Colombia: US steps up intervention as peace hopes fade
In July 1998 the newly-elected Conservative President of Colombia Andres Pastrana announced a new peace initiative.
There were high hopes of an end to the country’s 35-year old civil war between the state and left-wing guerrillas which has displaced over one million people and left over 20,000 dead since 1985, 85 per cent at the hands of the armed forces and paramilitaries.
Pastrana had met with the leader of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the largest guerrilla organisation. They agreed to begin negotiations in January 1999. The government agreed to demilitarise five municipalities in the south, giving FARC control over an area the size of Switzerland.
In February the other main guerrilla organisation the UC-ELN (Camilista Union – National Liberation Army) began its own peace process, entering into discussions with representatives of the country’s popular movement on the key issues facing the Colombian people.
Today the peace process is on the rocks. The paramilitary violence has continued unabated and the guerrillas have extended their operations. Talks broke down in July with the government accusing the guerrillas of abusing their powers in the demilitarised zone and the guerrillas accusing the government of not being interested in tackling the root causes of the war: the extremely unequal distribution of wealth between the country’s elite and the majority of the population, and the exclusion of the poor from the political system and from the benefits of economic growth, especially in the countryside.
Above all the guerrillas are demanding the abandonment of the neo-liberal economic model – the full opening of the country’s economy in the early 1990s to foreign trade and investment. The talks were resumed in October.
With the hope of peace fading, a new cloud hangs over the Colombian people: the threat of joint military intervention in Colombia by other South American countries under the leadership of the United States.
The US government formally supports the peace process. A government official even met with a representative of the FARC in January. However there have been increasing calls within the Clinton administration for an external military solution to the war involving a regional intervention force. In July Clinton said that Colombia was a US national security interest and that Colombia faced "an internal threat".
US intervention
Over the past eighteen months the US has increased its military intervention in Colombia under the guise of strengthening the so-called war on drugs. It has also encouraged the militarisation of the regions bordering Colombia in neighbouring countries.
Colombia is now the third largest recipient of US military aid, with US$289 million approved by Congress in October 1998, a threefold increase over the previous year. In July US Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey asked for an extra US$1 billion in emergency counternarcotics assistance to the Andean region with half of it for Colombia. There are 240 US personnel in Colombia providing high-tech intelligence support to the Colombian armed forces and training a new counternarcotics battalion of 1000 elite soldiers.
The US has expressed concern over the ability of Ecuador and Panama to defend their borders, citing cross-border operations by the guerrillas and drug-traffickers. Under pressure from the US the governments of Peru and Ecuador have moved troops up to their borders with Colombia.
Brazil has strengthened its military base on the Amazon River and installed radar along the entire length of its border with Colombia. Panama has moved 1,500 police to its border to guarantee protection of the Panama Canal zone. And for several years the Venezuelan Army has conducted military exercises close to its border with Colombia.
According to press reports the US has increased its own presence along Colombia’s southern border. In early August Inter-Press Service reported that the US had stationed a contingent of special forces under the US Army Southern Command on the Peruvian and Ecuadorian borders with Colombia.
CIA plan
On 29 July a report in the Argentine daily Clarin alleged a secret CIA plan to intervene in Colombia from positions in Peru and Ecuador.
The US government is clearly concerned about the Colombian drug trade which accounts for most of the cocaine and heroin entering the US. However it is hard to believe that the US is sincere about its war on drugs. The attempt to stop Colombia’s drug trade by destroying the coca plantations has failed.
The area under coca cultivation has doubled in the past five years with planters clearing forests to make way for new coca fields. For most growers coca is now the only way of making a living. The scrapping of the International Coffee Agreement in 1989 (which had kept prices stable) at the insistence of the US drove thousands of small-scale coffee-growers out of business, forcing them to rely on other sources of income.
The "drug war" waged by the US and Colombian governments is targeted against the guerrillas and the farmers who grow coca under their protection.
Drug barons
Yet the barons who control the drug trade are left alone. Their paramilitary armies work closely with the army in waging a dirty war against trade union, peasant and civic organisations. Yet despite their role in the drug trade they operate with total impunity.
Although the drug barons have amassed colossal wealth, most of the money from the sale of Colombian drugs in the US is accumulated in the hands of dealers at various points of the supply chain in the US. This money is deposited in the US banking system.
Despite all the hysteria about "narco-guerrillas" drug imports into the US from Colombia have actually fallen over the last four years. Behind the "war on drugs" lies the desire to end Latin America’s longest-running guerrilla insurgency.
The FARC and UC-ELN are growing in strength. They control about 40% and are active over 60-70% of Colombia’s territory.
The guerrillas provide essential services, protect the population against the army and paramilitaries, regulate disputes and administer justice in the sparsely-populated areas under their control, in which the state has historically been weak or absent altogether.
The guerrillas are not likely to overthrow the Colombian government in the medium term. However the existence of elements of an alternative guerrilla state over a large part of Colombia is viewed as a threat to US security both in its wider "backyard" (Central and South America) - the guerrillas could be an inspiration to other popular movements in Latin America - and in Colombia itself which occupies a highly strategic location.
Colombia is bounded by the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and occupies the point of entry to South America. It has abundant natural resources, a large industrial sector and a growing market to which US companies enjoy unrestricted access. It is also very close to the Panama Canal which the US will hand back to Panama at the end of this year.
The US is seeking to establish new military bases in the region to replace the Howard Air Base in Panama, which the US recently left in accordance with the 1978 US-Panama treaty.
Naval base
The US is negotiating for a naval base in the Ecuadorian city of Manta. According to a report in Clarin it is also seeking to extend US "extraterritoriality" in Argentina from the US embassy to include an airport in the north which would serve as a base for US operations in Colombia.
The US is trying to win the support of South American countries for a regional intervention force in Colombia. At a meeting of the Organisation of American States in June it proposed a "defence of democracy" resolution calling for the creation of a "Group of Friends" as a multinational force to intervene in Latin America to safeguard democracy.
This resolution was seen as a threat to national sovereignty and a cover for US intervention and was defeated. However Argentina indicated that it would participate in such a force if asked to by the Colombian government.
A regional intervention force might defeat the guerrillas. But it would not bring peace, justice or genuine democracy to Colombia. Far from tackling the underlying causes of the war it would reinforce those causes.
It would strengthen both the Colombian elite, including the drug barons, and the army and paramilitaries which protect it against pressure from below for change. This pressure for change is the only route towards an alternative to the violence and poverty which blight so many lives in Colombia.
For more information on the peace process and the guerrillas see International Viewpoint No.309 (March 1999).
For information on the internet visit the Colombia Support Network website at www.igc.apc.org/csn .
For background information read Colombia: inside the labyrinth by Jenny Pearce, published in 1990 by Latin America Bureau. In December LAB is bringing out a new book on Colombia.