit crops but also the farmer's crops that are following the law. Once these crops are sprayed the growers simply move to areas closer to Bolivia and Peru.

The crop spraying also runs off into water supplies for the local population which is used for drinking and bathing. The spraying has already shown to cause sickness in local residents and is starting to cause birth defects.

Part of the plan was to try and subsidize the farmers to switch to legal crops but this is hitting many road blocks due to the illegal crops being far more lucrative. It is for reason such as this that narcotics account for 3 percent of the countries national gross domestic product.

The U.S. claims that this legislation is for the promotion of peace. Peace can only be derived