Plan Colombia and Beyond

In 2002, at the Bush administration’s request, the U.S. Congress broadened the purpose of U.S. military assistance to Colombia (despite an unsuccessful 192-225 House vote to stop it). Ever since then, each year’s foreign aid bill has included a sentence permitting all aid given through counter-narcotics programs – including helicopters, boats, and other lethal equipment – to be used in a “unified campaign” against both drugs and the three Colombian groups on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations (the FARC, ELN and AUC).

This year, the Bush administration wants to expand the military-aid mission yet again. And this time it appears to have more than just drugs and guerrillas on its mind.

The proposed mission expansion is buried deep within the appendix to the proposed 2007 budget, available on the website of the White House Office of Management and Budget. (Go here, click on “Department of State and Other International Programs,” then find “Andean Counterdrug Initiative” on the resulting PDF file. A major hat-tip goes to the congressional staffer who pointed this out to me yesterday.) This is where the Bush administration tells Congress what its ideal foreign aid bill for 2007 would look like – basically, they take the text of the previous year’s bill and show what wording they would cut and what they would insert.

The proposed language would expand the purpose of U.S. military aid to Colombia in three ways.

1. Instead of a “unified campaign” against drugs and specifically against the FARC, ELN and AUC, it would strike the armed groups’ names and replace them with the blanket term “terrorist activities.”

2. It would add a new, rather vague purpose for the use of U.S. counter-drug military aid to Colombia: “to address other threats to Colombia’s national security.”
3. It would allow all U.S. funds to be used for this expanded mission, “notwithstanding any other provision of law” – that is, any previous limits on the purpose of drug-war funding for Colombia (including past years’ “unified campaign” clauses) would disappear.

The administration might defend the first proposed change by arguing that the AUC could cease to exist this year, and though we don’t know what might replace it, the United States must help Colombia to combat re-constituted or un-dismantled paramilitary structures. However, the term “terrorist activities” is not sufficiently specific; as we have seen in Bolivia and elsewhere, the “terrorist” label is too often used against social movements. If the “unified campaign” sentence must stay in the law, better language would read “against the FARC, ELN, AUC and any paramilitary successor groups.”

Even more worrisome is the wording calling for counter-drug aid to be used “to address other threats to Colombia’s national security.” This definition is so broad that you can drive a truck through it. What “other threats,” beyond guerrilla and paramilitary activity, does the administration have in mind? Common crime and gangs? Street protests?

We all know what the most likely answer to that question is. The “security threat” the White House probably has in mind wears a red beret, has a big mouth, and runs the country just to Colombia’s east. It could only be Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela.

It’s hard to imagine Colombia needing to repel a Venezuelan invasion force, of course. But this may be the White House’s attempt to respond to Caracas’ large (and admittedly worrisome) recent arms purchases from Europe. It also would fit into the administration’s declared intention to isolate or contain Venezuela by partnering more closely with pro-U.S. governments in the region.

If Venezuela is indeed the rationale for this proposed legislative change – and that is certainly how Caracas will perceive it – it represents an unwise and irresponsible escalation of tensions in the Andean region. Venezuela could use it as a pretext to ratchet up its weapons-buying spree, bringing with it the specter of a destabilizing regional arms race.

Worse, it will be the first example since the Cold War of U.S. military aid being used explicitly to counter a political tendency in the Americas. We have said it before, and we will say it again and again: Confronting the spread of leftist politics in Latin America should not be a mission for U.S. military assistance to the region. The U.S. government must not view Latin America’s militaries as a bulwark or counterweight against leftist political movements. We have made that mistake before with tragic consequences, and it must not be repeated.

This proposed military-aid mission expansion is dangerous and unhelpful, and Congress should scrap it.

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