By Raul Cienfuegos
The US$7.5 billion “Plan Colombia”, designed by the US State Department as an anti-drug plan, is beginning to show its true purpose. Of the US$7.5 billion, US$1.3 billion has come from the US, mostly as military equipment. Most of the rest will come from Colombia's national budget, the IMF and World Bank loans.
So far the target of “anti-drug” activity has not been the large plantations of coca and poppies or the laboratories under the control of Colombia's right-wing paramilitary units. The main target has been the left-wing guerrilla movement and its support base.
Despite the US State Department and the Colombian army's “narco-guerrilla” accusations about the links between the guerrillas and drug trafficking, not a single guerrilla drug trafficker has been caught or a single guerrilla drug laboratory found. The guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) have stated on many occasions that they are not involved in drug trafficking.
In contrast, the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which admits that its main source of income is from drug trafficking, has recently been working in combined units with the Colombian army and police which have received millions of dollars of “anti-drug” money.
So far the US counter-insurgency plan has had very little success in attacking the guerrillas. The military has lost several helicopters and many soldiers while having practically no impact on the guerrillas.
'Taking the water
from the fish'
Consequently, the military and the US have stepped up their efforts of
“taking the water from the fish”. This strategy has been twofold. On the
one hand paramilitary units working with the Colombian security forces
have increased the massacres of civilians suspected of supporting or sympathising
with the guerrillas. In some areas the army has cordoned off areas to shield
the paramilitaries from the guerrillas, while in other areas like Putumayo
the paramilitaries live and work out of army garrisons.
On the other hand, known rebel strongholds have been fumigated with herbicide. The Dutch journalist Marjon van Royen recently visited areas that had been fumigated and put together a report called “Crazed with the Itch” for the newspaper NRC Handelsblad. The article was published on December 28 despite every attempt by the US embassy in the Netherlands to have the story suppressed.
As part of her report, van Royen took photos and video footage of the fumigation of areas that have very little or no illicit crop production. The victims of the fumigation were mainly subsistence farmers who had their only source of food destroyed and their water contaminated. Van Royen found that in these areas 80% of the children suffered from fevers or dysentery and were covered with blisters or rashes as a result of the fumigation.
The medical services in these areas only have the resources to treat the worst cases and have been told by the army to keep quiet about the extent of the problem. Several of the people affected said that they have no choice but to go to other areas and plant illegal crops to make up for their losses and pay for medications. Many more peasants said they see no other solution but to join the guerrillas.
Peace talks
While Plan Colombia is in full swing, the peace talks between the FARC and the government have hardly progressed at all. Until discussions between the FARC and President Pastrana produced a new agreement for talks to restart in February, the FARC had frozen the talks demanding that the government clearly define its strategy to combat the paramilitaries.The insurgency has stated on several occasions that any normal political activity is impossible while the state sanctions paramilitary violence against the left. The FARC has threatened that if the government is unable to provide an adequate solution to the paramilitary problem, there will be a return to all-out war on a much larger scale.
However, the FARC has released some of its 550 prisoners of war who needed medical attention and has promised to release many more as a goodwill gesture to stop the talks collapsing.
The peace talks between the country's second largest guerrilla group, the ELN, and the government have been moving forward. The government has met with the ELN for discussions in Europe and most recently in Havana. They have also signed an agreement to create the necessary conditions for negotiations.
The main arrangement to be made before the commencement of formal peace talks is the creation of a demilitarised area in northern Colombia, so as to have a safe meeting place for the talks. A much larger area has already been granted to the FARC.
Yet both the ELN and the FARC believe that any political settlement will be impossible while there continues to be a build up of US military personnel and equipment and while this equipment is being used against the Colombian people. The rebels are not the only ones who are sceptical. Almost all political analysts are predicting that the conflict will escalate as the US steps up its military involvement this year.