Implementing Plan Colombia

Author : Luz E. Nagle
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781463515119
Total Pages : 68 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (151 download)

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Download or read book Plan Colombia written by Luz E. Nagle and published by . This book was released on 2002-12-31 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professor Luz E. Nagle has never been a believer in Plan Colombia as the solution to her native country's array of problems. Now she has again published on the subject, in an article which is eloquently critical about the plan's results during the administration of President Andrés Pastrana, yet which holds out hope for a better turn of events in the new administration of President Alvaro Uribe. It is a study written with passion and commitment. But also, as befits a law professor, it is scholarly in its degree of documentation and factual content. In Nagle's view, practically everything was wrong with Plan Colombia that could have been wrong, although she acknowledges that to do nothing would have been even worse. The plan was, in her view, doomed from the beginning-prepared without adequate consultation with the Colombian people, therefore lacking in consensus and support. It was inadequately funded by the Colombian government for the most part, but drew on large amounts of aid from the United States, $1.7 billion, which was largely restricted to fighting narcotics trafficking when insurgency was the real problem. It failed to attract the expected funding from Europe and Japan and was largely ignored by Colombia's Latin American neighbors, who often seemed to be in a state of denial as to how the problems of Colombia affected them. A particular strength of Nagle's well documented article is a detailed explanation of the multiple failures of the Pastrana administration in every aspect of Plan Colombia's implementation. The ill-fated peace initiative of Pastrana simply consigned over to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas a piece of Colombia's territory the size of Switzerland with no positive results. The FARC were strengthened by having the territory, as was predicted by the Colombian army. Kidnappings and assassinations continued unabated. Eventually, this year the army had to be sent in to retake the zone. Rampant corruption at every level of the Colombian government, according to Nagle, became even worse during the Pastrana years and signified, in her view, a lack of any credible leadership. Does the new Uribe administration hold out any hope for better results? Nagle thinks it does. The Colombian army is becoming more professional, its morale is increasing, and it is today that institution which actually enjoys the highest popular support of any in the country. The mood of the people has hit bottom and now responds to Uribe's policies which demand sacrifice from the population and are producing support for tougher action against the guerrillas. The president is leading a full charge against corruption. The U.S. Congress, as well, has become more sophisticated in understanding the need to combat insurgency, linked as it is to the illegal drug trade and not separable from it. Similarly, in the context of the "war on terrorism," although that somewhat disparate term generally refers to the Middle East, the point is not lost that three Colombian groups, the FARC, Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN) and Auto Defensas Unificados de Colombia (AUC), have been classified as terrorist organizations by the U.S. Government. Nagle also documents instances in which Colombia's neighbors are taking stronger measures on their frontiers to combat the effects of insurgencies and the flow of drugs from Colombia. The evidence of "spillover effect" into the five countries bordering on Colombia and well beyond is too abundant to ignore. To Nagle, her native Colombia is "a nation worthy of being saved." In terms of hemispheric stability, essential to the entire U.S. strategy for the region, it is certainly deserving of U.S. attention, more than it has had in the recent past.