The marriage of communist insurgency and drug
trafficking in Colombia, the world's largest producer of coca leaf
and cocaine, has elevated a decades-old civil conflict into a
dangerous war that now threatens stability in Latin America. It
also endangers vital U.S. interests in the region, including the
war on drugs.
Colombia produces 80 percent of the
cocaine and two-thirds of the heroin making its way into the United
States. 1 According to the Colombian Finance Ministry,
the illegal trade brings in between $3 billion and $5 billion a
year, making it Colombia's top export earner. 2 The
amount of land in Colombia devoted to the cultivation of coca--the
raw material for cocaine--increased in 1998 alone by 28 percent,
according to General Barry McCaffrey, head of the White House
Office of National Drug Control Policy. 3
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the
United States worked closely with the Colombian police and
military. In 1993, however, the Clinton Administration sharply
reduced military aid to the Colombian army because of its poor
record on human rights. Meanwhile, the Administration insisted that
Colombia step up its drug interdiction efforts and, from 1995 to
1998, imposed economic sanctions on Colombia, a policy which
undermined U.S. relations with Colombia as well as with other Latin
America countries.
Since the election in 1998 of Colombian
President Andres Pastrana, the Clinton Administration has increased
U.S. anti-drug aid to Colombia, from $100 million in 1997 to $289
million. Moreover, President Clinton recently announced that he
will increase U.S. military aid to Colombia to step up efforts to
fight the drug traffickers. 4 He also endorsed
Pastrana's plan to eradicate the drug trade through alternative
crop development programs financed by the United States and other
countries.
The
wisdom of these decisions is questionable. Colombia is perilously
close to internal collapse, in which case it could well become a
Balkan-type problem for the United States. The balkanization of
Colombia into politically and socially unstable mini-states--with
much of the North controlled by paramilitary groups and drug
traffickers, the South controlled by Marxist rebels, and the
government hanging on to the urban central region that includes the
important cities of Bogota, Medellin, and Cali--would contribute to
a tremendous explosion in the illegal narcotics trade.
The
United States should help the Colombian government end its civil
turmoil peacefully and terminate the illicit drug trade. It should
also help the Pastrana government disarm the paramilitary groups
and encourage it to stop the systematic human rights abuses
reportedly committed by members of Colombia's armed forces.
These goals are consistent with U.S.
foreign policy objectives of expanding free trade, consolidating
democracy, and eradicating the illegal drug trade in Latin America;
greater direct U.S. military involvement in Colombia's civil war,
however, is not. In addition, in January 1999, one of the rebel
organizations announced that all U.S. military and law enforcement
personnel in Colombia would be considered legitimate targets to be
killed or captured. 5 Furthermore, "If they are in army
or police barracks and there is a fight, we will confront them,
rebel leader Raul Reyes said." 6
Congress must know how the Administration
intends to react if peace talks between the government and the
rebels break down and U.S. military advisers are targeted. Before
obligating U.S. troops to become involved directly in fighting
Colombia's drug problems and civil war, President Clinton should
establish clear contingency plans to safeguard the lives of U.S.
military personnel in case Pastrana's peace plan fails.
For
its part, before agreeing to increase U.S. military aid to
Colombia, Congress should:
-
Initiate a
comprehensive review of U.S. drug policy in Latin America;
-
Abolish the
ineffective and politically damaging drug certification
process;
-
Set specific limits on
U.S. military aid to Colombia;
-
Ensure that U.S.
troops do not become involved in fighting Colombia's civil war by
limiting the number of U.S. military advisers and monitoring how
the military aid is spent;
-
Manage the
drug-related insurgency as a law enforcement problem;
-
Implement a serious
anti-drug assistance program, building on the one-year, $289
million anti-drug package that Colombia received in October
1998;
-
Agree to help train
and equip a professional Colombian army; and
-
Seek a multilateral
approach to managing the Colombian crisis.
COLOMBIA'S PEACE PLAN
The
centerpiece of President Pastrana's strategy to end the civil war,
repair the economy, and terminate the drug trade is a negotiated
peace pact with the Marxist rebels who are now involved in drug
trafficking. Pastrana maintains that after a peace pact is signed,
these "narco-rebels" will help wipe out the drug trade in areas
they control.
As
part of his "Plan Colombia," Pastrana agreed to give control of a
large area of Colombia to the rebels and to fund large-scale
agriculture and infrastructure development programs to substitute
food crops for coca and opium poppies. Currently, the Colombian
government estimates that this crop effort will cost up to $4
billion overall. Most of the money is to come from the United
States, other unspecified countries, and multilateral
organizations.
There are at least three reasons why
Pastrana's peace plan is not likely to succeed.
-
First, the Colombian
government has been unable to counter the growing involvement of
Marxist insurgents in drug trafficking, and the Colombian army has
been unable to defeat the rebels in battle. Moreover, the rebels
have little incentive to abide by a peace agreement because they
believe they hold the upper hand.
-
Second, by making
major concessions to the "narco-rebels," Pastrana is conferring
political status and an implicit legitimacy on their efforts.
-
Third, even if the
peace talks succeed, the illicit drug trade that funds the rebels'
activities is unlikely to be deterred significantly. Even if the
rebels decide to curtail drug operations in their areas, the
traffickers will simply move their operations.
Clearly, President Clinton should not have
endorsed this plan.
Flaws in Colombia's Peace Plan
After 34 years of fighting the Colombian
government, the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) now control
nearly half of Colombia's territory. Over 38,000 Colombians have
been killed in the civil war, and between 1 million and 2 million
have been displaced.
President Pastrana has stated that he
wishes to end the violence and unite the country. He maintains that
the rebels are not seeking permanent control of any part of
Colombia's territory, but instead, once a peace pact is signed,
will join the government's fight against drug trafficking.
However, the prospects for a peace accord
are poor. FARC leaders say their goal is to establish political
control over as much of Colombia as they can capture in order to
install a Marxist Socialist regime. 7 They will have to
fight paramilitary groups to do this. Carlos Castano, who heads the
largest and most violent paramilitary organization in Colombia,
warned Pastrana that the paramilitaries "do not share the concept
of peace at any price because we consider it dangerous for the
existence of the nation and its institutions." 8
When
the official peace talks began on January 7, 1999, the FARC
demanded "sweeping changes in State bodies," blamed the United
States for the political violence that started in 1964, verbally
attacked the International Monetary Fund, and called for a new
constitutional assembly to replace the constitution approved in
1991. It also demanded that the government increase the
demilitarized area under its control to include five more
municipalities, 9 that some 500 imprisoned guerrillas be
freed, and that all aerial spraying of illegal drug crops inside
the demilitarized area be halted immediately.
FARC
commander Manuel Marulanda Velez even demanded that the government
recognize the FARC as a military force. The FARC wants a new
military doctrine based on the defense of Colombia's borders, a
reduction in the size of Colombia's armed forces, and greater
respect for human rights. It has called for revision of Colombia's
military treaties, a ten-year moratorium on Colombia's foreign
debt, and a drug "solution" that targets demand in the United
States and other large consumer countries rather than interdiction
of supply and production in Colombia. 10
|
Who Are the
Rebels?
On April 8, 1998, U.S. Marine Corps General Charles Wilhelm of
the U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) warned that Colombia's armed
forces are incapable of defeating Marxist guerrillas in the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National
Liberation Army (ELN)1. Three days later, the FARC high
command issued a communiqué urging "all revolutionary"
forces to unite and fight U.S. involvement in Colombia and stating
that "the open meddling of the empire [the United States] in
Colombia's internal affairs fully justifies the armed revolutionary
struggle."2
The FARC was established in 1966 as the military wing of the
Colombian communist party. The smaller ELN began in the 1960s and
was inspired by Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba. For more than
three decades, these rebels sought to establish a Marxist Colombian
state by force of arms. Until the 1980s, the FARC had fewer than
1,000 guerrillas, but over the past decade, it has grown to over
15,000 well-armed guerrillas. The ELN now boasts about 5,000
guerrillas.
Both the largest concentrations of FARC guerrillas and the
biggest expanse of coca fields in Colombia are located within a
regional triangle in southern Colombia. The FARC controls about 50
small ports in the Gulf of Uraba in northern Colombia, through
which it smuggles weapons and precursor chemicals for manufacturing
cocaine and heroin from Panama.
The FARC and ELN control and administer about half of Colombia's
national territory. More than 57 percent of the country's mayors
support or obey them.3 They patrol the roads and
waterways, regulate fishing, and hold trials for suspected
criminals. In some areas, they have created public services and
agriculture credit banks and collect funds for road improvements at
toll stations.4
The FARC exploited the demise of the cocaine cartels in the
1980s, first by providing security to drug crops and clandestine
labs, and later as coca growers and operators of illegal processing
labs. Today, some rebel units own warehouses and aircraft and
control clandestine airfields that formerly belonged to the
Medellin or Cali cartels.5
The Colombian government has estimated that the FARC and ELN
earned over $900 million from drug trafficking and kidnapping in
1997. According to General Rosso Jose Serrano, chief of the
Colombian National Police, the FARC completes
guns-and-cash-for-drugs deals with organized crime groups in
Chechnya, Russia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.6
1. Thomas B. Hunter, "FARC Proposes
Anti-US Unity," Jane's Intelligence Review, Vol. 5, No. 6
(June 1, 1998), p. 16.
2. Ibid.
3. David Spencer, "A Lesson for
Colombia," Jane's Intelligence Review, Vol. 9, No. 10
(October 1, 1997), p. 474.
4. Outside Colombia, the FARC has opened
representative offices in Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador,
and Spain, and in 1998 sought unsuccessfully to open a sixth office
in Brazil similar to what the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) was allowed in Brazil during the early 1980s.
5. The Colombian National Police
estimates that in 1997 about 3,155 guerrillas were directly
involved in protecting drug crops, laboratories, and airstrips, as
well as collecting war taxes from those associated with the drug
business. Between 1994 and 1998, guerrillas fired over 160 times at
Colombian police aircraft and helicopters on anti-drug operations,
killing 44 anti-drug agents and wounding 75 others.
6. Jamie Dettmer, "Drug War on U.S.
Streets Is Fought in Colombia," Insight on the News,
November 24, 1997, p. 36.
|
Marulanda said he intends to pursue a clear
socialist agenda that "combines the best from Soviet socialism,
from Chinese socialism, from Vietnamese socialism, and from Cuban
socialism." 11 In alluding to the increased U.S.
military aid for Colombia, he added that the FARC aspires "to keep
Colombia from becoming a new Vietnam." 12
The
talks stalled after paramilitary groups killed over 130 suspected
rebel sympathizers. FARC rebels gave the government until April to
take firm action against the paramilitary groups. The ELN rebels
broke off talks when their demands for a demilitarized zone in an
area of northern Colombia that would be approximately one-fifth the
size of the FARC's zone in southern Colombia were rejected.
FARC and ELN narco-rebels have demonstrated
repeatedly that they have no real incentive to lay down their arms
and negotiate a peaceful resolution of the Colombian conflict. (See
page 6.) They have continued to assault police and army units
throughout Colombia, killing dozens of police and civilians and
capturing scores of prisoners and weapons. Moreover, on March 4,
1999, the FARC viciously murdered three U.S. human rights workers,
including two women, by shooting them execution-style in the face
and chest. 13
Although Pastrana insists that the peace
talks are starting to gather momentum, it appears more likely that
the process will drag on indefinitely as the rebels try to extract
additional political and economic concessions. The FARC and ELN
clearly feel they have the upper hand. If the peace talks fail,
Pastrana's only options are to surrender Colombia to the rebels or
order the Colombian army to fight them.
|
A Catalog of Rebel
Attacks
Since 1994, the intensity of Colombia's guerrilla war has
increased. The FARC has demonstrated during the past two years
alone that it has the ability to confront and defeat Colombian army
units in open combat and amass large units against multiple targets
around Colombia, and the ELN has demonstrated its intentions just
as clearly:1
On February 26, 1998, a Colombian army brigade was dispatched to
break up a concentration of 600 guerrillas reportedly ready to
attack Cartagena del Chaira near the Caguan River. The guerrillas
organized a successful ambush. After three days, 80 soldiers had
been killed, 43 captured, and the rest dispersed in the
jungle.2 This was the first time the FARC defeated a
large, elite Colombian army unit in maneuver
warfare.3
During the first week of August 1998, before Pastrana was
inaugurated, the FARC and ELN launched at least 42 attacks in 14
different sectors. More than half of these attacks involved
guerrilla units of 300 to 1,000 fighters. After two weeks of
fighting, 104 military and police were dead and between 129 and 158
government troops had been taken prisoner; 243 guerrillas had been
killed.
On October 18, 1998, the ELN sabotaged Colombia's main oil
pipeline, causing a huge fire that destroyed the small village of
Machuca; 45 people were burned to death, and another 26 died later
from severe burns.4
On November 2, 1998, the 120-man police detachment in Mitu, a
town of 14,000 located about 400 miles from Bogota near the border
with Brazil, was assaulted by up to 1,000 FARC guerrillas who
arrived by river. About 80 police and 10 civilians were killed, and
40 police were taken prisoner. FARC units ambushed about 500
soldiers and police approaching the besieged town by land. At least
28 soldiers and police were killed in that attack.5
On March 4, 1999, the FARC viciously murdered three U.S. human
rights workers, including two women, by shooting them
execution-style in the face and chest.6
In the majority of these attacks, the guerrillas covered their
withdrawal by placing scattered land mines and ambushing groups of
approaching soldiers.7 The FARC also is able to jam
Colombian army and police communications with electronic equipment
in small aircraft.
1. See F. Andy Messing (Major, Special
Forces, Retired), "NDCF Colombia Report 1997," National Defense
Council Foundation, February 10, 1997.
2. David Spencer, "Bogota Continues to
Bleed as FARC Find Their Military Feet," Jane's Intelligence
Review, Vol. 10, No. 11 (November 1, 1998), p. 35.
3. The FARC can now field its entire
force-15,000 fighters-on sustained operations for up to one week at
a time. The M-16, which has replaced the Soviet-era Kalashnikoff
assault rifle as the guerrillas' weapon of choice, is smuggled into
Colombia from Central America by Arab smugglers operating out of
Panama and Ciudad del Este, a South American city located where the
borders of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet.
4. Radio Cadena Nacional, "ELN Rebels
to Continue Attacks on Oil Facilities," BBC Summary of World
Broadcasts, November 4, 1998.
5. Ibid.
6. Adam Thomson, "Colombia Peace
Process Faces Threat," The Financial Times, March 12, 1999,
p. 3.
7. "Some 100 Dead as Colombian
Soldiers, Rebels Battle," Agence France-Presse, November 3,
1998.
|
In its present state, however, the Colombian army
cannot defeat the rebels. It is a garrison army of conscripts who
have little tactical and strategic training or mobility. The
Colombian army is poorly trained, poorly equipped, poorly led, and
severely tarnished by its long history of corruption and human
rights abuses. 14 For most of the past decade, it has
failed to stage a single successful offensive against the rebels;
in recent years, the Colombian army has lost more than 80
engagements involving 300 or more guerrillas.
Because he lacks the resources to fight
the FARC and ELN successfully, Pastrana is pursuing peace with foes
whose stated goals include toppling his government. Since his
inauguration on August 7, 1998, Pastrana has conferred full
political recognition on FARC and ELN rebels and has acknowledged
their political and administrative control over nearly half of
Colombia.
Additionally, on November 7, 1998, he
demilitarized a region of 16,216 square miles in southern
Colombia--an area twice the size of El Salvador where more than a
third of Colombia's illegal narcotics crops is grown--by
withdrawing all Colombian soldiers and police. Originally, the
FARC-controlled zone was to be demilitarized by February 7, 1999,
but Pastrana extended that deadline until the end of May 1999.
The
United States should support a sensible effort by the Colombian
government to end the civil war, eradicate illegal drugs, and
overcome the country's economic slump. Pastrana's "Plan Colombia,"
however, will not achieve these objectives. Specifically:
- It is not a peace plan.
Pastrana's peace proposal is little more than a white flag
signaling the government's surrender. Instead of unifying Colombia
as a single nation, Pastrana's plan is likely to balkanize it.
Colombia's urban centers would remain nominally under the
government's control, but most rural territory would fall under
rebel and paramilitary control.
According to Pastrana, by agreeing to the
plan, the rebels would give up nearly $1 billion a year in proceeds
from drug trafficking and extortion. But these lost "earnings"
would need to be offset by a massive infusion of internationally
financed cash and development aid. This is not a Marshall Plan, as
President Pastrana would have the United States believe; it is a
transfer of wealth to communist rebels that will do nothing to
guarantee that their criminal activities will cease. In the United
States, this would be called extortion.
- It fails to implement serious
reform. To achieve lasting peace, Pastrana must change
Colombia's institutions and legitimize and protect private property
rights. He also must change the culture of institutionalized
corruption, violence, and systematic abuse of human rights.
Although the involvement of the FARC and ELN rebels in drug
trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, and cattle rustling makes them
criminals and not revolutionaries, the fact remains that some of
their grievances against the Colombian state are valid.
Historically, the ruling political class
has sought self-enrichment and ignored the needs of the people. In
addition, it has ignored the need to strengthen Colombia's military
with resources sufficient to defeat the communist insurgency.
Significantly, both the rebels and the paramilitary forces who
oppose them share similar and skeptical opinions about the new
government's willingness to negotiate an agreement based on real
institutional reforms.
- It weakens the government's position
while strengthening the rebels' position. Pastrana's
actions have weakened the government's negotiating position and
strengthened the rebels' position. He gave up 16,216 square miles
of land and began discussing a prisoner exchange months before the
official peace talks began. He legitimized the FARC by
acknowledging its administrative control over large parts of
Colombia and downplaying its involvement in the drug trade. And
although he has replaced the high command of the armed forces with
officers who are known to be honest and concerned about human
rights, he has been slow to articulate a plan to modernize and
strengthen the armed forces quickly.
Meanwhile, the rebels exploit his
concessions to make him appear weak to Colombians and the world.
For example, when the peace talks were launched officially on
January 7, 1999, Pastrana sat alone at the dais while the FARC
commander in chief sent a low-ranking official to read a letter
that attacked the government--and branded the United States an
imperial aggressor--but said little about peace.
- It is unlikely to satisfy the
different groups involved in the crisis. All of the key
parties involved in the peace process--the government, the FARC and
ELN, the paramilitaries, the armed forces, and the Clinton
Administration--have different expectations. Pastrana wants to
demobilize the insurgency and end the political violence that is
hurting the people and the economy and damaging Colombia's image.
Eradicating illegal narcotics is a secondary consideration. U.S.
and Colombian law enforcement officials claim that Pastrana ordered
all counter-narcotics operations halted in the FARC-controlled
demilitarized zone as long as the peace process is ongoing.
15
The FARC and ELN rebels want to establish
a Marxist government in nearly half of Colombia's territory,
nationalizing banks and natural resource industries, redistributing
land to millions of peasants, and expelling foreign investors. The
FARC and ELN rebels "speak like a handout from the Soviet embassy
in the 1970's," says Klaus Nyholm, head of the United Nations Drug
Control Program in Colombia. "They don't have any definite ideas
about what they would do. Their main idea is that the [Colombian]
government and the international community should come in with
massive assistance." 16
Meanwhile, the paramilitaries that are
financed by private landowners and drug traffickers are determined
to wipe out the FARC and ELN at any cost. They also oppose
free-market policies that Colombia has followed since 1990. The
drug traffickers want to continue doing business, regardless of who
runs the country.
The Colombian army's credibility and image
have been tarnished by high-level corruption in the chain of
command and systematic human rights abuses. It hopes to erase this
image, as well as the humiliation it has suffered from an inability
to control the rebels, by destroying the rebels rather than by
making peace.
The Clinton Administration is supporting
the peace process to the extent that it helps to eliminate illegal
drug trafficking. For example, both the Administration and Congress
have warned the Colombian government that any reductions or delays
in carrying out large-scale aerial spraying of illicit drug crops
within the FARC's demilitarized zone would lead to a suspension of
U.S. anti-drug aid. 17
U.S. and Colombian business interests care
less about drugs and guerrilla insurgencies than about creating a
stable economic environment that is conducive to investment,
growth, and profits. The FARC and ELN insurgency inflicts
destruction that is equivalent to between 4 percent and 5 percent
of the annual gross domestic product, scaring away billions of
dollars in potential foreign investments.
- The rebels have no real incentive to
negotiate peace and then adhere to an agreement. One of
two conditions must exist in order to conclude a successful peace
agreement. Either one side is so strong that the other side is
compelled to seek peace, or both sides must have a genuine desire
for peace.
The guerrillas are not strong enough in
military terms to capture Colombia's urban centers and topple the
elected government, but they have defeated the Colombian army in
jungle warfare and achieved sufficient legitimacy to shape the
political agenda. The extent of the FARC's and ELN's alleged
desires for peace should be weighed against their continued attacks
on military and police units and their stated determination to
capture and control as much of Colombia as they can.
- The rebels are part of the drug
trafficking problem. During a visit to the United States
in October 1998, Pastrana declared that the fact that guerrillas
and drug crops are found in the same general areas in Colombia
might be more coincidental than deliberate. 18 Joe Toft,
former head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
office in Colombia from 1988 to 1994, would disagree: "The rebels
are in it for the money they get for providing security to the drug
lords. The rebels are criminals, period." 19
Nearly two-thirds of the nearly $1 billion
taken in each year by the FARC and ELN is derived from drug
trafficking, and the remainder comes from activities like
kidnapping, cattle rustling, and extortion. To its credit, the
Clinton Administration is not buying Pastrana's argument. General
Barry McCaffrey says that the FARC is "heavily involved in
protecting, transporting, and in some cases operating drug labs."
20
- The alternative crop development
strategy is mere window dressing. A key element of "Plan
Colombia" is a scheme to attract large-scale foreign aid to
underwrite the cost of an alternative crop development program that
will substitute legal food crops for coca and opium. The rebels are
demanding that repressive anti-drug measures--such as aerial
spraying--be suspended and U.S. anti-drug resources used instead to
finance these development efforts.
However, Washington remains committed to
aerial crop spraying, for which Congress approved $200 million in
October 1998, compared with only $60 million earmarked for
alternative crop development programs in Bolivia, Peru, and
Colombia. The United Nations estimates that Colombia will need at
least $1 billion for alternative crop development. Other estimates
range as high as $5 billion just for a regional alternative
development program in southern Colombia, with no guarantee of
denting the illicit drug trade.
Alternative development programs have
reported some success in Bolivia and Peru, but any decline in drug
cultivation usually has been offset by increased drug crop
cultivation in areas outside the development zones. A large-scale
effort in Colombia would have to target illicit drug cultivation
across the entire nation and would cost many billions of dollars.
So far, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) has pledged to
contribute $1.6 billion to a fund to support the Colombian peace
process. Part of this money would be used for alternative
development. The IADB already has committed $90 million a year for
a Colombian crop substitution effort called Planta.
Additionally, the United Nations has agreed to provide Colombia $80
million a year for such alternative development.
These amounts, however, are too
insignificant to have a lasting impact on the drug trade, because
no other crop is as profitable as the coca plant, which produces up
to $2,500 a year for Colombian peasants compared with about $300 a
year from legal crops. Moreover, coca and opium growers live in
remote and inaccessible areas without the infrastructure to
warehouse, transport, and market alternative food crops.
- Peace with the rebels will not affect
the illegal drug industry. Even if the rebels sign and
respect a peace agreement, the drug trade will continue to
flourish. Drug traffickers have the capability to defend themselves
against the rebels, hire paramilitaries for protection, and fight
the government to a standstill. Moreover, they always have the
option of moving their operations to locations outside
rebel-controlled areas and beyond the reach of police and military
forces.
SETTING U.S. COLOMBIA POLICY BY
DEFAULT
In
December 1998, a White House official told a reporter for The
Washington Post that Colombia "poses a greater immediate
threat [to America] than Bosnia did, yet it receives almost no
attention. So policy is set by default." 21
This
is a startling admission. It means that the Administration has no
sound policy to deal with the growing political and security crisis
presented by the turmoil and drug trafficking in Colombia. It is
also alarming in light of President Clinton's decision to increase
U.S. military aid to Colombia as part of a stepped-up strategy to
fight the war on drugs. If the Administration's policy in Colombia
is evolving more by reaction than by design, then the limits of
U.S. military involvement in the Colombian conflict have not been
determined.
A Policy Shift
The Administration maintains that the United States will
not get involved in Colombia's 34-year-old civil war. However, it
has become increasingly difficult to separate Colombia's war on
drugs from its war against the Marxist rebels. David Passage, the
State Department's former Director of Andean Affairs, says that the
United States could help the Colombian military regain control of
the territory held by the rebels with "a few dozen [American]
military advisers and making a small investment." 22
Although the U.S. military's involvement
in the war on drugs in Latin America has been growing since the
late 1980s (see the Appendix), President Clinton's decision to
increase military aid to Colombia represents a significant policy
shift for his Administration. From 1994 until 1998, for example,
the Clinton Administration:
-
Ignored the growing
regional security threat posed by the FARC and ELN rebels involved
in drug trafficking and extortion;
-
Insisted that no
linkages exist between Colombian drug traffickers and rebels;
-
Withheld anti-drug
assistance that would have helped the Colombian National Police be
more effective in drug interdiction while at the same time
demanding that Colombia battle its illegal drug trade more
effectively;
-
Refused to help the
Colombian military because of its poor human rights record, thereby
enabling the rebel insurgency to grow; and
-
Abused the annual drug
certification process in a failed effort to unseat former President
Ernesto Samper, who was elected in 1994 with the help of more than
$6 million in contributions from drug traffickers.
When
the Medellin cocaine cartel was destroyed in December 1993
following the death of its head, Pablo Escobar Gaviria, the
Colombian government was in a good position to attack drug
traffickers effectively. However, 1994 was a presidential election
year in Colombia, and the Clinton Administration made little effort
to encourage outgoing President Cesar Gaviria 23 to
maintain the pressure against drug traffickers by going after the
Cali cartel, which at the time controlled over 80 percent of the
global Colombian cocaine trade.
How Decertification
Backfired
The situation in Colombia started to deteriorate rapidly
in mid-1994 with the election of Ernesto Samper, a member of the
incumbent Liberal Party. Samper was absolved of concerns about his
drug connections after a political trial in the Colombian congress,
but the U.S. Administration repudiated him and sought
unsuccessfully to force his resignation by imposing sanctions from
1995 to 1998. These sanctions led to sharp reductions of U.S. aid,
including anti-drug aid, which further weakened the Colombian
National Police's fight against the drug traffickers.
Moreover, from 1994 to 1998, Colombia's
armed forces--and particularly its army--grew significantly weaker,
partly as a result of the Clinton Administration's refusal to
provide military aid to Colombia's military units if even one
individual in a unit was suspected of abusing human rights.
Samper's ties to the Cali drug traffickers also gave the FARC and
ELN an excuse to declare his administration illegitimate and refuse
to engage in talks.
The
Clinton Administration's campaign to oust Samper by decertifying
Colombia backfired. The sanctions:
-
Inflamed Colombian
nationalism and favored his eventual absolution by the
legislature;
-
Undermined the Clinton
Administration's efforts to step up the fight against drug
traffickers, despite the arrest of the Cali cocaine cartel's top
kingpins in 1995;
-
Distracted U.S.
policymakers from the regional security threat posed by the rapid
expansion of Colombia's drug-financed insurgency; and
-
Caused a general
deterioration in U.S.-Latin America relations as Mexico and other
countries in the region joined Colombia in publicly repudiating the
drug certification process.
The Thaw in Relations
The four-year chill in U.S.-Colombian relations began to
thaw during Pastrana's official visit to Washington on October
27-30, 1998. President Clinton even proclaimed the Harvard-educated
Pastrana's inauguration as "a new beginning for Colombia" and
promised that the United States would help to end the civil war.
24 Pastrana hailed the arrival of "a new era in
relations between Colombia and the United States" 25 and
pledged to fight drug trafficking, resolve Colombia's civil war
peacefully, halt the depredations of paramilitary groups, and end
human rights abuses committed by the Colombian army.
The
two heads of state signed a new bilateral "Alliance Against Drugs,"
and President Clinton pledged his support for Pastrana's peace
plan. Since Pastrana's inauguration, the Administration has
increased anti-drug aid to Colombia by almost 300 percent.
Behind the warm smiles and professions of
friendship, however, the "new" U.S.-Colombia relationship is
tenuous. Washington has serious doubts about the viability of the
peace plan and is concerned that the negotiations could halt
U.S.-financed operations in southern Colombia to eradicate cocaine
crops and destroy clandestine jungle laboratories. The Clinton
Administration doubts the Colombian government's ability to prevent
the civil war from spiraling out of control if the peace process
collapses. U.S. policymakers are also skeptical about whether the
FARC and ELN are truly committed to peace.
And
yet, despite these reservations, when the Colombian government
asked the Clinton Administration to meet secretly in Costa Rica
with senior FARC representatives, the answer was yes. In
mid-December 1998, Philip Chicola, a mid-level official with the
State Department's Office of Andean Affairs, met secretly in San
Jose, Costa Rica, with a small group of FARC leaders that included
Luis Edgar Devia (Raul Reyes), the FARC's coordinator of
international activities. Devia's role is similar to the one played
by Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams in Ireland.
The
unprecedented meeting took place in the home of Alvaro Leyva, a
former legislator and minister of the now-ruling Conservative Party
who is in exile in Costa Rica because he is wanted by the Colombian
judicial authorities for his alleged ties to the Cali drug cartel.
Although the Colombian government requested that the Clinton
Administration meet with the FARC, it did not participate in the
meeting. The FARC then immediately embarrassed the Clinton
Administration by disclosing the secret session to Colombian news
media. James P. Rubin of the State Department was forced to explain
lamely that the Administration's intention had been "to demonstrate
our support for the Colombian peace process." 26
NEEDED: COLOMBIA POLICY BY DESIGN
In
January 1999, the FARC announced that all U.S. military and law
enforcement personnel in Colombia would be considered legitimate
targets. 27 Congress must know how the Administration
intends to react if peace talks between the government and the
rebels break down and U.S. military advisers are targeted. Would
President Clinton propose sending U.S. soldiers to Colombia to help
keep the peace, as he has done in Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia?
Because of its escalating drug problem and
its vital interests in Latin America, the United States must
consider doing all it can to help Colombia end its decades-old
civil war with the communist insurgents and battle Colombian drug
traffickers effectively. Before endorsing President Clinton's
decision to increase U.S. military aid to Colombia, however,
Congress should require the Administration to spell out in detail
the goals it expects to achieve during the next two years.
Congress should make certain that the
Administration's decision to expand military aid will not draw
American soldiers into the maelstrom of Colombia's ongoing civil
war. It also should demand that the Administration explain the
limits it will set on the growing U.S. military involvement in
Colombia. Congress needs to know how long the Administration plans
to give military aid to the Colombian army, how much that aid can
be expected to increase, what it will include, and whether there is
a clear exit strategy.
These are crucial details. Today, over 200
American soldiers are stationed in Colombia at any given moment,
and this number is likely to grow if the Administration increases
U.S. military aid to the Colombian army.
To
design an effective Colombia policy, Congress should:
- Initiate a thorough review of U.S.
drug policy in Latin America. Congress already is moving
in this direction. On March 3, 1999, Representatives Benjamin A.
Gilman (R-NY), Elton W. Gallegly (R-CA), Dan Burton (R-IN), and
John L. Mica (R-FL) agreed to seek a full investigation of the
Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement by the State
Department's Office of the Inspector General, to determine how U.S.
anti-drug aid is being spent in Colombia.
This is a good beginning, but
congressional review of U.S. drug policy in Latin America should be
expanded to include U.S. anti-drug activities in Mexico, the
Caribbean, and Central and South America. Such a review undoubtedly
would conclude that from the U.S.-Mexico border to Tierra del
Fuego, U.S. drug policy is a shambles.
The Clinton Administration has been unable
to reduce the cultivation and production of illicit narcotics in
Colombia, which has turned into an increasingly violent narco-state
teetering on the brink of collapse. In Mexico, the Administration's
much-vaunted bilateral cooperation in the war on drugs has become
an annual exercise in political posturing designed to hide the fact
that drug trafficking and related corruption continue to grow
unchecked.
Similarly, in Central America and the
Caribbean region--largely ignored by the Clinton Administration
since 1993--drug traffickers are spreading their distribution
networks relentlessly, overwhelming weak legal and political
institutions in countries that have no hope yet of obtaining
trading parity through the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA). Without such trading parity, governments in Central
America and the Caribbean cannot effectively attack the widespread
poverty and lack of economic development that drug traffickers
exploit. And in South America, drug traffickers have opened new
markets and routes for shipping cocaine to Europe and Asia, partly
to escape U.S. anti-drug monitoring and interdiction efforts in the
Andean and Caribbean regions.
- Abolish the annual drug certification
process. Congress should take a hard look at the annual
drug certification process, which has become a major cause of
growing tension and discord between the United States and Latin
American countries. 28 Many policymakers support the
yearly drug certification ritual as a means for continuing to apply
pressure on the Administration and the governments of major
drug-producing or drug-transit countries.
The Administration does not certify
countries like Colombia and Mexico according to objective benchmark
criteria, but on the basis of U.S. political considerations. From
1995 to 1998, the Administration dictated that Colombia should be
sanctioned on four consecutive occasions. However, Mexico was
certified repeatedly during this period as a fully cooperating ally
in the U.S. war on drugs, despite clear and compelling evidence
that drugs continue to flood into the United States through Mexico,
where powerful drug cartels are gaining increased control of
political and legal institutions. This double standard outraged
Latin Americans and produced a region-wide consensus that the U.S.
drug certification process is interventionist and imperialist.
The drug certification process also
compresses the drug policy debate in Congress to only three or four
weeks each year. Congress should abolish this process and focus
instead on working with the Administration to develop and implement
an effective anti-drug policy in countries like Colombia and
Mexico.
- Set clear limits on U.S. military aid
to Colombia. The Administration should specify whether it
intends to supply military aid to Colombia only during the last two
years of this Administration or to extend this aid over a longer
period. Under a best-case scenario, according to congressional
defense analysts, it will take two years to train and equip
professional Colombian soldiers; a complete overhaul and
modernization of Colombia's armed forces could require up to a
decade of sustained effort.
Strict limits should be imposed on any
commitment of U.S. troops to Colombia. Sending additional military
advisers to Colombia should not be a backdoor attempt to increase
the number of U.S. soldiers there, especially if the FARC and ELN
continue their war against the government and target U.S.
advisers.
The crisis in Colombia is a clear threat
to regional stability, but it also is one that can be resolved only
by Colombians. The United States should help the Colombian
government end the civil war and battle drug traffickers, but under
no circumstances should U.S. military personnel take part directly
in any armed confrontations against the rebels, drug traffickers,
or paramilitary groups.
- Manage the insurgency as a law
enforcement problem. Pastrana made a mistake when he
conferred political legitimacy on the FARC and ELN and portrayed
their insurgency as not linked to drug trafficking. The Clinton
Administration suffered a greater lapse of judgment when it met
secretly with FARC officials last December.
The FARC and ELN are criminals who care
most about the profits they earn from drug trafficking, kidnapping,
extortion, and cattle rustling. Moreover, in October 1997,
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced that the FARC had
been added to the State Department's list of terrorist
organizations--and it has long been U.S. policy not to negotiate
with terrorists. Instead of supporting Pastrana's decision to grant
the rebels political status, the Administration should encourage
Pastrana to withdraw political recognition from these groups.
- Implement a serious anti-drug aid
program. Washington has failed to provide the Colombian
authorities with the resources they need to fight drug traffickers
effectively. The bulk of the U.S. anti-drug aid in Colombia is
earmarked for the destruction of drug crops by aerial spraying, yet
the Colombian National Police is short of helicopters to transport
anti-drug police units and sustain their operations in the
country's drug producing regions. Its 70 helicopters, including
many Vietnam-vintage UH-1 (Huey) helicopters, are between 35 and 40
years old and cannot be operated safely at the altitudes where most
coca plants and opium poppies are cultivated.
In October 1998, Congress approved a $289
million package of anti-drug aid for Colombia. This package, in
addition to requiring the Clinton Administration to certify that
the FARC-controlled demilitarized zone was not being used as a
haven for drug traffickers and illegal crop cultivation, consisted
almost entirely of helicopters and other counter-narcotics
assistance. It was a step in the right direction. However,
congressional leaders already have warned that the aid could be
suspended if the Administration verifies that the Pastrana
government is allowing drug traffickers to operate unchallenged
inside the demilitarized zone.
It would be a mistake for Congress or the
Administration to hold up the anti-drug aid. Suspending the aid
will only weaken the anti-drug effort and strengthen the rebels and
drug traffickers. Instead of threatening Colombia with sanctions,
the Administration should increase anti-drug assistance to bolster
Colombia's efforts to fight the illegal drug trade.
- Agree to help train and equip a
professional Colombian army. The Colombian army has about
125,000 soldiers, 55,000 of whom are committed to protecting urban
centers, oil fields, and other key installations. At present, only
about 30,000 soldiers are being used for counter-insurgency
operations. Because it is stretched so thin, the army has
established small company and platoon-sized posts wherever
possible, but this has enabled the rebels to achieve local
numerical superiority, a situation that is exacerbated by the lack
of equipment for small Colombian units.
The Colombian military has only 20
operational helicopters and three AC-47 gunships, and part of its
armored inventory dates back to 1943. This effectively reduces the
army to the status of a military constabulary with only internal
security functions. Typically, soldiers go into rebel zones
carrying only 80 rounds of ammunition (compared with 250 rounds per
U.S. soldier).
There is no hope of making this army a
professional force in just six months. In a best-case scenario, it
will take at least two years and cost U.S. taxpayers billions of
dollars. Colombia's Defense Ministry already has asked the Clinton
Administration to underwrite the cost of a $1.5 billion plan to
train and equip professional counter-insurgency units.
- Adopt a multilateral approach to
managing Colombia's crisis. President Clinton's decision
to increase U.S. military aid to Colombia may prove unwise if the
Administration fails to win the support of the Latin American
countries--including Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and
Venezuela--that share lengthy and mostly undeveloped borders with
Colombia. The perception that the United States is acting
unilaterally would undermine the success of the Administration's
efforts.
The United States has vital commercial
interests in assuring the continued security of the Panama Canal.
It has vital energy interests, in which U.S. oil firms have
invested many billions of dollars, in Venezuela. It also has a
compelling interest in working closely with Brazil to contain the
spread of Colombian rebel or drug trafficking activity in Brazil's
northern Amazon region. Similarly, Colombia's neighbors share an
interest in keeping the Colombian civil crisis confined within
Colombia's borders. Brazil, Peru, and Venezuela recently began to
increase their military presence along their borders with Colombia
and officially warned the Colombian government and rebels to keep
their differences strictly inside Colombia.
Since 1994, however, the Clinton
Administration's misuse of the drug certification process has
strained relations between the United States and the Latin American
countries that annually appear on the State Department's
International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. The Administration
should work through the Organization of American States (OAS) to
build hemispheric support to rid Colombia of drug traffickers and
the Marxist narco-rebels. The Colombian civil war, with its drug
underpinnings, threatens not only the security interests of the
United States, but also the security and economic stability of many
Latin American democracies.
In particular, the OAS should develop and
implement a program using Latin American human rights observers to
monitor and report on the activities of all groups engaged in the
conflict in Colombia, including the armed forces, Marxist rebels,
and paramilitary groups. For any such multilateral process to be
successful in preventing the balkanization of Colombia, however, it
must be credible. Therefore, to reassure all parties as to the
organization's neutrality, the Secretary General of the OAS--former
Colombian President Cesar Gaviria--should be replaced by someone
from a different Latin American country.
CONCLUSION
Colombia is on the verge of becoming a
no-win situation. If President Pastrana accepts the demands of the
FARC and ELN for political and territorial autonomy, Colombia will
start to break apart into Balkan-type factions, paramilitary
violence will escalate rapidly, and regional stability will be
threatened. If the Pastrana peace talks fail, which appears
increasingly likely, Colombia will sink deeper into a vortex of
violence that could spill into neighboring countries, endangering
regional stability. The country is a tinderbox awaiting only a
careless spark to explode in flames.
Helping the Pastrana government end
Colombia's decades-old civil turbulence and eradicate the illegal
drug trade is clearly in the United States' national interest. But
the Clinton Administration should tread cautiously in escalating
the U.S. military's involvement in the Colombian narco-insurgency.
Before it can fight the rebels effectively, the Colombian army
needs to be modernized, professionally trained, and re-equipped
with the arms and other equipment needed to achieve tactical and
strategic mobility on the battlefield. This could take several
years of sustained effort involving extensive U.S. training of
Colombian military units, and could cost Americans billions of tax
dollars.
The
Administration's new Colombia policy should include a specific
timetable for providing military aid, clear objectives and
transparent methods for measuring the resulting gains (or losses)
from that aid, and strict limitations on the extent of the
escalating U.S. military involvement in Colombia. It also is
vitally important that the Administration's new Colombia policy
detail contingency plans to safeguard the lives and security of
U.S. military personnel in Colombia if Pastrana's peace talks fail
and the violence escalates dramatically.
Above all, the Clinton Administration must
not lose sight of the fact that the conflict between the
government, rebels, drug traffickers, and paramilitary forces in
Colombia is fundamentally a Colombian problem that the Colombians
themselves must resolve. If the limits of U.S. military involvement
are not spelled out clearly at the outset, the risk is great that
significant numbers of U.S. soldiers would be swallowed up by the
Colombian quagmire.
The
President and Congress would be wise to remember that America's
involvement in Vietnam--a steadily escalating involvement that
President Clinton himself opposed as a university student--began
with a few dozen U.S. military advisers and a small investment.
John P. Sweeney is Latin America Policy Analyst
in The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis International Studies Center
at The Heritage Foundation.
AN OVERVIEW OF
U.S. DRUG INTERDICTION EFFORTS IN LATIN AMERICA
The
U.S. military's involvement in the war on drugs in Latin America
predates the end of the Cold War. In 1981, Congress amended the
Posse Comitatus Act of 1897 to allow the U.S. military to provide
equipment, information, training, and advice to help law
enforcement agencies fight drug traffickers; but it maintained the
prohibition on military participation in searches, seizures, and
arrests.
In
April 1986, the Reagan Administration issued National Security
Directive (NSD) 221, declaring that drug trafficking was a "lethal"
threat to the United States. The directive also specified that U.S.
military forces could be used for interdiction operations in other
countries only if invited by the host country, directed by U.S.
officials, and limited to support functions. In July 1986, the
Department of Defense launched Operation Blast Furnace, sending six
Army helicopters and 150 U.S. troops into Bolivia to assist in
Bolivian and DEA anti-drug operations aimed at shutting down remote
processing labs. Cocaine processing was disrupted temporarily, but
the drug traffickers quickly replaced the destroyed labs.
The
1989 National Defense Authorization Act designated the Department
of Defense as the "single lead agency" for the detection and
monitoring of illegal drug shipments into the United States. The
approval of this legislation coincided with the Bush
Administration's Andean Initiative, a five-year, $2.2 billion plan
to dismantle drug trafficking organizations, eradicate coca crops,
destroy processing labs, and stop the delivery of precursor
chemicals by providing increased law enforcement, military, and
economic aid to Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru. In December 1989, when
President Bush ordered Operation Just Cause and invaded Panama, he
authorized the apprehension of General Manuel Noriega "and any
other persons in Panama currently under indictment in the United
States for drug-related offenses." 29
With
the end of the Cold War, battling drug traffickers quickly became
the U.S. military's central mission in Latin America, propelled
politically by the President and Congress, and militarily by the
U.S. Southern Command (Southcom).
In
late 1994, the Clinton Administration issued a Presidential
Decision Directive shifting the focus of the Defense Department's
interdiction efforts from the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico drug
transit zones to the Andean source countries of Bolivia, Colombia,
and Peru. Using intelligence and radar surveillance provided by the
U.S. military, the Peruvian Air Force has shot down more than 24
aircraft and forced over a dozen more to land since 1995. As a
result, the number of clandestine drug transport flights from Peru
to Colombia fell from 752 in 1992 to 96 in 1996. The closing of the
Peruvian air corridor forced drug traffickers to shift coca leaf
production from Peru to Colombia.
The
Pentagon's plan to fight the war on drugs calls for the U.S.
military to provide the intelligence, strategic planning,
resources, and training needed for Latin America's security forces
to carry out anti-narcotics operations. The Pentagon is also in
charge of costly interdiction efforts and participates in domestic
law enforcement efforts to stem the flow of illegal drugs into the
United States. 30
Southcom is the spearhead of the U.S.
military's anti-drug efforts in Latin America, covering both police
and military anti-drug operations underway in countries like
Colombia. It is responsible for a geographic area stretching from
the Florida Keys to Antarctica, and encompasses about 12.5 million
square miles and 411 million people. The 1997 Unified Command Plan
assigned Southcom the responsibility of conducting anti-narcotics
operations in the source country and transit zones of the Andes
region (Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru) and the Caribbean.
However, while Southcom's geographic area
of responsibility has been increased, its forward-deployed forces
have been reduced by the loss of bases in Panama. In 1995, Southcom
had roughly 10,000 U.S. troops forward-deployed in Panama, compared
with about 4,000 at the end of 1998. To help offset the Panamanian
base losses, Southcom is stationing some of its forces in Puerto
Rico and hopes to maintain a strategic presence in Honduras at the
Soto Cano Air Base. Southcom is seeking to set up several
small-scale forward operating locations in Central and South
America and the Caribbean to replicate the counter-drug monitoring
and detection missions currently flown from Howard Air Force Base
in Panama. 31
U.S.
soldiers currently are in Peru training Peruvian police officers to
conduct small-unit patrols. U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps
experts are training and equipping an elite Peruvian counter-drug
unit that would operate both on water and on land against drug
traffickers. In March 1998, Southcom launched a five-year, $60
million river patrol training program in Peru.
There also are some 200 U.S. troops
stationed in Colombia, and the number could rise significantly as
the Clinton Administration increases U.S. military aid to the
Colombian armed forces.