El Plan Columbia
violence. ’ 1 Furthermore, the Colombian ambassador to the US, Juan Carlos Pinzón, said, ‘ in the year 2000 Colombia was a country on the edge of an abyss. In that moment, the US government began a support plan . . . that achieved the transformation of our country and opened the door for a peace process. ’ 2 In the struggle for peace in Colombia the assistance of Plan Colombia was vital because without the aid given by the US government, organizations such as FARC, the AUC and the ELN would still be present in Colombia and the US would still be fighting a war on terrorism in Colombia. Since Pastrana and Clinton first signed the agreement, the ELN have been completely decimated thanks to ‘El Plan Colombia’. However, there have beenmany consequences as a result of ‘El Plan Colombia’ , such as the countless human rights violations and increased number of victims owing to cartel activity. Many members of civil society and human rights organizations tell a different story about the effects that ‘El Plan Colombia’ has had on stopping drug trafficking and improving the security of Colombia. During the time in which Obama was president, a group of 135 communities, known as CONPAZ, wrote to Obama explaining how they’ve seen how their ‘ rights have been violated using the pretext of the armed conflict ’ 3 and how ‘ terrorists have been armed and continue to be militarized and, even worse, have seen a rise in the presence of paramilitaries ’ . 4 Furthermore, CONPAZ has stated that ‘ Colombia has changed with Plan Colombia and these changes have not necessarily meant the improvement in the quality of life for themajority of Colombians. ’ 5 According to Lisa Taylor, witness for Peace Colombia Team, human rights violations rocketed in the year 2000 with the massive injection of US military aid under ‘El Plan Colombia’. Also, there has been an estimated 6,424,000 6 Colombians victimized because of ‘El Plan Colombia’. Furthermore, civil society groups have shown that paramilitaries and state security forces together are estimated to be responsible for 48% of assassinations. Furthermore, the aimof ‘El Plan Colombia’ was to disrupt the drug trade and reduce the violence caused by the drug trade. In the first 8 years of ‘El Plan Colombia’ the number of victims increased significantly owing to internal conflict in Colombia. An example of this is when in 2008 more than 800,000 7 people were victimized, according to the US government’s unit for victims. The main culprit for this victimization and violation of human rights has been forced displacement carried out mainly by guerrilla groups, paramilitaries and other rebel groups. The reason for this displacement was that the numerous guerrilla and rebel groups were being pushed back from the heavily populated areas of the country causing innocent bystanders to also be displaced. This ‘ democratic security ’ offensive was commenced by Pastrana’s successor Alva ro Uribe in 2002. Another failure of ‘El Plan Colombia’ was the s urge of illegal activity that occurred. For example, during ‘El Plan Colombia’ when all focus was on security issues, illegal mining started to thrive and became an important source of income for illegal groups. Moreover, ‘El Plan Colombia’ intensified the threat of criminal gangs. From 2003-2006, 30,000 men demobilized from paramilitary groups and 15% of these fighters became involved in criminal gangs which focused on drug trafficking and extortion. 8 As a result of this increased criminal activity and mining, the Colombian government authorized the use of air raids against them.
1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-35491504 2 https://witnessforpeace.org/15-years-later-the-great-success-of-plan-colombia/
3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid.
7 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-35491504 8 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-35491504
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