CIP
Memorandum: Colombia aid in Iraq supplemental, April 2, 2003
MEMORANDUM
Date: April
2, 2003
To: Foreign policy aides
From: Adam Isacson, senior associate; Ingrid Vaicius, associate
Re: Colombia aid in Iraq supplemental
The emergency supplemental
appropriation for Iraq, which Congress will debate tomorrow, includes
$105 million in new assistance for the armed forces of Colombia.
[$34 million from the State Department's "Andean Regional Initiative"
account, $37 million from the Foreign Military Financing program, and
$34 million in Defense Department counternarcotics/counterterrorism funds.]
If approved, this outlay would increase to $600 million - almost $2
million per day - the amount of assistance going to Colombia's military
and police in 2003.
There are three reasons
why we oppose this new assistance:
- "Mission
creep": Colombia is already the world's number three recipient
of U.S. security assistance. It is also the site of a 40-year-old civil
war involving almost 40,000 insurgents. In the words of Rep. Ike Skelton
(D-MO), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, Colombia's
war could become "a morass that would eat up American soldiers
like we have not seen in years." Worse, as the Senate Foreign Operations
Appropriations Subcommittee pointed out last July, the administration's
Colombia policy lacks "clearly defined objectives or benchmarks
for measuring success" - in other words, there is no clear strategy.
The U.S.
military is obviously stretched very thinly at present. Does it make
sense to take on, without sufficient debate, an ambitious new counter-insurgency
mission in Colombia?
- Human rights:
Too many members of Colombia's military continue to violate human
rights, or to collaborate with right-wing paramilitary groups (the United
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, which is on the State Department's
list of international terrorist organizations). Of these, too many continue
to enjoy total impunity from a weak judicial system unable to punish
them. As Monday's State Department human rights report acknowledges,
"Some members of the government security forces continued to commit
serious abuses, including unlawful and extrajudicial killings. Some
members of the security forces collaborated with paramilitary groups
that committed serious abuses. Impunity remained at the core of the
country's human rights problems."
Increasing
our aid sends a poisonous message to human rights violators among the
ranks of Colombia's armed forces: abuses and impunity are a secondary
priority. Increasing our aid also runs the risk of indirectly aiding
the paramilitaries, since collaborative relationships exist in much
of the country.
- Why military
aid?
If the United States wishes to give more money to Colombia, it should
go to the civilian government. Funds are desperately needed to assist
more than 2 million people displaced from their homes by the violence,
to strengthen the judicial system, to develop the countryside, or to
make local governments work. Yet if this $105 million addition passes,
only 20 percent of the United States' aid to Colombia this year will
go to meet these priorities. Fighting terrorism is not just a military
question - only a stronger civilian government will ultimately be able
to end Colombia's war.
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