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Plan Colombia
Regarding "The Ghost of Vietnam Haunts
'Plan Colombia' " - LA Times Article
EXCERPTS
By Joan McIntyre
As an active member of my church's Peace and Social Justice Committee, I recently
read an article in the LA Times by Ted Szulc which I thought was important enough
to summarize for my church bulletin . What follows are excerpts from Mr. Szulc's
insightful article:
Most Americans seem to have no idea that Plan Colombia threatens to suck the United
States into the longest and most brutal civil war in the Western Hemisphere, which
has lasted on and off for 160 years. It has never been explained to them, just like
Vietnam was never explained at the outset.
A complicating factor is that a half-dozen guerrilla wars or conflicts are currently
underway in Colombia, making it difficult for McCaffrey to decide whom and where
to hit. The most important guerrilla group is the FARC (Spanish acronym for Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia), whose 15,000 troops occupy the southern departments of
Putumayo and Caqueta, an area the size of Switzerland, and function as a virtually
independent coca-rich state. The FARC's ranks have swelled since the U.S. launched
Plan Colombia. The counterinsurgency battalions will have a tough time with the Marxist-Leninist
force, as will their U.S. advisors. The Vietnam-era question of how many Americans
will be needed to overwhelm the guerrillas will surely arise.
It does not require much imagination to conclude that Plan Colombia, as most informed
Colombians know, is simply unfeasible. In Brasilia, Secretary
of State Madeleine K. Albright, on a mission to sell the plan in Latin America, was
told that Brazil would have no part of it. Most other Latin American governments
feel the same way, leaving Washington isolated in its undertaking.
Perhaps the greatest threat and tragedy facing the U.S. in its Colombian venture
is that the plan was developed by men and women who know little of Colombia's history,
culture and politics. This, too, is reminiscent of Vietnam, where President John
F. Kennedy engaged the U.S. without consulting the handful of officials who actually
knew something about Hanoi, Dien Bien Phu, Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong.
What follows is the actual text of Mr. Szulc's article -- JMcI
The Ghost of Vietnam Haunts 'Plan Colombia'
By TAD SZULC
Tad Szulc Has Written Extensively About International Politics and Foreign
Policy
Sunday, August 20, 2000
Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/print/opinion/20000820/t000078189.html
WASHINGTON -- As in Vietnam nearly 40 years ago, the United States has embarked on
the phantasmagoric enterprise of destroying the countryside
of Colombia in order, supposedly, to save it.
In the 1960s, the mission was called "Search and Destroy." Today, it's
Plan Colombia, the objective of which is to eradicate cocaine drug lords, leftist
and rightist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary vigilantes, thugs and thousands
in between. In Vietnam, the enemy was identified as communists. In Colombia, everyone
seems to be a potential enemy.
Congress quietly approved U.S. armed intervention in Colombia last month, complete
with at least 60 Black Hawk and Huey-2 helicopter gunships with U.S. crews. U.S.
Army Special Forces are already training two Colombian battalions in counterinsurgency.
President Bill Clinton is expected to endorse the mission Aug. 30 on a one-day visit
to Colombia.
Most Americans seem to have no idea that Plan Colombia threatens to suck the United
States into the longest and most brutal civil war in the Western Hemisphere, which
has lasted on and off for 160 years. It has never been explained to them, just like
Vietnam was never explained at
the outset.
In another ghastly reminder of Vietnam, the administration has persuaded Colombia
to develop a powerful biological herbicide against coca and heroin poppy fields.
It is a fungus known as fusarium oxysporum, derived from the coca plant. Washington's
idea is to spread it across hundreds of thousands of acres cultivated for poppies.
Nobody appears to know the impact of this fungus on humans, which evokes memories
of the Agent Orange defoliant in Vietnam that killed and maimed the Viet Cong and
Americans alike.
Plan Colombia is the result of the administration's festering frustration over its
continuing inability to stem the huge flow of cocaine and heroine produced in Colombia,
notwithstanding billions of dollars spent over the years on interdiction and for
what passed for cooperation with Colombian authorities. The plan's chief author is
the White House drug czar, Gen. Barry M. McCaffrey, former head of the U.S. Southern
Command. Congress allocated $1.3 billion to put it into action.
To the extent that it can be understood, the plan calls for the elimination of the
guerrillas, no matter their allegiance, who guard the fields, so small aircraft can
safely spray the fungus over the poppy plantations. This task is to be carried out
by U.S.-trained Colombian counterinsurgency battalions ferried to the poppy fields
by U.S. helicopters. Nothing has been said about what would happen should a U.S.
chopper be shot down and members of its crew killed or injured.
A complicating factor is that a half-dozen guerrilla wars or conflicts are currently
underway in Colombia, making it difficult for McCaffrey to decide whom and where
to hit. The most important guerrilla group is the FARC (Spanish acronym for Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia), whose 15,000 troops occupy the southern departments of
Putumayo and Caqueta, an area the size of Switzerland, and function as a virtually
independent coca-rich state. The FARC's ranks have swelled since the U.S. launched
Plan Colombia. The counterinsurgency battalions will have a tough time with the Marxist-Leninist
force, as will their U.S. advisors. The Vietnam-era question of how many Americans
will be needed to overwhelm the guerrillas will surely arise.
In the north, the ELN (National Liberation Army), a more politically moderate organization,
controls its own smaller "mini-country," equally wealthy in coca. It has
no more than 5,000 fighters.
Then there are right-wing paramilitary units at war with the guerrillas and local
peasants. These units have a frightening human-rights record, but so do the guerrillas.
Hardly a day passes in Colombia without dozens slaughtered on all sides. The Colombian
army and police have been accused of working quietly with the paramilitary squads,
but under Plan Colombia, they are to ensure peace and probity.
It does not require much imagination to conclude that Plan Colombia, as most informed
Colombians know, is simply unfeasible. In Brasilia last week, Secretary of State
Madeleine K. Albright, on a mission to sell the plan in Latin America, was told that
Brazil would have no part of it. Most other Latin American governments feel the same
way, leaving Washington isolated in its undertaking.
Perhaps the greatest threat and tragedy facing the U.S. in its Colombian venture
is that the plan was developed by men and women who know little of Colombia's history,
culture and politics. This, too, is reminiscent of Vietnam, where President John
F. Kennedy engaged the U.S. without consulting the handful of officials who actually
knew something about Hanoi, Dien Bien Phu, Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong.
The shakiness of U.S. knowledge of Colombian history is best illustrated by the widely
repeated falsehood that the civil war there has been going on for 40 years. Actually,
the first great civil war that would define subsequent ones erupted between the Liberals
and the Conservatives in 1840, 21 years after Simon Bolivar won Colombia's independence
from Spain. These wars never really stopped, and a key milestone were the savage
riots in Bogota, the capital, in 1948, when the leftist liberal presidential candidate
Jorge Eliecer Gaitan was murdered.
The civil war -- the violencia -- continued after 1948, leading to military coups,
a restoration of formal democracy and the emergence of large guerrilla forces. What's
left of that democracy today is in tatters, and Plan Colombia will clearly not rescue
it. It is difficult to "save" a nation about whose history and identity
our top Washington policymakers know so little.
Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times
Subject: LA Times, 8/20/00: The Ghost of Vietnam Haunts 'Plan Colombia'
See West By Northwest.org columnist, Ryan Ramon's book review, Gaviotas
Revisited and Life on the 45th Parallel
about teen drug use and an argument for reducing demand, not supply as
strategy.
West By Northwest tried to get permission for reprinting Mr. Szulc's article but
couldn't contact anyone through the LA Times Website. We felt Ms. McIntyre's excerpts
and her inclusion of original article was important to run as is.
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