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2002
SUPPLEMENTAL ANTI-TERROR AID
Posted: December 2002
The
Bush administration has requested that Congress approve an emergency
$27 billion spending bill for the international war on terrorism.
Some
$35 million of that money is earmarked for Colombia under the
Andean Counter-drug Initiative (ACI), to combat militant groups
like the FARC and AUC, both of which fund themselves through drug
trafficking.
The
bulk of the aid package would be funneled to counter-narcotics
programs similar to those in Plan Colombia. But unlike the plan,
the ACI would direct a small portion of U.S. funds to operations
 unrelated
to counter-narcotics missions, a shift away from traditional U.S.
post-Cold War policy in Latin America.
Some
$25 million would fund anti-terrorism and anti-kidnapping training and
equipment for the Colombian police and military. Another $4 million
would go to International Narcotics Control Law Enforcement funds to
help train, organize, and equip the national police and establish a
security presence in guerrilla strongholds, such as the FARC's former
demilitarized zone.
Roughly
$6 million would go toward protecting the Caño-Limón
pipeline, a top source of revenue for Colombia and major target
for guerillas.
Several
critics in Congress, such as Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY), question
President Bush's decision to treat left-wing guerrilla groups
as strictly terrorist and drug trafficking organizations, without
considering Colombia's underlying social and economic problems.
Others,
like Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), oppose providing extra funding
to Colombia because they don't want to deepen U.S. involvement in
Colombia's 38-year civil war. Recounting the U.S. costly role in
El Salvador's civil war in the 1980s, Sen. Leahy and other opponents
caution against increasing U.S. aid for the Colombian military,
which has a poor human rights record.
The
House and Senate versions of the supplemental, which passed on
May 24 and June 6 respectively, were reconciled in a conference
committee on July 22. The new legislation provides the funding
requested by the Bush administration.
THE 2003 ANDEAN REGIONAL INITIATIVE
The
Andean Regional Initiative, part of President Bush's overall 2003 budget
request, is a foreign counter-narcotics aid plan for Colombia and other
states in the Andean region affected by the country's 38-year old civil
war.
The initiative would expand on Plan Colombia's anti-narcotics strategy.
Unlike that plan, however, the ARI would extend anti-drug assistance
to neighboring nations dealing with spillover from Colombia's long-running
conflict.
The
plan would allocate $731 million for anti-narcotics programs in
the Andean states -- Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador,
Peru, and Brazil. The new funding would come in addition to money
the U.S. already gives those nations to battle drug trafficking.
About
60 percent of the ARI's budget would be used in counter-narcotics military
assistance and training for federal military and police units in each
country.
Under
that part of the plan, some $439 million is earmarked for Colombia.
The remaining money would be split among its neighbors -- $135
million for Peru; $91 million for Bolivia; $37 million for Ecuador;
$12 million for Brazil; $8 million for Venezuela; and $9 million
for Panama.
ARI designates the remaining 40 percent to non-military aid, including
human rights efforts, social programs and alternative crop development
initiatives in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia.
(Brazil, Panama, and Venezuela would only receive money for counter-narcotics
operations.)
The
most controversial part of the ARI plan is a proposal to tack
on an additional $98 million - separate from the legislation's
$731 million price tag - to help the Colombian army protect
the Caño-Limón oil pipeline. This money would fund
and train a special Colombian military unit to protect the 484-mile
long pipeline, which runs along the border with Venezuela from
Colombia's second largest oil field and refinery to the Atlantic
coast.
The
ELN and FARC mounted nearly 170 attacks on the pipeline last year,
causing Caño-Limón to shut down for 266 days and
costing Colombia as much as $40 million per month in revenue,
the U.S. State Department says.
Analysts, like those at the Center for International Policy, say
the ARI signals a major shift away from conventional post-Cold
War U.S. policy in Latin America, since it proposes supplying
military aid unrelated to the war on drugs.
Many
critics in Congress, like Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wisc.), and
the General Accounting Office question the effectiveness of current
aerial fumigation efforts and the use of U.S. counter-narcotics
funds.
Other members of Congress, like Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.),
warn that expanding American involvement into counter-insurgency
missions may entangle the U.S. further in Colombia's complicated
civil strife.
The
bill's advocates, however, stress that increased aid to Colombia would
curtail the civil conflict and perhaps even prevent a larger regional
crisis. Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), a strong supporter of the ARI,
argues, "If we turn our backs on this corner of the world, I fear
that we may see another situation arise like that which we saw when
we ignored Afghanistan."
After
much debate, Congress passed the ARI.
-- By Liz Harper, Online NewsHour
OTHER
SECTIONS:
Part One: Anti-Narcotics Foreign Policy
Part
Two: Expanding the Front
Part Three: Drugs & The War on Terror
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