Plan Colombia was a United States foreign aid, military aid, and diplomatic initiative aimed at combating Colombian drug cartels and left-wing insurgent groups. The plan was originally conceived in 1999 by the administrations of Colombian President Andrés Pastrana Arango and U.S. President Bill Clinton, and signed into law in the United States in 2000.
The official objectives of Plan Colombia were to end the Colombian armed conflict by increasing funding and training of Colombian military and para-military forces and creating an anti-cocaine strategy to eradicate coca cultivation. Partly as a result of the plan, the FARC lost much of its power against the Colombian government. Sources conflict on its effects limiting cocaine production, however US reports conclude that cocaine production in Colombia dropped 72% from 2001 to 2012, contradicting UN sources which found no change in cocaine production."Colombia cocaine production drops 25%, says US report." BBC. July 2012.
Plan Colombia in its initial form existed until 2015, with the United States and the Colombian government seeking a new strategy as a result of the peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC. The new program is called "Peace Colombia" (Paz Colombia) and seeks to provide Colombia with aid after the implementation of the Peace Agreement in 2017 with the FARC.
Original Plan Colombia The original version of Plan Colombia was officially unveiled by President Andrés Pastrana in 1999. Pastrana had first proposed the idea of a possible "Marshall Plan for Colombia" during a speech at Bogotá's Tequendama Hotel on June 8, 1998, nearly a week after the first round of that year's presidential elections. Pastrana argued that:
[Drug crops are] a social problem whose solution must pass through the solution to the armed conflict...Developed countries should help us to implement some sort of 'Marshall Plan' for Colombia, which will allow us to develop great investments in the social field, in order to offer our peasants different alternatives to the illicit crops.
After Pastrana was inaugurated, one of the names given to the initiative at this early stage was "Plan for Colombia's Peace", which President Pastrana defined as "a set of alternative development projects which will channel the shared efforts of multilateral organizations and [foreign] governments towards Colombian society". Pastrana's Plan Colombia, as originally presented, did not focus on drug trafficking, military aid, or fumigation, but instead emphasized the manual eradication of drug crops as a better alternative.Pastrana, p. 116 According to author Doug Stokes, one of the earlier versions of the plan called for an estimated 55 per cent military aid and 45 percent developmental aid. p. 96
During an August 3, 1998 meeting, President Pastrana and U.S. President Bill Clinton discussed the possibility of "securing an increase in U.S. aid for counternarcotics projects, sustainable economic development, the protection of human rights, humanitarian aid, stimulating private investment, and joining other donors and international financial institutions to promote Colombia's economic growth". Diplomatic contacts regarding this subject continued during the rest of the year and into 1999.Pastrana, p. 115–116; 120–122
For President Pastrana, it became necessary to create an official document that specifically "served to convene important U.S. aid, as well as that of other countries and international organizations" by adequately addressing US concerns. The Colombian government also considered that it had to patch up a bilateral relationship that had heavily deteriorated during the previous administration of President Ernesto Samper (1994–1998). According to Pastrana, Under Secretary of State Thomas R. Pickering eventually suggested that, initially, the U.S. could be able to commit to providing aid over a three-year period, as opposed to continuing with separate yearly packages.Pastrana, p. 203
As a result of these contacts, US input was extensive, and meant that Plan Colombia's first formal draft was originally written in English, not Spanish, and a Spanish version was not available until "months after a revised English version was already in place". **Crandall, Russell (February 6, 2003) p. 9 [Word document] In fact, a Spanish language version of the plan in Spanish did not exist until months after a copy in English was available.--Author interview with US Department of State official. Washington, DC. November 2000.** p. 15 [PDF file] The original format of Plan Colombia (written by President Pastrana) was focused primarily on economic development, human rights and judicial reform. It was a prospect of change for Colombian civil society and an ambitious attempt to dig to the root of Colombian's strife.*Nagle, Luz Estella p. 17. Nagle quotes Ambassador Robert White.** pp. 36–45 Critics and observers have referred to the differences between the earliest versions of Plan Colombia and later drafts. Originally, the focus was on achieving peace and ending violence, within the context of the ongoing peace talks that Pastrana's government was then holding with the FARC guerrillas, following the principle that the country's violence had "deep roots in the economic exclusion and...inequality and poverty".
The final version of Plan Colombia was seen as considerably different, since its main focuses would deal with drug trafficking and strengthening the military. When this final version was debated on the U.S. Senate floor, Joseph Biden spoke as a leading advocate of the more hardline strategy.
Ambassador Robert White stated:
If you read the original Plan Colombia, not the one that was written in Washington but the original Plan Colombia, there's no mention of military drives against the FARC rebels. Quite the contrary. (President Pastrana) says the FARC is part of the history of Colombia and a historical phenomenon, he says, and they must be treated as Colombians...[Colombians] come and ask for bread and you (America) give them stones. White is the president of the Center for International Policy and former American ambassador to Paraguay and El Salvador, and former No. 2 man with the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá.
In the final U.S. aid package, 78.12 percent of the funds for 2000 went to the Colombian military and police for counternarcotics and military operations. (See graph, below)
President Pastrana admitted that most of the resulting US aid to Colombia was overwhelmingly focused on the military and on counternarcotics (68%), but argued that this was only some 17% of the total amount of estimated Plan Colombia aid. The rest, focusing mostly on social development, would be provided by international organizations, Europe, Japan, Canada, Latin America, and Colombia itself. In light of this, Pastrana considered that the Plan had been unfairly labeled as "militarist" by national and international critics that focused only on the US contribution.Pastrana, p. 256-257
Financing U.S. Aid to Colombia, 1996–2006 (including non-Plan Colombia aid)Last updated 11/11/05In millions 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 (est) 2006 (req)Military/Police 54.15 88.56 112.44 309.18 765.49 242.97 401.93 620.98 555.07 641.60 641.15Economic/Social 0.62 0.00 0.52 8.75 214.31 5.65 120.30 136.70 134.98 131.29 138.52% Military99.8810099.5397.4278.1297.7276.9681.9580.4383.01
This original plan called for a budget of US$7.5 billion, with 51% dedicated to institutional and social development, 32% for fighting the drug trade, 16% for economic and social revitalization, and 0.8% to support the then on-going effort to negotiate a political solution to the state's conflict with insurgent guerrilla groups. Pastrana initially pledged US$4.864 billion of Colombian resources (65% of the total) and called on the international community to provide the remaining US$2.636 billion (35%). Most of this funding was earmarked for training and equipping new Colombian army counternarcotics battalions, providing them with helicopters, transport and intelligence assistance, and supplies for coca eradication.
In 2000, the Clinton administration in the United States supported the initiative by committing $1.3 billion in foreign aid and up to five hundred military personnel to train local forces. An additional three hundred civilian personnel were allowed to assist in the eradication of coca. This aid was an addition to US$330 million of previously approved US aid to Colombia. US$818 million was earmarked for 2000, with US$256 million for 2001. These appropriations for the plan made Colombia the third largest recipient of foreign aid from the United States at the time, behind only Israel and Egypt. Under President George W. Bush, aid to Colombia earmarked for military aid vs. humanitarian aid became more balanced. Ultimately, the U.S. would provide approximately US$10 billion under Plan Colombia through 2015.
Colombia sought additional support from the European Union and other countries, with the intention of financing the mostly social component of the original plan. Some would-be donors were reluctant to cooperate, as they considered that the US-approved aid represented an undue military slant, and additionally lacked the will to spend such amounts of money for what they considered an uncertain initiative.
Initially, some of these countries donated approximately US$128.6 million (in one year), which was 2.3% of the resulting total. Larger amounts, in some instances up to several hundred million dollars, were also donated to Colombia and continued to be provided either directly or through loans and access to credit lines, but technically fell outside the framework of Plan Colombia. "European countries provide economic and social development funds but do not consider them to be in support of Plan Colombia." In any case, the sums raised fell well short of what was originally called for. In addition, Colombia's eventual contribution was less than planned due in part to a 1999–2001 economic crisis.
War on drugs In the United States, Plan Colombia is seen as part of the "war on drugs", which was started under President Richard Nixon in 1971. Plan Colombia has numerous supporters in the United States Congress. Congressional supporters assert that over 1,300 square kilometers of mature coca were sprayed and eradicated in Colombia in 2003, which would have prevented the production of over 500 metric tons of cocaine, stating that it eliminated upward of $100 million of the illicit income that supports drug dealers and different illegal organizations considered terrorist in Colombia, the U.S. and the European Union.
According to a 2006 U.S. congressional report on U.S. enterprises that had signed contracts to carry out anti-narcotics activities as part of Plan Colombia, DynCorp, the largest private company involved, was among those contracted by the State Department, while others signed contracts with the Defense Department.Private Security Transnational Enterprises in Colombia José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers' Collective February, 2008.
Expansion under Bush As enacted in 2000, Plan Colombia called for two U.S. supported actions in Colombia. The first was to cause the “eradication, interdiction, and alternative development” of coca fields which are used to produce cocaine—which in turn provided most of the funding for the FARC. And second, to offer social and economic assistance to the rural areas that the FARC have controlled for half a century.