PLAN COLOMBIA: REALITY

OF THE COLOMBIAN CRISIS AND

IMPLICATIONS FOR HEMISPHERIC SECURITY

Luz E. Nagle

December 2002
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writing of this monograph.

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ISBN 1-58487-109-1

ii
FOREWORD

As American foreign policy and military asset

management expand beyond the so-called “Drug War” in

Colombia, Professor Luz Nagle analyzes that country’s

problems and makes recommendations regarding what it

will take to achieve stated U.S. and Colombian objectives in

that crisis situation. She also examines the concomitant

issue of “spillover” from the Colombian crisis into the rest of

the Latin American region. The results and recommendations of this analysis go well beyond prescribing a simple

military solution to the complex political-economicsocial-moral-security issues of this 50-year-old war. In these

terms, it becomes clear that the military in general and the

U.S. Army in particular must change in order to operate

more effectively in the full spectrum of current and future

conflict.

This monograph was written as the second in the new

Strategic Studies Institute(SSI)/North-South Center

Special Series that deals with the hemispheric security

environment. SSI is pleased to publish this study as a source

of first-hand information and a topic of focused debate

concerning global security and stability issues.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute

iii
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

LUZ ESTALLA NAGLE is Assistant Professor of Law at

Stetson University College of Law in St. Petersburg,

Florida, where she teaches international criminal law,

Latin American business law, and international

comparative business law. Professor Nagle served as a

judge in Medellin, Colombia, in the mid-1980s until

assassination attempts by drug traffickers forced her to

leave Colombia for the United States. Her writings and

presentations on national security law and mutual legal

assistance, drug interdiction, guerrilla insurgency,

international white collar crime, and judicial mechanisms

probe the realities of foreign policy and the rule of law in the

Americas from a critical perspective. They reflect her

training and experience in both the Anglo-American and

continental law systems. Professor Nagle holds an LL.D.

from the Universidad Pontificía Bolivariana, a J.D. from the

College of William and Mary, an LL.M. from the University

of California at Los Angeles’s Law School, and an M.A. in

Latin America studies from the University of California at

Los Angeles.

iv
PREFACE

Professor Luz E. Nagle has never been a believer in Plan

Colombia as the solution to her native country’s array of

problems. Now she has again published on the subject, in an

article which is eloquently critical about the plan’s results during

the administration of President Andrés Pastrana, yet which

holds out hope for a better turn of events in the new

administration of President Alvaro Uribe. It is a study written

with passion and commitment. But also, as befits a law professor,

it is scholarly in its degree of documentation and factual content.

In Nagle’s view, practically everything was wrong with Plan

Colombia that could have been wrong, although she

acknowledges that to do nothing would have been even worse.

The plan was, in her view, doomed from the beginning—prepared

without adequate consultation with the Colombian people,

therefore lacking in consensus and support. It was inadequately

funded by the Colombian government for the most part, but drew

on large amounts of aid from the United States, $1.7 billion,

which was largely restricted to fighting narcotics trafficking

when insurgency was the real problem. It failed to attract the

expected funding from Europe and Japan and was largely ignored

by Colombia’s Latin American neighbors, who often seemed to be

in a state of denial as to how the problems of Colombia affected

them.

A particular strength of Nagle’s well-documented article is a

detailed explanation of the multiple failures of the Pastrana

administration in every aspect of Plan Colombia’s implementation. The ill-fated peace initiative of Pastrana simply consigned

over to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)

guerrillas a piece of Colombia’s territory the size of Switzerland

with no positive results. The FARC were strengthened by having

the territory, as was predicted by the Colombian army.

Kidnappings and assassinations continued unabated.

Eventually, this year the army had to be sent in to retake the

zone. Rampant corruption at every level of the Colombian

government, according to Nagle, became even worse during the

v
Pastrana years and signified, in her view, a lack of any credible

leadership.

Does the new Uribe administration hold out any hope for

better results? Nagle thinks it does. The Colombian army is

becoming more professional, its morale is increasing, and it is

today that institution which actually enjoys the highest popular

support of any in the country. The mood of the people has hit

bottom and now responds to Uribe’s policies which demand

sacrifice from the population and are producing support for

tougher action against the guerrillas. The president is leading a

full charge against corruption. The U.S. Congress, as well, has

become more sophisticated in understanding the need to combat

insurgency, linked as it is to the illegal drug trade and not

separable from it. Similarly, in the context of the “war on

terrorism,” although that somewhat disparate term generally

refers to the Middle East, the point is not lost that three

Colombian groups, the FARC, Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional

(ELN) and Auto Defensas Unificados de Colombia (AUC), have

been classified as terrorist organizations by the U.S.

Government.

Nagle also documents instances in which Colombia’s

neighbors are taking stronger measures on their frontiers to

combat the effects of insurgencies and the flow of drugs from

Colombia. The evidence of “spillover effect” into the five countries

bordering on Colombia and well beyond is too abundant to ignore.

To Nagle, her native Colombia is “a nation worthy of being

saved.” In terms of hemispheric stability, essential to the entire

U.S. strategy for the region, it is certainly deserving of U.S.

attention, more than it has had in the recent past.

AMBLER H. MOSS, JR.

Director

The Dante B. Fascell

North-South Center

University of Miami

vi
SUMMARY

In this new monograph, Professor Luz Nagle examines

the status of Plan Colombia within the context of

Colombia’s political and social turmoil. Intended as an

ambitious program to achieve decisive results in a war

against illegal drugs fought in a major source country, Plan

Colombia’s implementation has been wrought with

corruption, delays, and problems in program implementation, tactical shortcomings and oversights, and lack of

backing by the Colombian elites. Plan Colombia was also

meant to define President Pastrana’s legacy to his country.

But his failure to bring the Revolutionary Armed Forces of

Colombia (FARC) and other irregular combatants into

serious peace negotiations, his inability to curtail

institutional corruption in the civilian and military

branches of government, and his lack of support from the

Colombian people further conspired to prevent Plan

Colombia from achieving the desired results.

It is now up to a new administration headed by President

Alvaro Uribe to determine how best to do two things. First,

the Uribe administration must come to terms with the

corruption that has rendered the Colombian government

ineffective for decades, and has precluded the success of

Plan Colombia and past aid programs. At the same time, it

must seek and utilize new U.S. aid, intelligence resources,

and military equipment in the fight against the

narcoterrorists/narcoguerrillas, and fulfill its commitment

as a reliable ally in the international war on terror.

Nagle concludes that the war against international

terrorism is being fought on Colombian soil, and makes a

series of observations and recommendations about what it

will take for Colombia to overcome its own internal crises of

armed conflict and institutional corruption, fulfill its

regional security and counternarcotics obligations, and

fight the global war against terror.

vii
PLAN COLOMBIA: REALITY

OF THE COLOMBIAN CRISIS AND

IMPLICATIONS FOR HEMISPHERIC

SECURITY

INTRODUCTION

It has been said that the road to Hell is paved with good

intentions.1 The same can be said for Plan Colombia. Nearly

20 years into the endeavor, implementation of Plan

Colombia has been difficult, results have been

underwhelming, and the chief architects of the Plan, the

Pastrana administration and officials in the Clinton White

House,2 have left behind a dubious legacy, a nation in

disarray, and many promises unfulfilled. Now, a new

Colombian administration under the leadership of a

no-nonsense “authoritarian” must come to terms with the

wreckage of his predecessor and steer Plan Colombia

resources, continuing aid from the United States,3 and the

will of a beleaguered nation toward the resolution of crises

that have persisted and festered for half a century.

This monograph is intended to provide the reader with a

context into which Plan Colombia falls within Colombia’s

political and social turmoil. The first part of the monograph

is a critical analysis of Plan Colombia’s implementation and

the performance of President Andres Pastrana in dealing

with the nexus between Plan Colombia and guerrilla

insurgency. We will examine how institutionalized

corruption and a near total lack of leadership during the

Pastrana administration eroded Colombia’s capacity to cope

with its many political and social problems and rendered

Plan Colombia impotent. We will also review the state of

affairs in Colombia since the September 11 terrorist attacks

in the United States and consider what the new war on

terrorism means for prosecuting the war against drugs and

guerrillas on Colombian soil. Next we will discuss the status

1
of the military in Colombia’s complex society and the

changing perceptions of its emerging role in stabilizing the

nation, and finally, we will outline the implications for

hemispheric security.

In the second and final part of the monograph, we will

cover generally where Colombia goes from here as the new

president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, takes office at a most

profound juncture in the history of Colombia. The

discussion will focus on the nation’s resolve to find a

permanent solution to the armed guerrilla conflict,

narcotics trafficking, related terrorism, and social

upheaval, and what needs to be done to fulfill the

overwhelming mandate of a people weary of war, political

corruption and turmoil, and economic hardship.

PROMISES, PROMISES

Promoted as a magic bullet, Plan Colombia was touted

as an ambitious panacea to stabilize the civil society of a

beleaguered nation and gain the upper hand on unabated

drug trafficking and narcoterrorism. When President

Pastrana pitched his plan to the United States in 1999,4 the

Clinton administration and lawmakers in Congress were

attracted to Plan Colombia for many reasons. Some viewed

it as a comprehensive agenda to fight an international drug

trafficking epidemic that the Reagan administration had 2

decades ago elevated to the status of a most insidious threat

to U.S. national security.5 Others embraced Plan Colombia

out of a sincere sense of altruism, idealism, and a desire to

help a long-suffering neighbor in the hemisphere. More

pragmatic lawmakers viewed the plan in terms of

realpolitik—a bold, albeit costly, effort to stabilize the

geopolitics of our hemisphere and protect United States and

international foreign investment and interests in Colombia,

and stimulate the economic vitality of an international

military/industrial complex. Whatever the motivation, the

United States to date has provided more than $1.7 billion

toward the $7.5 billion projected to make the plan succeed.6

2
Unfortunately, no sooner had the ink dried on Plan

Colombia than a number of events conspired to disrupt its

implementation. The European nations and Japan, which

initially supported the plan and pledged more than $300

million7 to the endeavor, pulled the plug on their support,

blaming and criticizing the United States for supporting a

plan that was in their view too skewed toward military aid.

They argued that the position of the United States on

military aid would only heighten tensions in Colombia

rather than help stabilize the country through funding of

the plan’s humanitarian elements.8 The position of the

European partners and Japan, however, is not on firm

ground, for while they were criticizing the U.S. military role

in Colombia, they were simultaneously hosting and toasting

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)9

guerrillas on European tours and treating them as

esteemed celebrities,10 and seeming to ignore the nexus

between drug trafficking and the FARC and other irregular

combatants in the Colombian civil war.

The implementation of Plan Colombia also contributed

directly and indirectly to the growing Colombian diaspora, a

brain drain of the best and brightest to other countries, and

accelerated the displacement of rural inhabitants as a

result of aerial eradication campaigns gone awry and more

collateral damage occurring from counterdrug/

counterguerrilla operations. Moreover, the Colombian

government was unable to articulate clearly how it would

come up with the balance of funding, some $5 billion, to keep

the plan afloat—especially after guerrillas have in the last

year hit major oil pipelines and processing facilities from

which revenues would be drawn to pay for Colombia’s share

of the plan.11 While congressional testimonies indicate that

as of May 2002 the Colombian government had already

spent more than $3 billion on Plan Colombia,

12 significant

concern remains regarding where Colombia will locate the

remaining $2 billion, especially after the departure of the

Pastrana administration in August 2002.

3
Perhaps most unfortunate of all negative aspects of Plan

Colombia, however, is that Colombian citizens had little say

in the matter of the plan’s creation and implementation.

Most Colombians feel, justifiably, that the plan has been

forced upon them by a Colombian president who did not first

consider the collective will and wishes of the nation. This

sentiment was well-expressed by a former Colombian peace

commissioner who, in August 2001, wrote:

The plan was never consulted, discussed, or debated within

Colombia before it was presented abroad. Neither the

directly-affected local communities nor their elected officials

were brought into the decision-making process. While the U.S.

Congress has held countless hearings and open sessions on Plan

Colombia, the Colombian Congress has yet to hold its first.13

The problematic timing of its implementation is another

critical shortcoming of Plan Colombia. Although it was

conceived late in both the Clinton and Pastrana

administrations, each viewed the plan as a legacy project

that would define the efforts each president made to fight

the war on drugs and stabilize Colombia’s downward spiral

into anarchy and civil war. On the U.S. side, congressional

support for Clinton’s promotion of the plan was achieved

only after tough political maneuvering and much public

debate, coupled with key visits in 1999 and 2000 by

Pastrana to the United States to lobby lawmakers.

Throughout the plan’s formulation process, many

Republican lawmakers derided the Clinton administration’s dismal track record in implementing prior

counternarcotics and rule of law initiatives in Latin

America. At a hearing on August 6, 1999, Congressman

John Mica (R-FL) called the administration’s approach to

Colombian aid “schizophrenic” and criticized the

administration’s inability to provide materiel and training

to the Colombian armed forces in a timely and efficient

manner:

While very publicly calling for $1 billion in emergency aid last

week, this same Administration requested only $40 million for

4
Colombia just six months ago and blocked assistance there two

years ago. Indeed, in a bold display of hypocrisy, the

Administration’s FY-2000 budget request did not include a

single dollar of the $280 million authorized by Congress for

Colombia under the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination

Act, an emergency congressional appropriation initiated by

Mr. Hastert.

Worse still, this Administration has resisted congressional

efforts to ensure that needed drug-fighting equipment makes

it to Colombia in a timely manner. The Administration has

fought us on Blackhawk utility helicopters for the past 3 years

and, to date, not a single Blackhawk helicopter has yet made it

to Colombia. Notably, there is one sitting, right now, on a

tarmac in Stanford, Connecticut as we speak.

Likewise, this Administration fought us on upgraded Huey-II

helicopters for the Colombian National Police. Again, to date,

only two of twelve upgraded Huey-II helicopters have made it

to Colombia, despite the fact that, right now, there are four

Huey-II helicopters, outfitted and ready to go, sitting on a

tarmac in Ozark, Alabama.14

Some Democrats, too, expressed skepticism during the

formative stages of funding for Plan Colombia. In his

statements before the House Appropriations Committee on

March 9, 2000, Congressman David Obey (D-WI) said:

In my view, all of the American money, all of the American

helicopters, all of the American military advice in the world

cannot achieve the successful outcome on this problem if you

do not have the sustained will and determination on the part of

the Colombian people and their elite, their economic and social

elite, to deal with the core problems in that society that must

be dealt with if we’re going to get a leg up on this problem. I

think the key lesson we learned in Vietnam is that this country

can never do for another country what that country can do for

itself if that country does not have the will to do everything

necessary to deal with its problems.15

Democratic lawmakers also had serious reservations

about the lack of attention the plan paid to rule of law and

civil society components, such as drug education, health

5
reform, judicial reform initiatives, and substantive efforts

to improve the human rights records of the Colombian

armed forces. That concern led to a number of adjustments

to the plan, including adoption of restrictions established by

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) during the drafting of the

Foreign Appropriations Act of 1997.16 Under the so-called

Leahy Amendment, Colombia would be required to vet

carefully all Colombian military and law enforcement

officials for complicity in alleged human rights abuses

before assigning them to operational units funded under

Plan Colombia.

17

Despite such widespread skepticism toward the plan as

formulated, the Clinton administration persisted in selling

to Congress promises that realistically could not be kept,

especially as rumblings surfaced prior to implementation

that the United States would soon be abandoned by its

international partners in the enterprise. Republican

lawmakers began raising formal concerns about the plan in

March 2001. In testimony before a House investigative

panel, Rep. Ben Gilman, former chairman of the House

International Relations Committee, said, “It [Plan

Colombia] is not a pretty picture. Our policy lacks any

clarity. As we learned in Vietnam, that means real

trouble.”18

Now, more than a year into Plan Colombia, the U.S.

Congress has been asked by a new Colombian president to

increase spending yet again, even as charges of Colombian

corruption surrounding the management of plan programs

come to light. Senator Leahy summed up Congressional

sentiment during a recent visit to Capitol Hill by then

Colombian president-elect Uribe: “The results of Plan

Colombia have been disappointing. . . . After spending more

than $1.5 billion, in many respects the situation is worse

today than before Plan Colombia began.”19 The Senator’s

opinion should not come as a great surprise to those familiar

with Colombia’s record in handling, or rather mishandling,

foreign aid in the war against drugs, narco-terrorism,

6
political violence, and, by association, the war against the

half-century-long insurgency.20

No one can deny, however, that Plan Colombia has

yielded some positive results and changes in Colombia.

Mutual legal assistance efforts under Plan Colombia and

prior commitments resulted in the extradition of 23 drug

kingpins during 2001.21 Officials claim 818 coca base labs

and 221 HCL labs were destroyed,22 and significant damage

done to coca and poppy crops through the aerial spraying of

more than 84,000 hectares.23 The Colombian military has

made laudable strides in professionalizing the officer corps

and in greatly improving the training, command and

control, personal conduct, and salaries of personnel, as well

as orchestrating a successful public relations campaign to

improve the image of the military and national police. That

said, however, the Colombian military continues struggling

to provision and train personnel to meet logistical and

tactical obligations.

But for few quantifiable successes, Plan Colombia has

been victimized by its largesse, and emasculated by the

unrealistic promises of funding made by the Colombian

government that never materialized. To make matters

worse, allegations have recently arisen that corrupt

members of national police counterdrugs units have

siphoned off millions of dollars of Plan Colombia funding.

The scandal has led to the firing or reassignment of top

officials, and has had a debilitating effect on the morale and

credibility of elite counternarcotics forces that were touted

as the crown jewel of Plan Colombia. As has been

demonstrated repeatedly in the past, as soon as one fire is

put out, another fire flares up.

Plan Colombia has also been flawed from inception for

one very important reason that has remained largely

ignored: its backers never acknowledged the obvious

linkage between combating drug trafficking and fighting

the guerrilla insurgency. Moreover, the framers of the plan

in the administration had to walk a fine line between

7
provisions in U.S. foreign policy that allow for the support of

counternarcotics initiatives in Colombia and regulations

that prohibit direct U.S. involvement in Colombia’s internal

conflicts. But the conundrum for the United States is that

the Colombian domestic crisis is also a U.S. national

security threat, which coincidentally since September 11,

2001, has taken on an entirely new dimension with regard

to the involvement of Colombian guerrilla groups in

international terrorism.

The challenge, then, quickly is becoming one of how the

United States can find a way to reconcile the linkage

between fighting a war against drug trafficking and going

after Colombian guerrillas under the auspices of the war

against terror. Some analysts will admit that trying to

delineate between the two is impossible under the current

construction of Plan Colombia, or rather under the current

obligations and rules of engagement that have tied up a

considerable amount of U.S. foreign aid. For instance, Plan

Colombia provided helicopters for moving drug interdiction

forces around the country to conduct counternarcotics

operations and provide cover for aerial fumigation missions,

yet prohibited the use of the same helicopters directly in

counterinsurgency operations. But the nexus between

interdiction and eradication missions and operations

against the guerrillas who are themselves drug producers

and traffickers could not be separated. This catch-22 of sorts

persisted until last June during meetings in Washington

between President Bush and then President-elect Uribe,

when the Bush administration requested to Congress that

the helicopters and other support apparatus under Plan

Colombia be made available for the Colombian military to

use in counterinsurgency operations.24

The success of Plan Colombia in part was also predicated

on linkage to the Pastrana administration’s hopes of

negotiating a peace accord with the FARC guerrillas and

pacifying other combatants. But Pastrana’s efforts failed.

Unabated kidnappings and assassinations by the guerrillas

(including the brazen murder of the ex-minister of culture,

8
the kidnapping of the governor of Antioquia, and the

kidnapping of presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt),

and continued attacks on the nation’s infrastructure forced

the administration to face the reality that the FARC and

other irregular combatants would never give up all they

gained during the Pastrana presidency. Moreover, after

more than 40 years of fighting, the guerrillas see no gain in

submitting to the rule of law and abandoning their lucrative

way of life. One Rand Corporation adviser best summed up

the conundrum when he wrote:

Demobilizing or disarming would deprive their leadership of

authority and expose them to retaliation. They recall that

many of those who accepted previous amnesties and entered

the political process as candidates were gunned down. In

addition to ideological reasons, there are the tens of thousands

who have suffered at their hands, lost relatives, paid ransoms

[and] would have personal scores to settle. And peace would

end a profitable enterprise.25

When it finally became all too clear that the peace

process was doomed, Pastrana made two serious errors.

First, he allowed United Nations (U.N.) Peace Envoy James

LeMoyne26 to attempt negotiations at the 11th hour, just

prior to Pastrana’s deadline for the FARC to return to the

peace table or give up the distention zone.27 This angered

many Colombians who saw LeMoyne’s actions as

postponing the inevitable, costing the lives of many

Colombian military personnel and innocent civilians, and

giving the guerrillas precious time to disappear into the

jungle and mountains.28 Second, Pastrana waited far too

long to make good on his ultimatum to retake the distention

zone from the FARC, forfeited any tactical element of

surprise, and thereby squandered a window of opportunity

for the Colombian armed forces to hit the guerrillas hard as

soon as Pastrana’s deadline ended at midnight on January

14, 2002. The great shame of Pastrana’s indecisiveness and

the interference of the U.N. Envoy is that the Colombian

people overwhelmingly favored Pastrana’s ultimatum and

were ready to support the military’s move to retake the zone

9
of distention and rout the FARC once and for all. Pastrana

simply squandered the public resolve.

The State of the Nation.

In August 2002 the Pastrana administration left office,

and its former officials departed for new jobs or homes

abroad. Plan Colombia has been left adrift in a sea of

uncertainty, political violence and narcotrafficking

continue unabated, and the guerrillas and drug cartels

thumb their noses at the incoming administration.

In spite of the situation on the ground in Colombia, the

U.S. administration still shows a willingness to step up to

the plate and work with President Uribe, and has already

succeeded in obtaining from Congress an additional

appropriation of $538.2 million beginning in October.29 The

new package essentially will result in Plan Colombia

morphing into yet another foreign policy strategy in which

supporters will argue that dealing with the drug war means

dealing with the Colombian insurgency, which de facto,

means fighting the international war against terrorism on a

Latin American front.

Colombia’s immediate future began last January with

the collapse of the peace negotiation with the FARC.

Success at the peace table had been an oblique but critical

component to the success of Plan Colombia. Unfortunately,

President Pastrana badly miscalculated and compromised

his own political position by being too accommodating to the

FARC. One could argue, in fact, that the peace process was

doomed early in Pastrana’s administration when he

granted the FARC status as a legitimate political entity and

ceded to the rebels a zone of distention in Southern

Colombia comprising nearly 40 percent of national

territory—an area roughly the size of Switzerland. Giving

the FARC the distention zone was a serious failure for the

national security of the state, for the specific territory ceded

to the FARC, the Llanos de Yarí, was critically valuable to

FARC’s operations. The Colombian army had long

10
considered the Llanos to be a key strategic rear guard area

for the guerrillas, affording them excellent communications

between the most important cities in southern Colombia,

good roads and favorable terrain for the rapid deployment of

troops, good resources for sustenance, and an infrastructure

capable of supporting the alternative society and

narco-based economy the guerrillas were well into

establishing.30 Regardless of any other decisions he would

make during his administration, Pastrana failed the

moment he allowed the FARC to dictate national policy.

External forces also conspired to torpedo Plan Colombia,

not the least of which was Europe’s willingness to dance to

the FARC’s tune, giving FARC commanders diplomatic

celebrity and sending official European delegations to the

distention zone for talks on any number of topics such as

economic assistance, global politics, and humanitarian aid.

The result of Pastrana’s mistakes is that Colombia’s civil

society now finds itself at a unique crossroads in its history:

 The civil infrastructure has deteriorated precipitously;

 The social programs and health systems are

overwhelmed by the forced displacement of rural

inhabitants;

 Violence and crime have skyrocketed in the cities;

 Grievous brain drain threatens the future of

Colombia as the best and brightest emigrate to other

countries (resulting in the loss of an insulating buffer

between the extreme left and extreme right wing

elements);

 Corruption in the government remains problematic

for reform; and,

 The Colombian military has so far been unable,

despite respectable effort, to provide the personnel

11
and command and control to manage the materiel

already made available under Plan Colombia.

Yet, Colombians have determined to turn the situation

around if possible, beginning with a presidential election in

May 2002 that clearly signaled a rejection of Pastrana’s

legacy. The new president, Alvaro Uribe, is the antithesis of

his predecessor. Campaigning on a law and order platform,

Uribe was swept into office with 53 percent of the vote and

the mandate of a nation to deal decisively with the FARC,

with corruption, with all forms of criminalism, and to

enforce the rule of law throughout the country. He brings to

office an energy and reputation for hard work that has

become known in Bogotá’s political circles as “el ritmo

paisa” (paisa rhythm), referring to the strong work ethic

and shrewd business acumen long attributed to the people

of Antioquia province (known as Antioqueños) from which

Uribe and many members of his administration come.31

The election of a hawk also signals a sea change even

among the Colombian elite who, after decades of burying

their heads in the sand, have grown tired of paying ransoms

and extortion money to criminals and guerrillas. Polls taken

at the end of 2001 showed overwhelming lack of support for

the Colombian government, and in one poll last December,

more than 78 percent of respondents felt that Colombia was

heading down a bad road. Just 3 months later, when

Pastrana finally called out the troops, polls showed nearly

98 percent of respondents supported the government’s

military actions in the field, but still held a majority view

that the government was incompetent, corrupt, and

incapable of governing the nation during this time of

crisis.32 This negative view of the Colombian government

was confirmed in August when a survey carried out by the

Colombian Confederation of Chambers of Commerce in the

cities of Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, Barranquilla, Cartagena,

Bucaramanga, Popayan, Cucuta, and Pereira of 900

businessmen who enter into contracts with government

bodies revealed that 70.3 percent of them believed that

corruption in government had increased in the 2 years since

12
a prior survey had been taken.33 One can understand then

why a straightforward leader like Uribe was elected to

replace someone a majority of Colombians now consider to

be a traitor.34

If the United States is to stand with the new president

and continue the effort to help a country that has so much

potential for the hemisphere, it is critical that lawmakers on

Capitol Hill quickly gain a greater understanding of the new

dynamic of a people who have finally said enough is enough

and are becoming ever more ready and prepared to make

the sacrifices necessary to bring peace to Colombia. U.S.

lawmakers also need to appreciate that Colombia is a nation

divided along class lines, united by a common cynicism

toward the central government. The poor, particularly in

the rural outlying regions of the nation, have long ago

become indifferent toward the government, believing

nothing the government says and holding out particular

animosity for the Bogotanos whom they feel have little

knowledge or interest in what is happening anywhere but in

the capital city. Similarly, the middle and upper classes see

the government as a failed administration unable to

contend with a peace process that in the end was little more

than a dog and pony show. All three classes of the society

share the opinion that the leadership of the nation is

paralyzed by decades of corruption and incompetence that

have finally brought the nation to it knees—in the public

sector, in the private sector, in the cities, in the countryside,

and in the hearts and minds of the people.

The Elements of Crisis: Unchecked Corruption.

A better future must begin with drastic reforms in the

political will of the government. Such reforms must be

driven by the resolve to end corruption, in both the national

legislative branch and at the regional level, and to prosecute

officials decisively and to the fullest extent of the law.35 The

problem, however, is that corruption is so entrenched in the

government36 that terms of art have evolved over the course

13
of many generations to describe how corruption has been an

accepted and even admired form of exerting power,

influence, and control among the traditional ruling factions.

Traditionally, one’s reputation and success in politics has

been measured by one’s success in adhering to the principle

that no one general law applies to all and at all times. Each

individual is regulated by whatever law one can secure from

one’s leaders. In this way, “a politician expects to

demonstrate his ability to shield his supporters from the

rigorous application of the laws,”37 and thus a protracted

patron/client relationship is consummated. The politician

who does this best is esteemed as un verraco.

38

While foreigners perceive that corruption in Colombia

relates primarily to the drug trade and related illegal

enterprises, Colombians worry more about the impact of

institutionalized corruption on the delivery of services and

direct government benefits. It is well documented that

Colombians are more tolerant of drug traffickers who have

built hospitals, childcare facilities, and housing projects for

the poor than they are of government officials who do

nothing to provide safe water, secure roadways, and ensure

a dependable mail.39

Time and again, Colombian politicians have come to the

United States and other nations for aid, pleading ignorance

of past sins, and promising to behave better in the future.

Time and again, the United States has weighed the

priorities of geopolitics and its own national security

requirements against the risks that significant portions of

aid will be siphoned off into private pockets and has moved

ahead, despite overwhelming evidence that aid money

disappears in copious amounts. Lawmakers in the United

States would do well to reconsider the advice given by

George Washington who, in his farewell address in 1796,

said,

It is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from

another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for

whatever it may accept under that character; that by such

14
acceptance it may place itself in the condition of having given

equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached

with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater

error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation

to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a

just pride ought to discard.40

While President Pastrana promised an administration

of integrity in calculated contrast to the scandal-ridden

prior administration of Ernesto Samper, actual government

corruption increased during Pastrana’s time in office. It was

no surprise to most Colombians that prominent banking

and financial institutions were linked to scandals involving

corruption. Such entities include Caja Agraria, Banco del

Estado, BCH, Dragacol, Foncolpuertos, and Fondo de

Prevensión del Congreso (Congressional pension fund).41

Many of the scandals involved individuals who had been

placed in crucial managerial positions as payback for

political favors owed them, despite evidence of murky pasts

and questionable conduct. Even as scandals consumed the

institutions, the individuals continued to enjoy the full

backing and confidence of the politicians who had promoted

them.42

A number of reports have also been produced by the

press about the purchase and theft of large inventories by

government entities. Not long ago, for example, the

Colombian Congress purchased carpets and toilet paper

during the final hours of budget appropriations in such

volume that political critics noted wryly that the Congress

would be using the inventory well into the next century.

Favoritism in the awarding of government contracts also

continued at epidemic proportions. In one month alone

during 2001, the Office of the Attorney General detected

over 2,000 illegal contracts. In one state, illegal contracts

were awarded for more than 59 million pesos immediately

following the issuance of a memo by the Attorney General to

adhere to the Law of Government Contracts.43 No doubt the

agencies responsible for checking and overseeing the proper

functioning of certain entities were either negligent,

15
incompetent, corrupt, or all three. There is a saying at play

here at which many politicians wink: “Hecha la ley, hecha la

trampa” (when a law is made, a swindle is made).

It is inevitable then, that scandal would inflict Plan

Colombia. In May, reports surfaced that more than $2

million ofPlan Colombia funds were discovered missing and

believed taken by more than 20 corrupt officers of the elite

counterdrug forces (other sources place the number of police

involved in the scandal at greater than 60).44 At least 12

officers were fired for using the money for “personal ends,”

such as buying gas for their automobiles, and the scandal

soon led to the resignation of the agency’s head, General

Gustavo Socha.45 President Pastrana, however, vehemently

insisted that “not a single peso” of the plan had been

misplaced, but at this writing, no proof has been produced

that that funds were not diverted.46 Another scandal

surfaced in early June regarding the origin of money used to

finance the construction of a commercial building and other

construction projects by the president’s former head of

personal security, Colonel Royne Chavez.47 Colonel Royne’s

confused excuses about the funding and function of the

multistory structure only raised more questions when he

was unable to identify exactly who his partners were in the

project, and why a penthouse complete with sauna and

whirlpool bath would be built atop a building ostensibly to

be used as a public parking garage.48

In April another military commander, Colonel Édgar

Bejarano, the former private secretary of General Luis

Ernest Gilibert, director of the national police, was

discovered to have close ties with FARC Front 42 in the

state49 of Cundinamarca.50 Bejarano was also investigated

by the U.S. embassy for having sidetracked Plan Colombia

funds by writing at least 52 memorandums in which he

claimed that, under orders of General Gilibert, moneys

reserved for anti-narcotics operations would be diverted to

other administrative uses.51 Bejarano was also found to be

the owner of a company supplying meats to the 1300 cadets

at the national police academy, despite the fact that his

16
company was not on the approved list of food service

contractors. The revelation of Bejarano’s involvement with

guerrilla forces came just after he was promoted to assume

command of the national police forces in the state of

Quindío. Investigative reporters with Cambio magazine

intercepted cellular phone calls between Bejarano and

FARC guerrillas that indicated that he had 1) met

frequently with a man named Santos Montañez, reputed to

be FARC’s chief of kidnapping in Cundinamarca, 2) had

given the FARC munitions, 3) had provided intelligence on

police operations in the region, and 4) had used his influence

to move forces away from areas of operation so that the

FARC could operate freely. The evidence against him led to

his forced retirement after the U.S. Embassy petitioned the

Pastrana administration for the colonel’s removal. General

Gilibert insists that he was unaware of any of his private

secretary’s depredations, despite the fact that the two men

have been close friends and colleagues for more than 30

years. Gilibert’s denial of knowing about the corruption of

his subordinates exposes not his ignorance, but rather the

Code of Silence entrenched among the officer corps.

In the meantime, Colonel Bejarano’s sister, Fabiola

Bejarano Chávez, herself a captain in the national police,

was exposed for her association with a private company that

provides security and espionage services to multinational

corporations in Colombia. She was accused of negligence in

her functions as a police officer by violating the prohibition

against public officials engaging in private employment. In

addition to her duties as a police captain, Bejarano had been

assigned to work for Pastrana’s peace commission. In

relation to that work, she claimed that, because the police

building had no room for her to work, she was compelled to

move her office to the building in which the company

providing the security and espionage services is based.52

When reporters called the company to get information on

the story, Captain Bejarano herself answered the phone.

Each week Cambio, Semana, and the nation’s major

newspapers report new cases of corruption in both the

17
military and the civilian government. The revelations

provide a steady diet of intrigue and malfeasance against

the people of Colombia by the officials and leaders sworn to

protect the nation from precisely the individuals they

themselves have become. Rather than being outraged,

many Colombians are resolved to the simple fact that

corruption is part and parcel of everyday life in their land. A

number of other acts of corruption came to light during the

last year of the Pastrana administration, but they largely

escaped being reported in the U.S. press. Among them:53

 September 2001—General Laureano Villamizar,

commander of the national police in Cali, is forced to

retire after revelations surfaced regarding his direct

involvement with narcotraffickers while he was a

Lieutenant Colonel.

 September 2001—Walter Cortés Cortés, a known

narcotrafficker and money launderer shows up as a

guest, along with President Pastrana, at the wedding

of the same Colonel Royne who later comes under

scrutiny for his building project.

 November 2001—The prosecutor general’s office

opens an investigation into irregularities in the

exclusive contract for the purchase of airline tickets

by the national police from a travel agency owned by

the wife of Colonel Marino Escobar, the director of

management for the police. The travel agency’s office

just happens to be located in the headquarters of the

National Police.

 January 2002—The Fiscalía and National Police

investigators reveal that a band of Bogotá-based

kidnappers known as “Los Calvos” is comprised of

active duty police, retirees, and common delinquents.

The band kidnaps people and then sells them to the

guerrillas and is thought to be responsible for 25 of the

40 kidnappings reported in Bogotá during 2001.

18
 May 2002—U.S. Embassy antinarcotics official,

William Duncan, says that his people have detected

that officials of the Colombian Antinarcotics Police

are mixed up in the misappropriation of funds from an

embassy account.

More difficult to explain or accept, however, is a report

from a confidential source with close ties to the highest

levels of government who told me in August that less than a

few hours prior to ordering the military into the distention

zone following collapse of the peace talks in January,

Pastrana ordered Black Hawk helicopters—ones given to

Colombia under Plan Colombia—to airlift the FARC

leadership out of the distention zone and out of harm’s way.

My source indicated that some in the Colombian military

command were outraged and went so far as to label

Pastrana’s actions treasonous. One has to consider if his

inexplicable actions could not be construed as complicity in

supporting groups the United States had earlier labeled

international terrorists.

In June the Pastrana administration was unable to

respond to a leaked U.S. Government Accounting Office

(GAO) summary that questioned why the Colombian

government had been unable to provide 250 pilots for flight

training in 14 Black Hawk and 30 Super Huey helicopters

given under Plan Colombia, and why the Colombia air force

had made “very little use” of U.S.-provided A-37 aircraft for

drug interdiction operations.54 The GAO also noted in the

summary that, while nearly 150,000 hectares of coca crops

have been sprayed, an equally large area under drug

cultivation remains in 23 of the 32 Colombian

departments.55 Moreover, the GAO criticized Pastrana for

moving too slowly to beef up the military and not

earmarking more of the national budget to military

spending.56

While much of the focus is on public corruption and

exposing transgressions against the public trust, such as

illegal government contracts, embezzlement, and the

19
diversion of money from targeted projects, there is little

discussion of corruption in the private sector—a problem as

insidious and destructive as the institutionalized

manifestations. Colombians tend to perceive private

collapses as separate, unrelated events without looking too

deeply into the underlying causes of the crises. Yet, if

Colombians tend to misunderstand the dimensions of these

crises, they are only overlooking a significant piece of the

bigger problem, for many of the private collapses are the

direct result of institutional corruption. This is a linkage

Colombians must consider in the process of confronting

corruption and moving toward greater transparency and

accountability in the government.

The Elements of Crisis: A Lack of Leadership.

If evidence of corruption is proof of the lack of honest and

competent leadership within and emanating from the

central government, then Colombians note cynically that

the money corrupt actors have stolen from the country could

have already been used to build a first-world nation, with a

well-educated citizenry, a high standard of living, an

efficient economy, and a well-managed and cost-effective

infrastructure.

Since the founding of the Republic, Colombians have

believed in their manifest destiny, and that the many

blessings bestowed upon them as a people defined their

character, work ethic, and relationships toward the rest of

the hemisphere. Even while the groundswell of political

violence was building into the 1960s, the romantic notion of

Colombian intellectuals, like Umaña Luna, in his 1962 book

on political violence, maintained that regardless of the

threats to the society, a great nation persisted, and

Colombians were “a people of immense possibilities, of

values that should not continue to be underestimated ...a

people that despite everything, still believes, loves, and

hopes.”57 But 36 years later in 1998, in reaction to the

assassination of his son, a human rights activist, Luna

20
stated a very different sentiment. “This is a country of

cowards, of shamelessness, of vagabonds, of thieves and

assassins. I don’t give a damn about the country. It pains me

to be a Colombian and to live in the midst of a bunch of

assassins.”58

While Luna’s outcry is the anguished reaction to the

death of a loved one, others in Colombia note that his angry

words are an accurate reflection of the societal point of view.

In his compelling analysis of the Colombian crisis, Anthony

Maingot noted the sentiments of one editorialist, who wrote

that Colombians have moved “beyond just being scandalized and shocked by the situation”59 and are now overwhelmed by “a sense of powerlessness and detachment.”60

The perception of the lack of leadership originates in the

presidential office and spreads like a virus throughout the

nation. Convinced, by example after example, that there is

no leadership at the national level, the state and local

governments feel abandoned by the centralized authority,

which remains aloof and insulated from the country’s ills in

Bogotá. A former mayor from a small town in Tolima

department, now awaiting an asylum hearing in Florida,

told me of an instance where the guerrillas were attacking

his town. He called his cousin, a Congressman in Bogotá,

begging for help, for military intervention, for anything to

lift the siege. His cousin’s response was in effect, “Call me

back when the shooting stops, and we’ll send the army to

remove the bodies.” Without faith in the capacity of the

central authority to lead during a crisis, how can the

Colombian government appeal to the hearts and minds of its

citizens for support and affirmation? How can the

Colombian government maintain credibility as it

approaches other countries for assistance?

Given such a record of indecision and impotence, every

new Colombian government has a Herculean task to

convince citizens that it is capable of leading and of

overcoming the crisis. Every 4 years a new administration

attempts to distance itself from the transgressions of the

21
prior government, and each administration fails in the

effort. Perhaps nowhere has the lack of decisive leadership

shown more obviously than in Pastrana’s failed negotiations with the insurgents, and Colombians are clearly fed

up.61 One Colombian interviewed in the press commented

recently, “Talks get postponed . . . and what are they

negotiating, anyway? The kidnappings continue, the

attacks continue.”

Colombians wanted to see results from the Pastrana

administration, to see a payoff for their patience while the

government proceeded with the peace process. But the

payoff never happened. The war that was inevitable is now

underway, and Colombians are left to contemplate the lives

lost during the negotiation period, deaths that may have

been prevented had the Pastrana government chosen a

more decisive and forceful policy—beginning first and

foremost with recognizing from the outset that the

guerrillas and other combatants were nothing but

organized criminals, murderers, drug traffickers,

kidnappers, extortionists, and power hungry demagogues

deserving of no political legitimacy. An attitude of

decisiveness was paramount to any success in dealing with

the rebels, and clearly the Pastrana administration did not

possess such a trait.

The resistance to accountability and transparency also

remains a critical missing component in the government’s

ability to lead the nation. John Adams once wrote, “Liberty

cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among

the people, who have a right . . . and a desire to know . . . the

characters and conduct of their rulers.”62 There can be little

progress in making the Colombian people feel that there is a

trustworthy and competent leadership capable of upholding

the interests of the people and the rule of law as long as the

government at all levels remains closed to scrutiny and not

liable for its actions. Government officials must be forced to

submit to independent audits of their tax returns and

financial statements; they must be required to submit to full

disclosure in the same manner as is done with those seeking

22
public office and government appointments in the United

States.

Not only has the country lost millions of dollars to

corruption; the nation has also suffered the loss of its ability

to sanction corruption among those sworn to uphold the rule

of law. Until 1999, about 1,500 police officers were

sanctioned annually for various acts of corruption. That

annual average dropped to about 450 officers after 1999.

This drop in numbers is not the result of less corruption, but

indicates instead that the leadership during the Pastrana

administration grew impotent and incapable of policing

itself, the military, and the police forces under its command.

The lack of leadership has also resulted in the

irretrievable loss of police officers and troopers whose lives

might have been spared had the officer corps and civilian

officials exerted greater care and stewardship over law

enforcement personnel. The indictment against a failed

leadership command structure is in the numbers: In the last

10 years, more than 2,000 police officers have been killed

fighting guerrillas. Many of those losses were unnecessary

and due directly to corruption and/or incompetence. More

than a few police commanders and army officers have the

blood of their own troopers and soldiers on their hands.

The lack of leadership also negatively affected the

relationship between the United States and Colombia

under Plan Colombia. The growing perception of the

Colombian people is that the Pastrana government shot

itself in the foot, that ongoing institutional corruption and

unabated drug trafficking led to a “clouding [of] relations

between the two countries,” and that the dynamic between

the two nations is no longer one of “power among equals, but

rather of Colombia’s subordination.”63 Many feel that

President Uribe must now carve a new path with the United

States and promote a new sense that the Colombian

government has a clear mission, has confidence in itself,

and places the interests of the Colombian people ahead of

the interests of its northern neighbor.

23
Status of the Armed Forces.

If there is a ray of hope for the immediate future of

Colombia, it resides in the covenant between the Colombian

armed forces and the Colombian citizens whose

constitutional rights the military has sworn to protect.

According to some, the civilian perception of the armed

forces today is vastly different from even 2 years ago. Even

with the exposure of scandals by individuals high in the

command echelons of the military and the National Police,

recent polls rank the armed forces as the most respected

institution in the country. This is due in part to tremendous

efforts on the part of the armed forces to improve its image,

to modernize its forces, and to professionalize its officer

corps. Human rights groups must grudgingly acknowledge

that the armed forces is trying to reform, to teach personnel

to work within the constraints of human rights, and to

respect the rule of law. There is much still to be done, but

these efforts must be recognized and applauded for the sake

of fairness and objectivity. The military has a difficult job to

do, for it is fighting an insidious opponent who has neither

scruples nor morality, and will do anything it takes to

preserve the evil empire of narcotrafficking, extortion, and

terror it has cultivated over the last 4 decades. The human

rights groups that criticize the Colombian armed forces but

remain mostly silent about atrocities carried out by the

guerrillas need to exercise greater objectivity, for their

rhetoric and interpretation of the facts are prolonging the

conflict and unnecessarily causing additional loss of life and

property.

Most Colombians grew cynical of the peace efforts by the

Pastrana administration and viewed the involvement of

foreign human rights organizations and foreign peace

negotiators as counterproductive to resolving the

decades-long conflict with the FARC. In November 2001, for

instance, U.N. representative Hina Jilani went to Colombia

to promote a peace settlement. She proceeded, however, to

make a number of critical statements, particularly toward

24
the Fiscalía General, which she accused of having no

effective investigation into human rights violations

committed by the army through its complicity with

paramilitary forces. One editorialist writing in Cambio at

the time noted that human rights violations were no secret

in Colombia, and that many in Colombia thought her

statements were damaging. He further criticized Jilani for

refusing to accept that anyone besides the State could be a

violator of human rights.64

Pastrana’s tough-talking rhetoric, too, while trying to

reach a peace agreement with the FARC was in

contradiction to his actions. For example, he extended the

deadline for the FARC to relinquish control of the distention

zone no less than nine times leading up to January 2002

when the peace process collapsed. When Pastrana finally

gave the FARC an ultimatum, polls nationwide indicated

the people were ready to support the ultimatum and were

prepared for war. Then in another about face, Pastrana

allowed the U.N. envoy and representatives from ten

nations65 to hold more talks after the first 48-hour deadline

had passed for the FARC to clear out of the distention zone

as of Friday, January 11.66 The Colombian people,

especially those in the countryside who blame external

interference for prolonging the guerrilla war, were shocked

by and resentful of Pastrana’s reticence. Few Colombians

believed the peace talks had much hope of succeeding after

negotiations had dragged on for more than 2 years without

either side beginning to address a single point in the

original peace agenda. All the while the peace talks were

wearing on, military attacks by the FARC continued, and

the Colombian people demanded a military response and

wondered why the government should bother with the

effort. Rafael Pardo, a former defense minister, was quoted

at one point as saying, “I’ve never seen people so fed up with

the peace process.”67 The Pastrana government and the

foreign entities in the peace process either ignored or never

understood the will of the Colombian people. When the talks

finally ended and Pastrana called the military into the

25
distention zone, polls showed that more than 97 percent of

Colombians responding supported the end of negotiations.68

Colombians were ready for THEIR military to take the field

and do THEIR job. Some Colombians I spoke to in the

farming areas surrounding Rionegro in Antioquia state

were quite disgusted with peace talks and with the presence

of the foreign peace negotiators, saying, “They don’t live

here.” Moreover, most Colombians never believed there was

any peace to negotiate, that the guerrillas never wanted

peace—only concessions, and that enough was enough with

bending over backwards to appease them. When the FARC

proposed in February 2002 to return to negotiations with

the government, a poll showed that more than 90 percent of

respondents were against such a proposal.69 Clearly,

Colombians had had enough.

The ultimate failure of the peace talks has, however,

opened a tremendous opportunity for the military to

establish itself as a bright light in the government structure

after enduring years of both justified and unjustified

criticism. The crisis has forced the military establishment to

confirm its capability to take on well-armed, well-trained,

and highly motivated combatants. Years of criticism toward

the army had reduced morale and readiness. Yet, the

military was expected by the same critics to take center

stage in the civil war and drug war. While Colombians have

not forgotten that the military is guilty of many sins,

Colombians are willing to support a better trained and

much better equipped military to rescue their nation from

chaos.

However, one significant problem with the military that

has yet to be resolved remains: the simple fact that the poor

do the fighting and dying in the countryside, while the

able-bodied young men and women of the urban middle and

upper classes remain insulated, aloof, and protected from

military service.70 No one in Colombia can deny that this is

true.

26
During a trip to Colombia less than 1 year ago, I was

speaking with a noncommissioned officer who told me, with

great sadness in his voice, about how he felt that he was

fighting and sacrificing to protect the land so that the elite

could go to their farms safely. He looked at my young

daughter and said, “I have a 3-year-old brother I haven’t

been able to see or to play with.” The emotion in his remarks

articulated an inferiority complex among the ranks, an

uneven burden that personnel conscripted from the peasant

class carry with them into service. Despite efforts to

professionalize the military and recruit from all sectors of

the society, the perception of the lack of fairness persists

and is not healthy for the army, for the country, or for the

goals the executive leadership formulate for bringing peace

and normalcy to the nation.71 It is also no secret that parents

of the upper classes continue to resort to tried and true

methods for shielding their children from military service.

Colombians, however, can no longer have it both ways. If

they want the military to solve their problems, all classes of

the society must support the military and contribute

equally to the effort.

Many Colombians have perceived that either the civilian

government was hesitant to commit the armed forces to the

battlefield, or that the military leadership itself was

incapable of taking any offensive action other than rattling

sabers. That perception began to change, however, when

Pastrana finally ordered air strikes against FARC positions

in the distention zone. The public reacted by displaying

great national pride, the highest it has been in decades, and

cheered the images on television of Colombian pilots taking

off and returning from air strikes against guerrilla targets.

Feeling as if a dam had finally burst, some Colombians were

going as far as to call for foreign troops to come help in the

fighting, and called for the removal of limitations set by the

United States and direct foreign involvement in the conflict.

In fact, a poll taken in February immediately following the

military move into the distention zone indicated that more

than 92 percent of Colombians responding believed the

27
United States should take an active role in the war against

the guerrillas.72 Even with broad popular support, some

organized groups in Colombia continue to resist foreign

involvement in Colombian matters, such as the labor union

General Confederation of Democratic Workers (Confederación General de Trabajadores Democráticos, or CGTD),

which announced on September 10, 2002, that it was

absolutely opposed to military aid from the United States.73

Any hesitation the civilian government may have had

about committing the military to the field was publicly and

dramatically removed in August when President Uribe

summoned his military commanders for what is known in

the military parlance as a “come to Jesus” meeting,74 and

told them in no uncertain terms that is was time to get out

from behind their desks and into the field with their

troops—where they belonged.75 In addition, the distractions

of costly education and training junkets to the United States

and elsewhere would henceforth be curtailed.76 He has also

admonished military commanders to either do their jobs or

resign.77 Commander of the Armed Forces General Jorge

Enrique Mora underscored Uribe’s goals and stated that the

new mission of the armed forces would be to “prevent, rather

than react to the attacks” by guerrillas against the

Colombian people and the regional and local government

infrastructure.78 Likewise, President Uribe’s highly

regarded defense minister, Martha Lucia Ramirez,

reinforced another key aspect of the new administration’s

security agenda—that improved effectiveness of the

military requires “transparency, respect for the

constitution, the nation’s laws and human rights.”79

Despite past scandals in the uppers ranks of command,

many dedicated officials remain who have tried to reform

the military and the National Police, such as General Rosa

Jose Serano, former head of the National Police, who during

his tenure discharged more than 12,000 personnel for

corruption, human rights violations, and drug trafficking.80

Serano is proof that honest and tough leaders capable of

meeting national objectives can be cultivated and

28
empowered in the officer corps. Serano’s leadership may

have inspired a new movement among the officer corps of

the National Police to fight corruption from within. A group

of anonymous officers known as Dignity are working to

overcome the code of silence among the military and police

leadership by exposing corruption and educating fellow

officers and their troopers in their responsibilities to be

honest and faithful stewards of the rule of law.81 Their

movement is gaining notoriety and support, is spreading

into the military branches, and is bringing hope to a nation

that demands transparency and accountability.

One persistent problem with the National Police and the

armed forces has been that increases in resources remain

confined largely to the main cities and have trickled down

into the rural areas too slowly or not at all. But the situation

has begun to change under Plan Colombia. At the end of last

year, for instance, the National Police began moving back

into 192 population centers nationwide to regain control of

areas that had come under guerrilla control, with the

intention of providing better security in the rural areas. A

key element is for newly formed carabineros units (mounted

police) to increase patrols and protection of rural farmers

and to establish new rural police stations and mobile squads

capable of rapid response. The plan got off to a good start

and includes the training of 10,000 mounted police over the

next few years.82 The plan also includes efforts to improve

relations with the civilian population by conducting

civic-police activities that foster better relations between

citizens and law enforcement.83

One troubling concern about the reform efforts

underway in the armed forces, however, is whether the

civilian population realizes positive improvements are

taking place and that the traditional status quo is yielding

to a new order among the armed forces. Two years ago,

before the military embarked on a public relations

campaign to improve its image, there was resistance to

making the army and the national police stronger.

Improving the military capability was seen by many as

29
opening the door for further U.S. interference in Colombia’s

internal affairs. There has long been a love-hate

relationship by the Colombian civilians toward the armed

forces and national police. After all, the military’s human

rights record and its combat effectiveness over the last 4

decades have been far from admirable. Blame for the

military’s record cannot be laid solely at its doorstep,

however. Prior civilian governments never established a

clearly defined role for the armed forces in the national

security agenda. The lack of a clear agenda allowed for

breakdowns in the chain of command and undermined the

military’s credibility and effectiveness. Corruption grew

throughout the armed services, regional and local

commanders used the forces under their commands for

personal gain or to settle personal vendettas, and the lines

defining the rule of law became blurred in many areas of the

country. Understandably then, Colombians are skeptical in

the face of government efforts to improve the military’s

image, adhering instead to the adage that actions still speak

louder than words. The military, therefore, finds itself in the

position that regardless of slick public relations campaigns,

it must produce results even as it remains under a

microscope of scrutiny by the Colombian people and

watchdogs abroad. Unless and until a clear role in the

national security agenda is defined for the armed forces and

embraced by its institutional components, the goal of

winning the hearts and minds of the civilian population will

remain elusive. If the August summit between the Uribe

administration and the military leadership to define that

role is any indication, many are hopeful that a positive new

relationship between the citizens of Colombia and its

military forces will emerge.

The United States has a very important role to play in

the future of Colombia’s national security strategy, and the

Uribe administration understands this and is working to

increase U.S. involvement in military planning and

preparedness. More than any other nation, the United

States has the experience and capability to assist

30
Colombia’s armed forces’ institutions, having over the last

50 years trained “more than 100,000 foreign police and

soldiers annually, both within the United States and in

about 150 countries around the world.”84 Following the

attacks of September 11, the Bush administration

embarked on a new agenda to train foreign governments to

confront the threats of global terrorism as manifested

within the national borders of nations. President Bush

made this clear in his speech of March 11, 2002, when he

proclaimed:

In the current stage of the war, our coalition is opposing not a

nation, but a network. Victory will come over time, as that

network is patiently and steadily dismantled. This will

require international cooperation on a number of fronts:

diplomatic, financial and military. We will not send American

troops to every battle, but America will actively prepare other

nations for the battles ahead. This mission will end when the

work is finished—when terror networks of global reach have

been defeated. The havens and training camps of terror are a

threat to our lives and to our way of life, and they will be

destroyed. 85

Colombian terrorists, guerrilla groups, white collar

criminals, and their alliances with other criminal

organizations around the world threaten to destabilize the

entire western hemisphere. The United States can ill afford

to ignore the threat that looms at its own doorstep, a mere 3

hours by air from the U.S. mainland. September 11 changed

the game for the U.S. involvement in Colombia, and the

Colombian armed forces must now realize and come to

terms with the fact that their mission in Colombia will now

become inextricably linked with the fight against global

terrorism. The Colombian military must get its own house

in order and prepare itself for the international role it will

soon be called upon to play.

31
Plan Colombia Since September 11.

The war against the guerrillas took on new meaning for

Colombia in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade

Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. In his

address to the joint session of Congress and the American

people on September 20, President Bush stated in no

uncertain terms,

. . . we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to

terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to

make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or

support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a

hostile regime.86

One could make a reasonable argument that as of last

September, the Pastrana administration fell into the

category of a “hostile regime” for 1) providing safe haven by

allowing the FARC to maintain an autonomous region, not

unlike the Hezbollah’s control of the Bekaa Valley in

Lebanon, 2) inexplicably allowing FARC officials to travel

abroad under quasi-diplomatic status while at the same

time they were under indictment in Colombia for acts of

terrorism, kidnapping, murder, extortion, and sundry other

crimes against the Colombian people—including actions

that could easily constitute crimes against humanity, 3)

allowing IRA mercenaries, narco-terrorists, Hezbollah

guerrillas and other radical Islamic fundamentalists into

Colombia to provide the guerrillas with training on urban

warfare, bombmaking, terrorism, and 4) doing nothing to

curtail the known practice by the FARC of trafficking in

Colombian passports and identities for Islamic terrorists.

September 11 placed the Pastrana government in a

tricky situation, for here was a government supported by

the United States to the tune of $1.5 billion under Plan

Colombia, in addition to having received additional millions

in various types of military and nonmilitary aid. Yet, for

nearly 4 years the Pastrana administration gave de facto

32
shelter and political status to a guerrilla group87 that would

soon be on the State Department’s list of terrorist

organizations. In addition, he did little to curtail the

murderous and terrorist activities of the Auto Defenses

Unificados de Colombia (AUC), which would join the FARC

on that list. Moreover, the troubling links between the AUC

and Colombian military in the commission of human rights

atrocities further reduced Pastrana’s credibility relative to

the new international war against terrorism.

One can also argue that Pastrana’s policies placed the

Bush administration in a difficult position because, having

inherited Plan Colombia from the Clinton administration,

Bush was committed to support the Pastrana government

even while Pastrana allowed the FARC to solidify its power

base, terrorize innocent civilians, conduct military

operations against the government, and expand its drug

production and trafficking operations. Four events

following the September 11 attacks, however, conspired to

save U.S. policy in Colombia and neutralize the question of a

double standard between the United States and Colombia

with regard to the war against terror. First, the peace talks

with the FARC broke down, and Pastrana finally moved to

retake the zone of distention. Second, the United States

passed comprehensive counterterrorism legislation. Third,

the Organization of American States (OAS) adopted the

Convention Against Terrorism, with Colombia being a

prominent signatory. Fourth, the European Union (EU)

reversed its position on the FARC by declaring it a terrorist

organization along with the AUC and all Colombian

paramilitary groups.

Whereas Pastrana’s policies were unclear and

contradictory, the incoming President Alvaro Uribe leaves

little doubt as to his position on the guerrillas and irregular

combatants: submit voluntarily or otherwise to the rule of

law. In this regard, the focus of Plan Colombia for the Uribe

administration will be on fighting the guerrillas, because he

recognizes the inescapable linkage between drugs as the

driving engine that keeps the guerrillas in the field. To this

33
end, his first order of business will be to convince the United

States of that linkage, and that attacking the guerrillas

means fulfilling Bush’s mandate of fighting the war against

terrorism as well as fighting the war against drugs.

Implications For Hemispheric Security.

If Plan Colombia was intended as a framework for

addressing Colombia’s internal problems with drug

trafficking and social chaos, the potential impact on the

security of Colombia’s immediate neighbors and other

nations in the hemisphere was certainly not overlooked.

Fallout from Plan Colombia was anticipated by the United

States and Colombia’s border states, and planning quickly

moved forward for initiatives to mitigate the impact of Plan

Colombia in the region.

In testimony before the U.S. House International

Relations Committee in June 2001, Deputy Assistant

Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law

Enforcement Affairs James Mack noted that Plan Colombia

was “the first step in responding to the crisis underway in

Colombia,” and that the Andean Regional Initiative (ARI),

proposed by the Bush administration in 2001 was intended

as “the next stage of a long-term effort to address the threat

of narcotics and the underlying causes of the narcotics

industry and violence in Colombia, while assisting

Colombia’s neighbors to ward off those same dangers in

their own countries.”88 Part of the $882 million earmarked

for the ARI included $731 million for the Andean

Counterdrug Initiative (ACI), intended to provide

assistance for “social and economic development as well as

for counternarcotics and security efforts—the narcotics

scourge throughout the Andean region.”89 Both initiatives

were meant to respond to the significant challenge to fragile

democractic institutions in the region while protecting U.S.

interests, and the Congress eventually approved $625

million for the ACI, which went into effect in January

2002.90 Recognizing that drug trafficking “does not respect

34
national borders and that both feeds and feeds upon the

other social and economic difficulties with which the

Andean region is struggling,” the ACI was described as “a

regional versus Colombia-centric policy and a

comprehensive and integrated package that brings together

democracy and development as well as drug initiatives.”91

The full ARI program was divided 50/50 between

counternarcotics and alternative development/institutionbuilding programs, while the ACI component was a 60/40

split between counternarcotics and development/

democracy.92 Under consideration during the State

Department’s formulation of the ARI and ACI proposals

was the concern by Colombia’s neighbors of spill-over from

Colombia’s porous borders resulting from

pressure applied by the Government of Colombia (GOC) in

southern Colombia [which would] result in the flight of

refugees, guerrillas, paramilitaries, and/or narcotics

traffickers across porous borders into other countries. We will

work with the countries of the region to strengthen their

capacity to cope with potential outflows.93

The stated goals of both initiatives were to promote and

support democracy and democratic institutions, foster

sustainable economic development and trade liberalization,

and significantly reduce the supply of illegal drugs to the

United States at the source.94

The State Department noted the following about the

situation in the region:

Since we believe Plan Colombia will result in major disruption

of the cocaine industry, ACI’s regional approach becomes even

more of an imperative. Traffickers will undoubtedly try to

relocate as their operations in southern Colombia are

disrupted. We believe they will first try to migrate to other

areas inside Colombia, then try to return to traditional

growing areas in Peru and Bolivia. But if those options are

forestalled, they may well seek to move more cultivation,

processing and/or trafficking routes into other countries such

as Ecuador, Brazil, or Venezuela.95

35
From the outset, Colombia’s neighbors expressed grave

concern over the effect of the plan on their own national

security, and declined, tacitly or otherwise, to support it.

Border states quickly ramped up security along their

frontiers to discourage refugees and combatants from

leaving Colombia.

After declaring Plan Colombia its biggest security risk,

Brazil instituted Operation Cobra, a 3-year plan involving

the deployment of 6,000 troops along its 1,000-mile-long

Amazon border, with another 6,000 held in reserve.96 The

deployment, particularly in an area called the Dog’s Head

which borders the Colombian department of Vichada, is

intended to combat the incursion of FARC combatants

across the frontier and to attempt to interdict and suppress

drug trafficking by the FARC and other drug producers in

the region.

In Venezuela, authorities stepped up drug interdiction

efforts along its Colombian frontier and in last year’s

Operation ORINOCO seized several tons of cocaine

entering the country. The role of Venezuela, however, has

been uncertain and very troubling to Colombia and the

United States. President Hugo Chavez has given aid,

weapons, and cover to FARC units using Venezuelan

territory for staging operations back into Colombia. He has

also hosted FARC commanders and even invited a public

spokesman for the FARC to address Venezuela’s National

Assembly.97

Peru has much to lose due to the side effects of Plan

Colombia. With the aid of the United States, the Peruvian

government had made tremendous strides toward

diminishing drug production and trafficking, especially

among the indigenous communities along the Colombian

border. But in recent months the FARC has been suspected

of moving across the frontier into Peru and linking up with

regrouped elements of the notorious Sendero Luminoso

rebels.98 The United States has tripled counternarcotics aid

to Peru in response to the threat that a FARC presence in

36
Peru could destabilize the social and agricultural reforms

that have been undertaken during the last decade.

After a successful fumigation campaign anchored U.S.

counternarcotics efforts in Bolivia, the Bolivian government

turned its efforts to combating drug production and threats

of rebel insurgency through its Dignity Plan, which

emphasizes “a comprehensive poverty reduction

strategy.”99

The spillover of Plan Colombia is of particular concern to

Ecuador and Panama. In the last year, Ecuador has

established a Northern Border Initiative to promote better

security and development in the region bordering

Colombia.100 But indigenous groups and Ecuadorian

environmentalists have cried foul against the collateral

effects of Plan Colombia’s fumigation campaign along the

Ecuadorian border. In September 2001, more than 10,000

Ecuadorians, mostly Indians, filed a complaint under the

Alien Tort Claims Act against DynCorp, the Virginia-based

contractor responsible for aerial spraying, seeking millions

of dollars in compensation and an immediate halt to

spraying. The complaint also alleges violations under the

Torture Victim Protection Act.101

In Panama, the FARC, other irregular forces, and drug

traffickers have long used the dense jungle region of Darien

province for cover and for conducting transshipments of

drugs from Colombia and smuggling of weapons through

pipelines back into the Colombia. Because Panama has no

standing military force and few military resources, the

government has been nearly helpless, if not unwilling, to

curtail the use of its most isolated territory by Colombian

guerrillas and traffickers. But efforts are underway to close

Panama’s borders to foreign incursion and criminalism,

and, of this writing, new legislation is about to be introduced

in the National Assembly to request the return of the U.S.

Marines to Panama, to reopen Howard Air Force Base, and

to build two new bases, one in the zone of Colón and the

other in the zone of Darién along the Colombian frontier.102

37
Many of the FARC’s ties abroad also extend to South

American nations not bordering Colombia. Suriname has

long been a transshipment point of drugs from Colombia to

Europe, and recent reports indicate that the FARC have

taken control of a “lawless area of Paraguay.”103 The

question now arises as to how far Plan Colombia’s primary

intent to combat drug trafficking in Colombia could extend

into other countries in the region.

In addition to any effects Plan Colombia is having on

regional security, Colombia and its neighbors are also

threatened by the ingress of foreign terrorist organizations

from beyond the hemisphere. The Irish Republican Army

(IRA) is known to have provided training to FARC, and is

believed to have been behind the deadly mortar attack

against the Presidential Palace on the day of President

Uribe’s inauguration.104 The Iranian-backed Hizbollah has

also had ties with FARC going back at least into the early

1990s and is alleged to have been in business with FARC in

the provision of false passports for Islamic terrorists using

Colombia as a staging ground for illegal entry into the

United States. Such was the case in 1998 when Mohamed

Enid Abdel Aai, an Islamic terrorist linked to the 1997

massacre of 80 Western tourists in Luxor, Egypt, was

arrested for using a forged passport obtained from

Colombian sources while trying to reach a FARC base. He

was subsequently deported to Ecuador.105 General Jose

Serrano, former head of Colombia’s National Police, has

also noted that more than 100 radical Islamic groups with

ties to Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan have operated in

Colombia and other South American countries over the last

decade.106

In 1999 a group of Iranian delegates, at the blessing of

the Pastrana government, traveled to the FARC stronghold

of San Vicente del Caguan to discuss the possibility of

establishing a meat packing plant in the heart of FARC

territory. Not only did it seem unusual that Iran, with very

little presence of any in Latin America, would choose rebel

held territory to establish such an enterprise, but the

38
location made little sense, given that the majority of cattle

and meat production is more than 300 miles to the

northwest on the other side of the Andes Mountains, and

that the area around San Vicente del Caguan is mostly

jungle, with no major roads and little infrastructure.107 The

Colombian military charged that the Iranians were not

businessmen, but paid military advisers to the FARC,

noting that the Iranians had resisted inspection of their

baggage upon their arrival in Colombia. Nevertheless, the

deal was sealed in October 1999, with Pastrana’s peace

commissioner, Victor Ricardo, signing the agreement as

guarantor, although the project was later abandoned. The

presence of Hizbollah in the tri-border region of Brazil,

Paraguay, and Argentina, also known as the Iguazu

Triangle, has been well-known for more than a decade and

is assumed to have been the staging area for the group’s

deadly attack against the Israeli embassy and Jewish

cultural center in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994,

respectively.108 According to a number of reports, Islamic

fundamentalists have been able to run drug trafficking and

money laundering operations with impunity in the region.

One investigation by Argentinian authorities has focused

on the activities of suspected Hizbollah financier, Assad

Ahmad Barakat, part owner in a large shopping mall,

Galeria Page, in Ciudad del Este, the largest city in the

tri-border region. It is believed that Barakat has “used the

shopping mall as a front to recruit Hizballah volunteers and

as a large source of financial support for terrorist activities”

including the embassy and cultural center attacks.109

Given the linkage between narcotrafficking and

guerrilla insurgency in much of South America, and the

ability of narco-guerrillas and drug cartels to utilize

long-established pipelines for the shipment of drugs and

weapons, it is evident that the United States cannot but

play an ever increasing role in national security,

counternarcotics, and regional development programs in

the hemisphere. For this reason, it is imperative that the

39
FARC, as the primary accelerant for destabilization in the

region must be removed quickly, decisively, and absolutely.

COLOMBIANS LOOK TO THE FUTURE

Colombians’ perceptions for the future are difficult to

judge. The overwhelming priority for the incoming

government is to stabilize the internal chaos, reestablish

the rule of law in the rural regions, and deny the guerrillas

access to their infrastructure and resources by carrying out

decisive counterinsurgency operations, narcotics

interdiction, and anti-money laundering campaigns.

Moreover, the Colombian government infrastructure needs

drastic attention. The health system is virtually paralyzed,

with elderly Colombians bereft of any health benefits or aid,

entire sectors of the society are without the most basic of

social and government services, and institutionalized

corruption at every level of the government continues to

impede reform and reorganization. The crises of

incompetence and of lack of conscience where it matters

most in the body politic continue to strangle the will and

wishes of the Colombian people, and cynicism toward and

lack of faith in the government persists as a most pressing

problem.

In addition to the challenges of reaching tactical and

strategic goals set out in the national agenda and as

articulated in the terms of Plan Colombia, there has been

talk in Colombia since at least 1998 of an “asylum

syndrome” as evidenced by a poll that showed that nearly

half of all Colombians from all social classes want to leave

the country.110 An alarming and debilitating exodus is

occurring in Colombia, both internally and externally,

driven by the society’s lack of faith in the ability of the

government to uphold the rule of law. Those who have the

means to do so flee to Miami, Boca Raton, Atlanta, Madrid,

and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the poor campesinos, their

agrarian lives in tatters, their lands seized by warring

parties and feudal warlords backed by militia armies, living

40
amid the constant risk of being caught in the crossfire, have

nowhere to run but to the already crowded cities where they

fall prey to criminal gangs, social exploitation of various

forms, and recruitment by the very groups that have caused

their displacement. More than two million Colombians, a

figure that amounts to one out of every 20, have left the

country or fled their rural homes for the dubious safety of

the cities. With their lives in doubt and the underpinnings of

their livelihoods shaken, they are caught up in the

maelstrom generated by the lack of protection, the lack of

leadership, and the lack of security. Many Colombians who

are to blame for the national crisis and the disintegration of

the rule of law have themselves cashed in from their

corruption and criminal conduct and have taken their illicit

profits out of the country, settling comfortably abroad to

wait out the crisis. Regardless of the motivation that has

induced them to flee Colombia, anguish and anger are their

traveling companions, albeit on different levels of reality.

Ironically, however, instead of creating a shared feeling of

loss among refugees and ex-patriots, the exodus has

deepened the divisions in an already divided country.111

Colombians have a complex and contradictory, some say

schizophrenic, view of the future. They see little hope that

corruption will end, that scandals will subside, that the

guerrillas and drug traffickers will be brought to justice,

and that the civil society will be restored and constitutional

rights enforced. Even as the new government is formed,

there are already denouncements that some of the new

president’s staff and many members of the Senate and

Congress are tainted by corruption and scandal. Five

senators elected in June have already been removed for vote

fraud, and there has been such arguing and physical

scuffling over office space in the Congress that new

congressmen were sleeping in their offices in order keep

their spaces from being taken over by their colleagues,

leaving one to wonder if perhaps it is not only the military

personnel that should be vetted under the terms of Plan

41
Colombia, but all the incoming members of the civilian

government.

Yet for all the criticism leveled at the politicians, most

Colombians still love desperately the Colombia of their

minds’ eye and have never and will never lose sight of the

nobility of Bolivar’s great experiment of nationhood. They

still view their nation as being on the threshold of first world

status, a nation of brilliance, resourcefulness, beauty and

resilience. Sophisticated Colombians are still easily swept

away and moved to tears by the simple and heartfelt

patriotism and love of country expressed by the rural

peasants during national holidays and regional events like

the Festival of Flowers in Medellín and the Coffee Festival

in Manizales. Through all the turmoil, scandal and violence,

love of country has no class bounds.

All Colombians who embrace the rule of law want peace.

But they have lacked the leadership to show them the way

to achieve their goals of a truly united nation. Into this

dynamic the United States will no doubt continue to pour

money, aid, programs, advisers, and good intentions. But

without a drastic change in the consciousness of the political

leadership, little will change for the better, and U.S. aid will

be reduced merely to protecting its own commercial and

strategic interests in Colombia.

CONCLUSION

Colombia is like the horse being led to water that cannot

be made to drink. The United States and other international

partners can only do so much and can only go so far. All

branches of the Colombian government must find the

collective will and resolve to change the future. Once vilified

by all sectors of the Colombian society and by nongovernment organizations at home and abroad, the Colombian

armed forces have taken the first real steps into a new

reality of nationhood in the new millennium. They have set

a standard and raised the bar that the civilian government

must now choose to respond to positively or risk total

42
collapse. The Colombian government must come to terms

with its own corruption. To this end, the United States could

provide the model by teaching the Colombian government

how to conduct independent audit practices that carry the

weight of law, and by legislating and enforcing laws that

require full disclosure of the personal and financial conduct

of all individuals going into government service or

occupying command positions in the national police and

armed forces.

While many Colombians perceive that poor leadership of

the country is the cause for today’s bloodshed, there are still

legions of honest, patriotic, and upright Colombians capable

of saving the country from ruin. Certainly, Dignity and

other anonymous members working together to end

corruption from within are cases in point. The problem is

that corruption is so overwhelming and pervasive that the

honest bureaucrats and officials are too often marginalized

from having a positive impact on the system.

Nevertheless, the perception of all interested parties as

they look to Colombia should be one of hope and faith that

the situation can be turned around. It may take decades and

even generations for the economy and the society to recover

from the turmoil, but the effort must be undertaken, now, or

it will soon be too late. The United States, too, has realized

that, in the case of Colombia, it must make an exception to

its standing policy of not interfering with the domestic

policies and political conflicts of another sovereign nation.

The Bush administration took a huge step forward by

asking the Congress to provide money and materiel to

Colombia to be used to fight the guerrillas. The declared war

on terrorism and the passage of the antiterrorism

legislation has made this change of foreign policy with

Colombia possible, especially if one puts forward the

argument that 1) giving aid to Colombia to fight the

insurgency under the leadership of a tough, new Colombian

president is in the direct interests of U.S. national security,

and 2) it is simply the right thing to do—an opportunity for

Colombia to rid itself for good of a half-century-long

43
guerrilla nuisance. When the House of Representatives

approved the Bush proposal under the new $30 billion

counterterrorism bill, and when the Senate came through

with its own approval for the Bush plan on June 7, a new

chapter was begun in the history of relations between the

United States and Latin America’s oldest democracy.112

Additional issues must be taken into account with regard to

the spread of FARC’s presence into other countries in the

region. The implications are that if the FARC and its

narcotrafficking network are not neutralized in Colombia

now, the guerrillas will be able to establish firm footholds in

neighboring countries to continue as a criminal and

terrorist organization, making eradicating the FARC that

much more difficult to achieve.

With regard to an increased military role of the United

States in Colombia, there is a loophole the Bush

administration could use to bypass aid limitations under

Plan Colombia pertaining to the numbers of U.S. military

personnel and contractors allowed to work on the ground in

Colombia. The law governing Plan Colombia, P.L. 106-246,

initially capped U.S. presence in Colombia to 500 military

personnel and 300 contractors.113 In 2002 the figures were

changed to 400 military and 400 contract personnel.114 The

cap applied only to military and contract personnel working

in direct support of Plan Colombia “to combat drug

production and trafficking, foster peace, increase the rule of

law, improve human rights, expand economic development,

and institute justice reform in the countries covered by Plan

Colombia.”115 Written into the law, however, was a

provision granting the President the power to waive the

personnel limitation “for a single period of up to 90 days in

the event that the Armed Forces of the United States are

involved in hostilities or that imminent involvement by the

Armed Forces of the United States in hostilities is clearly

indicated by the circumstances.”116 Furthermore, according

to a report by the Center for International Policy, “Since

some activities now being proposed, such as pipeline

protection [i.e., this week’s stories], do not fit within the

44
definition of the original ‘Plan Colombia,’ the troop cap

technically does not apply to them.”117 The Center for

International Policy’s report also notes that:

During the House Armed Services Committee’s May 1 debate

of the 2003 National Defense Authorization Act, Rep. Gene

Taylor (D-Mississippi) proposed an amendment to implement

a more comprehensive 500-person military cap. It was

approved, but severely weakened by a provision allowing the

Secretary of Defense to waive it.118

For his part, President Uribe enters office with a

mandate from the Colombian people who have delivered to

President Bush a promising Colombian leader who believes

in a policy similar to his own vision. Both the Congress and

the Bush administration expect results for the money it has

invested in the new Colombian government, and Uribe

seems capable of delivering the goods. When prompted in a

recent interview to clarify his position on the FARC, the

Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN), and the AUC, all of

which are on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist

organizations, Uribe responded, “It is necessary to protect

all citizens against whoever is the aggressor. We are not

going to close the doors to dialogue. If the guerrillas want to

dialogue, they have to commit to abandoning terrorism,

with a ceasing of hostilities. And the same goes for the

illegal self-defense forces.”119

The new president has also made an excellent decision to

retain the services of Ambassador to the United States Luis

Moreno, whose strong performance and high regard in

Washington circles will help maintain continuity and

mutual respect in the continuing dialog between the new

Colombian government and the United States. Moreno will

also be indispensable in advising the Uribe administration

on how best to proceed with doing business with the United

States. He will be instrumental in articulating Uribe’s

vision to U.S. lawmakers, including clarifying Uribe’s plan

to boost the Colombian military to 100,000 personnel

(although many analysts both here and in Colombia wonder

45
how the new government will pay for the increase). But

more importantly, Ambassador Moreno will be able to help

the Uribe administration avoid repeating past mistakes in

diplomacy by clearly interpreting for Bogotá the position of

the United States as it deals with the Colombian crisis.

Finally, the addition of the FARC and the AUC to the U.S.

Department of State’s list of terrorist organizations, with

similar acknowledgements by the European Union, will

further strengthen Uribe’s mandate to deal decisively with

the insurrection.

President Uribe has already won a victory by convincing

the United States that Plan Colombia resources limited by

U.S. law solely to fighting narcotics must be revised, and

that materiel resources, like the helicopters provided under

Plan Colombia for counternarcotics missions, should be

diverted to stop “terrorism, to prevent massacres, to fight

kidnapping, and to prevent the taking of towns by rebels.”120

In addition to realigning support for Plan Colombia to

suit the changing demands of the Colombian crisis, the

Uribe administration will also be active in promoting the

two T’s—trade and temporary protection status (TPS)—for

Colombians who have chosen to remain in the United States

illegally because they are afraid to return to their

violence-rife homeland.121

On the positive side, the Colombian crisis has emerged

as a prominent issue on the U.S. national agenda. Many

North Americans, who prior to the inception of Plan

Colombia knew very little about what was happening in

Colombia, have taken a new interest in the plight of their

southern neighbor. Likewise, some positive intangible

results have been realized in Colombia as well. For the first

time in decades, the Colombian military is again regarded

well by a huge majority of the Colombian people. Polls

conducted by Colombian news entities show favorable

ratings in the high 90th percentile for the actions the

Colombian armed forces are taking to deal with narcotraffickers and guerrillas.

46
Overall, Colombia has great potential to emerge from its

decades of infamy. The foundations for a new government

infrastructure are beginning to emerge, a dynamic,

no-nonsense leader has taken the reins of government with

the support of a majority of Colombians, and the military is

on the verge of parlaying a rebirth of national pride and

newfound professionalism into an effective and respected

security force capable not only of preserving internal peace

but participating in international peacekeeping roles. In the

bigger scheme of world affairs, what happens in Colombia

over the next several years will help define how law-abiding

nations and freedom-loving peoples will deal with the new

threats of terrorism from disparate groups operating

around the globe. As was noted in a recent Rand report:

The fight for the future makes daily headlines. Its battles are

not between the armies of leading states, nor are its weapons

the large, expensive tanks, planes, and fleets of regular armed

forces. Rather the combatants come from bomb-making

terrorist groups like Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, drug

smuggling cartels like those in Colombia and Mexico, and

militant anarchists like the Black Bloc that ran amok during

the Battle of Seattle.122

In a very real sense, fighting the battles of the future is

happening now in Colombia, and how Colombia and its

international partners are able to subdue guerrillas,

political violence, and the lawlessness and terrorism

associated with narcotrafficking will determine, to a large

extent, the capabilities of nations to secure the rule of law

for future generations.

In closing, the following anecdote best may impart a

sense of what is really at stake in Colombia, and why the

United States, regardless of problems in its foreign policy

agenda, should do all it can to help its southern neighbor.

There often occurs an emotional moment on every airline

flight from the United States to Colombia when at the

instant of touchdown the Colombian passengers cheer, clap,

and shed tears of joy and patriotism over their arrival back

47
on Colombian soil. A North American passenger cannot help

but be moved by the moment and realize so poignantly the

extent to which the Colombian people love their land.

Plan Colombia may not be the proper policy the United

States should have chosen to help Colombia. It may in fact

prolong resolving many of the ills it is trying to fix. But

whatever one thinks of Plan Colombia, it is clear that to

have done nothing at all would be catastrophic for Colombia

and tragically shameful for all nations that adhere to

democratic principles and the rule of law. Beneath the

corruption, lawlessness, and conflict, there is still a nation

worthy of being saved.

ENDNOTES

1. Sixteenth century proverb often attributed to Samuel Johnson.

2. Update: Counterdrugs package for Colombia & Andean Region,

Center for International Policy’s Colombia Project, March 21, 2000,

visited August 1, 2002, http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/032102.

htm (on file with the author).

3. At this writing, the United States has just released $41.5 million

dollars after the Colombian army was certified as complying with

human rights criteria established by the United States Congress. See

“Colombia Celebra Certificación de EEUU a Fuerzas Militares,” Radio

Caracol, September 10, 2002 (on file with the author).

4. When he presented the plan to the European Parliament on

October 25, 1999, Pastrana said little about the military aid aspects of

the plan and instead emphasized Europe’s role in the humanitarian

assistance components of the plan. See “Colombia: Press Highlights

17th October 1991,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, October 20, 1999.

5. Many argue that the drug problem is America’s problem because

the United States has the largest consumer population. Therefore, the

United States should shoulder the entire burden of Plan Colombia as

long as the U.S. drug control policy is based on stopping the flow of drugs

at its source. But according to sources as far flung as the White House,

the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, and numerous

nongovernment organizations (NGOs), the European nations are no

less ravenous consumers of illegal drugs. Moreover, the same European

nations provide havens to sophisticated processing centers for the

48
money laundering networks attached to Colombian criminalism. As has

been noted by more than one U.S. lawmaker, the Europeans, in

particular, all but refused to acknowledge that the FARC and other

insurgent combatants were anything other than legitimate political

groups trying to advance political agendas in Colombia. Attitudes of the

European partners began to change following the September 11 attacks,

but the images on the Internet and from news coverage of FARC

commanders being treated as political VIPs in the capitals of Spain,

Switzerland, and Scandinavia left Colombians bitter and disgusted at

the international community’s lack of good judgment. Inexplicably, 9

months passed before the EU finally stated on June 12, 2002, that the

FARC are, in fact, terrorists, and this author’s opinion is that the

shameful behavior of the European nations toward Colombia has only

prolonged the conflict and caused additional loss of innocent lives.

6. According to a statement made by Undersecretary of State Marc

Grossman at the Hearing of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the

House Appropriations Committee, Federal News Service, April 10,

2002.

7. Japan pledged $175 million; Spain, $100 million; and the EU,

about $95 million.

8. The criticism is unfair, however, because while the international

partners pledged funding primarily toward humanitarian projects, the

United States had already provided more than $880 million in

nonmilitary assistance, with a good portion of it going to crop

substitution and other rural assistance programs. See Jose Ramos, “US

Gives 880 Million to Regional Social Programs as Part of Plan

Colombia,” Agence France Presse, August 31, 2001.

9. Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary

Armed Forces of Colombia) is the largest rebel force in Colombia and has

been fighting the Colombian government for more than 38 years. The

FARC maintains its own sophisticated web page at www.farc-ep.org.

10. “Guerrillas or Terrorists,” The Economist, December 8, 2001.

11. Bombings and attacks by the ELN and FARC on the Cano Limon

oil pipeline resulted in a loss of nearly $500 million in revenue for

Colombia in 2001, according to Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman

testifying before the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the House

Appropriations Committee, April 10, 2002. See “Hearing of the Foreign

Affairs Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee,”

Federal News Service, April 10, 2002.

49
12. According to recent Senate testimony by Undersecretary of

State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, Colombia has spent “$426.5

million on social and institutional development and $2.6 billion on Plan

Colombia-related infrastructure projects and improving the military.”

See “Hearing of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the House

Appropriations Committee,” Federal News Service, April 10, 2002.

13. Daniel García-Peña Jaramillo, “The U.S. Foments Colombia’s

War,” Crimes of War Magazine, August 2001 (visited September 8,

2002), http://www.crimesofwar.org/colombia-mag/foments01.html

(on file with the author). García-Pena is currently director of a

Colombia-based peace group, Planeta Paz.

14. “Prepared testimony of Chairman John L. Mica before the House

Committee on Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice,

Drug Policy, and Human Resources,” Federal News Service, August 6,

1999.

15. “U.S. Representative Bill Young (R-FL) holds makeup hearing

on supplemental appropriations,” FDCH Political Transcripts, March 9,

2000.

16. P.L. 104-208.

17. The language of the Leahy amendment in the 2001 Foreign

Appropriations Act reads: “None of the funds made available by this Act

may be provided to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if

the Secretary of State has credible evidence that such unit has

committed gross violations of human rights, unless the Secretary

determines and reports to the Committees on Appropriations that the

government of such country is taking effective measures to bring the

responsible members of the security forces unit to justice.” See P.L.

106-429 Sec. 563.

18. Michael Hedges, “Bush: U.S. Will Aid in Colombian Drug War

but not Peace Talks,” Houston Chronicle, February 28, 2001, p. A20.

19. Christopher Marquis, “Colombia’s Next Leader Seeks Drug-War

Aid,” New York Times, June 21, 2002.

20. Colombia, however, should not shoulder all the responsibility for

the mismanagement of Plan Colombia, or for the fiascos of prior aid

programs from the United States. The United States is also culpable for

delays and logistical difficulties. One glaring example is the delay in

delivering to the Colombian military the helicopters that formed a major

underpinning to the operational component of the plan. As of June 2002,

50
only 8 of 11 helicopters had been delivered to the national police, and

only 35 of 54 had been delivered to the Colombian military. That

represents barely 66 percent on station of the helicopters committed to

the Colombian government.

21. According to figures provided by Marc Grossman in testimony

before the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the House Appropriations

Committee, “Hearings of Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the House

Appropriations Committee,” Federal News Service, April 10, 2002.

22. According to Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman testifying

before the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the House Appropriations

Committee, April 10, 2002. See “Hearing of the Foreign Affairs

Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee,” Federal News

Service, April 10, 2002.

23. A hectare is a metric unit of measurement roughly equivalent to

2.471 acres. See American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language,

1981.

24. Scott Wilson, “Colombian Rebels Move to Retake Lost

Territory,” Washington Post, June 30, 2002, p. A18.

25. Brian Michael Jenkins, “A Confounding, Complex Tragedy,”

San Diego Union-Tribune, June 17, 2002, p. G1.

26. James LeMoyne was by no means a stranger to the Colombian

guerrilla conflict before taking on the role of peace envoy. Initially a

reporter with 20 years of experience covering conflicts and peace

processes around the globe, his involvement in Colombia began in 1998

in Bogotá when he and two U.N. officials created Sala de Situación, a

forum of sorts to talk about peace. Between February and April 1998,

the members of Sala de Situación undertook an ambitious campaign to

solicit ideas from the most influential people in Colombia. Three weeks

before the first round to elect a presidential candidate, LeMoyne and his

colleagues visited the three strongest candidates, Sanín, Serpa, and

Pastrana. They talked about trying to find a negotiated solution to the

conflict, but Pastrana appeared the most distracted during the talk.

After listening to the presidential candidates, the members of Sala de

Situación then invited to the U.N. Office of Development those officials

they thought would be the main characters in an eventual peace

process, including presidential candidates, high military officers,

industrialists, and labor leaders. LeMoyne and his colleagues realized

they were missing the perspective and opinions of the guerrillas,

however. So later in 1998, they traveled to Mexico City to meet three

times with Raúl Reyes, a high ranking FARC commander. Following

51
these meetings LeMoyne and company outlined the steps the future

government had to take if the government was interested in finding a

negotiated solution to the conflict. When the U.N. members of the Sala

returned to Colombia, one of President Samper’s advisers accused the

U.N., along with the ex-Minister of Mines Leyva (reputed to be a FARC

sympathizer), of interfering in Colombian politics, and advised them

that the U.N. could not lend itself to FARC to influence the outcome of

the elections. When Pastrana lost the first round of elections to Serpa,

he contacted Leyva for help. Leyva sent him a version of the conclusions

reached by LeMoyne’s Sala, which, according to ex-minister of defense,

Rafael Pardo, reflected closely the FARC conclusions. The conclusions

presented by Sala became the basis for Pastrana’s speech titled Peace

Policy for Change. It was in this speech that Pastrana first alluded to a

distention zone for the guerrillas, to be called Spaces for Peace. That

speech was attended by three FARC delegates, who, following the

speech, met with Pastrana’s aids to arrange for Levya to meet with

FARC head, Manuel Marulanda. As we know, Pastrana went on to win

the presidency, and LeMoyne’s influence in the peace process continued

to evolve.

27. Edgar Téllez, et al, Diario íntimo de un fracaso: Historia no

contada del proceso de paz con las FARC, Bogotá: Planeta, 2002, p. 365.

28. Sibylla Brodzinsky and David Adams, “Retaking Rebel Zone

Unlikely to End War,”St. Petersburg Times, February 27, 2002, p. 1A.

29. Tim Johnson, “Colombian Leader Begins Visit to U.S.,” Miami

Herald, June 19, 2002.

30. Edgar Téllez, et al, Diario íntimo de un fracaso: Historia no

contada del proceso de paz con las FARC, Bogotá: Planeta, 2002, p. 50.

31. There has existed for generations a not too subtle rivalry

between the citizens of Bogotá, known as Bogotanos, and the citizens of

the province (departamento) of Antioquia (Antioqueños). The capital of

Antioquia is Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city after Bogotá.

Bogotanos consider themselves to be very cosmopolitan and

sophisticated, while they view Antioqueños, not unkindly, as backward

provincials. Antioqueños on the other hand, view themselves as no less

sophisticated than Bogotanos and the source of Colombian prosperity,

industry, and to some extent culture, fashion, science, and political

philosophy (for example, the artist Fernando Botero is from Medellín,

and Medellín is considered the formal birthplace of liberation theology,

and is the site of the first heart transplant in Hispano-America). Bogotá

for most of the year is cool, cloudy, and subdued, while Medellín is warm,

colorful, and vibrant. For generations Antioqueños have enjoyed a

52
reputation and distinction for being hard workers, proud, independent

minded, and shrewd businessmen. These attributes are due in part to

Antioquia’s (and Medellín’s) historical and geographic isolation in the

central cordillera of the Andes relative to Bogotá. Medellín is said to

have been founded by Spanish Jews seeking a haven from the

Inquisition. The Jewish merchants who settled in Medellín built up a

large and profitable textile industry upon which other manufacturing

industries later developed. Between textiles and other manufacturing,

coffee, which grows well in the region, and improvements in Colombia’s

transportation corridors, Medellín became Colombia’s most important

center of commerce. Antioqueños (or paisas as they are also known) like

to think that the nation could not survive without Medellín. Bogotanos

bristle at this notion and, hence, a rivalry has persisted over the last 200

years or more. The arrival in Bogotá of Alvaro Uribe, a native

Antioqueño, former mayor of Medellín, and former governor of

Antióquia has been greeted by Bogotanos with cautious reserve. The

“let’s get going” attitude that Uribe and his fellow Antioqueños in his

administration bring to the presidency is the epitome of the Antioqueño

reputation for hard work, putting in long hours, and using business

savvy to get things accomplished. Hence the term ritmo paisa (paisa

rhythm) has pervaded the political climate of Colombia’s capital.

32. The World Bank reported recently that Colombia loses more

than 2 billion pesos to corruption annually, noting that that is enough

money to build 700,000 low-cost housing subsidies. See “Colombia:

Uribe Issues Presidential Directive to Fight Corruption,” BBC

Worldwide Monitoring, August 21, 2002.

33. “Results of Survey In, Moves to Tackle Corruption in Nine Main

Cities,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, August 23, 2002.

34. Colombian Senator Jaime Dussan announced on August 7, 2002,

that he intended to sue Pastrana for treason against the fatherland. See

“Colombia: Senate Authorizes Pastrana to Leave Colombia,” BBC

Worldwide Monitoring, August 7, 2002.

35. A widespread perception among Colombians is that white collar

criminals are protected by their political investiture.

36. In his book, Cartagena en la olla podrida, Bogotá: Alfa omega,

2001, author Oscar Collazo documents 80 cases of corruption and

irregularities that occurred in the last administration in the city of

Cartagena, and describes various illegal adjudications of contracts and

negotiations that favored private individuals and compromised severely

the public treasury.

53
37. U.S. Army’s Area Handbook for Colombia, Washington, DC:

American University, 1961.

38. Ibid. A verraco literally means a boar, but connotes a person who

won’t let anything stand in the way of getting what that person wants.

39. This dynamic was well-articulated by Cepeda Ulloa in his book

on administrative corruption, wherein he established a framework to

study institutional inefficiency, the scope of individual discretion in

decisionmaking posts, the degree of monopolization over the values

desired, the benefits that can be derived from those monopolies, the

probability of being discovered, the weight of punishment meted out,

and the level of condemnation of corrupt acts by society as a whole. See

Fernando Cepeda Ulloa, La Corrupción en Colombia, 1997.

40. Washington’s Farewell Address, Am Jur 2d Desk Book, 1998,

Item No. 13, p. 93.

41. Rolando López, La Ruina de la Banca Estatal, Bogotá:

Alfaomega, 2001, p. 60.

42. For a thorough discussion of this topic, see Rolando López, La

Ruina de la Banca Estatal, Bogotá: Alfa omega, 2001, pp. 13-15. One of

the more controversial instances of political appointments being given

to corrupt individuals involved Pastrana’s selection of Diego Pardo

Koppel, the former mayor of Bogotá, to be Colombia’s ambassador to

Mexico. Koppel is known to have ties to Cali Cartel boss Gilberto

Rodriguez Orjuela going back at least to 1979 to a peculiar dispute over

a missing suitcase and a nonexistent defendant. The dispute ended up

in federal court in New York City. The case was that an individual

named José Fonseca boarded an Avianca flight from Bogotá to Lima,

Peru. His suitcase went, instead, to JFK airport in New York City.

Going unclaimed, customs authorities opened the bag and discovered

$250,000 in U.S. currency packed inside. The discovery touched off a

court battle over a 6-year period: Fonseca v. Regan, 734 F.2d 944, 2nd

Circ., 1984, between the claimant, Fonseca, the state of New York, and

Colombia’s Superintendent of Exchange Control. Koppel testified on

behalf of Fonseca, who claimed possession of the bag and its contents

because he held the baggage claim check. The problem is that Fonseca

was a nonexistent “person” created by Orjuela through the filing of false

papers and the use of addresses of record that were actually for

businesses owned by Orjuela. It is highly unlikely that Koppel could not

have known that Fonseca was a myth. Koppel’s dealings with Orjuela

were no secret to those familiar with his career. Yet none of his murky

past was questioned during Koppel’s confirmation proceedings for

ambassadorial appointment to Mexico. See Rolando López, La Ruina de

54
la Banca Estatal, Bogotá: Alfa omega, 2001, pp. 41-48. In 1999, Koppel

was accused in the press of having improper credit transactions in the

Banco del Estato, and improper business dealings with the president of

the bank, Henry Ávila. See Rolando López, La Ruina de la Banca

Estatal, Bogotá: Alfa omega, 2001, pp. 48-52.

43. Law 80 of 1993.

44. Susannah A. Nesmith, Colombia’s Former Top Counter Drug

Officer Resigns Amid Investigation Into Missing U.S. Aid,” AP

Newswire, May 22, 2002.

45. Ibid.

46. “Colombia: Pastrana Denies Corruption in Plan Colombia,”

BBC Worldwide Monitoring, June 23, 2002.

47. “Los Enredos de Royne,” Cambio, June 17-24, 2002, p. 16.

48. Ibid.

49. What North American readers would think of as a state is

actually called a “departamento” in Colombia.

50. See “El coronel amigo,” Cambio, June 10, 2002, p. 16.

51. Ibid.

52. “Negocios familiares,” Cambio, June 10, 2002, p. 21.

53. “Diez meses de escándalos,” Semana, June 24, 2002, p. 21.

54. Tim Johnson, “Colombian Leader Begins Visit to U.S.,” Miami

Herald, June 19, 2002.

55. Maria Isabel Garcia, “Politics-Colombia: President-elect on

Difficult Mission to U.S.,” Inter Press Service, June 14, 2002.

56. Ibid.

57. Umaña Luna, Orlando Fals Borda, Germán Guzmán, La

Violencia en Colombia, Vol. I, Bogotá: Ediciones 15 Tercer Mundo, 1962,

p. 426.

58. Anthony P. Maingot, Studying Corruption in Colombia,

Institute for National Strategic Studies of the National Defense

55
University, no date given, internet site visited March 22, 2002,

http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/cris7.html (on file with the author).

59. Citing Enrique Santos, in El Tiempo, April 26, 1998, p. 5.

60. Ibid.

61. For an excellent rendition and analysis of the key events of the

peace process, see Téllez.

62. A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765. See

Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 16th edition, 1992, p. 337.

63. Quoting political analyst Luis Valencia, in Maria Isabela Garcia,

“Politics-Colombia: President-elect on Difficult Mission to U.S.,” Inter

Press Service, June 14, 2002.

64. Roberto Pombo, “Una ONU poco seria,” Cambio, November 5,

2001, p. 10.

65. Canada, Cuba, France, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, and

Switzerland all sent envoys to meet with the FARC and Colombian

governments to negotiate a peace agreement. All failed. See Andrew

Selsky, “Envoys Get Rebels Back to Peace Talks,” Associated Press,

January 15, 2002. This was not the first time European envoys had

traveled to Colombia to meet with the FARC leadership. In February

2001, envoys from European nations, Canada, and Japan—all countries

opposed to U.S. military aid, flew to the distention zone to discuss social

development projects with FARC leaders. See Juan Forero, “Some

Hopeful Signs As Colombia Meets With Rebels and Envoys,” New York

Times, March 11, 2001, Section 1, p. 15.

66. Sibylla Brodzinsky, “Safe Now, Rebel Zone Residents Fear

Future,” St. Petersburg Times, January 17, 2002.

67. John Otis, “Rebel Held; The Future; Peace or War,” Houston

Chronicle, August 5, 2001, p. 11.

68. A poll taken by Radio Caracol on February 21, 2002, asked, “How

do you rank the decision of President Pastrana to break off negotiations

with the FARC?” 89% said the decision was excellent, 8.29 said it was

good, 2.05% said it was bad, and 0.66% had no opinion either way.

69. Radio Caracol on February 22, 2002, asked, “What do you think

of the proposal by the FARC to return to negotiation with the

government?” 90.55% said it was a bad idea, 3.61% thought it was a good

56
idea, 3.15% were noncommitted to the idea, and only 2.69% thought it

was an excellent idea.

70. Mike Williams, “Colombia Pursues More U.S. Aid,” Palm Beach

Post, March 10, 2002, p. 5A.

71. The great strength and success of the U.S. military is that it is an

egalitarian force representative of the entire nation, all its citizens, and

all classes of the society. I believe that the Colombian military is

beginning to recognize this importance and is undertaking efforts to

recruit a professional corps of both male and female officers from the

higher classes of society.

72. Radio Caracol asked on February 27, 2002, “Do you believe that

the United States has a duty to help Colombia in the fight against the

guerrilla?” 92.53% said yes and 7.47% said number

73. Fabio Orlando Cifuentes, “Sindicatos rechazan ayuda de EEUU

a los militares,” Radio Carocol, September 10, 2002.

74. For a telling image of President Uribe meeting with his

commanders, see the photo accompanying the article, “Colombia acepta

el reto de la guerra,” El Tiempo, August 18, 2002, p. 1.

75. David Adams, “New President’s Election Inspires Hope in

Colombia,” St. Petersburg Times, August 21, 2002, p. 1A.

76. Ibid.

77. “Colombia’s Uribe Blasts Army Commanders,” Reuters, August

26, 2001.

78. “Colombia acepta el reto de la guerra.” See also “President Asks

Armed Forces For More Effective Response to Terror Groups,” BBC

Worldwide Monitoring, August 16, 2002.

79. “Colombia acepta el reto de la guerra,” p. 1. See also “President

Asks Armed Forces For More Effective Response to Terror Groups.”

80. According to Jose Vivanco, Executive Director, Americas

Division of Human Rights Watch, testifying before the Peace Corps and

Narcotics Affairs Subcommittee, Senate Foreign Relations Committee,

“Hearing Before Peace Corps and Narcotics Affairs Subcommittee,

Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” Federal News Service, April 24,

2002.

81. “Novela policiaca,” Semana, June 24, 2002, at 18.

57
82. “Colombian Police Presence in 192 Rural Areas to Be Restored,”

BBC Worldwide Monitoring, October 21, 2001.

83. Ibid.

84. U.S. Foreign Military Training: A Shift in Focus, Center for

Defense Information Terrorism Project, April 8, 2002, citing Lora

Lompe, “U.S. Foreign Military Training,” Foreign Policy in Focus,

Special Report, February 2002. Report available at

http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/miltraining.cfm#_ftn1, last visited

September 17, 2002.

85. Speech marking the 6-month anniversary of the September 11

attacks, available from the White House homepage at

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020311-1.ht

ml. visited September 1, 2002.

86. See website http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/

2001/09/20010920-8.html, visited September 10, 2002 (on file with the

author).

87. See Edgar Téllez, et al., Diario íntimo de un fracaso: Historia no

contada del proceso de paz con las FARC, Bogotá: Planeta, 2002, p. 55.

88. “Plan Colombia and the Andean Regional Initiative,” Testimony

Before the House International Relations Committee Subcommittee on

the Western Hemisphere, Washington, DC, June 28, 2001 website

http://www.state.gov/g/inl/rls/rm/2001/jun_aug/3847.htm,

visited September 23, 2002 (on file with the author).

89. Ibid. Both the ARI and the ACI were intended to carry out

section 481 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (P.L. 87-195) with

regard to international cooperation in narcotics control. Sec. 481 was

added in 1972 to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 by P.L. 92-352 and

codified at 22 U.S.C. 2291.

90. P.L. 107-115. 115 Stat. 2130.

91. “Plan Colombia and the Andean Regional Initiative,” Testimony

Before the House International Relations Committee Subcommittee on

the Western Hemisphere, June 28, 2001.

92. Ibid.

93. Ibid.

94. Ibid.

58
95. Ibid.

96. A Wider Conflict? RAND.

97. Steven Dudley, “Adios Presidente? Will Chavez Go the Way of

Allende?” The Progressive, April 1, 2002, p. 25.

98. Paul Keller, “Bomb Raises Spectre of Rebel Revival in Peru,”

Financial Times, April 26, 2002, p. 8.

99. “Plan Colombia and the Andean Regional Initiative,” Testimony

Before the House International Relations Committee Subcommittee on

the Western Hemisphere, June 28, 2001.

100. Ibid.

101. Danielle Knight, “Ecuadorians File U.S. Suit Over Plan

Colombia,” Inter Press Service, September 21, 2001. For a copy of the

complaint, visit the us.fumigation.org webpage at http://www.

usfumigation.org/Lawsuits/Ecuador.htm, last visited September 5,

2002. The case is currently pending before Judge Roberts in the U.S.

District Court, District of Columbia.

102. “Yankees come home,” Semana, August 30, 2002.

103. Tim Johnson, “Colombian Rebel Groups Seen As a Regional

Danger,” Miami Herald, September 18, 2002.

104. Jeremy McDermott, “Colombian Bombers Were Trained by

IRA,” Daily Telegraph, London, August 12, 2002, p. 1.

105. Martin Arostegui, “Search for Bin Laden Links Looks South,”

Organización Auténtica, http://www.autentico.org/oa09505.html,

visited September 23, 2002 (on file with the author).

106. Ibid.

107. Iranian Investment in Colombia Raises Suspicion, The

Americas Foundation, http://www.theamericas.org/colombia.htm,

visited June 15, 2001 (on file with the author).

108. Jeffrey Fields, “Islamic Terrorist Threat in the Tri-border

Region,” report published by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and

the Center for Non-Proliferation Studies (visited October 19, 2002),

http://www.nti.org/e_research/e3_16b.html (on file with the author).

59
109. Ibid. For a concise overview of criminal, narco-trafficking and

terrorism activities in South America, see “Instability in the Andean

Region,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, April 2002, at pp. 12-13.

110. Semana, Internet version, May 14, 1998.

111. Christian Miller, “Colombia’s Fugitives from Woe,” Los Angeles

Times, March 31, 2001.

112. Tim Johnson, “Colombia leader begins visit to U.S.,” Miami

Herald, June 19, 2002.

113. P.L. 106-246, sec. 3204(b)(1)(A) and P.L. 106-246, sec.

3204(b)(1)(B).

114. Colombia Project, 2003 Aid Request, report by the Center for

International Policy, http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/03forops.

htm, visited September 18, 2002, on file with the author).

115. P.L. 106-246, sec. 3204(h).

116. P.L. 106-246, sec. 3204(c).

117. Colombia Project, 2003 Aid Request, report by the Center for

International Policy.

118. Ibid.

119. Interview with Steve Salisbury in, “Uribe Seeks U.S. Support,”

Washington Times, May 14, 2002, p. A14.

120. Ibid.

121. Jose Ramos, “US Gives 880 Million to Regional Social

Programs As Part of Plan Colombia,” Agence France Presse, August 31,

2001.

122. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, eds., Networks and

Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy, Santa Monica,

CA: Rand, 2001.

60
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Robert R. Ivany

Commandant

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

Dr. Steven Metz

Author

Professor Luz E. Nagle

Director of Publications

Ms. Marianne P. Cowling

Publications Assistant

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

*****

Composition

Ms. Kimberly A. Rockwell