Colombia
Update
2/18/00
This week, Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey testified before Congress in defense of the Clinton Administration's proposed two-year, $1.6 billion emergency aid package to Colombia. The hearing marked the beginning of what is likely to be a robust debate over the next two months on the propriety of helping the Colombian government sweep guerrillas and paramilitary groups out of the countryside in order to attempt the eradication of coca and poppy fields there. House International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) explained at the hearings that "We've got to treat Colombia as a serious national threat." The new aid package would provide the Colombian government with extensive military assistance to help them defeat the 26,000 leftist guerrillas who control most of the country's prime southern coca-growing land. The US military would train two special Colombian Army anti-drug battalions, which would enlarge an existing 950-man unit trained by US Green Berets last year. Another $700 million would purchase 33 Huey and 30 Blackhawk helicopters, and McCaffrey also testified that 80 to 200 military advisers would be dispatched to Colombia to further train government forces. The new proposal comes just days after the DEA released new figures embarrassingly at odds with their previous predictions for Colombian cocaine production. In each of 1998-99, the DEA had estimated, 165 metric tons of cocaine would be produced; the new analysis shows that Colombian cocaine production potential rose to 520 metric tons in 1999, up from 435 in 1998 and 230 in 1995. If the new aid package is approved, Colombia will become the third-largest recipient of US aid in the world, behind Israel and Egypt; US aid amounted to $65 million in 1996 and jumped to $290 million in 1999. The hearings were held before the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, chaired by Rep. John Mica (R-FL). After opening statements, McCaffrey presented the new aid package, which received broad support, save for some minor quibbling. Only one committee member, Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL), voiced strong opposition to the plan. "The administration's... aid package... puts the United States at a crossroads: Do we invest in a militaristic drug war that escalates the regional conflict in the name of fighting drugs, or do we attack the drug market by investing in prevention and treatment at home and seek to assist in stabilizing Colombia?," Schakowsky asked, adding "According to the General Accounting Office, 'Despite years of extensive herbicide spraying, United States' estimates show there has not been any net reduction in coca cultivation. Net coca cultivation actually increased 50 percent.'" Rep. Schakowsky went on to question the likelihood of the mission's success, the prospect of becoming entangled in the Colombian civil war, the lack of a "foreseeable end game," and the idea that money would be better spent on treatment: "If decreasing drug use in America is the ultimate goal, why aren't we putting equal resources into domestic demand reduction, where each dollar spent is 23 times more effective than [crop] eradication?" Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) replied that Rep. Schakowsky's "hostility to helping Colombia has blinded her to the facts," namely, that "the amount of money that we are expending for interdiction and international efforts is in fact currently far less than that devoted to demand reduction." He went on to laud the effectiveness of Peruvian President Fujimori's "tough, consistent steps," like the "'you fly, you die'... shoot-down policy." McCaffrey concurred with Rep. Barr's assessment, later saying of the Peruvians, "they did use military and police power with incredible effectiveness." The plan, however, probably will be disputed more vigorously in the Senate. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) told Newsweek magazine: "We have spent billions trying to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States, and the flow has gotten worse, not better." Ian Vasquez, a Cato Institute scholar and specialist on Latin America, is also skeptical: "I'm afraid that the current situation [of drug cartels and civil war] in Columbia is largely the result of US policy being imposed there. The drug war has led to the deterioration of the country in a dramatic way. I don't think that policies that move the country in that direction will be helpful. [Our policies] have helped, through spreading corruption and drug money, to undermine those elements of civil society that are vital to a healthy country." (Visit http://www.drcnet.org/wol/114.html#peaceincolombia to read about the peace movement in Colombia and activists' objections to the counternarcotics proposal. Visit http://www.drcnet.org/wol/108.html#amnesty and http://www.drcnet.org/wol/108.html#editorial to read about last summer's Congressional debate on Colombia.)
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