By: Omar Vera* – April 16, 2009
The failure of the anti-drug strategy and non-military plans of intervention raises specific changes in the Obama administration with regards to Colombia.
Annually, the Government Accountability Office of the United States (GAO) presents a statement on money invested in Plan Colombia to the International Relations Committee of the Senate of that country. For 2008, the GAO report indicated the ineffectiveness of the strategies of Plan Colombia, between 2000 and 2006, to achieve an effective reduction in coca cultivation as well as the production and export of cocaine, while highlighting the achievements of the counterinsurgency strategy contained in the plan and recommended that the agencies responsible for financing, together with Colombian authorities, define how the programs will be ‘nationalized’, so that the bulk of the funding is paid by the national government by 2013.
The International Relations Committee of the Senate, presided by Joseph Biden, Vice President-elect, requested that this report clearly balance the results of the money spent on Plan Colombia towards the goal of a 50% reduction in drug production in our country during the first six years of this strategy. Now is the time for Congress, with a Democratic majority, and the Executive branch, headed by Obama from January 20, 2009, to define an approach in relations between Colombia and the United States that best suits their interests and political position, with which the government of Uribe and his successor will have to redefine much of their strategic plans before the cuts that are coming in several of its flagship programs depending largely on US money.
Background: from Pastrana to Uribe
In 1999, the Pastrana government presented two proposals to the US government to reorganize the military model of the country. The first, an agreement between the Ministry of Defense of Colombia, then headed by Rodrigo Lloreda (+) and the United States Department of State to train and equip the army in counter-narcotics efforts. Second, Plan Colombia proposed a military aid of at least USD 6 million to achieve the halving of the flow of cocaine into the country from the north and regain control of large parts of the country in the hands of armed groups outside the law, mainly the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that both governments accused of being linked to drug trafficking business.
In 2002, just after the attack on the Twin Towers and the arrival on the scene of Bush’s war policy against terrorism, the US Congress approved an “extended authority” over the resources destined to confront drug trafficking, in such a way that they could be used in the counterinsurgency war under the theory that “insurgents and activities related to illicit drugs are linked in complex ways,” as noted by the GAO report.
According to the researcher Marco Romero, member of the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES):
The Plan Colombia was always focused on security, from that logic it is a plan of support for the state to fight the insurgency. It has always been focused towards the south of the country and not the north, I was not thinking to counteract paramilitarism, which is also involved in drug trafficking affairs.
In June 2003, the Colombian government launched a major offensive in southern Colombia, called the Patriot Plan, with serious consequences for the civilian population. At this stage, the movement of troops was concentrated in the departments of Nariño, Putumayo, Caquetá, Guaviare and Meta, also creating a ‘cord’ around Bogotá and its area of influence to cut mobility of the guerrillas to the capital. Additionally, the Joint Task Force Omega was created, with a base in Larandia (Caquetá) that counts more than 10,000 men, perhaps the military installation with the most US owned contractors and militaries that exists in the country, where today they conduct various of the largest operations against the FARC, such as the bombing of Ecuadorian territory in which Colombian forces killed Raúl Reyes.
Different NGOs are discussing that as a result of the Patriot Plan, a high level of displacement in Nariño and Putumayo is present. In the northwest of Nariño, it reached alarming levels of up to 70% of the population that was living in the area, a result of military operations.
In January 2007, the Colombian government presented the proposal of the Consolidation Plan, entitled “Strategy for Strengthening Democracy and Promoting Social Development” as a continuation of Plan Colombia in a second phase, which contains the same strategies of its predecessor for the years 2007-2013, and that is today found at the center of the discussion of the upper echelons of power in the United States due to the objections that important sectors of the Democratic and Republican caucuses have raised in the parliament of that country, after which a conditional aid to the ‘nationalization’ of their programs was approved.
In addition, the conditions imposed on human rights and care for vulnerable populations have been important topics of discussion between the US legislative caucuses. In particular, senators like Patrick Leahy have managed to refuse aid to certain military units involved in heinous crimes as well as calling to impose conditions on the delivery of resources in this regard. According to Romero:
“With the advent of Obama it is likely that there will be a strong change in human rights issues, because now the Democrats have a majority in the House and Senate, and have secured the Presidency. The Democratic caucus has a critical assessment of Plan Colombia and I think it will require that the condition of human rights has a greater value. Uribe’s government will have to make a drastic change on this matter: the issue of false positives and decisions to change high command are related to this, along with giving signals that the state can correct them, otherwise the US can drastically suspend its aid.
Clean, maintain and consolidate
Uribe’s government has argued that its policy of Democratic Security focuses the resources of Plan Colombia on a strategy to clean, maintain and consolidate military gains, while civic-military court social programs are executed in conflict areas in order to make decisive blows to the guerrillas in this period.
The government expects that the raising of the 279,000 troops of the military from 2000 to 415,000 in 2007 will permit it to carry out intensive operations over the areas of influence or control of the guerrillas required to implement institutional control by way of police and other entities, achieving their stabilization by cutting welfare programs that generate dependency from the population towards entities like Social Action. In this way, it is expected that they can better exploit the natural and human resources of these regions by multinational and Colombian companies attracted by the promises of the ‘investor confidence’, thus preventing social discontent generating new conflicts that hinder the mega projects from being undertaken in the areas in which the strategy would be applied, where the results should be “irreversible”, according to the GAO report.
For this, the National Park of La Macarena (Meta) is now the role model for the Colombian military and Americans involved in the Consolidation Plan to follow. From traditional influence of the FARC, this area of the country has experienced major offensives since last year that have allowed the implementation of a high mountain battalion and mobile brigades, and that the Joint Task Force Omega can operate in the area, in actions whose point of departure is the basis of Larandia without yet having had convincing results against the insurgent organization. According to US officials consulted by the GAO, in order for this offensive to pay off, similar operations are prepared in 10 more areas, all with significant control of the military group of the embassy of that country.
Uribe depends on Plan Colombia
However, the report does not hesitate to point out that, except the initiatives that have already managed to be ‘nationalized’ such as the protection program Caño Limón Coveñas, the thickest plans should continue under the patronage and command of the US so that actions of great importance, such as Operation Jaque, can be performed in a coordinated manner and achieve a meaningful impact against insurgent forces. Additionally, it expresses the concern of the GAO of the inability of the Colombian authorities to sustain a number of the programs, for which it asks Congress to authorize the departments of State, Defense and Justice as well as the USAID agency to keep some key programs for a long period, particularly those related to aircraft delivered to the Colombian state for the war against the guerrillas.
If this initiative is not approved, the Colombian government would have to fund significant programs such as Aviation Brigade and Special Forces of the Army, with resources it doesn’t have and would have to be obtained from a heavy tax burden that would fall on the middle class and the poorest sectors of the population. “Uribe depends on Plan Colombia,” says Romero, adding that:
If the successes are like the ones Uribe poses, then cooperation can be reduced and Colombian businessmen should be the ones who finance this policy, but the Colombian government wants to fund the war with US assistance or taxes on the middle and lower classes, which is the tax structure of the country. For entrepreneurs have a different address, which is investor confidence and the idea of legal certainty, and that is the main problem: if he wants to maintain the military effort that he has sustained these years, he will have to resort to stronger internal taxes and this can be quite unpopular, except if he makes the decision that the rich of Colombia be the ones who pay this effort.
Financing Plan Colombia
US military assistance has reached USD 6.13 million between 2000, the first year of fiscal execution of Plan Colombia, and October 2008 in the programs contained in the agreement, reaching an annual average of USD 681 million. Of these, about USD 1.0189 million, approximately 16%, were turned over to the Pastrana government in 2000, the fiscal year of the beginning of the plan and the biggest acquisitions of military equipment, infrastructure, technological resources of intelligence, weapons, ammunition, equipment and especially helicopters of the Colombian military for the most ambitious counterinsurgency and counternarcotics strategies in its history.
However, the Pastrana administration was not the main recipient of these monies. Between 2000 and 2002, aid reached some USD 1.774 million, while from 2003, the years under President Uribe, the budgetary appropriations destined for the United States in the Colombian war exceeded USD 4.355 million, nearly two and a half times what was spent by his predecessor.
Security without reducing coca
The first of the strategies of Plan Colombia did not reach its primary goal. While the GAO report acknowledges the role of the Democratic Security policy of the current government in the control that the state has achieved in some areas of the country that were traditionally under the supervision of the armed organizations outside the law, the Plan Colombia anti-drug policy, which won free reign with the ‘extended authority’ in 2002, did not achieve the 50% reduction of coca and cocaine produced in our country. On the contrary, while in 2000 the Narcotics Affairs Section of the CIA estimated the hectares cultivated with coca leaf at 136,200, this amount increased in 2006 to 157,000 ha, an increase of 15%; while production of cocaine increased from 530 tons in 2000 to 550 in 2006, an increase of 4%.
To the GAO, these figures do not cease to be alarming in terms of the amount of resources used for a strategy that, it was assumed, was designed to control the production and export of narcotics to the United States. However, the figures speak for themselves in demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the plan in this area. Romero notes that:
In the U.S. they no longer believe that Plan Colombia will end the drug trade: the para-politics scandal forces the Democrats and the Republicans to think about who are really their allies in Colombia, because the president’s allies ended up being drug dealers.
The report acknowledges that the Colombian government has had significant success in reducing poppy cultivation, derived from international prices that make competition impossible for Colombian drug traffickers with their counterparts in Afghanistan or the Golden Triangle– between Thailand, Myanmar and Laos–which account for almost 70% of the world production of opiates. Likewise, it acknowledges the progress reported on security, especially in the current government flagship programs such as roadblocks, reducing homicides and kidnappings, maintenance of oil infrastructure and the passage of 70% of the territory under state control in 2003 to 90% in 2007. Despite this, it notes the inability to maintain these results and current levels of operation of the Armed Forces without the funding and direct control of the United States, which makes the chances of complying with the gradual ‘nationalization’ of the Colombia Plan, defined by the US Congress, only possible depending on the acquisition of irreversible results against the guerrillas.
The costs of an air war
The Military Aviation Brigade has been a major recipient of resources from Plan Colombia. The US departments of State and Defense have spent more than USD 844 million so that the unit of the Army fulfills security work for aircraft spraying, manual eradicators and transport of troops to combat zones with the guerrillas.
The brigade has three flotillas of helicopters provided by the Colombia Plan. The first consists of 52 helicopters provided by the US under the guise of a lease free of charge, of a program of 72 in which the other 20 aircraft have been transferred to the police. The second flotilla consists of 20 UH-60L Blackhawk helicopters, which are part of a long-term purchase plan through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program of the State Department, and a technical support field team made up of mechanics, instructors and ‘advisers’ of undefined roles, all contractors paid by the FMS. The third flotilla consists of an unspecified number of leased Russian and US helicopters, and others in the process of nationalization which are in transfer to other units.
Most of these aircraft, along with a lot of technical resources, training simulators, spare parts, contractors and other elements necessary for the operation of this brigade are concentrated at the Tolemaida base, where military air operations extend through ten other bases located throughout the country and various smaller units.
As to the successful outcomes that are attributed to this brigade in air operations against the guerrillas, it is contrasted with the idea of its consideration as a white elephant. The Program of Helicopters of Plan Colombia (PHPC) needs a lot of pilots and mechanics with a high technical level that the country does not have available, with a deficit of 43 pilots and 87 mechanics that today are supplied by contractors from different firms, paid with funds from the program that the US supplies. In addition, the GAO report notes that future purchases of helicopters planned by the Colombian government, 15 UH-60 Blackhawks and 18 UH-1N, will increase the demand for qualified personnel that Colombia is unable to provide at this time and whose training would last between three to five years. Therefore, the report recommends the nationalization program only after 2012.
On the other hand, the aerial interdiction program has concentrated efforts of USD 62 million in the upgrading of several airplanes from the Colombian Air Force (FAC) and the acquisition of seven more to turn them into so-called ‘ghost planes’ and intelligence airplanes, along with the upgrading of several interceptors at a cost of USD 35 million. In addition, the funds provided by the US have allowed the coverage of the costs of fuel, spare parts, aviation safety, maintenance and a complex radar system comprising 5 ground radars, long-range radars located abroad and airborne radars. The US plans to transfer the financing of the entire aerial interdiction program by 2010 to the Colombian government, retaining only part of the expenditure and a high priority in decision-making, due to the use of their long-range radar equipment.
Counter-narcotics troops are counter-insurgents
The US departments of State and Defense have spent almost USD 104 million in consulting, training and equipment of three of the flagship programs of the Army: the Narcotics Brigade, the mobile brigades, the new units of special forces and the Special Joint Command.
The Narcotics Brigade of the Army was created in 1999. It has operated mainly in Putumayo and Caquetá, traditional areas of influence of the FARC, and is composed of three battalions bringing together 2,285 soldiers. The funding from the Department of Defense for this brigade has included the construction of the foundations of Tres Esquinas and Larandia, both of vital importance in troop movements of larger operations of the Armed Forces.
From 2002, with the “extended authority” provided by the US Congress, this brigade has been instrumental in the war of the state against the guerrillas in the south, always supported and carried by the Army Aviation Brigade, and it is considered vital for the future of the Consolidation Plan despite speculation against it for possible violations of human rights in western Putumayo for the ones in which it would be involved, with more than 2,000 mass graves reported to the District Attorney in a department drastically intervened in by the Colombia Plan.
As for the mobile brigades, they have been one of the flagship plans of the restructuring of the Armed Forces. They are severely challenged by several human rights defence organizations for their relation to the implementation of paramilitary bases in areas rich in natural resources or agroindustrial importance, such as the Middle Magdalena and Chocó, and several of its commanders have been linked to prosecutions for massacres and mass displacement, among other crimes against humanity.
According to the US Department of Defense, the work of the mobile teams are “vital for irreversible results in affairs of security against the FARC and other illegal armed groups” and US funding is focused on training, weapons, equipment, ammunition, vehicles, infrastructure, support in intelligence and building a fortified base in La Macarena, which today is home to the Joint Task Force Omega counting more than 10,000 men.
Additionally, with the money contributed in this sense, the Special Joint Command was created with more than 2,000 men from the Navy, Air Force and Army, as an elite group of special task forces including hostage rescue, capturing drug trafficking kingpins, and eliminating commanding leaders of high importance in the guerrillas and intelligence operatives. According to the GAO report, “before 2004, the Colombian military had no ability to conduct joint operations by special forces”, stressing the dependence on resources and counsel from the US that engages in the work of this command, including its leadership, in operations of the importance of Operation Jaque.
Both the results of the mobile brigades, and Joint Task Force Omega and Special Joint Command are assumed by the US military as “high value” because of the number of dead guerrilla members and the number of detentions or defections achieved in the areas where they operate. While the Colombian government reported, in February 2008, results of more than 1,000 guerrillas captured, 100 dead and 400 demobilized, Caquetá civil organizations have denounced the increase in arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial executions in that department.
Operations in rivers and coasts
Recognizing the potential of the navigable rivers of the country for any kind of armed or commercial operation, including the circulation of narcotics, Plan Colombia has included expenses of USD 89 million to equip and strengthen the Navy in operations of public order and seizure of narcotics. The US government investments have included the passage of ships, interceptor boats, aircraft, weapons, fuel, night vision devices, engines and communications equipment into the hands of the Navy, as well as the instruction and infrastructure necessary for a special intelligence unit at the base of Cartagena.
However, the GAO report notes that these efforts have had only a portion of the expected results, when it is estimated that 40% of the cocaine coming out of Colombia is transported by a network of navigable rivers of at least 12,800 km, 60% of which they expect to cover in 2010.
Ineffective spraying
The glyphosate spraying program of the National Police began in the early 90s to reduce the cultivation of coca and poppy. Between 2000 and 2008, Plan Colombia has spent about USD 458 million on 26 helicopters and 4 planes for spraying, as well as the purchase of fuel and spare parts, the mixture herbicide from Monsanto and the payment of a large number of contractors from companies like Dyncorp, noted internationally for human rights violations.
Nevertheless, the relocation of major crops to mountain areas of difficult access and paramilitary control, like the Knot of Paramillo, which are not included in the fumigation routes, have decreased the results of aerial spraying. While aircraft pass spreading their poisonous loads on subsistence crops, animals and people, polluting water sources and causing congenital diseases among residents, farmers have come up with a number of strategies to reduce the impact of the fumigations.
The CODHES researcher points out:
They have made terrible and ineffective fumigations, the more is sprayed the more grows. If you want to address the issue of illicit crops, one must diffuse three phenomena: drug trafficking, armed groups and the social crisis of the peasantry. For now, there is a very strong war against guerrillas and it has led to the spraying, affecting the peasant producer more, but there is no plan to combat paramilitarism and, moreover, there is no solution for this peasantry. The peasantry is exploited by armed groups and drug traffickers just because of their poverty. So the question to ask is: who is responsible for the peasantry turning to illicit crops?
On the other hand, the manual eradication program handled by the Police has not yielded what it expected. In 2007, 55,000 hectares were eradicated in this way and it is expected that this year the figure would come to 100,000 hectares, but until now we can talk about figures close to this goal. The budget cuts approved by the US Congress in 2008 reduced funding for aerial spraying, which handles a goal of 130,000 hectares sprayed this year, and there is great concern among military officials of the US Embassy surrounding the inability of the manual eradication program to access the areas of highest cultivation.
The Aviation Service of the National Police of Colombia (ARAVI) is the largest police aircraft fleet in Latin America. To establish it has cost more than USD 463 million, with 58 operating helicopters and 13 aircraft used in combat tasks, personnel transport, intelligence and air support to aerial and manual eradication. Currently, all of the pilots and gunners of Aravi are Colombians, but most of the technical and maintenance staff required by the program, including 70% of its operating budget, depends on funding from the Department of State.
Furthermore, more than USD 153 million has been used in the modernization of the police and training two special bodies: the ‘jungle’ commands and the riflemen. For the ‘jungle’ commands, more than 500 men have been trained and equipped to form three units in Bogotá, Santa Marta and Tuluá, being considered by the US embassy as one of the most effective and best equipped commanding bodies in Latin American, being responsible for the seizure of more than half of the cocaine captured between 2006 and 2007.
The riflemen are police squads specialized to be present in disputed areas with the guerrillas to take the ultimate control in urban areas, after the ‘cleansing’ operations of the Army. To make up the 68 police squads more than USD 92 million have been used from Plan Colombia since 2000.
According to the GAO report, none of the programs of the National Police has immediate opportunities for ‘nationalization’ and many of them are directly dependent on US funding to keep running, even after 2013. A cut in this area would primarily weaken the Democratic Security policy of the Uribe government, leading to the failure of several of its flagship programs.
“The ‘humanitarian’ component of Plan Colombia is a lie”
The GAO report notes that the departments of Justice and State of that country, along with the aid agency USAID, have spent USD 1.3 million in the formulation of the non-military component of Plan Colombia between 2000 and 2007. This budget has mainly been applied in two strategies: the first, to “promote economic and social development,” and the other, to “promote compliance with the law.”
In its analysis, the GAO notes with concern the few impacts that programs within these strategies have had on the production of cocaine and coca leaf cultivation in Colombia, and calls on the US Congress to review the actual possibilities for institutions responsible for implementing the non-military part of a strategy that, in mid-term, achieves the Colombian authorities taking over their control and financing.
Berenice Celite, member of the Association for Research and Social Action Nomadesc, states:
These programs are a total failure: what is sought within them is the immobilization of certain social sectors so that they won’t protest and claim their rights. These are projects where a lot of money is distributed and it remains to be seen how much of that money is used in corruption. Structural problems can not be solved with a warm wet cloth, that’s why the ‘humanitarian’ component of Plan Colombia is a lie.
The country of tropical fruits
The development initially promulgated by the social strategy of Plan Colombia never achieved a resounding success in foreseeing that the peasants, impoverished by the lack of opportunities and an agricultural model defined by the concentration of land in the hands of the few for its agroindustrial exploitation, would obtain crops with high economic returns to alleviate the economic crisis which led farmers to illicit crops. Numerous alternative development projects in fruit, yucca or grains failed to sustain hundreds of families who enrolled in crop substitution programs.
Today, the high command in charge of the resources of Plan Colombia has seen fit to rethink the strategy of generating welfare programs in coca cultivation regions, also limited by the Colombian government, to draw up plans for financial investment in six geographic corridors: Western Putumayo; southwest (Nariño, Cauca, Valle); Huila and Tolima; the Coffee Belt; West (Antioquia, Chocó, Córdoba); Middle Magdalena and the Atlantic Coast, which coincide with the areas with the highest population, infrastructure and resources of the country, and several mega projects of mining and agribusiness to be fulfilled with the possible signing of the FTA.
However, the ineffectiveness of this strategy in reducing the area under cultivation, as well as the location of the axes of investment in areas far from the great centers of coca production, have put USAID in the center of a controversy that very possibly will result in budget cuts to these initiatives. The US cooperation agency, meanwhile, has asked for additional funds to finance a strategy of productive long-term intervention that, according to several experts, only serves as a warm, wet cloth for a structural problem of poverty leading farmers to illicit crops.
Romero notes that:
If you look at Putumayo, there is no solution nor any sustainable social projects. Most of these alternative development projects are a failure and what has happened to illicit crops is that they have moved to Nariño and into the jungle, that is, they have raced to areas with less control from the State and to the most environmentally vulnerable areas.
Planned Displacements
Colombia has nearly 4 million displaced persons, according to figures from CODHES, and the number is expected to continue to grow with ongoing military operations. Romero recalled that:
We denounced that the non-military component was the one that allowed the purchase of ambulances to attend to the humanitarian crisis generated by the military component: it was known that Plan Colombia would produce a contingent of displaced persons and that they had to be attended to. Then, it was recognized that displacement would be produced through international cooperation. How is it possible that the Colombian government subscribe to a plan that will develop operations which will generate displacement?
According to USAID and the State Department, about USD 247 million of Plan Colombia have been used for humanitarian aid for this population, focused on ensuring food for three months and in training programs so that displaced persons and other vulnerable groups, such as Afro-Colombians and the indigenous, are able to establish productive subsidized projects.
Furthermore, these resources are also used by social action programs such as Families in Action, questioned by the bureaucracy with which it is managed for the dependency that they have created in some communities on government aid and their inability to understand the humanitarian crisis that the country is experiencing.
Demobilization without the possibility of reintegration
The USAID-funded programs in the Colombia Plan also includes more than 32,000 demobilized of the AUC, with the Law of Justice and Peace, with a budget approaching USD 45 million. These funds have been used in the configuration of 37 centers of attention for the demobilized, where they obtain legal advice, health care services and education. In addition, a portion has been earmarked for training programs to develop productive projects that, by the nature of the proposals, do not guarantee the livelihood of these people which, together with the armed pressure and living with so-called ’emerging bands’ in certain regions, has led to the rearmament of a number of these fighters, the most optimistic estimates proposing a number of at least 3,000.
Democracy was not improved and human rights are not respected
The more than USD 158 million that have been used in the human rights program of Plan Colombia have not provided effective results in the years of implementation of the initiative. This is demonstrated by the situation of the Early Warning Systems that, despite serving more than 4,500 human rights defenders and programs for the protection of social leaders, trade unionists, journalists and mayors, has not succeeded in effective prevention nor in appropriate assistance on behalf of the authorities. It is criticized because much of the information being managed concerning protected persons has been used by paramilitaries and state security agencies to criminalize or even commit attacks against them.
Additionally, the program Houses of Justice, included in the first part of the judicial reform to decongest the courts, has not provided conclusive results: 45 of these institutions were founded and more than 2,000 facilitators have been trained with these resources and, although they have come to handle more than seven million civil cases, they have not managed to define a real decongestion of the courts and have come to delay the process or complicate its resolution, given the bureaucracy with which they are managed in some regions and the legal inability that it has in managing some complaints.
USAID and the Department of Defense also support two key programs for the strategy of ‘cleaning, maintaining and consolidating’ the Colombian government: the consolidation program of regional governance and the program of initial government response, that have managed resources of USD 25.8 million through the Center of Coordination and Integral Action (CCAI), created by the government to manage aid programs in conflict zones and to ensure that the plans implemented by the Armed Forces and Police go hand in hand with subsidies and consulting on key issues in each region, such as demobilization and desertion oriented towards members of the guerrillas.
A reform custom-made by US justice
Since the start of Plan Colombia, the Justice Department has allocated more than USD 238 million to the Colombian authorities in order to implement the new penal system and the Law of Justice and Peace.
According to analysts, the implementation of a penal system of the appearance and likeness to the US one has not been possible in our country due to the state’s inability to provide adequate conditions for the judicial branch to act with due diligence and decongest itself. In addition, the technological and financial dependence of the new hearing system on the resources provided by the US has been criticized.
Similarly, with these resources it has financed the training of more than 40,000 judges, prosecutors, investigators and medical examiners so they can bring the change to the new system, and have invested more than USD 10 million in units for Justice and Peace and Human Rights of the Office of the Attorney General of Colombia, so that they can account for the avalanche of processes created by the demobilization of the AUC. They have also provided communications infrastructure and videoconferencing hearings of paramilitary leaders, victims’ organizations having questioned why these resources for the extradited paramilitary leaders are not used.
In this scenario it is concerning that, despite the fact that the judicial reform and subsequent strengthening of the prosecution were direct impositions to finance Plan Colombia, the enforcement resources of the agreement can not be used on key issues to ensure that justice is brought to victims of crimes against humanity committed by the paramilitaries and that the military component of the plan, its principal part, is not articulated more than in a manner of assistance to its social component, an almost nonexistent part corroded by administrative corruption, politicking and military civic resource management. The situation is so telling that of 15,600 flight hours of the police scheduled with resources from Plan Colombia, none have been scheduled to transport prosecutors from Human Rights and Justice and Peace to the places where mass graves are reported or where certain murders or massacres have occurred.
The US will not leave Colombia
The Colombia Plan has not only been devised as a way to confront the Colombian war, that the US government has considered as a threat to its national security, but as a way of securing territories, resources and geographical corridors. Today, when a sensible reading of the results of nearly nine years of intervention in our country demonstrates the failure of military and social initiatives in reducing drug trafficking -the initial argument for the formulation of the plan- the incoming government to the White House impose important changes in the policy toward our country.
However, the importance of Colombia in managing military and political relations with other countries in the region, such as Ecuador and Venezuela, and the importance of its natural resources for the extraction of raw materials, mainly minerals and organics, makes it unlikely that there will be an annulment of these agreements and a respect for our national sovereignty in the plans of the Obama administration.
Romero notes:
I do not think there will be a drastic change or that the US will leave Colombia and stop the intervention. Colombia will remain a knot of contention with other countries. There is a complex geopolitics that will not change in substance, but may be nuanced with a government like Obama’s. A change can be made, above all, because Uribe’s speech can be counterproductive for themselves: to say that there has been so much success means they can already assume the subject alone, as there is a fiscal crisis in the US stemming from the financial crisis, it is likely that there will be cuts and that the Colombian government has to look for other alternatives.
__________
* Originally published in Polo newspaper.
Si encuentras un error, selecciónalo y presiona Shift + Enter o Haz clic aquí. para informarnos.
