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September 16, 2005
Statistics, again
Normally, when President Álvaro Uribe cites reams of statistics about the seemingly miraculous success of his policies, it’s hard to contradict him, no matter how fishy the numbers sound. Who but Colombia’s government, for instance, is able to keep comprehensive data about homicides or attacks on infrastructure?
Occasionally, though, the Uribe government’s official statistics make no sense objectively, as in the case of numbers of guerrillas and paramilitaries killed, captured and demobilized. At other times, they contradict the findings of respected non-governmental organizations, as in the case of measures of new forced displacement, which diverge widely from the statistics maintained by CODHES.
Yesterday in Washington, one of President Uribe’s principal claims clearly contradicted the statistics maintained by both the U.S. government and the United Nations.
One of the Colombian Presidency’s press releases from yesterday reads, “According to the President, Colombia’s advancement in issues like eradication of illicit crops through fumigation has had such visible results as a drop from 180,000 hectares of drug crops at the beginning of his government in 2002, to 80,000 in 2004.”
We hope that President Uribe wasn’t making this astounding claim at all of his meetings on Capitol Hill yesterday, because it’s wrong. It’s not even close.
U.S. government figures (see our coca-growing data webpage for more information):
|
| 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 |
| Hectares of coca | 101,800 | 122,500 | 136,200 | 169,800 | 144,400 | 113,850 | 114,000 |
UN Office on Drugs and Crime figures (see our coca-growing data webpage for more information):
|
| 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 |
| Hectares of coca | 102,000 | 160,000 | 163,000 | 145,000 | 102,000 | 86,000 | 80,000 |
In Washington yesterday, President Uribe claimed a 56 percent decrease in coca-growing since his term began in August 2002. In fact, the U.S. government has registered only a 21 percent decrease, and the UN estimates show a 22 percent decrease. Worse, Uribe has presided over a virtual stagnation in coca eradication between 2003 and 2004 – the U.S. government figures found no reduction at all last year, and the UN found only a reduction of 6,000 hectares, accompanied by increases in Peru and Bolivia.
President Uribe is in fact presiding over the failure of a model based on all-out fumigation combined with woefully insufficient alternative development. That’s nothing to brag about.
Meanwhile, however, the fumigation strategy marches on. It was easy to miss this amid all the other U.S. policy-related news yesterday, but Cali’s El País is reporting this morning that “The [Colombian] government has finalized its plan to fumigate in national parks,” adding that while fumigations in parks have not yet begun, “the police are ready to carry out the plan.”
Posted by isacson at September 16, 2005 11:36 AM
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Comments
Regarding the statistics of guerrillas and paramilitaries killed or captured, I would mainly refer any interested parties to my comment on the other CIP post linked to by Mr. Isacson.
Right now, I'll only restate that perhaps the figures include not just paramilitary and guerrilla fighters (people with AK-47s and so on) but also their real or imagined supporters (people that are guilty of rebellion, subversion and whatever equivalent crime the paramilitaries are guilty of, even if these people are not fighters per se).
The number of these individuals is certainly much, much higher than 30,000. Personally, I remember reading somewhere that, in theory, each guerrilla/irregular fighter needs 2 or 3 support personnel behind him/his unit in order to survive logistically.
From that point of view, the figures might well add up with no real foul play involved, but only against a total number of "irregulars" (both paramilitary and rebel) that includes their unknown number of collaborators and unarmed support personnel. That, and what I already mentioned in my previous comment, does make plenty of objective sense, I believe.
Additionally, on the subject of drugs...probably Uribe, intentionally or unintentionally, was provided with estimates dating to 1999/2000, the time when Plan Colombia "began", and mistakenly (or not, depending on what CIP and Mr. Isacscon might choose to believe) applied them to his discourse as part of his own government's achievements (the "pitch", so to speak). Whether that's his own fault or that of his PR/statistics advisers, or both, is another matter.
The number of people that have been internally displaced is hard to pin down, and in any event it varies widely due to differences in what is classified as an internally displaced person and what isn't (ie: Colombian government statistics only seem to take into account reported cases with a degree of official confirmation, while the other NGOs add up cases and claims that are reported to them directly or to their own sources of information, under their own set of requirements which differs from that of the Col. Gov.).
Still, it's reasonable to suppose that the Colombian government may have tried to underestimate and undermine the problem of displacement due to other concerns, in particular budget concerns, given the economic and political cost of an issue of this magnitude (in that sense, perhaps it makes practical sense, though it's still morally wrong and the Colombian Courts have recently done the right thing by putting extra pressure on the Colombian Gov., as reported by EL TIEMPO this week ).
Posted by: jcg at September 16, 2005 03:42 PM
As for the failure of the fumigation strategy, I continue to agree with and support your organization's criticsm of it and its counterproductive effects.
Posted by: jcg at September 16, 2005 03:44 PM
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