International Politics, Cocaine, and Colombia

There's a very interesting article on the BBC today about the narcotics trade in Colombia. This is a subject I've taken particular interest over the past year and, for obvious reasons, will remain heavily interested in for the long term. There's a documentary style program on BBC2 tonight at 7pm that I would like to see about it, but sadly, I'll still be at work.

This BBC program is likely to be groundbreaking in two particular ways.

In 2000, the US launched Plan Colombia, a military assistance package aimed at providing technology and training to the Colombian military with the goal of reducing or eliminating coca production (the plant cocaine is produced from). Congress, fearing entanglement (Vietnam-style), put explicit restrictions on the aid package: US military personnel were prohibited from engaging in the field and the technology transferred was designated (restricted) to fighting narco-traffickers, not guerrillas or insurgents (FARC and ELN). The Congress was justifiably nervous about providing US military assistance to a country fighting a 40 year insurgency, especially with apparent similarities between Colombia and Vietnam.

What Plan Colombia clearly got wrong, however, is that by 2000, there was little difference between guerrilla or narco-trafficker. After the fall of Pablo Escobar (1992, I believe), the cocaine industry was like a giant with it's head cut off. There were more "players" in the cartels and a struggle for control. In the aftermath (and I'm not exactly sure when), the FARC and the paramilitaries (groups formed to fight the Marxist rebels) seized control of the cocaine trade. So, when Plan Colombia went into action, it was based on a false division between guerrilla and narco-trafficker. This is something that is obviously true, but is barely evidenced by Western media sources. Instead, they repeat the party line issued out of Washington (Plan Colombia only fights narco-traffickers) and Bogota (the guerrillas don't engage in the cocaine trade). This BBC report shovels the last bit of dirt onto the grave of that illusion.

The other clear implication from the BBC article is that if Plan Colombia is designed to reduce cocaine production, then it's a clear failure. That's not to say Plan Colombia is meritless. Indeed, it appears true that Plan Colombia has allowed the Colombian military to make great strides against the guerrillas and paramilitaries. Violence is down, kidnappings are down, and order dominates most areas. But, cocaine production is up, the price of cocaine on the streets is dropping, and all the fumigation in the world isn't making a dent. Well, it's a bit more complicated than that.

Coca production in Colombia may very well be down. It's almost impossible to measure as the response to large scale fumigation has been to break up coca plantations into smaller, harder to find fields. The narco-traffickers certainly took a hit, but they changed tactics and aren't feeling a pinch. Detection of coca fields is also complicated by almost continuous cloud cover over the most fertile areas, cover that blocks US satellite photos. In sum, the US and UN belief that coca plants are down is, at best, an educated guess.

One thing that does appear true, however, is that any crackdown on coca production in Colombia has merely pushed farmers into other nations. Peru and Bolivia are definitely seeing increased coca production and the data correlates with the installment of Plan Colombia. In other words, fighting coca production causes crop shifts, not elimination.

The reason for the shift is obvious. Plan Colombia did nothing to address the underlying cause of coca production in Colombia - poverty. Poor farmers can either grow coffee (or other legal products) for very low, subsistence level wages or they can grow coca for higher earnings. It's an easy choice. Absent some type of crop substitution program (although I'm not sold on that) or land reform in Colombia, there is little hope that all the herbicide in the world could stop coca production in Colombia.

As a future resident of Colombia, I'm overjoyed that coca production appears to be shifting to other countries. The less revenue the guerrillas and paramilitaries have, the better. I'm not so interested in getting mugged, shot, kidnapped, or otherwise endangered. And, from a cursory glance, it appears that the only way to defeat an insurgency is to cut out it's support - both financial and political. So there's a chance that falling coca profits could jeopardize the viability of the revolutionary movements in Colombia. That's a good thing.

But, at the same time, the policy hawk inside can't abide by shift. Colombia's problem should not just be pushed into Bolivia or Peru's lap. Those countries have enough problems as is. Policy needs to be tailored more aggressively to address the root causes of cocaine trafficking: high demand in the developed world and low opportunities in the developing world. And this is where Plan Colombia truly fails. One would hope that a $3 billion investment would reap dividends, but Plan Colombia tied its own hands by not addressing the root causes of the problem and only applied a military solution. This debate needs to be reopened. I generally favor Plan Colombia in the sense that it's has helped President Uribe to prosecute the war against insurgency in Colombia. But, it's just non-sensical to give a half-assed effort for such an enormous problem.