Saying No to Colombia‘s Drug War

June 5, 2002

Americans have been so focused on the war in Afghanistan and turmoil in the Middle East since 9/11 that many seem to be unaware of the country‘s “other“ war brewing in Colombia.
The Clinton administration began a quiet involvement with the so-called “Plan Colombia“ in the late ‘90s. Continued under President Bush, the anti-drug Plan involves spraying herbicides over thousands of acres of coca plantations in a drug war which critics say can‘t be won. In fact, Plan Colombia is considered the source of a civil war brewing in the South American country due to the destruction of legitimate crops and farmland along with coca plantations.
Voices from both the American left and the right have criticized U.S. involvement in Colombia as a potential re-enactment of Vietnam. Recently, the conservative Cato Institute blasted Plan Colombia in an article entitled “Washington‘s Latest Drug War Failure.“
“Washington is backing Plan Colombia to the tune of $1.3 billion, primarily in military aid,“ writes Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. “Green Beret personnel are training several anti-drug battalions, U.S. funds have helped the Colombian military buy Black Hawk helicopters and other hardware, and employees under contract to the State Department fly dangerous aerial spraying missions to eradicate drug crops.
“Plan Colombia‘s goals are certainly ambitious,“ Carpenter continues. “Since December, more than 75,000 acres of drug crops have been sprayed with an herbicide. U.S. satellite data suggest that there are about 340,000 acres of coca (the raw material for cocaine) under cultivation throughout the country. Colombian officials express the hope that the eradication campaign will cut that acreage at least 50 percent by 2002.“
Unfortunately, new studies have shown that there appear to be far more than 340,000 acres of coca under cultivation in Colombia. When Plan Colombia began, U.S. officials thought that the country produced 580 tons of cocaine per year of the world‘s total output of 780 tons. Yet a new study has revealed that Colombia produces somewhere between 800 and 900 tons of cocaine per year -- a quanitity beyond the scope of Plan Colombia‘s spraying program.

SAYING NO IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN
Last week, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, said he decided to vote against a $29.3 billion appropriations bill in the U.S. House in part because its funds could drag the country further into Colombia‘s problems. Stupak said the bill “went too far with unnecessary spending and ill-conceived policy provisions.“
“First and foremost among my concerns was language dealing with our military
involvement in Columbia,“ Stupak added. “The policy change in the bill calls for increasing the U.S. military role in Columbia‘s civil war. With this legislation, the U.S. is no longer there just to help prevent drug trafficking, but also to assist the Columbian government in fighting a civil war. In Columbia, young people who hold a high school diploma are exempt from military service. Young American men and women are expected to fight and possibly die in Columbia‘s civil war, while young Columbians are exempt. This is a ‘Gulf of Tonkin‘-style resolution that calls for U.S. involvement in Columbia, while exempting Columbia‘s ‘elite‘ youth.“

ANGER IN THE FIELDS
The civil war is brewing in southern Colombia because aerial spraying has destroyed thousands of acres of legitimate crops along with coca plants at a time when, ironically, Colombian President Andres Pastrana is trying to sell the country‘s farmers on the idea of economic development by growing crops other than coca. Aerial spraying, backed by the U.S. military “has threatened the livelihood of peasants in the affected areas, and in some cases created the specter of famine,“ states Carpenter.
The United States is also employing “privateer mercenaries“ to raid draug camps in Huey II military helicopters, according to a report from CorpWatch.
“Like the old English ‘privateer‘ pirates of the Caribbean 500 years ago, sailing under no national flag - robbing and plundering Latin America‘s riches for the English Crown, Washington now employs hundreds of contract employees through U.S. corporations to carry out its policies in Colombia and other countries,“ claims a report at corpwatch.com. “While the new privateers are underwritten through U.S. taxes, they are technically ‘contract employees.‘ Like the 16th century pirates, if they get caught in an embarrassing crime, or are killed, the U.S. government can deny responsibility for their actions. What‘s more only a select few in Congress know of their activities and their operations are not subject to public scrutiny, despite the fact that they are on the government payroll.“
CorpWatch claims that many of these quasi-legal mercenaries are former U.S. military personnel hired by a company called DynCorp, headquartered in Reston, Virginia near the CIA, and Pentagon.

REBEL YELL
Adding to Colombia‘s powderkeg is the existence of several guerrilla rebel groups, the strongest of which is FARC, The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Writing on narconews.com, reporter Al Giordano claims that FARC has hundreds of thousands of guerrillas in Colombia‘s cities (not unlike the Viet Cong), ready to launch a revolution.
Giordano strains credibility at times, writing, “All totaled I am convinced the FARC has 30,000 AK-47‘s hidden in Bogotá, has a militia of 10,000 in Bogotá primarily from the ranks of the 4 million poor Colombians crowded into the downtrodden barrios...“ and more in a similar alarmist vein.
Still, the reality of Colombia is that most of its 21.6 million citizens live in stark poverty, earning the equivalent of $55 U.S. dollars per month. And in the countryside, anger at the Pastrana government and the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia is rising.
Meanwhile, Donnie Marshall, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, has admitted that street prices for cocaine remain as high as ever in the U.S., an indication that Plan Colombia isn‘t having its desired effect. “If (Plan Colombia‘s) efforts were successful, they should have produced a sharp decline in cocaine exports,“ notes the Cato Institute.