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Bill Clinton is getting impatient. Congress has refused to speed the Colombian aid package through, placing it instead in the normal appropriations cycle. Clinton insists that the holdup in the Senate is causing unchecked drug production and trafficking in Colombia, exacerbating the so-called "narco-guerrilla" threat.

The situation in Colombia is certainly at a nightmare level. Human rights workers continue to be murdered. The peace process is in grave danger. Occidental Petroleum has gotten the injunction lifted against drilling into the sacred land of the U'wa people.

Necklace bomb

The most recent uproar in Colombia happened in mid-May when armed men killed a 55-year-old dairy farmer with a chillingly sophisticated "necklace bomb" while trying to extort $7,500 from her family. The bomb detonated nine harrowing hours after it was clamped around her neck, decapitating her and killing one of the bomb disposal experts working to free her. Colombian President Andrés Pastrana immediately blamed the FARC, the largest guerrilla group in the country, and suspended peace talks for the first time since they resumed 18 months ago. President Clinton and the U.S. State Department cheered Pastrana's action as "courageous," despite the probable escalation in the conflict if the peace process were to end.

Already, 80% of the death toll of Colombia's bloody civil war is non-combatants, like the victim of the necklace bomb. All of the denunciations of the FARC ignored the facts. The FARC instantly repudiated and condemned the killing, denying any involvement. (The FARC, like most guerrillas, usually takes credit for the atrocities it commits in order to get political mileage out of them.) The Colombian Attorney General's office said the device was so sophisticated it would have to have been constructed by someone with access to international terrorist expertise, pointing to the right-wing paramilitaries, not the FARC. Even the victim's family who witnessed the killing said they did not think it was the FARC. The government finally relented, and the peace process appears to be back on course, though more fragile than ever. Eight out of 10 Colombians have lost faith in the process, mainly because the peace talks are proceeding without a ceasefire. According to one recent poll, 18% of Colombians said they'd prefer a military government, which Colombia, the most stable democracy in Latin America, has never had.

Military aid

The worst threat coming Colombia's way, still, is the massive military aid package proposed by the Clinton Administration. After extensive delays (the cause of Clinton's ire), the Senate is preparing to begin debate as the Peace Letter goes to press. The Senate bill is a marked improvement over the House bill (though the majority of the human rights community worldwide condemns it nonetheless as an aggravation of an already fearsome civil conflict.) The bill now:

• puts strict human rights conditionality on funding for the Colombian armed forces, though, unfortunately, still not for the police forces.
• makes mandatory the prosecution of human rights abusers within the armed forces in civilian courts
• requires certification that the Colombian government is vigorously prosecuting leaders and members of paramilitary groups engaged in human rights abuses. (This makes Secretary of State Madeline Albright so mad she told Congress she thought the President should veto the bill!)
• stipulates that any chemical or fungal herbicide used for aerial fumigation must be approved by the U.S. Surgeon General and the EPA.

(Here's the best part) Senator Wellstone (D-MN) is going to offer an amendment when the bill hits the floor to shift funds from military aid to drug treatment in the United States. According to a recent study, treatment is 20 times more effective than crop eradication in reducing drug use.

It gets worse

Already, the U.S. government has at least 250 to 300 military personnel and advisors training and sharing intelligence with Colombia's security forces. It has also created a 950-troop counternarcotics (read: counterinsurgency) battalion being trained to operate in Southern Colombia.

Meanwhile, the Colombian government is looking elsewhere to fund the rest of the Plan Colombia, of which the U.S. is taking up only about one-seventh.. Though Colombia doesn't meet European Union standards for human rights, individual European countries are pitching in for about $1 billion total. (Some countries, like Belgium, strongly condemn the package, and the feeling among many in Europe is that it's not their problem.)

The IMF and World Bank are considering funding a hefty chunk too. This aid would be less military than the U.S contribution, encompassing more social and economic programs. The aid, of course, would come with typical IMF/World Bank strings attached--flexible labor force, open borders, and acceptance of a flood of agricultural imports. Of course, Colombia already has a robust export economy. Just ask Bill Clinton.

For more information on Colombia and future local events around the issue, call Tanya Snyder at (202) 745-0847 or tanyacita@yahoo.com.

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