Plan Colombia and Beyond

1. Military and police aid to Colombia would increase by $29 million over the Bush administration’s request. The State Department’s request to Congress included about $477 million in military assistance to Colombia through the foreign aid bill. (Approximately $150-160 million more will go to Colombia through the Defense Department budget, which would make a total of about $630-640 million in military and police aid next year, similar to the past few years.)

The request, submitted in February, looked like this:

1. $381 million through Andean Counter-Drug Initiative (including $41 million through a regional “Critical Flight Safety” program and $26 million in “rule of law” programs that are mostly police assistance).
2. $90 million through Foreign Military Financing, the main non-drug military aid program in the foreign aid budget.
3. $1.7 million through International Military Education and Training, the main non-drug military training program in the foreign aid budget.
4. $3.9 million in Anti-Terrorism Assistance, a relatively small program that provides mostly training.
5. $200,000 for Small Arms and Light Weapons control.

(Note: the true amount of military aid could in fact be $5-10 million lower, depending on how much “rule of law” assistance goes to civilian institutions within the Colombian government.)

At the insistence of Rep. Dan Burton (R-Indiana), the chairman of the House Western Hemisphere International Relations Subcommittee, the House bill increases military aid by $29 million more, in order to pay for upgrades to Colombian helicopters, spray planes and other aircraft. This $29 million would be added to the “Critical Flight Safety” program within the Andean Counter-Drug Initiative account.

The House bill, then, would give Colombia $506 million in military and police aid. Add approximately $160 million from the Defense budget bill, and Colombia would get over $660 million in military and police aid next year – the highest amount since 2000, the year that Plan Colombia’s launch gave aid levels a one-time boost.

2. Economic aid to Colombia would increase by $10 million over the Bush administration’s request. The State Department’s request to Congress included $125 million for “alternative development and institution-building” – that is, rural development aid, assistance to displaced people, judicial reform and human-rights efforts. The House bill would make that $135 million.

(Note: the true amount of economic aid could in fact be $5-10 million higher, depending on how much “rule of law” assistance goes to civilian institutions within the Colombian government.)

That’s a very positive change, as non-military governance desperately needs more emphasis in Colombia. But it does not change the overall proportion of military to economic aid. The House bill would provide Colombia with a total of $641 million in aid; only 21 percent of that would be economic aid.

Including funds through the Defense budget, the House bill could result in Colombia getting over $800 million in U.S. aid next year. Of that amount, only 17 percent would be economic aid.

3. Colombia’s economic aid would no longer go through counter-narcotics programs. All economic aid to Colombia since 2001 has gone through the State Department-managed “Andean Counter-Drug Initiative” account, the largest single source of Colombia’s aid, which mixes military and economic aid together with the drug war as its main purpose.

Subcommittee Chairman Jim Kolbe (R-Arizona), with the apparent agreement of the State Department, has decided to change that, moving Colombia’s $135 million economic aid appropriation into a non-drug funding category. That program, Economic Support Funds or ESF, is an account managed by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Though ESF programs are still often micro-managed, this program does offer much more flexibility than the Andean Counter-Drug Initiative. Aid doesn’t necessarily have to be farmed out to companies and non-profits who bid for USAID contracts; in some cases, it can even be in the form of cash payments to governments. ESF recipient governments generally get to play a leading role in determining how the aid is to be spent, rather than having those decisions largely made in Washington. “If Colombia wants to build a bridge and demonstrates to the U.S. government that this is good for its development,” a U.S. government source told El Tiempo, “they can do it with those funds.”

If the House gets its way, Colombia would become the only country outside the Middle East to receive more than $100 million per year from the ESF account. While not an earth-shaking change in the makeup of U.S. assistance, releasing economic aid from the constraints of the drug war is a positive step. It is also a big step away from the failed counter-narcotics architecture that underlay Plan Colombia six years ago.

Because we haven’t seen the aid bill’s text yet, a few things remain unclear. Is Colombia’s extra $39 million in aid ($29 million military plus $10 million economic) new assistance, or did it have to come from cuts in aid to other countries? Does the bill still include cuts in aid – both military and economic – to many of Colombia’s neighbors, like Peru, Ecuador and especially Bolivia? Beyond amounts, does the bill include any other surprising stipulations, like a further broadening of the aid mission or a tweaking of the human-rights conditions?

We simply don’t know yet, but we will post information as it becomes available.