Quarterly Bulletin
The Washington Office of the PC(USA)

June 14, 2005: Plan Colombia is set to expire at the end of this year. Originally a six-year U.S. aid package — approved by Congress in 2000 — to reduce production of drugs and to improve the rule of law in Colombia, the plan has achieved none of its goals, despite spending $4 billion on mostly military aid to this Andean nation amidst its decades-old civil conflict.

At the center of Plan Colombia’s counter-narcotics strategy is aerial crop eradication. Based on drug production figures, this has proven to be costly and ineffective. The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) estimated at the end of 2004 that despite spraying 130,000 hectares of land, coca production remained "statistically unchanged" from the beginning of the year. The flow of drugs into the United States has continued as freely during Plan Colombia as in the years previous. Cocaine is still readily available in the U.S. and street prices continue to drop. 1

The human rights situation in Colombia is extremely grave. The 2004 report of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights noted an increase since 2003 in "allegations regarding extrajudicial executions and violations of due process" by public servants, including members of the security forces. The U.N. office also denounced "continued reports received by the office of cases in which coordinated operations have been carried out by members of the security forces and paramilitary groups." Equally troubling are "cases in which the victims had been detained by members of the paramilitary forces and subsequently reported by the army as having been killed in combat." 3

Given the amount of aid that it is providing, the United States has considerable political leverage with the Colombian government. This leverage could be used in part to insist upon the strengthening of rule of law in Colombia and the punishment of human rights violators. The Bush Administration, however, has not sufficiently urged the Colombian government to improve its human rights record. Currently, an extremely small percentage of reported human rights abuses — including abuses by Colombian security forces —are prosecuted.

Much of the State Department’s delay on a certification decision stems from the February 22 massacre in San José de Apartadó, where human rights defender Luis Eduardo Guerra and his family were brutally murdered along with a neighboring family. Among the eight people who died were three small children and a 17-year-old girl. The community holds the Colombian military responsible, based on accounts of various witnesses, while the Colombian government blames left-wing guerrillas. The State Department is taking this and other recent cases seriously in the certification process, and a decision is likely this summer. But until a full, transparent investigation of the massacre takes place, and those responsible are prosecuted, a portion of the military aid to Colombia should, by law, be withheld.

Although Plan Colombia ends this year, the Bush Administration is proposing to continue aid in 2006 at the current rate, which would provide Colombia with at least another $742 million. Yet U.S. involvement through Plan Colombia — initially justified through the War on Drugs — has seen an increase of human rights violations by Colombian security forces, has not reduced drug crop production, and has not brought Colombia any closer to an end of its civil conflict. Plan Colombia is failing, and a comprehensive reform of U.S.-Colombia policy is urgently needed.

The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on aid to Colombia the week of June 27th as part of the foreign operations appropriations bill. Republican leadership will presumably follow the administration’s lead when drafting the bill, asking for millions of dollars in military assistance. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), however, will propose a positive amendment to the bill – which will either cut the amount of military aid, destined for Colombia, or cut military aid and transfer it to social/economic aid.

U.S. policy toward Colombia could be greatly improved by reorienting the millions of dollars in military aid that the administration intends to send. The policy should be driven by trying to help find a peaceful solution to Colombia’s armed internal conflict. U.S. assistance that has helped internally displaced peoples and others severely affected by the conflict, for example, has been one of the most positive elements of the current aid program. Increasing the amount of humanitarian and development aid in Colombia and sending a message on human rights by cutting military aid would contribute to a lasting peace.

Congress is expected to vote on $742 million more in aid to Colombia for 2006 as early as June 27th. Plan Colombia’s time has expired – tell your representative not to support the continuation of military aid to Colombia!

Watch a flash movie on Colombia at www.peaceincolombia.org, and follow the link to send your representative a fax asking him/her to cut military aid to Colombia.

Call your members of Congress at 202-224-3121 to urge a NO vote on $742 million in military aid to Colombia. Go to www.lawg.org for a sample script.

Go to the Peace in Colombia website, at www.peaceincolombia.org for more information and help on how to carry out these actions.

On Colombia: Efforts to stamp out Colombian drug operations by destroying coca crops are ineffective. Colombian Christian sources report that in 1999, 16,000 hectares of coca were destroyed by herbicides –but the estimated area of total plantings increased to 22,000 hectares in 2000. This statistic illustrates a cruel irony of the Colombian "war on drugs" – crop destruction does not reduce the coca supply, but merely disperses coca growing into remote areas. In addition to the war’s human rights abuses, this raises concerns about rainforest destruction and spread of the problem to neighboring countries. Furthermore, military aid does nothing to alleviate the problems of poverty and social injustice that encourage peasants to resort to coca growing in the first place.

The 205th General Assembly called for the demilitarization of U.S. drug war policies in foreign lands and an emphasis on drug prevention and treatment at home. The General Assembly has also called on the U.S. government to provide strong support for human rights through its international economic policies, especially foreign assistance and trade policies ("Hope for a Global Future: Toward Just and Sustainable Human Development," Minutes, 1996, p. 102). (Minutes, 2001, pp. 471-472.)

For more information about this issue, please go to our Web site http://www.pcusa.org/washington and click on "Issue Networks," then Latin America.

Published by the Stewardship of Public Life (SPL) advocacy program of the Washington Office, Presbyterian Church (USA), 100 Maryland Avenue NE, Washington, D.C. 20002, (202) 543-1126,www.pcusa.org/washington. For more information about the content of this article, please e-mail Catherine Gordon, at cgordon@ctr.pcusa.org.