Colombia and the United States: From Counternarcotics to Counterterrorism

Current History

Volumn 102, Issue 661, 2003, Pages 77-85

  Tickner, Arlene B ^a,b,c  

^a Center for International Studies   (United States)

^b UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES   (Colombia)

^c UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE COLOMBIA   (Colombia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85055299385     PISSN: 00113530     EISSN: 1944785X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/curh.2003.102.661.77     Document Type: Article

References (10)

1. 1For a discussion of the role of drugs in United States–Colombian relations from 1986 to the present, see Arlene B. Tickner, “Tensiones y contradicciones en los objetivos de la política exterior de Estados Unidos en Colombia,” Colombia Internacional, nos. 49–50, May–December 2000
2. and “U.S. Foreign Policy in Colombia: Bizarre Side-Effects of the ‘War on Drugs,’” in Gustavo Gallón and Christopher Welna, eds., Democracy, Human Rights, and Peace in Colombia (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, Kellogg Series, forthcoming).
3. 2The first disbursement of United States aid for Plan Colombia, a multipronged strategy presented by the Pastrana administration to address problems of peace, state building, poverty, drugs, and the rule of law in the country, was made in fiscal year 2000–2001.
4. 3The United States and the Colombian governments argue that Roundup Ultra, which is a type of glyphosate and is used for aerial fumigation in Colombia, does not have secondary effects in human beings or surrounding plant life. But the manner in which Roundup is used in Colombia is troubling because it is applied in concentrations that exceed the technical specifications established by the manufacturer and sprayed from planes at a great distance as a defensive measure against ground fire; moreover, an additive mixed with the glyphosate to make it better stick to coca leaves also causes it to adhere to human skin and other plants.
5. 4In the mid-1990s, before United States military assistance to Colombia began to increase, government officials often admitted that, for Colombia, counternarcotics and counterinsurgency were essentially the same. In a 1996 interview conducted by Human Rights Watch with Barry McCaffrey, then head of the United States Southern Command, McCaffrey conceded that these facets constituted “two sides of the same coin.”
6. 5All three of Colombia’s largest armed groups, FARC, the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN), and the AUC, are classified by the United States State Department as terrorist organizations.
7. 6Angel Rabasa and Peter Chalk, Colombian Labyrinth: The Synergy of Drugs and Insurgency and Its Implications for Regional Stability (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2001).
8. 7An additional $330 million in police and military aid was provided through the counternarcotics budgets of the State and Defense Departments.
9. 8The decertifications occurred because every March the president of the United States is required to present a report to Congress certifying whether a country involved in the drug trade is in compliance with United States counternarcotics efforts. Colombia was found to be in noncompliance and thus “decertified.”
10. 9On June 20, 1994, one day after Samper won the second round of the presidential elections, Andrés Pastrana, the conservative party candidate, released an audiotape in which Cali cartel leaders Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela were overheard offering several million dollars to the Samper campaign. A series of accusations and denials concerning this allegation, labeled “Proceso 8,000,” ensued.