The news is full of budget talk these days. Faced with the largest budget deficit in history, the United States is foundering under the increasingly burdensome expenses of a multi-front war on terrorism, the reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, and domestic homeland security needs. As the President hands down a request for yet another budget supplemental — this time an $87 billion package for Iraq reconstruction — state budgets face mounting cuts, as do the budgets of “non-critical” foreign assistance programs.

The Pentagon estimated recently that US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing some $5 billion a month. Meanwhile, promised social and economic programs abroad — including the President’s widely touted HIV/AIDS assistance program for Africa — have suffered the consequences. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, US funding for international development is well below the average for the postwar 20th century, and below the current level of all other donor countries when measured as a share of their economies.

Despite the budget crisis, military and police programs in Latin America—and particularly in Colombia — are fully funded and growing. Indeed, the percentage of military and police assistance to Latin America as a portion of total aid to the region has increased steadily in recent years. During the cold war and the decade following, the United States gave more than two dollars in social and economic aid to Latin America for every dollar of military and police assistance. In 2000, however, Plan Colombia legislation boosted military spending in Latin America to a record high, overtaking social spending for the first time in recent memory. Since 2000, US military and police assistance to Latin America has nearly equaled social assistance. Argentina, experiencing its deepest economic depression in history, has received around $3 million in military and police assistance annually from the United States since 2002, but no social and economic aid.

The bulk of US security assistance to Latin America flows to Colombia, with a smaller percentage going to its Andean neighbors. US assistance to Colombia has always been sent in the name of fighting drugs, but starting last year, Congress expanded the US mission in Colombia to include anti-terrorism efforts. With this precedent, President Bush included $105 million in military aid for Colombia in the special budget bill he put before Congress in March to fund the war with Iraq. That $105 million was on top of an almost $500 million, mostly-military package for Colombia that Congress had already passed for 2003. Colombia is slated to receive over $500 million — again, the majority of it military and police assistance — in 2004. While social assistance to Colombia and its neighbors is flat or decreasing, then, military aid to Colombia has surged ahead over the past two years.

What are we funding?

Our policy priorities in Colombia are particularly troubling because their impact has been so resoundingly negative. When Congress passed Plan Colombia in 2000, the stated goals of the policy included decreasing drug cultivation in hopes of limiting drug availability in the United States; strengthening respect for human rights and the rule of law in Colombia; and supporting a negotiated settlement to the Colombian armed conflict. Given how much is at stake in Colombia — Colombian lives most importantly, along with US taxpayer dollars — it is worth looking closely at where the US stands on achieving some of these goals:

• Strengthening respect for human rights. The major human rights concern in Congress when Plan Colombia was passed was the close relationship between some sectors of the Colombian military and private right-wing paramilitary groups. The paramilitaries join the Colombian army in fighting left-wing guerillas, and also target innocent civilians — including teachers, religious leaders, human rights defenders and union organizers — that they claim are guerilla sympathizers. Three years into the Plan Colombia policy, the United Nations and the State Department report ongoing collaboration between the Colombian armed forces and paramilitary groups. And as paramilitaries, guerillas, and the Colombian military have stepped up their sides of the conflict and caught civilians in the crossfire, the number of people killed in Colombia has risen from 12 a day in 2000 to 19 a day in 2003.
  
• Reducing drug production in Colombia and drug availability in the United States. The United States policy of fumigation — in which herbicides are sprayed from planes onto land where coca, the base material for cocaine, is grown — has killed some drug crops, but has taken the food crops of small farmers with it. Water sources have been contaminated and people are hungry, especially because most do not receive alternative development assistance afterwards. Many move elsewhere and plant coca again. Coca production in Colombia is higher now than it was in 2000; production dropped slightly last year, but much of the decrease was offset by increases in coca production in Bolivia and Peru. Nor has military aid to Colombia curbed drug abuse in the United States, one of its main goals. According to the United States Office of National Drug Control Policy, drugs are just as available on U.S. streets now as they were three years ago.
  
• Supporting peace and the rule of law. Peace negotiations between the Colombian government and left-wing guerilla groups have been frozen since March of 2002, but peace talks with some paramilitary groups began this year. The demobilization of armed groups in Colombia is certainly a welcome idea; however, the Colombian government has signaled its intent to allow widespread impunity to persist among paramilitary commanders. Leaders credibly accused of crimes against humanity may be asked to pay “reparations,” a largely symbolic act, and many human rights groups fear that low-level paramilitary soldiers will join the ranks of the Colombian military after they are demobilized. If this is the case, justice, human rights, and the rule of law may be severely undermined by the paramilitary peace process.

ACTION: Time for New Priorities!

The U.S. presidential primaries offer an opportunity to question current U.S. policy priorities — and gain publicity in the process. Candidates will be visiting your area over the next six months, attending town meetings, giving speeches, and appearing at other public events. Prepare questions for town meetings, write letters to the editor of your local paper, or pull together a group to hold posters at public events. Ask candidates why we are spending so much money on a failed military policy in Colombia while basic services at home are cut and basic needs in Colombia go unmet. Ask them to back alternative policies that would better support human rights and peace in Colombia and an end to drug abuse and related violence at home.

Here are some resources to find information about the presidential primaries:

See www.birddogger.org for tips on how to question candidates and links to the candidates’ websites. You can find out when a candidate will be in your area by checking their schedule on the site.

Visit www.lawg.org for background pieces on Colombia policy and a “Tools for Activists” section with tips on how to raise concerns about Latin America policy during the primaries.

See www.usofficeoncolombia.org for educational background pieces on Colombia issues.

By Elanor Starmer, Latin America Working Group