In December 2000, U.S.-trained counternarcotics battalions, U.S.-supplied Blackhawk helicopters and U.S.-piloted spray planes descended on Putumayo department to conduct Plan Colombia’s initial aerial fumigation campaign. In the more than three years since the initial spraying of coca crops, Putumayo has been a repeat target, as have many of the country’s other southern departments. Although the U.S. government claims its fumigation prescriptions finally began decreasing coca cultivation in 2002 and 2003, there is still no evidence that Plan Colombia has achieved its principal goal of dramatically reducing the flow of cocaine to the United States. But while Plan Colombia has failed to affect the price, purity and availability of cocaine in U.S. cities, its militarization of Putumayo has contributed significantly to increased oil exploration by multinational companies in this resource-rich region. Neoliberal economic reforms that constitute the economic component of Plan Colombia have further sweetened the pot for foreign oil companies.
Tag Archives: united states
The Battle for Saravena
The culmination of two significant events during the past 18 months has dramatically transformed U.S. policy in Colombia. First, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States have allowed the Bush administration to escalate its military involvement in Colombia as part of the evolving global war on terror. And second, the election of Colombia’s hard-line presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe last May has provided the White House with an ally willing to intensify the war against Colombia’s two principal leftist guerrilla groups—the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN)—that are on the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). These developments have led to the deployment of 70 U.S. army Special Forces troops to one of the most hotly contested parts of Colombia to help the Colombian army combat the guerrillas and protect U.S. economic interests in the region.
Plan Colombia’s Killing Fields
A visit to the coca growing regions of southern Colombia clearly illustrates that more than coca is being eradicated by the U.S.-sponsored aerial fumigation. While the spraying has eradicated thousands of acres of coca over the past one and a half years, it has also destroyed the food crops and livelihood of impoverished Colombian farmers in the targeted regions. Recent attempts to more accurately direct the aerial attacks against illicit crops have also failed to protect food crops. And as both the fumigation campaign and the civil conflict intensify, there is evidence of collusion between the Colombian army’s U.S.-trained counternarcotics brigade and paramilitary death squads that are on the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
Alienating the International Community
Many Americans are justifiably stunned, bewildered and angry following the recent terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington DC. But while we seek justice for these atrocious acts of violence, Americans should also reflect on why these fanatics harbor such hatred for the United States. It is not, as Washington so often claims, because they resent our “freedoms” or our “way of life”; it is because they resent a U.S. foreign policy that imposes Western cultural values on their way of life. And while the actions of this fanatical minority are inexcusable, they are indicative of a political viewpoint held by ever-increasing numbers of people around the world. Consequently, many in the international community see the United States as a rogue nation unilaterally imposing its political and economic will on the world at large.
Good Terrorists, Bad Terrorists: How Washington Decides Who’s Who
The U.S. State Department has included Colombia’s two leftist guerrilla groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), on its annual list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) for the past four years. This year it also listed the right-wing paramilitary organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), as a terrorist group. However, unlike the two guerrilla groups, the AUC was not included on the FTO list, but rather on a secondary list that, according to the State Department’s acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism Edmund J. Hull, means the AUC’s activities have “caught our attention and caused us to look more closely at this organization.” Consequently, the AUC is not subject to the same legal sanctions that apply to the FARC, the ELN and other groups included on the FTO list.
Garry Leech 