Stand by Colombia's Victims of Violence

The Wrong Road outlines Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's controversial security policies. These include permitting police and army to search homes and offices, tap phones and detain people without warrants, suspending basic civil liberties in war zones, and employing armed civilians as soldiers and informants.

Read our publication The Wrong Road (PDF) 

Dear Member of Congress,

As you act upon the President’s foreign aid request, we ask you to consider carefully the direction of Colombia policy.  It is not the time to turn away, as Colombia is in the midst of a tremendous social, political and economic crisis.  But three years after initial passage of Plan Colombia, it is time to assess the impact of US aid, and understand that significant changes are essential.

We ask the Congress to:

1. Insist that the Colombian government end collusion between the Colombian armed forces and paramilitary forces responsible for severe human rights violations. Army tolerance for and involvement in paramilitary violations continues—and so does impunity for such crimes, as detailed by the United Nations’ and State Department’s March 2003 human rights reports.  According to the State Department, "some members of the security forces actively collaborated with members of paramilitary groups—passing them through roadblocks, sharing intelligence, providing them with ammunition, and allegedly even joining their ranks while off duty." Remarkably little progress has been made since the passage of the first substantial aid package in 2000 to investigate, prosecute and sanction high-level military officials who face credible allegations of collusion with and tolerance of paramilitary forces. Indeed, the current Attorney General has removed diligent prosecutors and investigators from cases involving high-level army officials implicated in corruption and abuse. Moreover, the United Nations’ March 2003 report states that direct violations by the Colombian armed forces increased in 2002.
   
   In an implicit recognition that Colombia was not meeting the human rights conditions Congress established, the FY2003 omnibus appropriations bill removed the conditions from 75% of military aid. This sent a disturbing message: if you perform poorly, we will lower our standards on human rights.
2. Shift attention to the social side of the equation. As alternative development efforts barely begin to take root and the humanitarian crisis of Colombia’s internally displaced escalates, the administration proposes a decrease in the already inadequate social aid to Colombia (according to the International Affairs  budget request summary for FY04, from $164 million requested for  FY2003 to $150 million requested for FY2004).*  The Congress should:
   
   
   • Increase alternative development and phase out aerial fumigation. While the welcome drop in coca cultivation in Colombia was cited as an example of success of the aerial spraying program, 44% of the drop in the Putumayo region, the main focus of eradication efforts, was attributed by USAID statistics to manual eradication with alternative development. Many farmers who were fumigated and not provided aid of any kind—either emergency food aid or crop substitution programs—moved to neighboring provinces to grow illicit crops once more. Yet aerial fumigation far outpaces alternative development: the United States sprayed over 122,000 hectares in 2002 alone while promoting alternative development on 24,550 hectares from 2001 to the present. Manual eradication accompanied by alternative development is a more humane and effective response.
   • Increase aid to the displaced and insist on better protection and assistance to the displaced by the Colombian government. The number of people displaced by political violence increased dramatically to 412,000 displaced during 2002, with Afro-Colombian and indigenous populations strongly affected, according to the respected Colombian nongovernmental agency CODHES. The Colombian government’s “early warning system” which, with US funding, is supposed to protect communities and prevent displacement, has functioned poorly as a protection mechanism.  Although the system issues numerous alerts, it rarely results in effective intervention to protect endangered communities. The Colombian government by law is supposed to provide three months of assistance, which is inadequate for families to rebuild their lives.  However, many do not receive even this limited aid. Moreover, the Uribe administration has embarked upon a policy of returning people to their land regardless of risky security conditions. The US government should insist that the Colombian government increase the length and quantity of humanitarian aid to the displaced, adhere to a policy of voluntary returns in consultation with communities, and improve its response to alerts from at-risk communities. In addition, the United States should increase its aid programs for displaced people.
3. Insist that security measures do not undermine the democracy they seek to protect. The Uribe administration, in its efforts to strengthen security, has introduced measures that reduce democratic rights and constitutional guarantees. These included emergency measures that permitted arrests, searches, and wiretaps without warrants. These expanded powers have already been used in questionable ways to carry out arbitrary detentions and to search the offices of nongovernmental organizations engaged in legitimate civic activity.  When these measures were struck down by Colombia’s constitutional court, the Uribe administration introduced a package of constitutional reforms into the Colombian legislature which would grant the military the same powers. The US government should insist that measures to increase security do not undermine basic democratic rights and guarantees.
4. Call upon the Colombian government to increase efforts to protect threatened labor leaders, religious leaders and human rights defenders. Colombia continues to lead the world in assassinations of labor leaders, while human rights defenders, religious leaders and other civil society leaders are threatened and killed with frightening regularity by paramilitaries and guerrillas. The US government should press the Colombian government for progress in investigating and prosecuting those responsible for such threats and attacks. The US government should continue to fund the Colombian government’s program to protect at-risk labor and human rights leaders, but must insist upon improvements in this program, which has been hampered by bureaucratic delays. Moreover, the US government should insist that the Colombian government take actions to sanction civilian and military officials who endanger civil society leaders by publicly equating nongovernmental organizations with guerrilla forces–as high-level officials have done recently.
5. Step back from escalating military involvement. US military aid to Colombia has spiraled from $100 million in 1998 to $600 million this year. More US troops are on Colombian soil than ever before (almost 400). Last year, Congress expanded the military-aid mission beyond the drug war, to something resembling Central-America-style counterinsurgency. Yet after $2.5 billion since 2000—80 percent of it for Colombia’s military and police—there has been no change in the availability of drugs in the United States.  Colombia’s violence has only intensified, including in Putumayo and Arauca, the areas of greatest US and Colombian security focus.  Despite repeated requests from Congress, the administration has been unable to articulate a coherent vision of its goals for Colombia or how it plans to use US resources to achieve them. Before getting more deeply involved without sufficient debate, we urge the Congress to consider the complexity, danger and dimension of Colombia’s conflict. Faced with what could become an enormous, open-ended commitment, Congress should question whether an overwhelmingly military strategy can ever succeed. It is time to shift resources from security assistance toward eliminating the causes of violence by fostering rural development, economic opportunity, and civilian, democratic governance.
6. Adequately fund effective drug treatment and prevention programs in the United States.   US eradication efforts chase drug production from one province of Colombia to another, from one Andean country to the next. Making substance-abuse treatment available for all who seek it will help address the problem of drugs at home and lessen the profits that fuel violence in Colombia.

Presbyterian Church (USA)

Patricia Forner
Advisor, Public Policy and Advocacy for Latin America and the Caribbean
World Vision

Kenneth Hackett
Executive Director
Catholic Relief Services

C. Richard Parkins
Director
Episcopal Migration Ministries

Adam Isacson
Director of Programs
Center for International Policy

Bill Spencer
Executive Director
Washington Office on Latin America

Charles Currie, S.J.
President
Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities

Rev. Ruth Chavez Wallace
Acting Executive & Program Associate for Latin America and the Caribbean
United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada

Rev. Ron Stief
Minister and Team Leader
Washington DC Office
United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries

Brenda Girton-Mitchell
Associate General Secretary for Public Policy
National Council of Churches

Neil Jeffrey
Executive Director
US Office on Colombia

Daniel Kovalik
Assistant General Counsel
United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO/CLC

Ed Clark
Executive Vice President
UNITE

Stan DeBoe, O.S.S.T.
Director of Justice & Peace
Conference of Major Superiors of Men

Matthew Wade S.M.
Associate Director
Conference of Major Superiors of Men

Natalia Cardona
Latin America Caribbean Program
American Friends Service Committee

Saul Murcia
Co-Director, Latin America and Caribbean Program
Mennonite Central Committee

Margaret Swedish
Director
Religious Task Force on Central America & Mexico

Stephen Coats
Executive Director
US/Labor Education in the Americas Project

Todd Howland
Director
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights

Phil Anderson
Director
Guatemala Human Rights Commission-USA

Rev. Jerrye G. Champion
National Board President
Church Women United

Brian R. Hinman
Washington Representative
Church World Service

Marie Dennis
Director
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns

Ellen L. Lutz
Executive Director
Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
Tufts University

Joe Volk
Executive Secretary
Friends Committee on National Legislation

Patricia Krommer C.S.J. and Rev. Chris Ponnet
Co-Directors
Pax Christi USA, Los Angeles Chapter

Laura M. Furst
National Organizer
Committee for Inter-American Human Rights

Wes Callender
Director
Voices on the Border

Terry Collingsworth
Executive Director
International Labor Rights Fund

Melinda St. Louis
Advocacy and Campaigns Coordinator
Witness for Peace

School of the Americas Watch

Cristina Espinel and Barbara Gerlach
Co-Chairs
Colombia Human Rights Committee

Kevin Martin
Executive Director
Peace Action

Sanho Tree
Director
Drug Policy Project
Institute for Policy Studies

Rev. James E. Atwood
L. William Yolton
Presbyterian Peace Fellowship

Roberto Pagán
President
Sindicato Puertorriqueño de Trabajadores/SEIU

John Lindsay-Poland
Coordinator
Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean
Fellowship of Reconciliation

*Note: There is a lack of clarity regarding actual numbers of social aid for Colombia. Almost all social aid for Colombia comes from the Andean Counternarcotics Initiative, under INL, listed as "alternative development/institution building" in the International Affairs budget request summary for FY2004. That document lists a decline from $164 million requested for FY2003 to $150 million requested for FY2004 (p. 68).  AID's Colombia request remains nearly constant, from $151 million in FY2003 to $150 million in FY2004.  However, since other agencies besides AID draw from the ACI "alternative development/ institution building" account, a decline in that account suggests that the AID request is unlikely to be fully funded. In FY03, for example, ACI  funded AID, PRM (which includes important emergency assistance to displaced persons and refugees that supplements AID's longer-term aid to the displaced), DoJ, and INL programs considered "soft aid." It appears that AID Colombia programs were funded at approximately $117 million for FY03. Thus a decline in the ACI "alternative development/institution building" account could lead to less assistance for alternative development, aid to the displaced and other social aid.

The State Department released findings February 28th showing that the cultivation of coca in Colombia decreased in 2002 from 169,800 hectares to 144,450, for a 15% decline after steadily rising rates for several years (including a 25% increase from 2000-2001). While a decline is positive, these figures are somewhat misleading. They mask shifts in production within Colombia and among Andean nations, do not take into account the humanitarian costs of the controversial aerial fumigation policy, and do not answer the question of long-term sustainability. Moreover, they mean relatively little next to one unbudging statistic: the availability of cocaine in the United States has remained stable despite billions of dollars appropriated for supply-side eradication.

In an important note, the most sustainable successes in eradication may be stemming from manual eradication with development aid. In Putumayo province, the center of the aerial fumigation program and the province with greatest reduction in coca, nearly one-half of the drop in coca production in 2002 was actually accomplished by manual eradication with alternative development. Coca was reduced from 47,170 to 13,725 hectares in 2002, and 14,296 hectares have been eradicated manually with US aid, and 11,520 hectares planted with legal crops (Office of the Governor of Putumayo, “For a Legal Putumayo with Social Justice and Zero Coca,” national coca crop census (SIMSI) figures). The farmers who manually eradicate and receive alternative development aid are obviously less likely to move to other areas to replant. The local government of Putumayo continues to press for community-based manual eradication with alternative development as the most sustainable and effective, as well as most humane, method of eradication.

This should be considered as the Congress reviews the 04 budget request for Colombia. In the request, social aid to Colombia, which includes alternative development assistance, has been cut from $164 million in 2003 to $150 million in 2004.

Problems with the coca cultivation figures:

• The policy impact must be measured regionally or globally, not country by country. The State Department=s figures show coca cultivation moving back into Peru and Bolivia, to the tune of some 2,000-3,000 hectares apiece—indicating an 8% drop in coca production regionally, not 15% as in Colombia.
• The policy impact must be measured over a longer time period. Coca cultivation in the Andes fluctuates from year to year, but has hovered around 200,000 hectares since 1988, according to the State Department figures. Since 1996, when large-scale US-supported fumigation began in Colombia, only four departments had more than 1,000 hectares of coca. Today, at least thirteen have that much coca—despite one million acres being sprayed since.
• Availability of cocaine in the United States, the rationale for the policy, remained steady. According to the Office of National Drug Policy’s “Pulse Check: Trends in Drug Abuse,” November 2002, the availability of crack cocaine and powder cocaine “remained stable” from fall 2001 – spring 2002, the latest period covered by Pulse Check.
• Moreover, while cocaine and crack use may be leveling off after a period of expansion, use of methamphetamine, a synthetic drug manufactured in the United States and Mexico, is increasing, according to Pulse Check (November 2002). Methamphetamine, which competes for the same users as cocaine, is especially problematic in western states and is on the increase in rural areas.
• The figures may not measure the replanting of coca in all areas outside of the target areas that were fumigated. According to the GAO, they are a representative sample of the target country’s known or suspected drug-growing areas (“Drug Control: Coca Cultivation and Eradication Estimates in Colombia,” January 8, 2003). Historically, coca has been moved from one area of Colombia to another as eradication efforts forced farmers to pull up stakes. UN Drug Control Programme director for Colombia, Klaus Nyholm, notes that coca-growing is rising in regions bordering Putumayo province (Ibon Villelabeita, “Colombia’s New Coca Assault Hits Crops, Peasants,” Reuters, 2/26/03). Moreover, the satellite pictures upon which the estimate is based were taken directly after the largest spraying campaign ever seen in Colombia, before there was time for replanting. Cultivation may unfortunately bounce back somewhat in a short period.
• Measuring success in terms of hectares planted/eradicated does not take into account the increase in coca yield per hectare as higher-yield coca varieties are employed.Social, political & environmental costs:One of the factors behind the movement of coca is the lack of alternatives for coca farmers. US and Colombian-government sponsored alternative development programs lag far behind the spraying program; only a fraction of the areas sprayed are offered alternative development programs. Without alternatives, farmers replant, suffer hunger or pack up and leave, often to replant illicit crops elsewhere. Marc Grossman, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, referred in a March 5, 2003 speech in Bogota to 12,000 hectares of licit crops supported by USAID (not clear over what time period). The hectares sprayed in 2002 alone total 122,695, or ten times the figure given for USAID-supported alternative development projects.

Social, political & environmental costs:

One of the factors behind the movement of coca is the lack of alternatives for coca farmers. US and Colombian-government sponsored alternative development programs lag far behind the spraying program; only a fraction of the areas sprayed are offered alternative development programs. Without alternatives, farmers replant, suffer hunger or pack up and leave, often to replant illicit crops elsewhere. Marc Grossman, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, referred in a March 5, 2003 speech in Bogota to 12,000 hectares of licit crops supported by USAID (not clear over what time period). The hectares sprayed in 2002 alone total 122,695, or ten times the figure given for USAID-supported alternative development projects.

• Many of the areas targeted are farmed not mainly by traffickers, but by family farmers and indigenous communities. They have turned to this illicit living largely out of desperation. They are often migrants from other areas who moved due to economic hardship or political violence. The one source offering them rural credit, unfortunately, are the traffickers.
• Among the indicators of the social impact of fumigation is the dropout rate for children in Putumayo province (site of the most intensive spraying), which according to local officials, rose 40% since 2001 as parents could not afford to send their children to school or pulled their children out of school to follow them and grow coca elsewhere. Ibon Villelabeita, “Colombia’s New Coca Assault Hits Crops, Peasants,” Reuters, 2/26/03.
• Aerial fumigation with a broad-spectrum herbicide affects all plants, not just coca and poppy. Therefore, it kills the food crops that farmers intersperse with illicit crops. Most people in areas sprayed not only do not receive long-term development assistance, they also do not receive short-term food aid.
• Aerial fumigation campaigns have affected farmers who plant only food crops, including a number of alternative development projects, according to the Colombian government’s ombudsman’s office. While there is supposed to be compensation for farmers whose solely legal crops are destroyed, this mechanism does not exist in practice.
• Fumigation adds to the problem of displacement. According to the Washington Post, some 9,000 people fled Putumayo between January and November 2002 due to fumigation and a lack of alternative sources of income (Scott Wilson, “Colombia’s Air Assault on Coca Leaves Crop, Farmers in Its Dust,” Washington Post, 11/13/02). In a country where 350,000 people were displaced in 2002 primarily due to political violence, a policy intentionally increases displacement should be controversial.
• While the State Department for years brushed aside complaints of impact to human health, the EPA found in September 2002 that the spray mixture being used could cause eye damage, a finding that found echo in the numbers of complaints of eye irritation that had been lodged with local Colombian government personnel. The spray mixture was changed to address this, but there are still many unknowns.
• As to environmental impact, according to Anna Cederstav, staff scientist with Earthjustice, “The widespread spraying and drift of a potent herbicide that kills most plants is devastating thousands of acres of important habitat in Colombia. The potential impacts to native flora and wildlife are unknown because the herbicide hasn’t been studied in these tropical ecosystems. Further, most coca and poppy farmers just replant or clear new plots in the forest. Because the State Department only reports on current crop acreage, there is no way to assess how the eradication program is accelerating the loss of Amazonian forests.” (“Coca Cultivation in Colombia: The Story Behind the Numbers,” press statement, 2/27/03)  
• Eradication without alternatives is pushing farmers into the ranks of the armed groups, which feed on the desperation of rural communities by actively recruiting and offering food and a salary. This development runs counter to the goals of the policy, which included a strengthening of the state in rural areas. To consolidate support in the countryside, the Colombian government needs to make progress in delivering the most basic social services—health, education, roads, agricultural extension services—to extend a positive government presence in marginal areas.

The eradication program in Colombia has two major goals: reducing the flow of cocaine and heroin to the United States, and helping the Colombian government reestablish control over the countryside. Yet despite the 2002 drop in coca production, to date the aerial fumigation policy does not appear to have made much progress towards those two major goals. On the first, cocaine use remains stable, while use of a similar drug, methamphetamine, appears to be on the increase. On the second goal, the policy will cut into the armed groups’ profits on the drug trade, but so far this does not appear to have a substantial impact. Moreover, fumigation without sufficient alternatives undercuts the Colombian government’s legitimacy in the countryside and is likely adding to the armed groups’ supply of recruits.

While the larger aim of limiting drug abuse is laudable, the tactics must be examined. This controversial and costly policy—Colombia is the only country in the world where large-scale aerial fumigation is applied—merits scrutiny. Is this the most effective policy with the least negative side effects? Could another eradication strategy, with greater attention to a sustainable demand reduction strategy through treatment and prevention, be more effective with less damage to people and the environment?

The supplemental must be approved rapidly. Funding for Colombia should be carefully considered as part of the regular appropriations process.