Washington plans "fumigation" - and military bases in major new Latin American offensive
First Colombia - but where next
When Bill Clinton visited Colombia on August 30, his primary purpose was to give his personal endorsement to Plan Colombia which he claims is anti-narcotics and pro-peace. Gearoid O Loingsigh explains why he was lying on both counts.
Plan Colombia consists of a $7 billion programme in primarily military aid to the Colombian army in a so called war on drugs. The Colombian government will provide $4 billion and the USA will provide $1.3 billion, with the shortfall being made up with EU and Japanese money.
Most of the money will be spent on equipping three new anti-narcotic battalions of the Colombian army with 30 new Blackhawk and Huey helicopters, along with other equipment and logistical support.
Part of the budget is destined for 'social' programmes such as helping the internally displaced population. Almost 2 million of Colombia's 40 million population has been forced off their land in the last 10 years.
They will not receive one cent from the Plan Colombia as its money is destined to provide emergency cover for a few days to those that the three anti-narcotic battalions will displace.
Plan Colombia has been publicly presented as a plan to eradicate coca and heroin poppy production in Colombia and consequently reduce the supply and consumption of the finished products heroin and cocaine.
The eradication programme will take the form of aerial fumigation through the application of up to 13.47 litres per hectare of Roundup - a descendant of Agent Orange- in the Colombian Amazon and Orinoco basins - resulting in an increase in deforestation and destruction of the environment.
However, coca is a resilient plant and grows back within 6 months of being fumigated.
Furthermore, it has been proven through past experiences in Peru and Bolivia that fumigation only moves the production of coca from one region to another or from one country to another as has been seen with the transfer of production from Peru and Bolivia to Colombia in the 1990s.
Peasant farmers are being presented as the source of all evil - even though a farmer makes only $100 on a kilo that will eventually sell for $150,000 in Europe.
The drug mafias in North America and Europe who receive over 85% of the profits from the drugs trade will not be touched by the plan. Neither will those US and German companies that make legal profits from the drugs trade be touched (The US and Germany are the main legal suppliers of acetone and ether two essential ingredients in the production of cocaine).
Needless to say the banks and brokering firms through which the money is laundered will not be touched either.
Imperialism and the internal armed conflict
Coca is a tropical plant and unlike marijuana and heroin cannot be grown outside of tropical areas like the Amazon basin.
The Amazon basin in Colombia is a region which was never integrated into the state and with the rise of the insurgency, most of this region fell under the control of the FARC with the exception of some of the larger towns.
The FARC have for some time levied a tax on drug barons buying coca paste in the areas they control. Such taxes raise in the region of $500 million per year for their war effort (approximately 1% of the street sale value).
Consequently any military action taken against peasant farmers growing coca in FARC areas will mean taking military action against the FARC and thus escalating the conflict.
The US are no strangers to involvement in Colombia. For many years Colombia has been the third largest recipient of US military aid after Israel and Egypt. There are also a large number of military advisors in the country.
Some have pointed to parallels with Vietnam. However, even imperialism learns its lesson. Those who expect the marines to land in a rerun of Vietnam and Santo Domingo will be disappointed - unless there is a major change in the political landscape of Latin America that makes it necessary.
US interests are wider than Colombia, and its strategy is more long term. We should not however underestimate their role in Colombia itself. US officials have already publicly stated that regardless of what happens in the peace process with the FARC (the process with the ELN counts little in terms of the Plan Colombia) the fumigations will go ahead, and consequently so will the military activity in those areas.
In other words, the US government decides the course of war and peace according to its own interests. It reserves the right to scupper any agreement that is arrived at should it not concur with their own position.
Colombia though is only one factor in the equation. The excuse of the war on drugs has allowed the US present other plans to Latin American governments which do not depend entirely on the success or otherwise of Plan Colombia.
US bases
Apparently as part of an anti-narcotics strategy the US has persuaded a number of governments to allow it to set up what are called Forward Operating Locations (FOL).
These are essentially US bases in Latin America, even though the personnel are often local troops ostensibly under the command of US officers who have ultimate control
The US have set up FOL in Honduras, Ecuador, Colombia, Curacao, Peru and Brazil. Added to that the border countries with Colombia have agreed to militarise their borders with Colombia.
The US thus finds itself in a position of being able to command considerable logistical military resources in various points of Latin America even though the same governments are somewhat hesitant at taking the next logical step of forming a multinational force of intervention made up of Latin American armies but responding to US plans.
Although Brazil, one of the major players in the zone, has thrown cold water on the idea of such a force, it is not altogether buried.
Essentially the US has engaged in a kite-flying exercise. There is no need for such a force at the moment to intervene in the Colombian internal armed conflict but the idea has been mooted, and what objections exist are merely tactical.
Counter-productive
No government has spoken out against such a move in principle, but rather on the grounds that it would be counter productive.
In the 1970s the main threat to imperialist interests existed in the Southern Cone countries. This threat was neutralised through the imposition of military dictatorships.
These dictatorships gave way in the 1980s and 1990s to regimes that equally guaranteed imperialist interests without the bad PR of disappearances and torture centres (although the fear that they might return never fully went away).
In the 1980s the threat to imperialism was to be found in central America, primarily the Sandinista government of Nicaragua and the insurgencies of El Salvador (FMLN) and Guatemala (URNG).
These countries represented a threat to imperialism through their example more than the economic loss they represented to imperialism (though it was the loss of plantations owned by United Fruits that prompted the US coup in Guatemala in the 1950s).
Colombia on the other hand is potentially the seventh richest nation on the planet. It is the largest coal producer in Latin America, a major producer of oil, gold, emeralds, and uranium and is a major enough player in the banana and coffee trade to be able to hold world markets to ransom.
There are also plans to build a new 'dry canal' to replace the Panama canal: it will run through Uraba, the most violent region in Colombia.
With 'Plan Colombia' imperialism not only guarantees its control over Colombia and its wealth - but also gains through the FOL the opportunity to formalise its military influence by building logistical centres of operations under US command throughout Latin America.
Should the production of coca be displaced anew to Bolivia and Peru, the US may seek to expand the number of FOL in operation.
Essentially the US gains control over Colombia, which has borders with five other mainly important players in the area (Ecuador being the minor player), and establishes its right to extend its operation further afield.
Plan Colombia is the plan for the re-hegemonisation of the Americas by the US with EU cooperation and the good will of the Latin American governments themselves.
For further information on campaigning against Plan Colombia contact the Latin America Solidarity Collective, PO Box 8446, London N17 6NZ Tel 07950 923 448 E-mail [email protected]