Plan Colombia and Beyond

The “American Servicemembers’ Protection Act” (ASPA), the 2002 law that bans non-drug military aid to countries that don’t exempt U.S. troops from the International Criminal Court, forces cuts in two programs, IMET and FMF. But the ASPA stops neither U.S. military aid through other programs nor the presence of U.S. military personnel on Bolivian soil (or that of any other banned country).

2. The ASPA would reduce IMET and FMF to Bolivia by 96 percent between 2006 and 2007, according to the aid request. But these programs were already cut completely in 2005. They may in fact be zero again this year, unless the White House decides to offer Bolivia a temporary waiver of the ASPA sanctions, which it can do under the law. Bolivia got a waiver in 2004 when it signed an immunity agreement, but the waiver was lifted when the Bolivian Congress did not ratify the agreement.

A waiver for 2006 might explain why the State Department estimates IMET and FMF rising from zero in 2005 to $1.78 million in 2006; if the waiver were to expire in 2007, that would explain why the aid request foresees them going back down to $80,000 next year. (Neither the New York Times reporter nor I have been able to get a straight answer from the State Department about whether Bolivia is indeed getting a waiver for 2006.)

3. Bolivia is one of twelve Western Hemisphere countries in the same situation. The twelve Latin American and Caribbean countries whose aid is cut by ASPA are Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela. Chile, which has signed onto the ICC but not ratified the Rome Statute, may join the list sometime after Michelle Bachelet assumes office.

Bolivia is not being singled out. And the ASPA aid cutoff would have taken place even if Evo Morales had not been elected.

4. Bolivia will continue to send students to the former School of the Americas. In the ten years between 1996 and 2005, Bolivia sent 612 students to the School of the Americas and its successor at Fort Benning, Georgia, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). The Times article leaves the impression that Bolivian military personnel will no longer be able to attend the controversial facility due to ASPA restrictions.

Yet even with its IMET and FMF funding “zeroed out” in 2005, Bolivia still sent 30 students to WHINSEC, and the school expects 61 Bolivian students in 2006. These students are able to attend thanks to funding programs that are not subject to ASPA sanctions: two “pots of money” for counter-narcotics (The Andean Counterdrug Initiative and the Defense Department’s counter-narcotics account) and one for counter-terrorism, a “Counter-Terrorism Fellowship Program” created within the defense budget in 2002. With those funding sources largely intact, we can expect to see Bolivian officers at Fort Benning for the foreseeable future.

These may appear to be minor quibbles, but I did want to clarify them before people began celebrating (or sounding the alarms about) a sharp break in U.S.-Bolivian military-to-military ties. There is some distancing and the budget is being cut significantly, which will likely cause the Bolivian officer corps to complain. But it is not a 96 percent cutoff.

However, the main argument of the Times piece – that the reduced aid may anger some factions of Bolivia’s military and complicate relations with President Morales – is fundamentally sound and I agree that it is a risk.

On the other hand, it could go the other way: if the U.S. defense establishment is forced to cut back ties to the Bolivian military, than it will lose “influence” and “leverage” with Bolivian officers and be unable to use them as a potential political counterweight to a “leftist” civilian government. Which is just fine.