This paper attempts to study in brief the current
ground realities in Columbia that has been plagued
with violence, the main cause being drugs, which
has led to a virtual civil war and widespread
violence. The paper also attempts a look at the
impact of Plan Columbia and President Uribe.
The Republic of Columbia lies in South America
and has as its neighbors Panama, Venezuela, Brazil,
Peru and Ecuador on various parts of its border.
Columbia gained independence from its Spanish
conquerors in 1819 and since then been governed
by either the Conservatives or the Liberals except
for a brief period of military rule. Marxist guerrilla
groups like the May 19 th Movement (M-19), the
National Liberation Army (ELN), and the Revolutionary
Armed Forces Of Columbia (FARC) sprang up in the
between the 1960s and 1970s leading to widespread
violence and instability in the country. The situation
took a turn for the worse with Columbia becoming
one of the main international centers for drug
production and trafficking and it seemed that
there were periods when the country was more under
the control of drug cartels like the Medillin
and Cali, which were organize during the 1970s
and 1980s. To add to the ever-growing list of
violent groups came the numerous rightwing paramilitary
groups consisting of drug traffickers and landowners.
These right wing paramilitaries formed a group
known as United Self-Defense Forces of Columbia.
In 2000 the US backed plan Plan Columbia was established,
by which $1.3 billion was to be made available
to the Columbian Government to fight drug trafficking.
This gave an impetus to the combat against not
only drug traffickers, but also the several guerrilla
groups operating in Columbia. Alvaro Uribe of
the Liberal Party became President in 2002 with
the pledge to act tough on the rebel groups and
the drug traffickers. Violence became worse with
his inauguration and within a week of becoming
President, Uribe declared a state of emergency.
Using the assistance received from the US President
Uribe strengthened the Columbian security forces
and went after the drug trade in real earnest.
In 2004 the UN declared that the long period of
violence for thirty-nine years had resulted in
the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere
leading to more than two million people displaced
and a number of Indian Tribes driven close to
extinction.
It is next only to Sudan and Congo in terms of
the number of displaced population. However the
Columbian and American sources paint a more impressive
picture of the actions taken by President Uribe.
The claim is that more than 16,000 suspected left
wing guerrillas and right wing paramilitary vigilantes
were killed in 2003, The US Office of National
Drug Control Policy has stated that the coca production
in Columbia which contributes nearly seventy five
percent of the world’s has dropped by thirty
percent since the last couple of years. (Infoplease.
2004).
The will to fight and win in Columbia meant
proving that freedom and free markets are closely
related and an opportunity was close at hand was
President Clinton’s view towards the end
of his eight-year tenure as President. Plan Columbia
could be taken as this opportunity and is an ambitious
package of foreign assistance that is meant to
pave the way for the domination of South America
by the US. It appears that the Plan Columbia which
targets is intended to target the drug producers
and traffickers may well be used against the farmers,
indigenous people and rebel groups that are opposed
to any unbridled exploitation of Columbia’s
natural resources as was required by President
Clinton then and President Bush now. The central
part of the financial aid in Plan Colombia is
the supply of a variety of helicopters to both
combat the rebel groups as well as destroy coca
plantations. There are indications however that
the spraying of herbicides to destroy the coca
plants seems to be doing more damage to the people
than the crop itself. The drug war is showing
signs of spreading over beyond the Columbian borders,
especially into Ecuador, where there have been
clashes between the Columbian-based left wing
guerrillas and the right wing paramilitary groups.
A new group called Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Ecuador (FARE) has taken responsibility for
the blowing up of an oil pipeline in Ecuador.
Ecuador has turned to the US for assistance to
keep down this violence and even offered the port
city of Manta to the US to set up a base. This
recurring chain of violence in Columbia is deep
rooted and runs back in times. During the late
forties and early fifties the two main political
parties, the Liberals and Conservatives fought
what may be termed a civil war to gain political
control. This struggle gave means to bands of
gunmen on the hire of politicians and quite often
having the support of the local police attacking
a village scalping and decapitating anyone they
found there. This caused many villagers to flee
and their land was quickly taken over by large
landholders and either or Liberal or Conservative
politicians. In an attempt to stabilize matters
the two parties then agreed to share the Presidency
on alternative basis and this lasted till 1974.
This concentration of economic and political power
just in the hands of these two parties left no
space for expression of any opposition within
the system and this gave rise to many guerrilla
groups the biggest two being Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Columbia (FARC) and National Liberation
Army (ELN). Later in the 1980s a few of these
groups decided to try their hand at mainstream
politics and in the process gave up their arms.
Determined to retain power the ruling politicians
of the Conservative and Liberal parties created
groups called paramilitaries to upset these political
efforts. The paramilitaries were given the job
of seeing that no one outside the two party systems
would win any election and the means they used
for this was to kill the candidates and terrorize
their supporters. Efforts to enhance the concentration
of land and resources saw the Columbian army launch
an all out anti terrorist campaign that led to
the further abandonment of small farmers and this
time drug dealers swallowed most of the land.
This gradually led to the requirement for the
war on drugs by the US and the various anti-drug
agencies. Drugs mostly in the form of cocaine
make up nearly thirty percent of the Columbian
economy. This drug trade is not just used by the
guerrillas to provide finance for them by taxing
the revenues generated from it from regions that
they control, but also by military, paramilitary
and other business interests. An example of this
is that it is reported that the ACCU the biggest
paramilitary group get about eighty percent of
its income from activities in the drug trade.
This is a clear indication that it is not just
politics or any other leaning that keeps the guerrillas
fighting with the paramilitaries and military,
but rather the attempt to carve out a larger slice
of the ever-growing and already huge revenue from
the trade in drugs. These right wing paramilitaries
give any ruling regime in Colombia the political
cover they need for the brutal actions including
torture and murder of the regime, while still
gaining benefits from such actions. The human
rights clauses which Congress attached to Plan
Columbia and which President Clinton waived, was
meant to force the Columbian government to disown
these paramilitaries. What must be understood
is that these paramilitaries had already been
disowned and that is why they continue to fulfill
their role.
In the present scenario the Columbian army is
not strong enough to defeat all the guerrilla
groups in an all out fight and this has caused
the starting of stuttering peace talks with the
FARC. So the Government has no stick to beat the
guerrillas with. At the same time it neither has
any carrots to offer as any appeasement of the
guerrilla groups demands for enhanced presence
and participation on the country will only cause
the right wing paramilitaries to resort to further
violence even to the extent of risk to the ruling
regime. So face saving appeasements for both sides
are all that is possible like redrawing of demilitarized
zones etc. ( Plan Columbia).
Several studies have shown that transnational
extraction of natural resources from any country
in the Third gives rise not to political and economic
stability but to violence and lawlessness. This
can be seen in countries from Nigeria to Indonesia
to Colombia, where this has seen the growth of
rightist militias, criminal gangs and leftist
insurgencies, which may be termed as a resource
curse. From 1986 onwards statistics show that
oil pipelines have been bombed over a thousand
times and hundreds of oil-company employees have
been kidnapped. These actions have brought an
income of nearly $140 million in terms of ransoms
and extortion payments for the guerillas in Columbia.
Local contractors also get squeezed to pay taxes.
It is no wonder then that even conservative estimates
of earnings for the guerillas from these activities
is more than what they get from activities in
the drug trade. Guerrilla violence centered on
the oil infrastructure has become more since the
decision to implement Plan Columbia. Protesting
at the US intervention ELN guerillas have bombed
the Cano Limon pipeline twenty three times in
a short period of three months.
The pipeline was taken out of action at least
ninety seven times in one year in 1999. FARC rebels
during this time bombed Ecopetrol’s southern
pipeline thirty one times forcing the state oil
company of Ecuador in to difficulty by not meeting
its obligations. The paramilitaries on their part
have contributed to the growing violence by concentrating
their activities on the oil rich provinces along
the southern borders. These activities include
an increase in the campaign of murdering of civilians.
The paramilitary also target trade union leaders
and an example of this is the murder of the nephew
of Alvaro Remolino Workers Trade Union leader.
Two of his brothers were also murdered and so
was a sister-in-law. A human rights report indicates
that the paramilitaries have received $2 million
for the protection of a Columbian pipeline. Colombia’s
army also gets a share from the oil industry.
A war tax of more than a dollar on foreign oil
companies has caused the placing of a quarter
of the armed forces of Columbia to protect oil
infrastructure. The government forces are also
known to have sold these services directly to
several companies. The local civilians face the
worst of this oil violence.
Disasters as a result of explosions on the pipelines
have caused a heavy toll of local civilians and
cause environmental degradation. In 1998 from
one explosion caused by an ELN bombing of the
BP Amoco pipeline seventy-three people died. The
blast also caused the village of Machuca, Antioquia
to go up in flames. The kidnapping and murder
by FARC of three US citizens Terence Freitas,
Ingrid Washinawatok and La’he Enae Gay,
who were in Columbia in connection with an education
project is another example of civilians getting
hurt in the violence. Such violence has cause
local populations to be against oil projects.
In spite of all this violence Columbias largest
export is still oil leading to revenue earnings
of $3.7 billion in 1999.
Though most of these earnings go to the local
and federal governments the common Columbian hardly
gets to see any of it. A lot of this money goes
into investments in the guerilla and paramilitary
held areas on pressure from these groups and the
rest stolen or squandered by the officials. (Dunning
and Wirpsa, 2004)
Aerial spraying under Plan Columbia is not an
effective means of controlling the growth of coca.
This can be seen from the effect of aerial spraying
in Bolivia and Peru, which provided a majority
of the raw material before Columbia did.
The aerial spraying by the US in these countries
led to a reduction in the production there, which
was corresponding to the growth of cultivation
in Columbia. As long as there is demand from the
US and Europe for cocaine, the demand will be
met. When spraying takes place, the local population
in their efforts to meet ends move further into
the dense jungle and mountains to cultivate the
crop. The US has spent $1.3 billion on Plan Columbia
mainly in the form of military training and hardware
and as aid. None of this has gone to any drug
addiction treatment, which is a more effective
method at drug trade eradication. In this complex
web of greed, violence, corruption and desperation
Plan Columbia seems to be adding to the many problems
of Columbia. In this war against drugs, coca production
does not seem to be disturbed. The victims appear
to be small farmers, children, native communities,
bio-diversity and the integrity of environment
of full neighborhoods. ( Slingshot. 2004)
President Uribe is a very controversial Head of
State. Many Columbians look him up to for his
tough line against the guerillas. At the same
time he is the target of human right groups that
criticize him for not clamping down on human rights
violations in Columbia. ( BBC News 2004).
President Uribe is right leaning in politics by
his own admission and hails from a land-owning
class. FARC Guerillas killed his father in 1983,
while he was the subject of an extradition warrant
from the US to face drug trafficking charges.
President Uribe was educated at Harvard. In 1995
he became Governor of Antioquia department, which
gave him the opportunity to institutionalize the
paramilitary. Security forces and the paramilitary
groups were give immunity from prosecution by
Governor Uribe.
They went on a spree of murder and terror and
thousands of people simply disappeared or were
driven out of the region. President Uribe won
the election by getting 53 percent of the vote,
but only twenty five percent of the electorate
voted. President Uribe stood on a platform of
democratic security and promised that this platform
would provide peace and security to ever Columbian,
but the number of trade union activists killed
in 1993 is as high as ninety. The paramilitary
has been reigned in to a slight extent due to
the pressure brought on President Uribe by the
United States. President Uribe has clamped down
on the opposition. He has moved closer to the
Republicans in the US and is believed to be well
looked upon by President Bush. He was the only
South American leader that supported the invasion
of Iraq by the US under President Bush. President
Uribe is dead against those NGOs that have taken
a neutral stand in the conflicts and violence
in Columbia He has termed those NGO’s as
political agitators, who serve the interests of
terrorism and cloak themselves under the banner
of human rights. Those NGO’s who have offered
support are the only ones left untouched by the
government. President Uribe appears to be trying
a strategy to bring the war out into the open
and declare social organizations as illegal that
will make them open to military and police direct
action against them, while at the same time attempting
to hold negotiation talks with the guerillas.
Having experienced President Uribe’s violent
methods it is not surprising that trade unionists
and human rights activists feel desperate. There
is also a feeling that the unfettered support
given by the US and British governments could
be considered immoral. ( Feiling, 2004) |