« A new military-aid "slush fund"? | Main | A conversation with the governor of Putumayo »
November 09, 2005
The 2006 foreign aid outcome
While I was in Colombia last week, the U.S. Congress quickly approved the final version of the 2006 foreign aid law, with both good and bad news for aid to Colombia. Here is an English translation of the overview I wrote in Sunday's edition of the Colombian newspaper El Espectador.
Adam Isacson
The U.S. Congress finally approved its foreign-aid bill for 2006. And the Uribe government can't be happy.
They are by now used to winning their legislative battles in Washington, and in the new aid law, they did get nearly all they asked for. But their victory was very far from total. This time, the current policy's critics managed to make a dent.
The overall amount of aid didn't change: $483.5 million will go to Colombia through the "Andean Counterdrug Initiative" program, plus another $250 million or so in military aid through other accounts in the budget. But this time the amount includes a record level of social and economic aid, some $158.6 million - $6 million more than in 2005.
Of course, this is just a 4 percent increase. But this increase requires a similar decrease in military aid, something that has never happened. While this cannot be considered a change of course, it is certainly a brake on past years' military-aid momentum.
The biggest defeat, however, had to do with the paramilitary process, which is still strongly questioned among members of both parties in Washington. It was known that the Uribe government hoped to win a contribution of up to $80 million for demobilization and reinsertion programs; according to the Interior and Justice Ministry, these efforts would cost $180 million (400 billion pesos) in 2006.
The Bush administration didn't want to turn down a request from its closest ally in South America. But it apparently did not spend much political capital in its lobbying effort. The Congress ended up approving an almost symbolic sum of $20 million. While this amount sounds big, it isn't: it equals the cost of one and a half Black Hawk helicopters (the United States has given Colombia more than 25 Black Hawks since 1999). It probably equals what Don Berna or Vicente Castaño makes in about three months. While it is possible that more aid to the process may come in 2006 through a supplemental budget request, few currently see that as likely.
The Uribe government's defeat is put in sharper relief when one reads the text of the conditions that the Congress attached to these $20 million. While these conditions are less stringent than those that the Senate added to its version of the law in July, they are still quite strong. The Senate ceded to the House - whose version of the law did not include conditions - on the issue of human rights, abandoning the ban on aid to the process should those who committed crimes against humanity not receive "proportional punishment." But it remained firm on those conditions that had to do with the dismantlement of paramilitarism and the extradition of high-ranking leaders.
The law specifies that the $20 million cannot be spent on the demobilization of individuals until the State Department certifies that they "have (A) verifiably renounced and terminated any affiliation or involvement with FTOs [Foreign Terrorist Organizations] or other illegal armed groups, and (B) are meeting all the requirements of the Colombia Demobilization Program, including having disclosed their involvement in past crimes and their knowledge of the FTO's structure, financing sources, illegal assets, and the location of kidnapping victims and bodies of the disappeared." Therefore, aid to the process will stop if evidence arises that ex-paramilitaries are participating in new violent groups or structures.
The conditions also require demobilized individuals to give a much more complete confession than that contemplated in the "Justice and Peace" law. The aid law prohibits the use of these $20 million until the State Department certifies that "the Government of Colombia is providing full cooperation to the Government of the United States to extradite the leaders and members of the FTOs who have been indicted in the United States." Yes, the language is vague. But it is difficult to imagine the State Department certifying that the presence of Don Berna in a suite at the Itagüí prison is an example of "full cooperation."
These conditions will be difficult to satisfy, and to do so will only free up a relatively small amount of money. The new aid law, then, cannot be seen as a major support to the process with the "paras." It is a nominal contribution to a process that still suffers from a lack of credibility.
Posted by isacson at November 9, 2005 07:53 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://ciponline.org/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/150
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)