Francis McDonagh is the programme officer for Latin America and the Caribbean of British-based AlertNet member the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD). Here he analyses the consequences of changes in U.S. policy towards Colombia's civil conflict and campaign against the drugs trade. On March 21, the Bush administration formally asked Congress to allow all U.S. aid to Colombia to be made available for "a unified campaign against narcotics trafficking, terrorist activities, and other threats to national security". This corresponds to the administration’s consistent argument that Colombia’s main problem is terrorism from "narco-guerrillas" -- guerrillas involved in the drugs trade.Previously, the bulk of U.S. aid to Colombia, a $1.3bn package known as "Plan Colombia", had been allocated to military support for the eradication of drug crops, mainly by aerial spraying of glyphosate, and hedged by restrictions on support for the Colombian military, notorious for its links to paramilitary human rights violations. If the administration has its way, all these restrictions will now be lifted.There can be no doubt that Colombia desperately needs help to resolve a civil conflict that has lasted almost 40 years and currently produces 20 political murders a day and displaced more than two million people. Three illegal armies dispute control over large swathes of the country. The biggest is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), estimated at between 10,000 and 15,000 strong. Anti-guerrilla paramilitaries, funded by business interests, have almost doubled their numbers in the past two years and may number 8,000. A second guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), is militarily weaker, possibly 5,000 in number, though still capable of causing damage; it is currently in peace talks with the government.On February 20 President Andrés Pastrana halted peace talks with the FARC, to which he has devoted most of his four-year term. NO REDUCTION IN VIOLENCEThe peace process had not brought a reduction in the violence. The FARC guerrillas had continued their attacks on army and police posts, but using crude gas cylinder missiles that destroyed houses, churches and hospitals as well as their declared targets.Most provocatively, they continued their campaign of kidnapping, their other main source of finance apart from the drugs trade, and the practice that, more than any other, has pushed the Colombian public towards support for a hard line against the guerrillas.After the ending of the peace process, the FARC kidnapped Ingrid Betancourt, a centrist candidate in May’s presidential elections. The main beneficiaries of the failure of the peace process have been the paramilitaries, despite their barbarity. Responsible, according to official figures, for 80 percent of political murders, they often hack their victims to death. While they claim to be opposing the guerrillas, their definition of "guerrillas" includes journalists, trade unionists and community leaders who protest against poverty.This drift towards a hard line has brought a spectacular rise in the polls for presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe Vélez. Uribe has not ruled out negotiations with the guerrillas but his emphasis has been on toughness. He has also talked about forming civilian militias, along the lines of the self-defence groups he promoted as governor of the department of Antioquia.Since these "self-defence groups" were the start of today’s paramilitaries, it is no surprise that a possible Uribe presidency is viewed with dismay by most of those who look for a negotiated solution to this intractable conflict.POWER STRUGGLEAt issue is how the conflict is analysed. The official U.S. analysis ignores the fact that political violence in Colombia started long before the appearance of the present guerrilla movements and long before the international trade in cocaine took off.The power struggle between Conservatives and Liberals erupted into armed conflict at various times in the 19th century, and the period known as "La Violencia" (1948-1965) caused 200,000 deaths. Colombia’s élite has never been willing to share wealth and power.When the FARC guerrillas formed a political party in the 1980s and stood for election, its activists were systematically murdered. Corruption is also a grave problem: a World Bank investigation found that state corruption cost the country $2,240 million, equivalent to 80 percent of the public sector deficit.The last Colombian President, Ernesto Samper, could never visit the United States because persistent allegations that drug money funded his campaign led the U.S. authorities to deny him a visa. On March 16 this year, the archbishop of Cali, Colombia’s third most important diocese, was murdered. He had denounced the role of drug money in the campaign for the March Congressional elections.With this complex history in mind, Europe has maintained a distance from the U.S. approach and prioritised aid for peace through development. The first grant approved was towards the Magdalena Medio Peace and Development Programme, directed by Jesuit priest and economist Francisco de Roux.This programme, also supported by the World Bank and the Japanese government, has been presented by the Colombian government as a model of grassroots development and hailed as a "peace laboratory" for its principle of trying to involve all sections of the community, whatever their religious or ideological affiliations.Tragically, the breakdown of the peace process seems to be giving the European Union second thoughts: what’s the point of investing in peace if there’s no peace process? The alternatives could hardly be starker: development or war.
RNPS IMAGES OF THE YEAR 2009 - Former Colombian hostage Sigifredo Lopez prepares to hug his son on his arrival at Cali airport February 5, 2009. Colombia's FARC rebels on Thursday ...
