DSA on Colombia

The National Political Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America condemns the recent decision by the Clinton Administration to give 1.3 billion dollars to Plan Colombia, the joint Colombian-US proposal ostensibly aimed at combating the drug trade in that nation. This is an issue of great concern not only to progressive movements in the US, but also to the international community. Plan Colombia, which involves the training by US special forces of three special Colombian Army battalions, along with 60 US helicopters, foreshadows what may become a deeper and more dangerous intervention by the US into the civil and political strife that has plagued Colombia for over half a century. The plan is just another step in escalating the failed US military “drug enforcement” policy in Colombia—a policy which DSA has already condemned in a resolution of its 1999 National Convention.

It is difficult to find a 'side' to support in the conflict in Colombia; the one thing that is abundantly clear is that the Colombian people have consistently been the victims not only of their nation's instability, but of atrocities committed by all sides, on both the left and right. The proliferation of the drug trade is only the most recent example of how the economic hardships brought about by the global inequality between North and South have affected Colombia. Any plan for Colombia must first address the needs of its people, not of its warring factions.

Plan Colombia will only continue the suffering. While only 25% of the plan calls for interdiction efforts, it is that part of the plan which the US aid is going to support. The first phase, we are told, will be the fumigation of coca fields in the Putamayo region. Past fumigation experiments have resulted in the deaths of peasant farmers, through contamination of both their food crops and the water supply. The destruction of these fields means starvation and more environmental damage, as farmers only clear more rainforest in order to plant new crops, not just for coca but for their own food. These drastic measures will in no way address, much less do anything to alleviate the economic conditions which have forced farmers to grow coca for their own survival. The remaining 75% of the plan, which is supposed to be allocated for development of infrastructure, is unclear (the Colombian government has promised infrastructure development before), and likely to be useless following the consequences of that first phase.

This reckless US aid package is being handed off to a Colombian government which is not in control of its army, 50% of which is known to be in some form of collaboration with the right-wing AUC paramilitary death squads. Despite US guarantees to the contrary, the army (some of whose officers were trained at the School of the Americas) will most assuredly use whatever of these resources it can to combat the rebel armies which currently have legal control of 40% of the nation. It is no coincidence that these military resources are being put into the Putamayo region. The region is controlled by the FARC rebels, who like the AUC, are making money from the drug trade, on the backs of the peasant farmers. That raises the question of whether this plan, rather than ending the drug trade, is merely intended to take the share of it now controlled by the leftist rebels and consolidate it in the hands of the paramilitary groups and the army.

Our European comrades have refused to endorse Plan Colombia because of the serious danger it poses to innocent people as well as because of Colombia's dismal human rights record. The Brazilian government has raised deep concerns about Latin American sovereignty and the possibility of the spillover of the conflict into its borders. (Thousands of Colombians have already fled the conflict into neighboring nations.) Even the right-wing regime in Peru has voiced its skepticism that Plan Colombia can have any effect on the drug trade. But more important, representatives of the human rights community as well as various local government officials and peasant representatives in Colombia have voiced their fear that this plan will only worsen the conflict.

For these reasons, DSA joins the many international voices condemning the reasoning and the methods behind Plan Colombia. Instead we favor the proposals of alternative development already put forth by the European Union and the United Nations which would offer hospitals, schools, and support for democratic institutions in exchange for the farmers' agreement to no longer grow drug crops. We propose that the 1.3 billion of US funds should be redirected to reduce domestic demand here in the US, through education and addiction treatment programs, as has been advocated in part by Sen. Paul Wellstone.

Along with our support for social and economic development in Colombia, an aggressive domestic program to treat our own nation's drug problem as a health issue, not a criminal one, would in our view, be the best plan the US could advocate for Colombia.