Pubdate: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 Source: Washington Post (DC) Copyright: 2000 The Washington Post Company Contact: 1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071 Feedback: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Author: Michael Shifter Note: Michael Shifter, senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, a forum of leaders from the hemisphere, recently directed an independent task force on U.S.-Colombia policy, co-sponsored by the Dialogue and the Council on Foreign Relations. THIS PLAN ISN'T WORKING "Plan Colombia" Has Become A Policy Many People And Governments Love To Hate. The $7.5 billion aid program was conceived jointly by U.S. and Colombian officials in September 1999 to deal with Colombia's deterioration into a lawless state fueled by the drug trade. Recently the plan has generated a strong backlash among some of the very governments and private groups whose support is critical if the Colombian government is to regain control of the country. The Colombians expect that $3.5 billion will come from foreign donors, the rest from Colombian sources. But so far the foreign pledges have been disappointing. The exception has been the United States, which approved a $1.3 billion aid package in June. The result is that Plan Colombia is now seen strictly as a U.S. package. For some governments and organizations, particularly in Latin America and Europe, it has become a convenient target, a rallying cry of anti-Americanism. Barely off the ground, the plan risks falling apart. While much has been written about the concerns of U.S. opponents to the plan, far less attention has been paid to opposition in Colombia's backyard. Although supportive of Colombian President Andres Pastrana's peace effort, leaders throughout the region have, since late summer, become increasingly critical of the plan and its possible consequences beyond Colombia's borders. "The [Colombian] problem is a domestic problem," Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso said in October. "We are not interested at all in any kind of Brazilian intervention in Colombia." Ecuador's Foreign Minister Heinz Moeller objected in September to "the cancerous tumor being removed from Colombia and metastasizing in Ecuador." Alberto Fujimori, until recently Peru's president and a strong ally of the U.S. anti-drug war, nonetheless said in late August, "the regional security and that of the Andean community is in peril before a $3 billion military project that Colombia plans to implement along the next two years." Large-scale aid to Colombia should be an easy decision. South America's oldest democracy and second-largest country, Colombia has a civilian, constitutional government that is under siege from several threats, including guerrillas on the left, paramilitary forces on the right and criminal groups, all largely fueled by illegal drugs. Lawlessness is rampant; roughly 70 percent of the world's kidnappings take place in Colombia. There is already spillover to other countries, and it could get worse. Why, then, are there such strong objections to assisting a well-intentioned government in dire need? The U.S. package is aimed at fighting drugs, but about three-quarters of that aid is in the form of military assistance. Thus the contribution evokes an earlier period of military intervention in Latin America. Despite the end of the Cold War and a supposed new era of cooperation in hemispheric relations, there is concern that the U.S. could turn Colombia and the region into another Vietnam. Many Latin Americans see the United States as having a tendency to overshoot. They distrust its ability to keep its military impulses in check and wonder whether U.S. officials are truly interested in the negotiated settlement they say they seek. Latin leaders' reactions to Plan Colombia tend to mirror their relations with the United States. Hugo Chavez, who has often defied Washington since becoming Venezuela's president in February 1999, has led the charge against the Plan. He warned in late August that it could "generate a medium-intensity conflict in the whole of northern South America." Plan Colombia now regularly provokes heated discussion at hemispheric gatherings. A declaration issued at the end of the first summit of South American heads of state on Sept. 1 in Brasilia was instructive. It expressed support for the "peace process in Colombia," "the president of Colombia," and the "government of Colombia." But there was, quite deliberately, no mention at all of Plan Colombia. Moreover, Latin Americans, particularly in those countries where illegal drug production or trafficking is flourishing, deeply resent U.S. drug policy, which is a source of irritation in inter-American relations. Since 1986, the United States has issued an annual report card grading Latin American governments in their fight against drugs. The comeback--that U.S. demand and consumption are responsible for the drug crisis--is never far behind. Throughout the region, many people who follow the issue closely wonder why the United States has clung for so long to an anti-drug formula that has yielded so few results. The leaders of several governments in the region also object to the way the aid package was devised, with little consultation with neighboring countries bound to be affected by the policy. That approach was reminiscent of a earlier era, when the United States asserted its power to advance its security interests when it felt it had to do so. That mind-set was captured by a Pentagon official quoted at a meeting of the region's defense ministers in Manaus, Brazil, on Oct. 19, in response to resistance to Plan Colombia expressed by some of his Latin American counterparts: "Our position is: We're going to take a stand. If you're with us, fine." European governments and non-governmental groups have joined the chorus of criticism of Plan Colombia. Europeans worry about U.S. policy being too militaristic in light of the Colombian armed forces' troubling human rights record. Like Latin Americans, Europeans are careful to make the distinction between the "peace process" in Colombia, which they support, and "Plan Colombia," which they oppose. In July, Spain committed $100 million, and Norway $20 million, in social and development projects. But the European Union's offer of some $280 million in aid, made in October, was well short of Colombia's $1 billion target. The critics have a point. The U.S. aid package is not a policy that responds to Colombian realities, but a spasm that is the product of U.S. domestic political pressures, namely the determination to combat illicit drugs. Because it's so heavily skewed toward military assistance, the U.S.-driven plan runs the risk of escalating violence, contributing to larger refugee flows and widening drug-related activity. U.S. officials defend the aid by pointing to funds designated for non-military programs, both in Colombia and in neighboring countries, to deal with the effects of the American policy. That support includes alternative economic development programs to discourage the cultivation of coca plants. The backlash among the plan's opponents poses a serious problem for Pastrana, who sees Plan Colombia as the vehicle for pursuing the highest priority of his administration--ending his country's decades-old insurgency and reaching a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Making his stumbling peace effort work without the support of other Latin Americans and Europeans would be difficult. Pastrana finds himself in an impossible position, with the United States applying pressure on one side and potential supporters backing away on the other. At the end of a summit meeting of Latin leaders in early November, Panama called for a January 2001 meeting of defense ministers from the five nations bordering Colombia to talk about the fallout from the growing instability in that country. To its chagrin, the Colombian government was not invited. The backlash is also bad news for the United States. It is hard to see how a policy so strongly opposed abroad--and widely questioned in the very country it is meant to assist--can succeed. And Plan Colombia is not exactly generating a lot of enthusiasm in the United States. In a sign of growing doubts about the plan, Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House International Relations Committee and formerly one of the plan's strongest advocates, withdrew his support last month, saying U.S. aid should be directed to the Colombian national police and not the armed forces. The transition to a new U.S. administration, coupled with the controversy over the vote count, is likely to compound uncertainties about Plan Colombia. This after all, is a policy not yet on track; it is unlikely to get the kind of attention it needs from the next administration, which because of its inauspicious start is likely to be distracted early in its term. With a more sensible U.S. policy on Colombia, the United States would have less trouble gaining support from Latin America and Europe. But that would require reversing what has been a myopic approach in fighting drugs by military means. The American policy should instead seek to help Colombia's beleaguered government restore authority and control so that it can better protect its citizens and so that it can achieve a negotiated political solution. U.S. policy should be geared toward professionalizing Colombia's security forces, including its military and police--not just training a few select anti-drug battalions. Professionalization, in this sense, has to include strict adherence to human rights standards. The United States should also vigorously promote other institutional reforms in Colombia, including social, political and especially judicial reform. U.S. engagement in dealing with a range of complex problems--over at least a half dozen years--will be essential to begin to reverse the downward spiral. The main obstacle to adopting such a course is likely to come not from Latin America or Europe, which understand the importance of addressing Colombia's security crisis, but from the United States. The pressures to devise an anti-drug policy--on the part of Democrats and Republicans alike--are hard to resist. To change course will require sustained and committed political leadership from the highest levels of the U.S. government--and a policy that grapples with Colombian realities. Whether the United States will be able to do this is the next big question. Michael Shifter, senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, a forum of leaders from the hemisphere, recently directed an independent task force on U.S.-Colombia policy, co-sponsored by the Dialogue and the Council on Foreign Relations. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D