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| Plan Colombia; Anyone familiar with it? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 20 2005, 05:55 AM (243 Views) | |
| Dewey | Jun 20 2005, 05:55 AM Post #1 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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(cross posted from Fat Shirley's) Does anyone here have any knowledge of the "Plan Colombia" policy? It is a multinational, but largely US, effort to send foreign aid to Colombia and several other surrounding Andean countries. It was a five-year plan signed into place by Bill Clinton, and mostly implemented under George Bush. It was originally set up to attempt to provide for some domestic stability in the country, through some measure of humanitarian aid, but much more through military aid to enable the government to fight the drug cartels and the guerillas that are allied with them against the government. The country has been torn apart by a long-running civil war between the government, and paramilitary militias allied with them, and the drug runners and guerillas. The drug cartels will muscle control of land from the local farmers, forcing them to either grow coca for them or be displaced or killed. The government forces have committed equally horrendous acts of barbarism against the people. Part of Plan Colombia is to use aerial spraying of fields of coca plants, which is effective in theory. In practice, the spray also lands on acreage of food crops, and on people. There have been reports that the government is using stronger dilutions of the herbicide than recommended by the manufacturer, and there have been some reports of disease and birth defects allegedly resulting from the herbicide spraying. Plus, where the coca fields were originally in more concentrated areas, the spraying has caused the crop to be grown in more remote, smaller, and more widely dispersed locations, making the spraying efforts less efficacious. Its effectiveness is hotly debated: the UN says coca production has held constant, or even slightly increased, since Plan Colombia began. The US cites internal data that claims a significant reduction in the crop. Who do you believe? The other side of this is that the guerillas are apparently Marxist, or Marxist sympathizers, or other political flavors highly opposed to the US. Since 9/11, Columbia has become a major concern of the US for ties between the guerilla/terrorist forces, and Islamist terrorists. The alliance of the Islamists and the huge amounts of cash and knowledge of US infiltration worries the US, and in recent years Plan Colobia has been touted less as an anti-drug initiative, and more as an anti-terror initiative. One side claims that the real reason behind Plan Colombia is to help Colombia protect the flow of oil through a major oil pipeline along one of its borders. Guerilla activity has shut the pipeline down for considerable lengths of time int he past. They claim that the US efforts are only serving to prop up a corrupt government that is hurting its own citizenry, and which protects US business interests. They claim that Plan Colombia has been a disaster, and that its aim is disproportionately on military, versus humanitarian, aid. Many call for an end for all military aid, and a complete refocus on solely humanitarian aid. The other side claims that true humanitarian aid will not be possible until the civil war is decisively settled and the guerillas and drug cartels are defeated, and that any support before that, while helpful, is a band-aid over an open chest wound. They cite the terrorist threat, as well as the more general threat of a new Marxist regime - which, this side would claim, is the greatest threat of all to humanitarianism. There's no question that the situation in Colombia is very, very bad. And no one on either side of the issue has clean hands or even close to an exclusively correct position. The current government is corrupt, has a terrible human rights record, and has shown a marked desire to maintain a relatively uneducated populace, the better to control. They are hardly an better, if better at all, than the guerillas and drug runners. Colombia is one of the top two or three recipients of US aid in the world. Plan Colombia has dumped several billion dollars into the country, with, at best, debatable results. Humanitarian support and the repeal of Plan Colombia has become a significant issue within many human rights groups and church organizations in the US. My church has instituted a program where some of its members will travel to Colombia and act as "accompaniers" to Presbyterian ministers in that country. The intention is that the violence that they routinely face from both government and guerilla factions will be somewhat mitigated if there is a presence of US eyes and ears - in one sense, to act as witnesses and mouthpieces to the world if something should happen, and more morbidly, if something would happen and the US citizens shared the fate of the Colombians, it would elevate the attention and action taken by the US government in response. The program isn't a lighthearted tourist trek, it's very dangerous volunteering. Colombia has a huge number of killings and kidnappings, and the kidnappers don't seem to check the passports of their victims beforehand. In addition to the physical presence of these accompaniers, our church has set up other ways to offer material assistance to the Columbian Presbyterians, and Colombians in general. Part of this movement is aggressively working for the repeal of Plan Colombia. Our local church is looking into whether, or how, to help in this regard, and I'm acting as a fact-finder about the situation to report back to them. As it stands now, it appears that Plan Colombia hasn't met its goals. But I don't know if it is a plan that is a total failure, a good plan in principle that needs tweaking, or is a good plan that just needs more time for its benefits to be shown. I suspect that the current government is corrupt yet better than the alternative government that the guerillas would provide, but I know that there's also a level of corruption beyond which they shouldn't be supported. I know that there are many well-intentioned groups opposed to Plan Colombia, but a quick google search of people opposing it and the current Columbian government turn up various communist workers' liberation and similar revolutionary groups - in other words, people I'm not comfortable sharing a political bed with, and who likely have very different reasons for opposing Plan Colombia and the current Colombian government. In other words, I have an underlying concern that a large part of my own church's position in Colombia is just the latest manifestation of its time-proven, knee-jerk liberal political stance. Add to that the debate of what the appropriate level of support to any foreign country, much less one in the midst of a civil war, and to what level one interferes in the workings of another government to advance our own national interest, and it gets to be a very muddled issue. So, with that very long intro - does anyone here know anything about Colombia in general, and Plan Colombia specifically, that could help me in my research into the issue? Help!!! |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| Jolly | Jun 20 2005, 01:40 PM Post #2 |
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Geaux Tigers!
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I don't, but the subject is certainly worth a <bump>. |
| The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros | |
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| apple | Jun 20 2005, 02:01 PM Post #3 |
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one of the angels
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wow... |
| it behooves me to behold | |
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| AlbertaCrude | Jun 20 2005, 04:21 PM Post #4 |
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Bull-Carp
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Our industry association is just completing an oil spill emergency response component in Columbia that is part of larger CIDA funded project throughout Latin America. It has been very difficult to coordinate the workshops with ECOPETROL and find consultants willing to travel there. You may want to browse this link to see if anything ties in: CIDA-Columbia |
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| apple | Jun 21 2005, 05:17 AM Post #5 |
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one of the angels
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bump |
| it behooves me to behold | |
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| Dewey | Jun 21 2005, 08:11 AM Post #6 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Dang, it looks like our membership is limited only to expertise in other areas of foreign policy... |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| big al | Jun 21 2005, 09:52 AM Post #7 |
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Bull-Carp
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You may be right, Dwain. About all I know about Columbia is that a company I used to work for sold and installed very large equipment there. The situation was so dangerous for U.S. citizens that they recruited, trained and sent employees from Latin America for projects there. One Argentinian I worked with found it even more lucrative to leave and work for an oil company. I am left with the impression that drug money fuels much of the guerilla movement. Our war on drug money fuels much of the government fight against the resistance. The poor rural citizen of Columbia is caught in the middle and has no safe choices to make. If you appear to work for the U.S. government, you are a target. If you work for a large company, you are a potential kidnap for ransom victim. Please keep us posted on what is afoot with your church. I feel that the solution to this problem lies more in the streets and neighborhoods of this country than in Columbia. They are collateral damage in the war on drugs. Big Al |
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Location: Western PA "jesu, der simcha fun der man's farlangen." -bachophile | |
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4:17 PM Jul 10