THE US "WAR ON DRUGS" AND COLOMBIA'S INTERNAL CONFLICT

While public attention focuses on Kosovo, Iraq and East Timor, another
war is going on in our hemisphere, in Colombia. The United States is
providing funds supposedly intended for fighting the drug war, but
which to a large extent fuel a bloody internal political conflict.

For example, in the 1999 fiscal year, the United States government
allocated $173.16 million of Emergency Supplemental funding for the
war against drugs in addition to the previously budgeted $30 million.
An emergency package of roughly $600 million has been requested for
next year, the bulk of which will go to repressive measures and is
used by the Colombian police and military.

Without arguing whether it is even possible to solve the drug problem
via repression, it is worth taking a closer look at the social context
where this flow of money and military aid is being poured, and some of
the consequences it has.

Colombia is basically in a state of civil war, with two large
communist guerrilla organizations fighting both the official army and
various more or less coordinated paramilitary groups. These two
guerrilla factions, the FARC, or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, and the ELN, National Liberation Army, are well-funded via
various forms of extortion -- Colombia holds the worst kidnapping
record in the world today -- and from connections with the drug trade.
This conflict has led to a dramatic problem of internal population
displacements, with Colombia ranking fourth in the world in terms of
forced population displacements.

The FARC was officially born in 1964 with roots dating back to 1948
and is thus the oldest active guerrilla movement in the world. To this
day various attempts at peace negotiations have failed to produce
conclusive results.

It is no surprise that the U.S. government has taken action over the
years to fight the Colombian guerrillas, albeit always in indirect or
covert manners. The infamous School of the Americas has a long list of
Colombian graduates, many of which appear on documented cases of
human-rights violations. Quoting a 1996 Human Rights Watch report:

"Human Rights Watch has also documented the disturbing role played by
the United States in support of the Colombian military. Despite
Colombia's disastrous human-rights record, a U.S. Defense Department
and Central Intelligence Agency team worked with Colombian military
officers on the 1991 intelligence reorganization that resulted in the
creation of killer networks that identified and killed civilians
suspected of supporting guerrillas."

One of the "cleanest" ways which the U.S. government has of helping
the Colombian military -- which in most cases ends up directly helping
the various paramilitary groups -- is through the "drug war" effort.
Any foreign aid provided to fight drugs is usually accepted well by
the general public, which seldom questions where the aid goes and how
it is used. It is thus important to raise awareness about these
practices, since over the years it has become clear that not only this
aid is not solving the drug problem, but it is instead fueling the
fire of a bloody civil war.

This is a complex conflict with no angels, where both the guerrilla
groups and the paramilitary are responsible for crimes and
human-rights violations of all sorts. But a negotiated solution which
protects civilians will remain impossible as long as the radical
factions of the Colombian military and their paramilitary partners are
supported with escalating budgets and technology. This militaristic
approach will not only give wings to their brutality, it will equally
justify the guerrilla's arguments for not committing to a negotiation
process and maintaining a hard military line.

So, what can common citizens do? An immediate option is to express
concern to elected officials with specific requests such as: the U.S.
drug policy should consider alternatives other than repression and
military aid. Further, no military aid should be given to countries
with appalling human-rights records, and the School of the Americas
should be closed.

It is disheartening to hear the U.S. government claim to the world
that it defends democracy and human rights -- isn't that why
Yugoslavia was bombed into oblivion? -- while at the same time it
knowingly fuels brutal internal conflicts. If only a fraction of the
money spent on expensive military aid went to help efforts from the
democratic and non-violent sectors of society, far more good would be
accomplished and the lives of many could perhaps be spared.

Some useful Internet resources on this topic include:

* Colombia Support Network: http://www.igc.org/csn

* Amnesty International: http://www.amnesty.org

* Human Rights Watch: http://www.hrw.org

The State Department narcotics budget can be viewed at:
http://www.state.gov/www/global/narcotics_law/fy2000_budget/latin_america.html.

Fernando Perez is a CU graduate student.