Plan Colombia and Beyond

(The PowerPoint slideshow Hernández used for his presentation, which mainly provides aggregate figures with little explanation of how they were derived, is available on the Comptroller’s website.)

If the comptroller is correct, then, Uribe has done little or nothing to increase the sort of social investment most necessary to improve the country’s security situation. In the parts of Colombia where armed groups and coca thrive – beyond the relatively prosperous cities, where at least a threadbare social safety net exists – there is still a severe unmet need for the basic governance on which a legal economy depends. This means roads, clean water, a functioning judiciary, guarantees of property rights, and much more, including the physical presence of government representatives.

If most of the recent increase in social expenditure owes to pensions, then we can safely conclude that Uribe’s military effort is far, far ahead of any attempt to consolidate a real government presence in zones said to be “re-taken” by the armed forces’ recent offensives. If the soldiers are still on their own because there is no money to bring in the rest of the government, the guerrillas and paramilitaries need only wait until the soldiers move on, as they inevitably do, and re-establish themselves.

In one of a series of interviews in Medellín’s daily El Colombiano that resemble fawning campaign ads more than journalism, President Uribe responded to the comptroller’s critique. His words were disheartening:

“I haven’t included investment in Democratic Security as social investment, but it is, because security attracts resources.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong. That may be true on the most macro level: if there is greater security, then private investment flows likely increase. But even then, we have to ask for whom security attracts the most resources. While Colombia’s stock market index has enriched investors by increasing almost ninefold since Uribe took office, incomes remain stagnant in poor, violent departments like Chocó, Guaviare or Caquetá (and of course, where coca has been eradicated with insufficient attention to alternatives, incomes are depressed).

Colombia’s conflict will be won or lost (or stalemated) on the micro level. As we’ve seen over and over again, sending the troops into a zone with a history of government absence does nothing to “attract resources” to that zone. To do that, you need to establish at least the rudiments of a functioning civilian government. But if the comptroller is correct, the Uribe government’s budgets have not made that a priority.