Colombian Timeline BBC Timeline Forces ELN FARC AUCCoca Production and eradication table
Alongside politically-motivated blood-letting is drug-related crime, which has become the most common cause of death after cancer and given Colombia the world's highest kidnap rate. Together with the political violence, this has made Colombia one of the most violent countries in the world, deterring investors and tourists alike.
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Colombia is a country of significant natural resources, and has a
diverse culture reflecting the indigenous Indian, Spanish and African origins of its people.
However, it has also become a byword for drug cartels, violence, guerrilla insurgencies and
gross human rights violations by the narco-military-landowner network that maintains
"stability" in a country that is rich in promise, and a nightmare for many of its
people.
The fourth largest and third most populous country in South America, Colombia is endowed with substantial oil reserves and is a major producer of gold, silver, emeralds, platinum and coal. However, it also has a highly stratified society where the traditionally rich families of Spanish descent have benefited from this wealth to a far greater degree than the greatest portion of the population, who are mostly of mixed race. In Colombia, the top three percent of the landed elite own over 70% of arable land while 57% of the poorest farmers subsist on under 3%—over 40% of the population live in "absolute poverty," unable to satisfy basic subsistence needs according to an official government report in 1986, and 18% live in "absolute misery," unable to meet nutritional needs. The Colombian Institute of Family Welfare estimates that four and a half million children under 14 are hungry, half the country's children. With few avenues for social mobility, this has provided a natural constituency for left-wing insurgents. At the other end of the political spectrum are right-wing paramilitary groups, who are in the pay of drug traffickers and large landowners or oil companies or the government or the US, and backed by elements in the army and the police. The paramilitaries have sprung up everywhere, in particular in the northwestern regions, and target human rights workers and peasants, suspected guerrillas, trade unionists, critics of the government, journalists, street children and other marginal groups. 67,000 were brutally murdered from 1988-1995 alone. See Victims of Political Violence in Colombia 1988--1995
As for the guerrilla groups, the report says, "the FARC and the ELN regularly attacked civilian populations, committed massacres, and summary executions, and killed medical and religious personnel." The war has spread beyond Colombia, forcing a million refugees to neighboring countries. One neighbor, Ecuador, has become a haven for FARC guerrillas. Now tensions are arising along the border with Venezuela and Colombia is threatening to violate Venezuela's border in pursuing guerrillas |
American officials periodically link the FARC to international drug trafficking, but without firm proof. Still, nobody disputes that the guerrillas make money from taxing coca farmers and traffickers, and from running processing laboratories and airstrips.
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The best estimate of their income
from drugs, extortion and kidnapping is perhaps $250m-300m a year. Alfonso Cano,
a member of the FARC’s seven-strong secretariat, as its top leadership is called, admits that the
guerrillas receive money from “retentions” (kidnaps). “We know that this is bad, but we have a
very large force that needs to eat and to dress, and we need arms and munitions.” He adds that
drug money is “everywhere in the world economy”. The paramilitaries earn perhaps $200m from
similar activities.
Receipt from FARC reten. |
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Complaint department, Los Pozos |
FARC guerrilla with parrot. |
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That is the vicious circle that is at the heart of Colombia’s plight. As an illegal product, cocaine, attracts a risk-inflated price. Although most of the profits go to dealers in consumer countries, what filters back to Colombia amounts to significant wealth in a poor country: estimates of the money repatriated by the drug industry range from $2.5 billion to $5 billion a year (or 2-4% of GDP). For comparison, Colombia’s defense budget is $2.8 billion, including army and police pensions. Whether the drug money is used to finance illegal armed groups or to corrupt officials, the outcome has been a catastrophic weakening of the democratic state and the rule of law. The US is increasingly involved in Colombia with Plan Colombia - a massive amount of money and military "advisors" aimed at drug eradication but increasing aimed at the guerrillas as well. We have spent around $3B mostly on military aid since 1997. The US is testing new biowarfare agents, including a toxic fungus, Fusarium oxysporum, which poses serious dangers to the environment and human health -- threats so compelling that Florida has suspended plans to test the fungus for its own anti-drug efforts. This agent is far more dangerous than Monsanto's Roundup (also being sprayed) or the Agent Orange used in Vietnam that has caused long term health consequences for US soldiers who applied it and their unborn children, as well as the Vietnamese who were directly exposed. Fusarium will kill at least 200 species of plants related to coca and is known to mutate quickly thus putting one of the most diverse ecosytems on the planet at risk. It remains active in the soil for years. For over a decade, coca growers in Peru have accused the US of secretly applying the fungus there to attack coca plants -- in the process also harming food crops and farm animals. Moreover, the fungus can, under certain circumstances, cause lethal infections in humans with weakened immune systems -- a condition common among the often undernourished and generally unhealthy poor coca farmers and workers in the tropical rain forests of Colombia. The program to eradicate coca production is failing as indicated by the figures from 1987-2000. As the war is escalated, the political situation in Colombia deteriorates. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) declines. Multinational companies do not want to risk doing business in an uncertain political and economic environment.
Road from San Vicente to Los Pozos. Oil Companies like Occidental and BP hire private armies and paramilitaries to protect their pipelines, oil fields, facilities and personnel. These are often drawn from the AUC and similar paramilitary organizations who are guilty of severe human rights violations (death squad activities). US troops are now training the military to protect pipelines - a frequent target of insurgents.
Escuela Santa Isabella, San Vicente del Caguán, March 13, 2002 Tire Repair Shop, San Vicente del Caguán, March 15, 2002 As the international price of coffee and other agricultural exports is falling to unprecedented lows and the demand for cocaine grows in the developed world the pressure to grow more coca for export is substantial. Ideal coca growing locations are near the headwaters of major rivers and the deforestation associated with the coca production is seriously endangering the sources of major rivers - including the Amazon.
Most of the defoliation in Caquetá is due to cattle ranching.
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The US State Department's 2001
annual human rights report said the Colombian government's record "remains poor" and
that "paramilitary forces find a ready support base within the military and police."
