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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
The U.S.-backed Plan Colombia will soon touch down in a region battered by civil war and central to the cocaine trade -- will it ignite the conflict?
Dec 5, 2000 | An hour after Mayor Carlos Rosas publicly described the "terror" that plagued his town of Orito in the southern coca-producing province of Putumayo, he was dead. Gunmen shot the mayor at point-blank range in front of his home in broad daylight and sped away. They were never identified or caught.
In the radio address he gave just before his assassination, Rosas described the fear that the citizens feel in an area that produces most of the world's cocaine and has felt the full force of the nation's civil war. "Corpses are appearing, cars are being burned, and this terrifies everyone," he said.
As Colombia stands on the brink of a major counter-narcotics campaign, most of which will be concentrated in Putumayo, the terror shows no signs of letting up.
Last month, just as the Colombian government and the guerrillas of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) were about to begin the most serious conversations of the 2-year-old peace process -- the possibility of a bilateral cease-fire -- the FARC froze those talks, setting the tone for a possible intensification of the civil conflict that has torn at this Andean country for more than three decades.
The FARC was angered by a meeting between a high-level representative of the Colombian government and a leading paramilitary force, the United Colombian Self Defense Leagues (known by its Spanish acronym, AUC) which the FARC has been fighting. The meeting was held ostensibly to gain release of a group of congressmen kidnapped by paramilitary forces last month. The FARC has claimed that in meeting with paramilitary leaders, the Colombian government shows a lack of interest in curbing paramilitary terrorism.
FARC spokesmen even accused the half-dozen congressmen reportedly kidnapped last month by the AUC of having staged their own kidnappings in order to facilitate the meeting between Interior Minister Humberto de la Calle and AUC head Carlos Castano.
But the FARC also places blame on U.S. policy in the region and said its decision to cut off peace negotiations was influenced by the U.S. Plan Colombia. Though the U.S. calls that absurd, it's clear that the future of the peace process will have a serious impact on the success or failure of the counter-narcotics campaign.
The peace freeze came as the U.S. also announced it was delaying the implementation of the Plan Colombia until January and a high level State Department delegation visited Bogota to finalize points in the plan
Originally the plan was expected to start early this month. Undersecretary of Defense Brian Sheridan in Bogota said U.S. and Colombian authorities had agreed to postpone the plan until January, when 33 of 60 helicopters included in the $1.3 billion aid package approved by Congress will arrive in Colombia and will be available for the Colombian armed forces.
Fierce fighting between guerrillas and paramilitaries has raged throughout the last two months in Putumayo, where most of Plan Colombia will be concentrated. Hundreds of residents have fled for Ecuador, since all roads to central Colombia are dangerous and controlled by one side or the other. Some who haven't left remained trapped by the rebels or the paramilitaries.
Putumayo was selected as the primary site of Plan Colombia because an estimated 216 square miles are planted with high-yield coca plantations, and over half of the entire Colombian coca production is harvested in this province. About 300,000 people are employed in jobs related to cocaine production.
"Putumayo is the FARC's Wall Street," said a foreign diplomat. "This is not an area of small plantations, but of heavy cultivation."
