 |
| Home | | |
Analyses | | |
Aid | | |
| |
| |
News | | |
| |
| |
| |
| Last
Updated:4/12/01 |
| Release
of CIP International Policy Reports, April 12, 2001
Fumigation,
Poverty, Paramilitaries, Urban Warfare, and a Misguided U.S. Approach
Colombia’s paramilitary groups are taking over strategic areas with little opposition, while the United States has so far done little more than fumigate peasants, according to two reports the Center for International Policy (CIP) is releasing today. With vivid photos and illustrations, the new documents discuss the Center’s visits to two of Colombia’s most conflictive zones during the first half of March. Plan Colombia’s “Ground Zero” offers a look at the southern department of Putumayo, the destination of most of the United States’ overwhelmingly military aid to Colombia. “The New Masters of Barranca,” an account of the strategic northern city of Barrancabermeja, presents a glimpse into what may be the future of Colombia’s conflict: a scary new phase of urban warfare. “Ground Zero” depicts the aftermath of the first phase of “Plan Colombia,” an eight-week blitz of aerial herbicide fumigation in a Putumayo coca-growing area. The authors, Adam Isacson and Ingrid Vaicius, found that the “balanced” package of U.S. assistance has so far been 100 percent military – programs to keep farmers from relocating and planting coca elsewhere have yet to receive promised funding. “While the United States has been in a big hurry to create new counternarcotics battalions, deliver helicopters, and spray tens of thousands of acres, there has been no similar rush to deliver aid for alternative development – so far, not a single dollar has been disbursed,” said Vaicius, an associate at CIP. The authors toured the zone that was fumigated between December 2000 and February 2001, a zone that U.S. officials had described as dominated by “industrial” coca cultivation and undeserving of economic assistance. “We didn’t find any ‘industrial’ coca-growing in the fumigated area,” said Isacson, a CIP senior associate. “What we found were families running out of food, destroyed alternative-development projects, and people with health problems.” The authors came away convinced that the fumigations were eased not by the new battalions and helicopters, but by paramilitary groups’ brutal and rapid takeover of the zone shortly before the spraying began. “The New Masters” details the paramilitaries’ growing power in another part of the country, the oil-refining port of Barrancabermeja. Since launching an offensive in late December 2000, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) paramilitary group has taken nearly total control of this city of 300,000 people, formerly a stronghold of the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group. The report discusses allegations of military-paramilitary collaboration in the right-wing group’s takeover of the city’s working-class neighborhoods. It also sounds an urgent alarm on behalf of the city’s seriously threatened human rights defenders and community leaders. “What we found is that Barrancabermeja doesn’t need more military aid. Its human rights defenders need protection from government representatives who are committed to stopping the paramilitaries,” said Isacson. The reports are available online right now, and will be in print by Monday, April 23. Spanish versions will follow in late May. The reports can be read at the following websites (the PDF versions print best): “Plan Colombia’s ‘Ground Zero’”
“’The New Masters of Barranca’”
Founded in 1975, the Center for International Policy promotes a U.S. foreign policy based on international cooperation, demilitarization, and respect for basic human rights. ### |
|||||
|
|
| Asia | | |
Colombia | | |
| |
Financial Flows | | |
National Security | | |
| Center
for International Policy |