P L A N* C O L O M B I A
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?
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
A Critical Perspective
Common graffiti slogans in Colombia read, “Plan Colombia = Plan Colonia” and “Plan Colonia: 500 años de terrorismo.” The people of Colombia feel that Plan Colombia is just a modern-day scheme to continue the history of European imperialism in Colombia. Historically, justification for military interference has included Christianizing missions, economic development endeavors, anti-communist militias, and now the “War on Drugs’ and the threat of ‘terrorism’.
The U.S. acts as an imperialist power as it manipulates the situation in Colombia to gain control over the oil industry. Colombia is the U.S.’s seventh largest oil supplier; the U.S. is interested in quelling the FARC because it opposes U.S. investments such as Occidental Petroleum.[11] The FARC ‘taxes’ U.S. oil companies by ransoming employees in order to fund their operations. The companies pay off the autodefensas as well. Therefore, U.S. oil companies are also contributing to the continual violence because they fund both oppositional parties.[8]
Plan Colombia was designed to help the people of Colombia economically and help the people of the U.S. by reducing cocaine usage. The plan resulted in an increase of cocaine usage in the U.S. and an increase of abuse and ecological devastation in Colombia. The only parties that really benefit from Plan Colombia are the U.S. fumigation contractors and the oil companies, who are free to exploit the land’s natural resources once the peasants have been driven from their farms. Additionally, the U.S. has been accused of implementing Plan Colombia to ensure that power over the drug trade remains under the control of the CIA’s allies.[9]
"If poverty is the cause of drug cultivation, then it would make sense to put most of the money from Plan Colombia into developmental programmes, crop substitution schemes, land reform, and so on." Doug Stokes[11]
"The American public was being told, if they were told anything at all, that this was counter-narcotics training. The training I conducted was anything but that. It was pretty much updated Vietnam-style counter-insurgency doctrine... It was extremely clear to us that the counter-narcotics thing was an official cover story. The only thing we talked with the actual leaders of the training units about was the guerrillas." Stan Goff, former U.S. Special Forces trainer in Colombia[11]
"No nation has paid a higher price for its cooperation with the United States in the war against cocaine than Colombia." Kevin Jack Riley, RAND[2]