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FEBRUARY 2001

Too Deadly To Ignore

By PAM COSTAIN

Like many AMERICAS.ORG visitors, I have known for years that I should be paying greater attention to Colombia. I was aware of the deepening political and economic crisis and the escalating levels of violence there. I was aware the level of human rights violations was greater in Colombia than anywhere else in the hemisphere and that hundreds of thousands of people were victims of internal displacement, arbitrary violence, targeted violence and crushing poverty. I knew that Colombia was a tragedy of unimaginable proportions and that those suffering the most were those who always suffer—the poor, the marginalized and those without a political voice.

At the same time, I couldn’t make myself focus on Colombia, despite warnings of friends and colleagues about the mounting disaster there. I was frustrated by the issue’s complexity, appalled by actions of the armed left and the paramilitaries (the rightist private forces responsible for most of the killing), and overwhelmed by the omnipresent role of the drug trade in the fabric of Colombian society. I was confused about the appropriate role for the United States.

Then, unexpectedly, I was invited to join Sen. Paul Wellstone on a Colombia visit in December (see HERBICIDE DOUSES U.S. SENATOR). I could avoid the issue no longer. I set to work reading and studying, and I began to take responsibility for developing a perspective and set of actions that might serve the interests of peace and human rights.

What I learned was this. Despite its uniqueness and complexity, Colombia can be understood. The concentration of land and resources in the hands of a very few—the nation’s dramatic income polarization, its rural poverty and urban slums—are problems shared with most of Latin America. Democratic rule is supposed to be Colombia’s hallmark, but state institutions mask a pattern of extreme political and social exclusion that goes back decades. Ties between Bogotá’s military and the paramilitaries menace the civilian population. The U.S. relationship to Colombia has been one of economic domination and self-interest. The United States has coveted Colombia’s mineral resources (especially oil), coffee, flowers and its northwestern territory, where Washington has never lost interest in building something to replace the Panama Canal.

It’s also true that an illegal drug industry affects every layer of Colombian society, from small farmers who cultivate coca and opium (the raw materials for cocaine and heroin) to the largest drug processors and traffickers, and all of the institutions of society in between. The industry’s ubiquity and its enormous profits make it hard to comprehend and overwhelming to tackle. The United States has an interest in combating coca and heroin production but little political will to do so in a way that’s sustainable for Colombia and other producing nations.

Plan Colombia, a $1.3 billion package of mostly military aid signed by President Clinton last July, has further militarized Colombia’s conflict and will likely do far more damage than good. The crop-eradication strategy at the center of the aid will devastate the environment, displace tens of thousands of coca producers without providing an economic alternative, and increase violence between the guerrillas, the paramilitaries and the military. It will pour millions of dollars into the coffers of U.S. manufacturers of weapons and helicopters, and will contribute to corruption in the Colombian police and military. It will distort peace talks between the government and the country’s two major guerrilla groups.

Like the Clinton administration, the Bush team wants to expand this ill-conceived plan to Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela.

The United States could have played a positive role for Colombia if it had designated most of the aid to long-term economic development projects, to programs for strengthening Colombia’s justice system and other democratic institutions, to the peace process and to building the capacity of civil society to help find a Colombian solution to the nation’s problems. The United States, moreover, could do Colombia and other drug-producing nations a big favor by addressing the consumption side of the drug equation.

We must work to influence U.S. policy. We must join Colombians who are working, at great personal risk, for peace, economic development and human rights.