Toward a New Foreign Policy.

Key Recommendations

* The U.S. should focus on a new "three-legged stool" strategy: support for the Colombian peace process, sound and sustained alternative development programs, and demandside domestic drug programs.

* Washington should cease military funding for aerial fumigation and other counternarcotics operations in the Andean region.

* The U.S. should withdraw military and private contractors involved in Plan Colombia operations.

The Bush administration's Andean Regional Initiative, with its emphasis on expanding antinarcotics and counterinsurgency operations, represents further "mission creep" without clearly defined and attainable goals or even an exit strategy. Washington should cease military funding for counternarcotics operations in the Andean region and withdraw U.S. military and private contractors involved in Plan Colombia. Instead, the U.S. should focus on a new "three-legged stool" strategy: support for the Colombian peace process, sound and sustained alternative development programs, and demand-side domestic drug programs.

The militarized nature of U.S. assistance to Colombia, and to the drug war in general, is undercutting the Pastrana government's peace process and playing into the hands of hard-liners in all factions of the conflict. There are alternatives to the military emphasis of U.S. policy. The governors from southern Colombia have offered to involve local communities in widespread manual eradication efforts and social development programs. Civil society groups have also presented alternative proposals that include support for the peace process, reforms to promote respect for human rights, and rural development strategies coupled with gradual coca eradication programs.

U.S. assistance for Colombia should focus on reaching a negotiated settlement to the conflict and strengthening democratic institutions. In particular, additional support for the attorney general's office would strengthen the Colombian government's capacity to investigate and prosecure drug trafficking, kidnapping and homicide, and other human rights violations.

Some argue that U.S. assistance will help improve the Colombian Army's human rights record, but the evidence suggests otherwise. In 2000, many in Congress voted for the $1.3 billion Plan Colombia package, because it included human rights conditionalities. However, shortly before leaving office, President Clinton invoked a national security waiver, allowing delivery of military aid to the Colombian Army despite Bogota's failure to meet any of the congressional human rights requirements. The Colombian government, particularly the attorney general's office, has recently taken some steps to arrest members of the paramilitaries and go after their financial backers. Yet, the Pastrana government lacks a coherent strategy to cut military-paramilitary links, as demonstrated by Bogota's failure to dismiss many high-level military officials implicated by their connections to irregular forces.

The Bush administration is currently considering the renewal of the Andean Trade Preferences Act (ATPA), and supporters argue that these trade preferences will serve to provide economic alternatives to drug trafficking in the Andes. However, such claims are overly optimistic. ATPA renewal alone will not address the severe economic inequalities in the region, which engender both social unrest and drug production for the international market. The Bush administration should work with Andean governments to support serious poverty reduction and rural development strategies. Such collaboration would ultimately do more to achieve U.S. goals than an escalated investment in the region's security forces.

Alternative development programs can, potentially, be an important tool both in combating the poverty of coca growing regions and in sustaining eradication efforts. To be effective, such programs should involve the local population in their design and implementation, include market studies to ensure that alternative crops will provide a steady income for farmers, and ensure that farmers have access to adequate post-harvest facilities and transport. In addition, Washington should establish alternative development programs prior to beginning eradication efforts. This would go a long way toward discouraging coca replanting or the transfer of cultivation to new areas.

Finally, the U.S. must do more to address the drug problem at home. A RAND study in the early 1990s found that drug treatment is the most cost-effective method of drug control. Yet the U.S. still does not adequately fund drug treatment programs. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy reports that 57% of hard-core drug users, nearly 300,000 people, do not have access to treatment. Although the Bush administration has launched a state-by-state treatment gap analysis and has promised a $1.6 billion increase in funding for drug treatment, this increase is still unlikely to be sufficient to address the existing treatment gap. No one seeking treatment should be turned away.

Washington should step back and reevaluate its drug control priorities. Current supply-side drug control programs are likely to further involve the U.S. in the Colombian quagmire and exacerbate political violence and instability in the Andes region without having a significant impact on the flow of drugs to the United States.

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