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 BEFORE PLAN COLOMBIA 
Situation in the U.S.
Situation in Colombia
Policy Before Plan Colombia

 PLAN COLOMBIA 
Role of the U.S.
Military Mission
Coca Eradication

 RESULTS OF PLAN COLOMBIA 
Ecological Devastation
Socio-Economic Devastation
Cultural Devastation

 A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE 
Plan Colonia
Parallels: Colombia and Vietnam?

 LINKS and WORKS CITED 

By. Carmen Guhn-Knight
cmguhnkn@mtholyoke.edu
Updated 05.05.06.
With Thanks To Mount Holyoke College
and Thanks to the Beehive Design Collective
for the Black and White Cartoons

Before Plan Colombia:

• Situation in the United States
• Situation in Colombia
• Policy before Plan Colombia

Since the middle of the 20th century, CIA and Special Forces have been training autodefensas in counter-insurgency techniques.[9] In 1986, the National Security Decision Directive 221 defined drug trafficking as a matter of national security. This legislation allowed for George H. W. Bush to pass the Andean Initiative in 1989. This five year plan allocated $2.2 billion to Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia, ostensibly to quell the drug trade. As part of the Andean Initiative, Colombia was asked to be open to U.S. capital. As a reward for cooperating, President César Augusto Gavinia was given $65 million and 100 military advisors for the purpose of eradicating ‘narco-guerillas’.[11] Even when Colombia was decertified in the Clinton administration for human rights abuses and connections between the government and drug cartels, U.S. military aid did not slow.

The use of the term ‘narco-guerrillas’ denies the strong distinction between FARC guerrillas and drug traffickers. This distinction was reiterated in a 1994 DEA report.[11] Even early on, a discrepancy existed between the U.S. Government’s money allocation and the reality of the situation in Colombia.

As a result of the Andean Initiative, the price of cocaine in the U.S. actually dropped and the drug even increased in purity.[11] Obviously, the plan wasn’t beneficial to the ‘War on Drugs.’ A 1994 RAND report stated that the supply-side ‘war on drugs’ was the most ineffective way to prevent illegal narcotics from entering the U.S. The report suggested that treatment for cocaine abusers would be twenty-three times more effective.[11]

Despite the failure of similar earlier schemes, President Clinton began negotiating the $1.3 billion Plan Colombia in 2000.