Every time people speak about Colombia, we think about guerrilla, drug, violence,
kidnapping and extorsion…Why the word Colombia is synomyn with such iilegal
activities. We are trying to understand the major elements which made Colombia famous
for its illegal drug and guerrilla war…
1. Some background:
Spanish explorers
made the first exploration of the Caribbean littoral in 1499 led by Rodrigo de
Bastidas. Christopher Columbus navigated near the Caribbean in 1502. In 1508,
Vasco Núñez de Balboa started the conquest of the territory through the region
of Urabá. In 1513, he was the first European to discover the Pacific Ocean,
which he called Mar del Sur (or "Sea of the South") and which in fact
would bring the Spaniards to Peru and Chile.
Alonso de Lugo (who
had sailed with Columbus) reached the Guajira Peninsula in 1500. Santa Marta
was founded in 1525, and Cartagena in 1533. Gonzalo Jiminez de Quesada led an
expedition to the interior in 1535, and founded the "New City of Granada",
the name soon changed to "Santa Fé." Two other notable journeys by
Spaniards to the interior took place in the same period. Sebastian de
Belalcazar, conqueror of Quito, traveled north and founded Cali in 1536 and
Popayán in 1537; Nicolas Federman crossed the Llanos Orientales and went over
the Eastern Cordillera. The Caribbean people, whom the Spaniards conquered
through warfare and alliances, while resulting disease such as smallpox, and
the conquest and ethnic cleansing itself caused a demographic reduction among
the indigenous people.In the 16th century, Europeans began to bring slaves from
Africa.
The Spanish settled
along the north coast of today's Colombia as early as the 1500s, but their
first permanent settlement, at Santa Marta, was not established until 1525. In
1549, the institution of the Audiencia in Santa Fe de Bogotá gave that city the
status of capital of New Granada, which comprised in large part what is now
territory of Colombia. Since the
beginning of the periods of conquest and colonization, there were several rebel
movements under Spanish rule, most of them were either crushed or remained too
weak to change the overall situation. The last one which sought outright
independence from Spain sprang up around 1810, following the independence of
St. Domingue (present-day Haiti) in 1804, which provided a non-negligible
degree of support to the eventual leaders of this rebellion: Simón Bolívar and
Francisco de Paula Santander.
Colombia was the
first constitutional government in South America, and the Liberal and
Conservative parties, founded in 1848 and 1849 respectively, are two of the
oldest surviving political parties in the Americas.
Internal political
and territorial divisions led to the secession of Venezuela and Quito (today's
Ecuador) in 1830. The so-called "Department of Cundinamarca" adopted
the name "Nueva Granada", which it kept until 1856 when it became the
"Confederación Granadina" (Granadine Confederation). After a two-year
civil war in 1863, the "United States of Colombia" was created, lasting
until 1886, when the country finally became known as the Republic of Colombia.
Internal divisions remained between the bipartisan political forces,
occasionally igniting very bloody civil wars, the most significant being the
Thousand Days' War (1899–1902).
This, together with
the United States of America's intentions to influence the area (especially the
Panama Canal construction and control) led to the separation of the Department
of Panama in 1903 and the establishment of it as a nation. The United States
paid Colombia $25,000,000 in 1921, seven years after completion of the canal,
for redress of President Roosevelt's role in the creation of Panama, and
Colombia recognized Panama under the terms of the Thomson-Urrutia Treaty.
Colombia was engulfed in the Year-Long War with Peru over a territorial dispute
involving the Amazonas Department and its capital Leticia. Soon after, Colombia
achieved a relative degree of political stability, which was interrupted by a
bloody conflict that took place between the late 1940s and the early 1950s, a
period known as La Violencia ("The Violence"). Its cause was mainly
mounting tensions between the two leading political parties, which subsequently
ignited after the assassination of the Liberal presidential candidate Jorge
Eliécer Gaitán on 9 April 1948. This ensuing riots in Bogotá, known as El
Bogotazo, spread throughout the country and claimed the lives of at least
180,000 Colombians.
From 1953 to 1964 the
violence between the two political parties decreased first when Gustavo Rojas
deposed the President of Colombia in a coup d'état and negotiated with the
Guerrillas, and then under the military junta of General Gabriel París
Gordillo.
After Rojas'
deposition the Colombian Conservative Party and Colombian Liberal Party agreed
to create the "National Front", a coalition which would jointly
govern the country. Under the deal, the presidency would alternate between
conservatives and liberals every 4 years for 16 years; the two parties would
have parity in all other elective offices. The National Front ended "La
Violencia", and National Front administrations attempted to institute
far-reaching social and economic reforms in cooperation with the Alliance for
Progress. In the end, the contradictions between each successive Liberal and
Conservative administration made the results decidedly mixed. Despite the
progress in certain sectors, many social and political problems continued, and
guerrilla groups were formally created such as the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias de Colombia – Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), ELN
(Ejercito de Liberacion – National Liberation Army) and M-19 (May 19th
Movement) to fight the government and political system.
Emerging in the late
1970s, powerful and violent drug cartels further developed during the 1980s and
1990s. The Medellín Cartel under Pablo Escobar and the Cali Cartel, in
particular, exerted political, economic and social influence in Colombia during
this period. These cartels also financed and influenced different illegal armed
groups throughout the political spectrum. Some enemies of these allied with the
guerrillas and created or influenced paramilitary groups.
The new Colombian
Constitution of 1991, ratified after being drafted by the Constituent Assembly
of Colombia, included key provisions on political, ethnic, human and gender
rights. The new constitution initially prohibited the extradition of Colombian
nationals, causing accusations that drug cartels had successfully lobbied for
the provision; extradition resumed in 1996 after the provision was repealed.
The cartels had previously promoted a violent campaign against extradition,
leading to many terrorist attacks and mafia-style executions. They also tried
to influence the government and political structure of Colombia through
corruption, as in the case of the 8000 Process scandal.
Since the
promulgation of the Constitution of 1991 and the reforms made, the country has
continued to be plagued by the effects of the drug trade, guerrilla
insurgencies like FARC, and paramilitary groups such as the AUC, which along
with other minor factions have engaged in a bloody internal armed conflict.
President Andrés Pastrana and the FARC attempted to negotiate a solution to the
conflict between 1999 and 2002. The government set up a
"demilitarized" zone, but repeated tensions and crises led the
Pastrana administration to conclude that the negotiations were ineffectual.
Pastrana also began to implement the Plan Colombia initiative, with the dual
goal of ending the armed conflict and promoting a strong anti-narcotic strategy.
During the presidency of Álvaro Uribe, the government applied more military
pressure on the FARC and other outlawed groups. After the offensive, supported
by aid from the United States, many security indicators improved. Reported
kidnappings showed a steep decrease (from 3,700 in 2000 to 172 in 2009
(Jan.-Oct.)) as did intentional homicides (from 28,837 in 2002 to 15,817 in
2009, according to police, while the health system reported a decline from
28,534 to 17,717 during the same period). The rate of abductions declined
steadily for almost a decade until 2010, when 280 cases were reported between
January and October, most concentrated in the Medellín area. According to
official statistics from the Colombian Army FARC-EP had a total of 18,000
members as of December 2010, with 9,000 of them being regular guerrillas and
the rest armed militia members operating in civilian clothing in cities and
villages. Independent researchers speaking to Time Magazine claimed that the
FARC-EP have 30,000 such militia members in 2011, indicating a shift in rebel
strategy. ELN are estimated to have between 2900 and 5000 members as of 2010.
While rural areas and jungles remained dangerous, the overall reduction of
violence led to the growth of internal travel and tourism.
The 2006–2007
Colombian parapolitics scandal emerged from the revelations and judicial
implications of past and present links between paramilitary groups, mainly the
AUC, and some government officials and many politicians, mostly allied to the
governing administration. [2]
2. Drug war and Guerrilla war
During the 1980s, the FARC kidnapped, and in
some cases killed, numerous landlords in Colombia's north-central Magdalena
Medio region. One of those killed was Carlos Castano's father. After their
father's death, Castano and several of his brothers signed on as guides for the
Colombian army's Bombona Battalion, XIV Brigade, which armed and trained the
first civilian autodefensas, or "self-defense" groups. Funded by
large landowners and cattle ranchers, the autodefensas became today's
paramilitaries. The Colombian Army openly armed and trained paramilitary groups
until 1989, when the government banned them due to their ties with drug
traffickers. Ties between the Army and the paramilitaries, however, have not
been severed completely.
It was Carlos Castano's brother Fidel who
turned the "self-defense" groups into a counterinsurgency force. He
also helped build the link between paramilitaries and drug traffickers. In
1985, Fidel Castano met Pablo Escobar, leader of the Medellin drug cartel.
Escobar in turn introduced Fidel Castano to Jose Rodriguez Gacha, a drug
trafficker himself, fierce anti-communist, and leader of the cartel's military
operations in Magdalena Medio. Together the two began a campaign of terror
against the peasants, the guerrillas, and the government. The Colombian
government would eventually accuse them of massacres and political
assassinations (including those of two leftist presidential candidates). In
April 1990, the authorities found six mass graves on two of Fidel Castano's
ranches outside Medellin. They contained a total of 26 bodies, many of them
showing signs of torture. Officials said there might be as many as 100 people
buried on the paramilitary leader's 250,000 acres.
Sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison
for the 1988 massacre of 17 banana-union workers, Fidel Castano remained a
wanted man until his 1994 disappearance during an arms-gathering excursion to
neighboring Panama. After his brother's disappearance, Carlos Castano
officially took over the leadership of the paramilitary forces and its death
squads, giving them the name United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). It
has been under Carlos Castano's command that the AUC has expanded beyond the
cradle of Magdalena Medio and into Colombia's northern provinces. The
paramilitaries now dominate the border zones with Panama and Venezuela, where
most drug trafficking takes place. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, in 1998
testimony before Congress, linked Castano to "the most significant cocaine
traffickers in Colombia today," the Henao-Montoya brothers, and identified
him as "a major cocaine trafficker in his own right." In a recent
interview with Colombian television, Carlos Castano announced that "drug
traffickers and drug trafficking'' finance up to 70% of the AUC's activities. After the
demobilization of the AUC the country has seen the rise of at least six new
armed paramilitary groups, such as Los Rastrojos and Los Urabeños. These groups
are thought to number some 13,000 members as of 2011, and they have been
accused of widespread land theft, murder and drug trafficking.
3. Why Colombia matters the United State?
Colombia’s importance to U.S. national interests
cannot be overstated. Its 43 million people and location astride two oceans make
it geopolitically significant. It is the fifth largest trading partner in Latin
America for the United States, with two-way trade exceeding US $11 billion
annually. Direct U.S. investment in Colombia exceeds
$4 billion. Colombia is the tenth largest supplier of
oil to the United States and could rise in that ranking if petroleum extraction
could be conducted in a more secure environment. An estimated 2.5 million Colombians
live in the United States, and more come every day,
including some of the country’s most talented people.
From the context of the post-September 11, 2001,
heightened security consciousness, Colombia’s internal problems represent a formidable
international threat. Colombia provides some 90 percent of the cocaine entering
the United States and produces 70 percent of the world’s total. Illegal drug
use kills some 50,000 persons each year in the United States. The costs of
health care, accidents, policing, and lost productivity related
to addiction and crime reached $160 billion in 2000.
Illegal drugs are one of the main causes for the swelling prison population in
the United States and the serious crime problem among communities. A
permanently addicted population is an enormous social and economic burden. The
Colombian crisis occurs within the context of a broader Latin
American crisis of authority, governance, and legitimacy.
Economies are declining, with unemployment at politically unsustainable levels.
Latin America’s deterioration has five critical
implications for the U.S. strategic position:
First, U.S. investments
and exports to the region will decline in the face of shrinking markets.
Second, Latin America (notably Venezuela and Mexico) once provided a
large amount of U.S. energy imports, but the political
polarization in Venezuela between the supporters of President Hugo Chávez (who
preaches a combination of anti-American nationalism, populism, and class
warfare). Second the political
opposition led to the
interruption of the flow of petroleum in the winter of
2002-03 from what was once the United States’ most secure source. Third, the support of Latin American
countries is fundamental to the United States over a spectrum of transnational
issues that affect the health and security of U.S. society: illegal drugs,
terrorism, international crime, contraband, global warming, environmental
degradation, and dealing with contagious diseases. Fourth, the deterioration of socioeconomic conditions and citizen
insecurity accelerates illegal migration to the United States.
Fifth, the delegitimation
of democracy in Latin America could become a strategic defeat for the influence
of U.S. principles around the globe, from human rights to democracy to free
trade.
A two-party system, Liberals versus
Conservatives, has dominated political life since independence, with few
legitimate leftist alternatives, including having a weak Communist Party. These
are reasons for the emergence of a militarized left, composed of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de
Colombia — FARC), the National Liberation Army
(Ejército de Liberación Nacional — ELN), and smaller offshoots. They are the oldest
guerrilla groups in the world and are self-sustaining by virtue of internal
sanctuaries and income from drug trafficking, extortion, and kidnapping. Unlike
the rest of Latin America, Colombia, until recently, always stood out for its
consistently solid economic performance. Moreover, the military has been
subordinated to civilian authority, though, as will be discussed later, at a
significant cost for civil-military relations and national defense. Colombia
also experienced the national trauma of La Violencia, an undeclared civil war
that began in 1948 and killed an estimated 200,000 people in the next 10 years.
This searing experience led to the National Front Agreement of 1957, by which
the two parties agreed to alternate the presidency and apportion political
power.
An estimated 40 percent of the national territory is not controlled by the government,
both in rural and urban areas. The problem becomes
more severe because neighboring states — Panama, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador,
and Peru — do not exercise sovereign control over their own borders with
Colombia (though Ecuador does much better than the others). These defects are
at the heart of Colombia’s impact on international order and the policy
dilemmas they pose for the United States, Latin American countries, and
European states.
In mid- 2002, Colombia’s military had only
60,000-80,000 soldiers available for combat against the FARC, ELN, and AUC; to
protect the electrical infrastructure, roads and communications, and oil and
gas pipelines (5,000 critical points) from sabotage by these insurgent groups;
and to patrol 18,000 kilometers of roads and rivers. The rest of the troops
were in support roles or in training. Additionally, 6,242 districts needed
military presence, but only 980 had it, while the AUC, FARC, and ELN were
present in some 5,300 districts. Military resources were concentrated in zones
of higher population density and greater economic activity.
Lack of Civilian
Ability to Oversee the Military. Another debility is that Colombia civilian
authorities lack the experience of working with the military in integrating
strategy, intelligence, and operations — a costly deficiency for a society at
war for so long. For a long time civilian leaders have held the attitude that
the military can be left to
itself to take care of national defense, doing so
without the civilians establishing clear expectations, providing the strategic
guidance, and holding military commanders accountable.
Minimal Defense
Budget. The defense budget,
which includes the police (the police are part of the Ministry of Defense),
increased from $2.965 billion to $3.256 billion in 2001, still a small 3.5
percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) for a nation at war.
Colombia’s judicial system is weak and dysfunctional,
with 95 to 98 percent of crimes committed going unpunished. This amazing
statistic is true, despite the fact that Colombia’s allocation is the second
highest percentage of a national budget to its judicial system 15 in Latin
America: 4.5 percent in the late 1990s. On a per capita basis,
it employs one of the highest numbers of judges of any
democracy, 17.1 per 100,000 people. In comparison, the United States employs
two and Spain three judges for the same number of citizens.
The state does not exercise control over an estimated
40 percent of the national territory, precisely the areas where illegal drugs
are cultivated and where the FARC, ELN, the AUC, and the narcotraffickers are
active, in a sense filling the void with de facto
administrative systems in place of the state. This is
especially true of the northwestern areas of Urabá and Chocó as well as those
of eastern and southeastern Colombia, the lightly populated departments of Arauca,
Guaviare, Meta, Guainía, Caquetá, Vaupés, Vichada, and Putumayo, parts of which
make up the llanos (plains) of the Amazon
Basin, where permanent habitation is difficult and the
presence of the state is minimal.
The tax collection system
is complex, repressive,
inequitable, and suffers from extensive evasion. The following statistics are
eloquent. The government collects half of its budget in taxes and finances the
rest. Eight tax reforms in the 1990s increased collections by a mere 3 percent.
In a country of 43 million, 4,500 large tax contributors account for 90 percent
of the income tax. Only 10 percent of the population pays taxes of any kind. In
some regions, such as La 19 Guajira, contraband accounts for 60 percent of the
economy. Upon taking office, President Uribe declared a state of emergency in
the nation and imposed a new tax on wealthier citizens and businesses. The new
tax of 1.2 percent affected those with $65,000 of liquid assets. An estimated
400,000 people would qualify for the tax, raising approximately $800 million
for the defense budget.
The Colombian
conflict is generated by a
complex mix of historical contention over land ownership, common criminality,
narcotics related crime, and insurgency (FARC and ELN) that once had an
ideological foundation but now has been corrupted by money
from narcotics, kidnapping, and extortion, as well as
the AUC paramilitary response.
Operation ORION: Retaking Comuna
Trece in Medellín. Medellín’s Comuna Trece slum neighborhoods are home to
129,000 people. For 10 years, until October 2002, it was a stronghold of the
FARC and ELN, which terrorized, extorted, kidnapped, and murdered with
impunity. Evidence of the lack of government control was the fact that the AUC
itself had penetrated about 70 percent of the other slum areas of the city,
doing so with the support of some 400 armed gangs numbering 10,000. On October
16, 2002, Uribe ordered 3,000 troops backed by helicopters to retake the area.
Instead of pulling
out quickly, the military stayed for days,
establishing a sense of permanent security, followed by the reinsertion of the
police and the construction of two military posts. Operation ORION resulted in
18 dead, 34 wounded, 250 arrests, and the freeing of 20 kidnap victims.
Understanding the nature of the conflict is key to
understanding the evolving response of the United States. The strategic
imperative and the kind of assistance changed radically with the inception of
the “drug war” in 1989 and the mandate given to the U.S. military to take on a
counternarcotics mission, followed soon by the intensification of the security
problem in Colombia. By 1997-98, the United States had spent nearly a decade of
effort
in Peru and Bolivia to reduce coca production and
shipment. The strategic breakthrough came in the mid-1990s through the combined
application of interdiction, eradication (voluntary and forced by means of
aerial spraying of glyphosate, commercially known as
Roundup), and the implementation of alternative crop
production (called alternative development) for peasants who lost out by no
longer being able to produce coca.
The main elements of the original U.S. aid package are
critical to understand because Plan Colombia
has not been an easy sell, due to misinformation and plain lack of information.
Moreover, the allocations demonstrate that this was not merely a narrow
military assistance program, contrary to criticism both in the United States
and abroad:
1. Support for human rights and judicial reform — $122
million.
2. Expansion of counternarcotics operations in
Southern Colombia — $390.5 million (for helicopters, humanitarian assistance,
and development assistance).
3. Alternative economic development — $81 million for
Colombia, $85 million for Bolivia, and $8 million for Ecuador.
4. Increased interdiction efforts — $129.4 million.
5. Assistance for the Colombian police — $115.6
million
4. The Colombian Cartels
In
order to launder the incoming money of the trafficking operations, the Cali
cartel heavily invested its funds into legitimate business ventures as well as
front companies to mask the money through. In 1996 it was believed the Cartel
was grossing $7 billion in annual revenue from the US alone.
With
the influx of cash comes the need to launder the funds. One of the first
instances of the Cali Cartel laundering operations came when Gilberto Rodriguez
Orejuela was able to secure the position of Chairman of the Board, of Banco de
Trabajadores. The bank was believed to be used to launder funds for the Cali
cartel, as well as Pablo Escobars' Medellín Cartel. Cartel members were
permitted, through their affiliation with Gilberto, to overdraft accounts and
take out loans without repayment.
Capitalizing
off of this basis, Gilberto was able to found the First InterAmericas Bank operating out of Panama. In an interview
with Time magazine, Gilberto admitted to money being laundered through the
bank, however attributed the process to only legal actions. The laundering,
which Gilberto states was "in accordance with Panamanian law", is
what led to the US authorities pursuing him. Gilberto later started the Grupo
Radial Colombiano, a network of over 30 radio stations and a pharmaceutical chain
named Drogas la Rebaja, which at its height amassed over 400 stores in 28
cities, employing 4200. The pharmaceutical chains value was estimated at $216
million. The leader was eventually
tracked down. Gilberto Orejuela was arrested in the mid-1990s and are currently
serving 10 to 15 year prison terms. Many experts believe they actually worked
out an arrangement with the Colombian government under similar terms to the
Ochoas, that they would not be extradited to a US prison cell. DEA agents
believe they are still running their empire from their prison cells
The
astounding profits attracted an interesting mix of characters into the
business. Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha had roots in Colombia's somewhat murky
emerald trade. The Ochoa brothers were from a well respected ranching and
horsing family. And the violent leader, Pablo Escobar, was a common street
thief who masterminded the criminal enterprise that became known as the
Medellin cartel. The men from Medellin joined together with a young marijuana
smuggler named Carlos Lehder, who convinced the leaders that they could fly
cocaine in small airplanes directly into the United States, avoiding the need
for countless suitcase trips. During the 1980's, the cartel revolted against
the government's threats to extradite the traffickers to the United States.
Pablo Escobar is thought to be responsible for the murder of hundreds of
government officials, police, prosecutors, judges, journalists and innocent
bystanders.
The
cartel began to self-destruct as the violence and power grew. Rodriguez Gacha
was eventually gunned down by the Colombian police. Jorge, Juan David and Fabio
Ochoa turned themselves into the Colombian government in the early 1990s in
exchange for lenient prison terms. And Pablo Escobar was hunted down and killed
by the Colombian police after a long series of battles.
5.
Drug trafficking and transportation [11]
At some
point after the arrests of these confidential sources [the informants] in
Colombia, the DEA Office in Bogotá claimed that it was unaware that the Confidential
Sources would be traveling from Colombia to the United States with a sample of
the acrylic substance containing cocaine. The acrylic containing the narcotics
could be molded into any form and any color. The Colombian narco-trafficking
organization was said to be producing acrylic containing narcotics in the form
of key chains, lamps, picture frames and shower doors. The large quantities and
the growing appetite for cocaine in the United States led to huge profits,
which the cartel began re-investing into more sophisticated labs, better
airplanes and even an island in the Caribbean where the planes could refuel. Traffickers
today have enough capital under their control to build sophisticated smuggling
equipment, such as a high tech submarine that was recently discovered by the
Colombian National Police. Colombian cocaine traffickers had hired engineering
experts from Russia and the United States to help with the design of the
submarine, which apparently would have been used to secretly ship large quantities
of cocaine to the United States.
Ecuadorian
authorities, with U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) assistance,
recently seized a small submarine built for the purpose of transporting
narcotics. A DEA official stated that the submarine likely cost $4 million to
build and was capable of hauling 6 to 10 metric tons of cocaine per trip. The
submarine was likely built to bypass Central America and deliver cocaine
directly to Mexico or even the United States. Measuring nearly 100 feet long
and 10 feet high, while containing air conditioning, the submarine represents
one of the most impressive means of moving narcotics discovered to date.
6.
Impact of Colombian Drug [13]
Since
the 1970's, Colombia has been home to some of the most violent and
sophisticated drug trafficking organizations in the world. What started as a
small cocaine smuggling business has, in the last thirty years, blossomed into
an enormous multi-national cocaine empire. Traffickers started out with much
more modest goals. In the mid-1970s, marijuana traffickers in Colombia began
exporting small quantities of cocaine to the United States hidden in suitcases.
At that point, cocaine could be processed for $1500/kilo in jungle labs and
could be sold on the streets of America for as much as $50,000/kilo.
However,
imagine for a moment that it hadn’t had to be that way. Imagine a peaceful
Colombia, free of cocaine, free of Pablo Escobars, Carlos Castaños and Manuel
Marulandas (the beauty of that thought is so painful that it makes me want to
stop fantasizing). Imagine, for example, that due to some mystery of fate,
Colombia’s soil had proven totally incapable of growing marijuana and coca
plants. Or, even better, imagine that the easy-money culture that comes with
drug trafficking had never taken hold of the Colombian people. Just for one
second, imagine.
For
decades now, Colombia has been a main battleground of the international war on
drugs. The world’s top cocaine producer, Colombia has fought bravely and
tirelessly to reduce drug production. There is no other country that has seen
more of its citizens die in the battle against cocaine: since 1990 there have
been 450,000 homicides in Colombia; in Mexico, another front of the war on
drugs but with more than double the number of inhabitants, homicides in that
same period amount to 220,000. For sure, cocaine has made Colombia bleed. But
the costs of the drug war go well beyond the number of casualties. The tragedy of
the many Colombians who have been internally displaced since the 1980s has no
parallel in the Western Hemisphere. Between 2.5 and 4 million people (there is
debate over the exact number) have left their hometowns in the search for
safety. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of forest acres have been cut
down to grow coca and build camps for the production of cocaine. For every
cultivated hectare (2.5 acres) of coca, around three hectares of forest are
destroyed – and last year alone the UN found 81,000 hectares of coca inside the
country. It will take time for Colombians to realize the depth of the
environmental impact that drug production has had on their country.
So the
country survived and improved to a large degree, but that transformation came
at a high price. In the past five years, annual defense spending has been
equivalent to 5.3% of the economy (between US$11 and 12 billion). In contrast,
the average South American country spends the equivalent of 1.7% of GDP on its
defense budget. Looking in the books, you will find that between 1988 and 1995
Colombia never spent more than 2.5% of GDP on defense, and the figure in the
late 1990s rose to a maximum of 3.3% of the economy. It is not hard to conclude
that if Colombia were the average South American country with no drug war to
fight, the government would not need to spend such a large amount of public
funds on defense. That means that if Colombia had around 20 (and not its
current 36) homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, almost no coca plants to eradicate,
no insurgencies, and no cocaine to export, the government could make budget
savings amounting to 3.6% of GDP, or about US$9 billion! I bet the government
could erase the fiscal deficit with that. From year 2000 the Colombian military
claims that Plan Patriota has reduced FARC ranks from 18,000 to 12,000 in the
past year. Information provided by the Office of the Colombian President
reports that the campaign was able to take back control of 11 FARC-run
villages, destroy more than 400 FARC camps, capture 1,534 explosive devices and
323 gas-cylinder bombs, kill 2,518 combatants, and capture large
amounts
of ammunition and weapons. Most observers agree that public safety conditions
in Colombia have improved. Police have been redeployed to areas from which they
had
been
previously ousted by armed groups, and now have a presence in every
municipality. A greater security presence has significantly given Colombians
more confidence to travel by road. The Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the
House International Relations Committee held hearings on the topic on November
18, 2004. Rates of cocaine abuse have increased in Europe, yet critics argue
that Europe has not provided sufficient levels of assistance. The Colombian
Agency for International Cooperation reported that the European Union and its
member states spent about $120 million in Colombia in 2003. At a February 3-4,
2005 international donors conference held in Cartegena, Colombia, attended by
the United States, Europe, Japan, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico,
the Colombian government presented its demobilization plan and the need for
international support. It is estimated that the AUC demobilization will cost
about $160 million. Donors expressed support for the demobilization process,
but insisted that Colombia adopt a legal framework that ensures demobilized
fighters are prosecuted for crimes, citing the need for “truth, justice, and
reparations,” before aid would be committed.
As long as Colombia
remains at the center of the war against drugs, the country will keep paying a
high price for its security. While a peace accord is not impossible, one will
not come easily. Colombians from many different walks of life are, under delicate
circumstances, working toward this end. The country needs bolstered efforts to
replace coca with other crops, economic aid and development, and above all
peace. The United States' devotion to its time-honored counterinsurgency
strategy, however, is not helping matters-and threatens to destabilize a region
already burdened by economic and civil strife.
For now
the drug goes on, its cost keep growing and other societies is getting worst….
Phuc Nguyen
References:
1.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2001/04/Helping-Colombia-Fix-Its-Plan
-Helping Colombia Fix Its Plan to Curb Drug Trafficking, Violence, and
Insurgency. By Stephen Johnson
April 26, 2001
April 26, 2001
2. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/South_America/Paramilitaries_Colombia.html.
THE "DRUG WAR" AND THE GUERRILLA WAR. Paramilitaries, Drug
Trafficking
and U.S. Policy in Colombia by Samia Montalvo
3. Inside Colombia – History of Rev Armed Force in
Colombia (RAFC) -
http://books.google.com/books?id=cOU0bvG8ZGwC&pg=PA180&dq=farc+colombia+founded&cd=12&hl=en#v=onepage&q=farc%20colombia%20founded&f=false
4.
Inside Colombia – Book – Drug, Democracy and War by
Grace Livingstone
5.
http://narconews.com/Issue53/article3099.html - Money Laundering &
Murder in Colombia: Official Documents Point to DEA Complicity Kent Memo’s
Corruption Allegations Bolstered by FOIA Records, Leaked U.S. Embassy Teletype.
6.
http://www.cjpf.org/drug/prospectsforpeace.pdf - plan Colombia
7.
http://csis.org/blog/ecuador-seizes-drug-trafficking-submarine
8.
http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/cngrtest/ct031302.html
9.
http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/pressrel/pr113005a.html
10. Cali
Cartel money Laundering by Wikipedia
11. The
United State and Colombia: The Journey from Ambiguity to Strategic Clarity
12.
http://colombiareports.com/opinion/131-gustavo-silva-cano/7824-the-price-of-colombias-drug-war.html.
13.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/business/inside/colombian.
Congressional Research Service – Plan Colombia :
A Progress Report by Connie Veillette June 22 , 2005
