Remember Colombia
Monday, January 14, 2002
IT NOW LOOKS AS though the Bush administration may have to devote some real attention in the coming year to a key Latin American ally, Argentina, which has suffered an economic meltdown and is in danger of political collapse. But if it would like to head off yet another Latin American crisis, it would do well also to increase its effort in Colombia, a large and troubled nation of 42 million where a once-active U.S. policy has been on virtual autopilot for the past year.
Colombia's battle with insurgent groups of the left and right, which during 2001 killed at least 3,000 people, has been cast in a new context -- at least for the United States -- by the events of Sept. 11. After all, three of the Colombian groups are on the U.S. government list of terrorist organizations, and one recently was caught collaborating with Ireland's IRA. Nevertheless, the Bush administration has insisted on preserving an unrealistic policy it inherited from the Clinton administration, by which the United States supplies hundreds of millions of dollars in equipment and training to the Colombian army in the name of combating narcotics trafficking but refuses to support military operations against the guerrillas -- even though the extremists are themselves deeply involved in the production of cocaine. Though both the administration and Congress are properly concerned about the army's record of human rights violations, the real point of the policy has been to limit U.S. involvement in a fight against extremists who routinely use terrorism to weaken a democratic and pro-American government. Such logic was typical of U.S. foreign policy before Sept. 11; now it seems glaringly out of place.
Officials point out that Congress has appropriated more than $2 billion in aid to Colombia in the past several years, part of a larger Plan Colombia intended to curtail the growing and processing of coca and deprive the insurgents of their sources of support. Colombian President Andres Pastrana has tried to couple that stick with peace negotiations with the militants and has allowed the largest organization to maintain its own Switzerland-sized enclave. But both initiatives are failing. Despite extensive fumigation of coca fields this year, there is no sign Colombian cocaine production -- or even overall coca planting -- has decreased. The peace talks have produced no results, while the kidnappings, massacres and other criminal acts by the militants -- especially those of the right -- have mounted steadily.
On Saturday Mr. Pastrana announced a breakdown in talks with the leftist guerrillas; he has given them until today to vacate their enclave, and ordered the army to retake the zone. That could herald the beginning of a substantial escalation of the military conflict in the coming months. Colombia meanwhile is heading toward a spring presidential election likely to produce a successor to Mr. Pastrana who is committed to a tougher approach. But whether or not the war escalates, the Bush administration needs to revitalize U.S. engagement with Colombia. The government should be helped and encouraged to speed up judicial reforms and aid to farmers, and more pressure should be applied -- as it has been already -- for a break between the military and the right-wing paramilitary groups. The administration also should abandon its attempt to distinguish counternarcotics from counterinsurgency aid to Colombia. If the United States can support governments and armies battling extremists in Central and Southeast Asia, as it has recently begun to do, it ought to be able to give similar aid to an embattled democratic government in Latin America.
