Plan Columbia has Coded Aims

To the Editors:

I would like to thank the perspectives editor for his insightful analysis of the war on drugs presented in the Feb. 8 edition of the Review in response to the Super Bowl anti-drug adds. In light of the perspectives piece last week criticizing the initial article I would like to offer some additional information that will better connect the anti-drug campaign in our country to the war on drugs and more recently the war on terrorism in Colombia. Over Winter Term I traveled on a delegation to Colombia with the organization Witness for Peace. The purpose of the trip was to witness the effects of the U.S.’s $1.3 billion military aid package know as Plan Colombia, passed in January of 2000 to “fight the war on drugs.” After speaking with economists, human rights activists, union organizers, farmers, government officials and members of the U.S. embassy, it became clear to me that that the U.S.’s primary interest in Colombia is not to eradicate drugs. As the Review article suggested, the drug problem is not a foreign problem, but a U.S. problem that must be solved in the U.S. through demand reduction (which must go beyond prime time propaganda). So long as there is demand in the U.S. there will be a supply of drugs, whether in Bolivia and Peru as was true 10 years ago, in Colombia, or in another impoverished part of the world. Put in monetary terms, it is 23 times more cost effective to provide drug treatment programs in the U.S. than to eradicate the coca plant at its source. Our government is sharp enough to recognize an out of date and failing policy. Clearly Plan Colombia has other intentions.
The majority of the people I spoke with in Colombia concluded that the purpose of Plan Colombia is to facilitate access to the resources and strategic location of Colombia in order to push forward plans for the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. Plan Colombia has drastically increased human rights abuses and displacement in Colombia, perpetrating a culture of fear that will eventually dismantle both Colombia’s guerilla groups as well as the movement of nonviolent, neutral civilians who advocate a self-sufficient agriculturally-based lifestyle in direct opposition to U.S. plans for globalization.
The Super Bowl ads marked a shift in our government’s approach at gaining public approval for U.S. military aid to Colombia. While the hypocrisies of the war on drugs have been widely acknowledged, the war on terrorism continues to receive broad public support. Super Bowl Sunday thus marked the beginning of a new campaign to increase military aid to Colombia: the extension the war on terrorism to Colombia. The day after the ads aired, a bill was proposed to increase military aid to Colombia by $98 million in order to protect oil lines by subverting guerilla groups. This is the first proposal for military aid to Colombia that has not mentioned drugs. We are now fighting guerilla terrorists. It is ironic that our government is using the guise of a war on terrorism to fund the Colombian Military, an organization that, according to the U.S. embassy itself, maintains close connections to the right wing paramilitary which currently resides on the U.S.’s list of terrorist organizations. We are funding terrorists to fight terrorism. No matter what the rhetoric, the objectives of Plan Colombia and all military aid to Colombia remain the same: to wipe out the opposition, be it violent or nonviolent, to globalization.
I met with nearly 150 people of a variety of backgrounds while in Colombia. These people were not guerillas, paramilitary, drug traffickers or terrorists, but ordinary citizens whose lives were being threatened and taken by our tax dollars. They asked that we not let the terrorist or patriotic propaganda veil what is truly a war on their culture and their land. Plan Colombia and its connections to the war on drugs and terrorism are very serious and complicated issues. It is my hope that this dialogue continues in order that everyone at Oberlin better understands these issues.

–Anna Hendricks
College sophomore