Andean Regional Initiative: A Policy Fated to Fail.

Key Points

* The Bush administration describes its Andean strategy as a "three-legged stool" of eradication, military assistance, and alternative development, but military aid is by far the largest "leg."

* U.S. assistance to Colombia and other Andean countries represents a sizable percentage of the foreign aid budget.

* Opposition to U.S. policy is growing in the region, particularly opposition to aerial fumigation and to the spillover of the Colombian conflict into other countries.

The Bush administration's Andean Regional Initiative (ARI)--largely an expansion of U.S. support for Plan Colombia--passed the House of Representatives in late July, largely intact. The House did defeat Bush's proposal to remove the cap on the number of U.S. military and private contractors that can be in the region at any one time, a proposal that would have opened the way for greater direct American involvement. Yet the current cap of 800 is substantial--more than double, for instance, the number permitted in El Salvador during the 1980s. The House also trimmed $55 million from the administration's request of $882 million in State Department funds for 2002. The majority of the funds--$676 million--are to be administered through the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement budget. To proceed, the ARI must win Senate approval.

The Bush administration describes its Andean strategy as "a three-legged stool" of eradication, military assistance, and alternative development. About half of the ARI funds are earmarked for Colombia, including funds for: aerial eradication of drug crops; alternative development; logistical support, hardware, and training for the Colombian Army's counternarcotics battalions and the Colombian National Police; social and economic programs, including assistance for internally displaced persons; and judicial reform. The remainder is for the region's six other countries--Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, and Brazil--to support economic development and the rule of law as well as ongoing drug control efforts, including eradication, interdiction, and drug use awareness.

Not included in the ARI package is military funding from the Defense Department. Estimates suggest that if Pentagon funding levels remain constant, 71% of the total U.S. assistance allocated for Colombia in 2002 will go to security forces. In the ARI regional package, as in U.S. funding for Plan Colombia, support for military operations continues to overshadow assistance for democracy strengthening, economic development, and other nonmilitary programs.

Increasingly, governments of the other Andean nations are expressing fears that U.S. policy is leading to the "Colombianization" of the region. To address these concerns about spillover and instability, the ARI package includes increased security assistance to protect borders in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Brazil.

There are also signs of growing opposition to aerial fumigation in Colombia. In July, a Bogota judge ordered the suspension of aerial spraying with the herbicide glyphosate in indigenous communities in southeastern Colombia until the government investigates complaints of health and environmental damage. Simultaneously, the United Nations Drug Control Program in Colombia called for international monitoring to determine the safety and accuracy of aerial crop spraying, which it termed "inhumane" and "ineffective."

This increasing opposition comes as the pace of spraying is set to escalate dramatically with the arrival of U.S. aircraft, part of the two-year, $1.3 billion supplemental package for Plan Colombia approved by Congress in 2000. U.S. funds for counterdrug programs in the Andes have surged into the $1 billion range for 2002, with levels for Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador doubling. If these trends continue, the ARI will constitute a major portion of the diminishing overall U.S. foreign aid budget, which will total roughly $15 billion this year.

In its ARI aid proposal for 2002, the Bush administration has attempted to address some of the critiques of U.S. support for plan Colombia. However, Washington is continuing to invest heavily in training and arming thousands of Colombian troops to combat guerrillas in the southern coca producing regions. Such assistance is drawing the U.S. deeply into this brutal 35-year internal conflict and is undermining the fragile peace negotiations between the government and guerrillas. Despite some adjustments, Bush's ARI fails to adequately address concerns about human rights abuses or health and environmental damage. The ARI also exhibits only perfunctory interest in alleviating rural poverty, an underlying cause of the conflict.

The administration's framing of its ARI counterdrug strategy is reminiscent of efforts by the previous Bush administration, which launched the first Andean Initiative in 1989. That earlier scheme also prioritized military hardware and training for counternarcotics operations. Yet, according to the State Department International Narcotics Strategy Report, since 1989, coca cultivation in the Andes has declined a mere 16%, as relatively large reductions in production in Peru and Bolivia have been paralleled by increased cultivation in Colombia.

Gina Amatangelo <[e-mail]> is a Fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America, specializing in international drug control programs in the Andes region.