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The "War on Terror" Eclipses the "War on Drugs"

Immediately after September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration, the Colombian government and lobbyists for US arms manufacturers all called for an expansion of the "war on drugs" in the name of fighting terrorism. Consequently, Bush's "war on terror" joined the "war and drugs" as justification for increased funding of Colombia's military, this time including explicit support for operations against leftist guerillas and other "counter-terrorism" measures.

Since 2000, Colombia has received over $4.4 billion in military and police aid from the US, an amount which constitutes more than 85% of total US aid to Colombia.1 This funding originated with the Clinton Administration's Plan Colombia, a $1.3 billion aid package whose stated aim is to wipe out the drug trade and cocoa production in southern Colombia. Yet doing this has meant taking on the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), leftist guerrillas who control these areas, and fueling Colombia's conflict by providing the military with massive amounts of weapons and funding. US military aid also means indirect support for brutal paramilitary groups closely linked to the army. These forces are responsible for 75 percent of the country's human rights violations. The Colombian military and FARC also stand accused of human rights violations.

Initially, the Colombian army channeled US training and equipment designated solely for counter narcotics missions to carry out operations against the FARC. But in 2002, the State Department announced a new counterinsurgency effort that would allow the Colombian government to use US aid directly for operations against leftist guerillas. This move represents a dangerous escalation of US involvement in Colombia's conflict. For people in Latin America, the policy shift is an eerie throwback to the 1980s, when the US supported murderous regimes and paramilitaries that killed hundreds of thousands of people in Central America. The US and Colombian governments renewed Plan Colombia for 2007 and increased military aid to its highest level yet.

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Bush's War in Colombia: An Unraveling of Rights

After September 11, Bush pushed to revoke human rights conditions on military aid for its allies in the "war on terror." As a result, hard-won human rights protections in Colombia and elsewhere were unraveled. For example, the Colombian Congress passed an "anti-terrorism bill" which grants the military sweeping powers, including the right to detain people as young as 16 without a trial. Anti-terrorism legislation would also allow for the surveillance of human rights and other non-governmental organizations. In fact, human rights work has already become more dangerous in Colombia since Bush declared his "war on terror." On average, one human rights defender is killed every month, and more than half of those detained under counter-terrorism measures have been social activists and human rights workers. Schoolteachers have also become targets of paramilitaries. Teachers are often labeled terrorists for allegedly influencing students incorrectly, and more than one is killed every week.

In privileging national security over human security, Bush's "war on terror" has fueled Colombia's armed conflict and given the government a green light to further subordinate human rights and democratic processes to its counter-terrorism operations. Since September 11, civilian deaths have risen to almost 20 a day—nearly double the figures for 2000. Civilians are not simply "caught in the crossfire;" they are directly targeted in military and paramilitary operations. Between 2002 and 2003, a record high of over 3,500 people were disappeared, compared to a total of over 3,400 people who were disappeared between 1994 and 2001. A UN report states that the military has become increasingly implicated in human rights abuses since the election of Uribe and the substantial increases in US military aid and support for counter-terrorism initiatives during the same time period.2

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End Notes

  1. Center for International Policy (originally the US Departments of Defense and State Annual Fiscal Reports) http://ciponline.org/colombia/aidtable.htm
  2. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, June 2006. http://www.internal-displacement.org/idmc/website/countries.nsf/(httpCountries)
    /CB6FF99A94F70AED802570A7004CEC41?OpenDocument&count=1000


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