Secretary
Rice in Colombia: How to make the most of a brief visit
By CIP and the Latin America Working Group
April 22, 2005
Printer-friendly
version [Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format]
|
April
22, 2005
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
|
CONTACTS:
Adam
Isacson, Center for International Policy (202) 232-3317 isacson@ciponline.org
Lisa
Haugaard, Latin America Working Group (202) 546-7010 / lisah@lawg.org
|
Secretary
Rice in Colombia: How to make the most of a brief visit
Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice will spend a few hours in Colombia on Wednesday,
April 27, as part of a visit to several Latin American countries. During
her brief stay, we can expect her to issue glowing praise for Álvaro
Uribe, one of the most pro-U.S. leaders in modern Latin American history.
We can also expect much self-congratulation about the perceived successes
of “Plan Colombia,” the framework that has guided aid to Colombia since
2000.
|
Blueprint
for a
New Colombia Policy
Convinced
that now is the time for a fundamental re-thinking of our approach
to Colombia, several U.S. organizations published a joint document
in March recommending the following ten policy changes. The “Blueprint”
is available online at http://www.lawg.org/
docs/Blueprint.pdf.
1.
Use U.S. leverage far more vigorously in support of human
rights and the rule of law.
2.
Support the recommendations of the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights.
3.
Insist upon the complete dismantlement of paramilitary forces
and structures, within an effective legal framework for justice,
truth and reparations.
4.
Support a strong judiciary and an independent human rights
sector.
5.
Expand alternative development within a comprehensive
rural development strategy, and end aerial spraying.
6.
Encourage the strengthening of civilian governance in
rural areas.
7.
Make trade policy consistent with sustainable drug policy
and human rights.
8.
Increase and improve humanitarian assistance, and expand protection,
to displaced persons and refugees.
9.
Encourage negotiations with the guerrillas for a just and
lasting peace.
10.
Reduce U.S. demand for drugs through evidence-based protection
strategies and improved access to high-quality treatment.
|
“We’re
going to hear leaders selling their own evaluation of their own policy’s
performance, painting a rosy picture,” says Adam Isacson, director of
the Center for International Policy’s Colombia Program. “But the real
picture is far more complicated. In fact, it points to an urgent need
for a new policy.”
Adds Lisa
Haugaard, director of the Latin America Working Group, “Let’s hope that
Secretary Rice isn’t coming just to celebrate fragile claims of progress
and to insist that ‘we are winning.’ She must recognize the many ways
in which Plan Colombia has been a disappointment. It is time to start
thinking about alternatives, and this visit offers a perfect opportunity.”
Since 2000,
the United States has given Colombia $4 billion in aid; 80 percent of
it ($3.2 billion) has gone to Colombia’s security forces for a long
list of counter-drug and counter-terror programs, from herbicide fumigation
to support for ambitious counter-insurgent military offensives. The
Bush Administration’s request to Congress for 2006 is identical: aid
through the Foreign Operations and Defense budgets would total $700
to $750 million in 2006, 80 percent of it for Colombia’s security forces.
No change in strategy is being contemplated. The emphasis continues
to be on military force and chemical eradication of illicit crops.
“This is
the wrong approach. The current policy isn’t yielding anywhere near
the results we were promised back in 2000, when Plan Colombia began,”
says Haugaard.
Poor
results against drugs. U.S. support to Plan Colombia has utterly
failed to meet its principal goal: reducing the supply of cocaine
and heroin entering the United States from Colombia. The price,
availability and purity of cocaine on U.S. streets has been unaffected
– in fact, street prices have inexplicably dropped since 2000. Fumigation
– which takes a heavy toll on poor peasants with no other economic
opportunities – has exhausted itself: in 2004, a record amount
of spraying failed to reduce coca cultivation by even one acre.
The amount of coca grown in Colombia in 2003 and 2004 was 285,000
acres – only 20,000 acres (6.5 percent) less than it was in 1999.
Poor
results on human rights. Reports of human rights violations
by the military, including extrajudicial executions and torture, have
increased, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
and the Colombian Commission of Jurists. Reports of army-paramilitary
collaboration – including in Arauca province, now a central focus
of U.S. assistance – remain abundant. The fight against impunity
is not being won: investigations and prosecutions of military
personnel are as rare as ever in human rights cases. Despite the documented
frequency of abuses and collusion with paramilitaries, the number
of military personnel under investigation or indictment is remarkably
small and has not grown. The Secretary of State now has pending
before her a decision on whether Colombia meets the human rights conditions
in law regarding breaking links between the army and paramilitary
forces and investigating and prosecuting security force officials
alleged to be involved in serious human rights abuses. Though this
certification has been pending since the beginning of March, the Secretary
has not issued her decision.
Mixed
results on security. Several indicators of violence have declined
– murders, kidnappings, attacks on populations and others. These
fragile gains owe nothing to U.S. assistance, which has focused
mainly on counternarcotics operations, protection of an oil pipeline,
and support for the “Plan Patriota” military offensive in sparsely
populated southern Colombia. Worse, there are troubling signs that
progress on the battlefield has not been as great as advertised. Guerrilla
attacks have grown more frequent during the first few months of 2005,
casting strong doubt on claims – such as Southern Command Gen. James
Hill’s 2004 prediction that the FARC would be “combat ineffective”
by 2006 – that the group’s defeat is imminent. When the guerrillas
attack, civilians often bear the brunt, as we have seen in the vicious
recent FARC mortar attack on the indigenous town of Toribío.
A new
policy would recognize that military force alone makes it possible
only to occupy territory. To govern territory requires
a robust, well-funded and coordinated civilian government presence.
Colombia has repeated a frustrating pattern over the past few years:
military offensives clear armed groups out of a zone, but the rest
of the government fails to establish itself. No funds are available
to introduce judges, road-builders, doctors, teachers, land-titlers
or local-government officials. When the military withdraws, it leaves
a vacuum of state presence that the illegal armed groups easily fill.
“Without more investment in Colombia’s non-military needs, U.S.-aided
efforts will fail to produce sustainable results,” says CIP’s Isacson.
An
increasing mission and military presence. Eight years ago, U.S.
aid went mainly to Colombia’s police and was restricted to counter-narcotics.
Plan Colombia expanded Washington’s commitment to include Colombia’s
armed forces, but kept the counter-narcotics restriction in place.
In 2002, as the “global war on terror” got underway, the counter-narcotics
restriction disappeared, allowing U.S. aid to be used in Colombia’s
armed conflict. The steady progression continued in 2004, as Congress
approved a Defense Department request to double (to 800) the legal
limit on the number of U.S. troops who can be in Colombia at any time,
and increased by 50 percent (to 600) the limit on U.S. citizens working
for private contractors. Though U.S. personnel are still prohibited
from participating in combat, U.S. involvement in Colombia’s conflict
is growing with a momentum of its own.
It
is time to give serious consideration to a new policy. The Blueprint
for a New Colombia Policy contains ten recommendations, five of
which would cost nothing to implement. The United States must act
more forcefully in support of human rights and the rule of law in
Colombia, using diplomacy, the UN High Commissioner’s human-rights
recommendations, and tools in existing foreign-aid law. The United
States must condition any support for paramilitary demobilizations
on strong provisions for justice, reparations, and the complete dismantlement
of paramilitarism. The United States must ensure that a trade agreement
avoids dealing severe shocks to Colombia’s already-battered countryside.
The United States must play a more constructive role in any effort
to get negotiations re-started with guerrilla groups.
What does
that mean for Secretary Rice’s visit? We strongly recommend that
the Secretary take the following steps on April 27.
1.
Do not offer a blanket endorsement of the Uribe government. Differences
with Álvaro Uribe’s policies should not be downplayed. It is important
to recognize that, despite President Uribe’s claims to the contrary,
an armed conflict does exist in Colombia, requiring
full respect for international humanitarian law and negotiations about
more than just surrender terms. It is vital to make clear that the
United States does not share Mr. Uribe’s belief that human-rights
groups are “spokespeople for terrorism.” It is important to urge
the Colombian government to do far more to introduce civilian governance
into long-neglected areas.
2.
Express strong concern about continued impunity for human rights abusers.
Acknowledge that this remains a serious problem. Do not certify
the Colombian military’s human rights performance until there is greater
progress in breaking links between the army and the paramilitary forces,
and until there is greater progress in investigating and prosecuting
key cases, including the recent massacre of eight people in the
San José de Apartadó peace community.
3.
Express concern about the paramilitaries’ non-observance of a cease-fire
and the severe shortcomings of the law, nearing approval in Colombia’s
Congress, that will govern paramilitary groups’ demobilization. The
current bill lacks the tools necessary to identify those responsible
for crimes against humanity, to seize paramilitaries’ stolen assets,
to make reparations to victims, to keep notorious narcotraffickers
from gaining amnesty, and – most importantly – to dismantle paramilitary
command and support structures. Without a strong dismantlement regime,
it is likely that paramilitary groups will continue to exist as politically
powerful mafias, controlling both legal and illegal economic activity
and silencing opponents through death-squad tactics. Make clear
that the United States will not support a process that appears likely
to yield that outcome.
4.
Express support for the important role played by non-governmental
human rights organizations and other citizen groups working peacefully
for reform and an end to impunity. They do so at great personal
risk, and a message of support from the Secretary of State would do
much to relieve the pressures they face.
5.
Commit the United States to greater investment in social aid and indicate
openness to altering the largely military approach of the past several
years. Our annual aid packages must stop favoring the security
forces above all other needs by a four-to-one ratio. The move toward
balance must begin immediately.
