Why Send Mostly Arms to Colombia?
Why is 80% of the money in the Plan Colombia ($900 million) earmarked for weapons, such as helicopter gunships, sophisticated weapons, and military training?
The strategy of the Plan Colombia rests on the assumption that the violence in Colombia and the weakness of its government are caused by the guerillas who tax the coca growers and drug laboratories. Destroying the coca crops-so the scenario goes-will weaken what US planners and the Colombian military call the "narco-guerillas" so that they can then be defeated by the Colombian army. Once the guerillas and their drug crops are eliminated, the theory says, peace and prosperity will return to Colombia and the US will have solved its drug problem.
But this scenario does not correspond to reality. The continuing violence in Colombia is not caused by guerillas and their drug trafficking. It is the outcome of a continuing civil war that pits the left leaning guerilla groups and peasants growing coca on small farms against the Colombian military, the drug dealers and large coca growers, as well as the large landowners, and their private armies, the paramilitaries. The Plan Colombia takes side in a long running civil war.
Many observers fear that the US government is replaying the scenario that led to the Vietnam War debacle.
The strategy of the Plan Colombia rests on the assumption that the violence in Colombia and the weakness of its government are caused by the guerillas who tax the coca growers and drug laboratories. Destroying the coca crops-so the scenario goes-will weaken what US planners and the Colombian military call the "narco-guerillas" so that they can then be defeated by the Colombian army. Once the guerillas and their drug crops are eliminated, the theory says, peace and prosperity will return to Colombia and the US will have solved its drug problem.
But this scenario does not correspond to reality. The continuing violence in Colombia is not caused by guerillas and their drug trafficking. It is the outcome of a continuing civil war that pits the left leaning guerilla groups and peasants growing coca on small farms against the Colombian military, the drug dealers and large coca growers, as well as the large landowners, and their private armies, the paramilitaries. The Plan Colombia takes side in a long running civil war.
Many observers fear that the US government is replaying the scenario that led to the Vietnam War debacle.
