Plan
Colombia
I:
Congress
Approves
Another
$676
Million
as
Opposition
Mounts
on
the
Ground
7/27/01
The US House of Representatives gave Plan Colombia, or the Andean Counterdrug Initiative, as this year's version is known, a solid vote of approval this week even as it came under increasing political fire within Colombia. Coming on the heels of the $1.3 billion allocated last year, the funds will be the latest installment of the US government's effort to eradicate both Colombia's drug trade and its entrenched leftist guerrilla armies. Amendments that would have diverted some of the funds to global health programs were easily defeated, and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) was eventually persuaded by plan proponents to withdraw his amendment barring the use of herbicides in the coca eradication campaign. Conyers and other Plan Colombia opponents, however, were able to block Bush administration efforts to remove caps on the number of private contract personnel who could work in Colombia and to allow such personnel to buy and carry weapons. The Bush administration and Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), the bill's floor manager, attempted to sneak through the cap and weapons provisions hidden in arcane language in the bill, to wit: "These funds are available without regard to section 3204(b)(1)(B) of Public Law 106-246: Provided further, that section 482(b) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 shall not apply to funds appropriated under this heading." Unfortunately for Kolbe and Bush, Conyer's staffers uncovered and deciphered the language, which would have removed any restriction on the number of contract employees the US could use in Colombia -- the current limit is 300, along with up to 500 US military personnel -- and would have removed language restricting the provision of weapons to such employees to "defensive purposes." "The president requested this," a Bush spokesman told the Miami Herald. In a recent editorial, the Sacramento Bee called the move "a deadly cocktail: unlimited private forces armed with unlimited weapons." Continuing, the paper noted, "Turning an army of heavily armed mercenaries loose in the middle of a bloody civil war is more than a misguided policy -- it is utter insanity. It's imperative that our lawmakers defuse these provisions in the bill before they blow up in our faces, and the cliche of 'another Vietnam' becomes a sorry Colombian reality," the paper concluded. A Congress decidedly less enthusiastic about Plan Colombia than last year agreed. After negotiations between Conyers and Kolbe, a compromise was reached that capped the number of combined US military and private contract personnel at 800 -- the same overall level as now -- but would allow contract employees to exceed the 300 limit. While Congress approved the funding, it seemed to do so more out of inertia than out of belief that the strategy will work or that it will work without creating a human rights debacle. With recent reports of expanding coca and opium production in adjacent Andean countries and harsh criticism of the Colombian military's ties to right-wing paramilitary death squads, even supporters of the plan were unable to claim it was working so far. Drug war hawk Rep. Benjamin Gilman (D-NY) was reduced to arguing that: "There is no other solution but to help Colombia. We must work with them to try and improve their human rights performance," he told Congress. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL), a Plan Colombia supporter, told his colleagues patience would run out if the administration could not show results. "Plan Colombia probably has one more year to prove itself before it's curtains," he said. "It's just too much American money being spent without results and Pastrana, whose term ends in 2002, will be gone next year." If the US Congress seems unenthusiastic about Plan Colombia, events in Colombia should dampen even that faint ardor. An unnamed US Embassy official in Colombia was forced to concede to reporters this week that the battle had been a losing one so far. "We've underestimated the coca in Colombia," he admitted to the Associated Press. "Everywhere we look there is more coca than we expected." As for the opium crop, he conceded that: "There is more out there than we can find right now." And the opposition to Plan Colombia from the left, peasants, environmentalists and human rights activists is beginning to percolate up into the Colombian political class. Last week, Colombia's top human rights official, the nation's comptroller general, a leading legislator from Pastrana's own Conservative Party, and the governors of the main drug-producing states all came out in opposition to the policy, according to the Associated Press. In the boldest pronouncement, Conservative Sen. Juan Manuel Ospina said he would introduce legislation to sharply reduce aerial spraying, provide more alternative crop assistance and decriminalize small coca and opium plots. Fumigation "has been absolutely ineffective in reducing or eliminating the areas under cultivation," Ospina told the AP. A day earlier, Comptroller Carlos Ossa told the legislature fumigation should be stopped altogether because it was proceeding without an environmental protection plan. And human rights ombudsman Eduardo Cifuentes also called for a suspension of spraying, adding that the government had failed to compensate peasant farmers. Also last week, governors from six of the main drug-producing states forced top officials in Bogota to meet with them. According to the AP, the governors warned that continuing the eradication policy would intensify mass protests already occurring in diverse regions. But even as the governors protested, opium crops were being sprayed in Cauca and Narino. The Anti-Narcotics police chief Gen. Gustavo Socha told AP any criticism was the result of "drug traffickers" spreading disinformation.
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