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.

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.

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.

 

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.

APPENDIX

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.