Colombia Policy Should Not Be Terror’s Next Victim

On the morning of Sept. 11, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was in Lima, Peru, when he got word of the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington. He was set to fly to Colombia that afternoon, a South American country that has experienced more than its share of terrorism. Instead, he returned to Washington.

As the Bush administration pursues its war against terrorists in Afghanistan, it should soon pick up where it left off in Colombia. Ironically, it is not altogether clear that the country, despite harboring three of the 28 organizations the State Department considers terrorist, will get the attention it deserves. The risk is that, with the security situation in Colombia steadily deteriorating, U.S. Colombia policy may suffer from neglect or distortion--or both.

Since 1998, Bogota has received more U.S. security assistance than any country outside the Middle East. In July 2000, former President Clinton signed a mostly military, anti-drug aid package of $1.3 billion, the U.S. contribution to a multiyear effort called Plan Colombia, that remains uncompleted. Congress is now close to a final agreement on extending the support within the context of an Andean Regional Initiative.

Few believe this aid is in serious jeopardy, because the United States simply has too much at stake--and too much invested--in Colombia. Still, questions are mounting about what U.S. policy is supposed to accomplish there and whether U.S. support can reverse the country’s overwhelming problems, from human-rights violations to spreading criminality, from drugs to economic decline, from social distress to environmental degradation. A recent Senate vote to cut $164 million out of the $731-million Colombia aid package may reflect lawmakers’ skepticism about what policy can accomplish.

Abuses committed by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the umbrella paramilitary organization United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC)--the country’s three terrorist organizations--have escalated. Colombian President Andres Pastrana’s peace effort, launched three years ago, has produced few results. Still, most Colombians continue to favor a political solution to the conflict.

But with its priorities shifting and its budget strained after Sept. 11, the United States appears less and less prepared to contribute to the solution. For starters, there are some signs that resources once earmarked to fight drug trafficking are being diverted to the effort in Afghanistan. However barbaric the abuses committed by the FARC, ELN and AUC, these organizations have not inflicted them on U.S. soil.

Anne W. Patterson, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, and other Washington officials have recently tried to couch the Colombia problem in terms of the wider anti-terrorist campaign. In an Oct. 25 speech in Colombia, Patterson stressed that Plan Colombia was the most effective anti-terrorist policy. Moreover, she contended that depriving Colombia’s terrorist groups of income from the drug trade was the best way to weaken and defeat them, a major component of current U.S. anti-terrorism policy. Many Colombians also have been quick to highlight the terrorist problem in their country.

But focusing on drugs, just one piece of a complex puzzle, or drafting Colombia policy to fight the war on terrorism is not the answer. To be successful, U.S. engagement in Colombia needs to move the country’s politics toward a settlement of the conflict, as well to strengthen the country’s weak institutions.

The stakes are considerable not just for Colombia and the United States. Relations between the United States and the Venezuelan government are at a low point, capped by President Hugo Chavez’s recent remark comparing the war in Afghanistan to the terrorist attack in New York. Coca production in Peru, which had declined in the mid-1990s, is rising. There has also been some coca production in Ecuador, the most vulnerable country to spreading violence in Colombia. If the coca crops expand, then even the narrow gains in U.S. Colombia policy may have only succeeded in moving the problem elsewhere.

The post-Sept. 11 climate has exposed a strain of anti-Americanism in South America that could well become more pronounced as the war against terrorism unfolds. How the administration handles Colombia will be closely watched by hemispheric neighbors mistrustful of how the U.S. uses its military force. Either turning away from Colombia at this critical moment or framing U.S. policy solely in terms of defeating terrorist groups would not only harm Colombia. It would also further damage relations between the United States and the rest of the region.

Powell has wisely and repeatedly said that he favors a political solution to Colombia’s conflict. That, he must remember, means something more than destroying coca plants or Al Qaeda. To help get U.S. policy on the right track, the secretary of State, now consumed by a wider war, will need to lead an effort to reengage in the Colombia challenge and seek a solution to the country’s continuing war.