The Drug War has been a failure

• After 7 years of Plan Colombia and $5 billion dollars, the most recent data from the State Department shows that more land is currently cultivated with coca crops in the Andean Region now than in the last 20 years.

• Cocaine is cheaper and more pure on the streets in the US.
• There are 23 million people in the United States who are suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction. Often they have to wait months to get into a treatment program.
• A RAND Corporation study in 1999 showed that every dollar spent on prevention and rehabilitation programs in the US is 23 times more cost effective in reducing cocaine addiction than money spent on drug eradication at the source.
• Human Rights Watch reports that studies have shown that the nation’s war on drugs has overwhelmingly singled out blacks, even though most drug offenders are white. Researchers found that 62.7% of the drug offenders admitted to state prisons are black men and black men are sent to state prisons on drug charges at 13 times the rate of white men.

We are fighting the War on Terrorism by funding collaborators with death squads

• We are training and funding a military with the worst human rights record in the Western hemisphere and which has well known and documented ties with the right-wing paramilitaries, a Foreign Terrorist Organization according to the US Department of State.

• Paramilitary organizations are responsible for 60% - 70% of political killings and acts of forced displacement, according to major human rights organizations. Some 3.7 million Colombians have been displaced by the violence, more than any other country except Sudan and Iraq.
• According to the LA Times, a CIA intelligence report documents the ties between Chief of the Colombian army, General Mario Montoya Uribe and the paramilitaries, collaboration which has resulted in the deaths and disappearances of civilians. General Montoya has been a key figure in Plan Colombia. Despite requirements that officers receiving US assistance have “clean” human rights records, the State Department cleared him to receive US assistance in 2000. The same CIA report also indicated that armed forces chief Freddy Padilla also had documented ties with the paramilitaries.
• The former head of the Colombian secret police (DAS), appointed by President Uribe after serving as a regional campaign manager, was charged by the Attorney General for working with the paramilitaries to assassinate union leaders. Numerous representatives and senators in the Colombian government have been jailed over the past year because they collaborated and signed a pact with paramilitary death squad leaders.
• Extrajudicial killings: According to a recent report, the Colombian armed forces have committed 955 extrajudicial executions in the last five years. In only two of these cases were the perpetrators convicted and sentenced, while the rest remain in total impunity; even these cases only progressed because of tremendous pressure from the international community. The number of extrajudicial killings in the last five year period is a 66% percent from the previous five year period. The flow of US dollars to Colombia gives the message to the Colombian military that they can continue to kill civilians without any consequences.
• Even though 20% of the aid to Colombia has been for development and other non-military programs, impunity still remains very high: 99%, according to the State Department. A stated intention in US policy towards Colombia is to “strengthen democracy,” Democracy cannot develop when there is no rule of law, yet by continuing the flow of funding in the absence of real repercussions for committing human rights abuses, we send the message that ending impunity, and thus strengthening democracy - is not a priority.

Department of Defense (DOD) spending in Colombia is not transparent

• Most funding to Colombia goes through the Foreign Operations Bill. A reduction in military assistance came in the context of extensive discussion about what percentage of the Colombia aid package as a whole should be military and police assistance. However, there is no oversight for the money that comes from the DOD and it is not known in advance how much is budgeted specifically for Colombia. This process should be more transparent and allow for citizens and policy makers to weigh in on all funding that goes to Colombia.

• The Foreign Military Training Report (FMTR) documents an average of more than 10,000 Colombian soldiers trained annually. Eighty percent of this training is carried out using DOD funds. Yet, according to the FMTR for FY2006, only 1,503 Colombian soldiers were trained, a 85% decrease from previous years. Is this because there has been mis-reporting on the number of Colombian soldiers trained by the US, or was there a drastic change in policy and if so, what brought about this change?