Research studies The US Defense Department funded a two-year study which found that the use of the armed forces to interdict drugs coming into the United States would have minimal or no effect on cocaine traffic and might, in fact, raise the profits of cocaine cartels and manufacturers. The 175-page study, "Sealing the Borders: The Effects of Increased Military Participation in Drug Interdiction," was prepared by seven economists, mathematicians and researchers at the National Defense Research Institute, a branch of the
RAND Corporation and released in 1988. The study noted that seven previous studies in the past nine years, including ones by the Center for Naval Research and the
Office of Technology Assessment, had come to similar conclusions. Interdiction efforts, using current armed forces resources, would have almost no effect on cocaine importation into the United States, the report concluded. During the early to mid-1990s, the Clinton administration ordered and funded a major cocaine policy study again by RAND. The Rand Drug Policy Research Center study concluded that $3 billion should be switched from federal and local law enforcement to treatment. The report said that treatment is the cheapest way to cut drug use. President Clinton's
Director of National Drug Control Policy rejected slashing law enforcement spending. Plan Colombia itself didn't exist at the time of the second RAND study, but the U.S. aid package has been criticized as a manifestation of the predominant law enforcement approach to the drug trade as a whole.
Guerrillas and oil Critics of Plan Colombia, such as authors Doug Stokes and Francisco Ramirez Cuellar, argue that the main intent of the program is not drug eradication but to fight leftist guerrillas. They argue that these Colombian peasants are also a target because they are calling for social reform and hindering international plans to exploit Colombia's valuable resources, including oil and other natural resources. As of 2004, Colombia is the fifteenth largest supplier of oil to the United States and could potentially rise in that ranking if petroleum extraction could be conducted in a more secure environment. From 1986 to 1997 there were nearly of crude oil spilled in pipeline attacks. Damage and lost revenue were estimated at $1.5 billion, while the oil spills seriously damaged the ecology. While the assistance is defined as counternarcotics assistance, critics such as filmmaker Gerard Ungeman argues it will be used primarily against the FARC. Supporters of the Plan such as the U.S. embassy in Bogotá and U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
Marc Grossman argue that the distinction between guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug dealers may have increasingly become irrelevant, seeing as they could be considered as part of the same productive chain. As a result, counternarcotics assistance and equipment should also be available for use against any of these irregular armed groups when necessary. During the late 1990s, Colombia was the leading recipient of US military aid in the Western Hemisphere, and due to its continuing internal conflict has the worst
human rights record, with the majority of atrocities attributed (from most directly responsible to least directly responsible) to
paramilitary forces,
insurgent guerrilla groups and elements within the police and armed forces. A
United Nations study reported that elements within the Colombian security forces, which have been strengthened due to Plan Colombia and U.S. aid, do continue to maintain intimate relationships with right-wing
death squads, help organize paramilitary forces, and either participate in abuses and massacres directly or, as it is usually argued to be more often the case, deliberately fail to take action to prevent them. One of the larger examples of this behavior was the 2008 False Positives Scandal, in which the Colombian military murdered approximately 1,400 innocent civilians in order to make false claims that these cadavers were Farc soldiers.
SOA and human rights According to Grace Livingstone, more Colombian
School of the Americas (SOA) graduates have been implicated in human rights abuses than SOA graduates from any other country. All of the commanders of the brigades highlighted in the 2001
Human Rights Watch report were graduates of the SOA, including the III brigade in Valle del Cauca, where the 2001
Alto Naya Massacre occurred. US-trained officers have been accused of being directly or indirectly involved in many atrocities during the 1990s, including the
Massacre of Trujillo and the 1997
Mapiripán Massacre. In addition, Livingstone also argues that the Colombian paramilitaries employ counter insurgency methods that US military schools and manuals have been teaching Latin American officers in Colombia and in the region at large since the 1960s, and that these manuals teach students to target civilian supporters of the guerrillas, because without such support the guerrillas cannot survive. The Pastrana administration replied to critics by stating that it had publicly denounced military-paramilitary links, as well as increased efforts against paramilitaries and acted against questionable military personnel. President Pastrana argues that he implemented new training courses on human rights and on international law for military and police officers, as well as new reforms to limit the jurisdiction of military courts in cases of grave human rights abuses such as torture, genocide or
forced disappearances. Pastrana claims that some 1300 paramilitaries were killed, captured or surrendered during his term, and that hundreds of members of the armed forces, including up to a hundred officers, were dismissed due to the existence of what it considered as sufficient allegations of involvement in abuses or suspected paramilitary activities, in use of a new presidential discretional faculty.
Leahy Law In 1997 the US Congress approved an Amendment to the
Foreign Operations Appropriations Act which banned the US from giving anti-narcotics aid to any foreign military unit whose members have violated human rights. The Amendment was called the "Leahy Provision" or "
Leahy Law" (named after Senator
Patrick Leahy who proposed it). Partially due to this measure and the reasoning behind it, anti-narcotics aid was initially only provided to Police units, and not to the military during much of the 1990s. According to author Grace Livingstone and other critics, the problem is there have been very few military units free of members that have not been implicated in any kind of human rights abuses at all, so they consider that the policy has been usually ignored, downplayed or occasionally implemented in a patchy way. In 2000, Human Rights Watch, together with several Colombian human rights investigators, published a study in which it concluded that half of Colombia's eighteen brigade-level army units had extensive links to paramilitaries at the time, citing numerous cases which directly or indirectly implicated army personnel. The State Department certified that Colombia would have complied with one of the human rights conditions (Sec. 3201) attached to Plan Colombia aid, due to President Pastrana's directing "in writing that Colombian Armed Forces personnel who are credibly alleged to have committed gross violations of human rights will be brought to justice in Colombia's civilian courts...". In August 2000 President Clinton used his presidential waiver to override the remaining human rights conditions, on the grounds that it was necessary for the interests of U.S. national security. Livingstone argues that if the US government funds military units guilty of human rights abuses, it is acting illegally.
Aerial eradication strategy Aerial eradication, also referred to as fumigation, was implemented as a part of Plan Colombia, strongly supported by the United States government, as a strategy to eliminate drug crops in Colombia starting in the 1980s. By the mid-1990s, drug cultivation had increased and Colombia supplied up to 90% of the world's cocaine, which intensified aerial eradication efforts. United States policymakers advocated for the extensive use of the herbicide
Roundup Ultra created by
Monsanto for large-scale aerial spraying of illicit crops in Colombia. Between 2000 and 2003, the aerial eradication program sprayed over 380,000 hectares of coca, accounting for more than 8% of Colombia's cultivatable land. This program was led by the Colombian Antinarcotics Directorate (DIRAN), police units responsible for the oversight of aerial spraying operations.
Criticism The practice of forced eradication of illicit crops through aerial spraying has been criticized for its effectiveness in reducing the drug supply as well as having negative social and environmental impacts. According to the Transnational Institute, "the fact that an increasing crop area is being eradicated – much more was sprayed in 2003 than in 2002 – should be interpreted not as a sign of the policy's success, but as a sign of its failure, because it indicates that more and more land is being planted in these crops." According to Joshua Davis of Wired.com, the area has seen the emergence of a Roundup resistant variety of the coca plant known as "
Boliviana Negra" that is not talked about because it might "put an end to American aid money", depicting the ecological adaptation resulting from this operation. The aerial eradication strategy in Colombia has been a highly controversial approach in the nation's efforts to combat coca cultivation and the subsequent illicit drug trade. The strategies implementation of herbicides, specifically glyphosate, through aerial aircraft spraying was targeted towards coca crops, the raw material for cocaine production. The effectiveness and consequences have been a subject of large debate. In 2004, according to Robert Charles, assistant secretary of state for the INL, aerial eradication efforts were getting close to the point that continued suppression of the drug crops would convince growers that continued cultivation will be futile. Despite this perspective, statistics show that sharp reductions in growing caused by fumigation in 2002–2003 did not reduce cultivation levels back to their numbers in 1998, and on top of that, Colombia still remains the largest coca-growing country in the world. Another reason to remain skeptical of the success of this program is the "balloon effect", where when one part of an industry is pressured it will be resolved in another area. In the context of aerial eradication, when drug cultivation was halted in one area, it would simply appear in another area, which would in turn reverse the intended effects of fumigation. The broader implications of aerial eradication efforts have been recorded by Colombia's Council for Human Rights and Displacement, which reported between 2001 and 2002, aerial eradication displaced 75,000 people nationwide. The use of glyphosate, a potent herbicide, sparked concerns about its effects on human health and the environment. The scale of the operation suggests that there must be modification to the landscape which has consequences doe flora and fauna in the affected regions. The long-term effects on the residents of the sprayed areas are a matter of growing study and concern. These studies bring up the multifaceted nature of Plan Colombia, specifically aerial spraying in human and environmental health. In addition to the previous criticisms, spraying has been associated with significant health concerns among residents in the affected areas. Reports have indicated that individuals living in these areas have a range of health issues including skin reactions, respiratory problems, and other ailments. Aside from these specific issues, there are also others raised about the costs of fumigation and if it is utilizing too much of the budgetary spending. This intensive program to eradicate crops with aerial spraying is the backbone of the bilateral anti-drug partnership between Colombia and United States making this program integral to both nations interactions.
Proposed use of mycoherbicides In 1999, the U.S. Congress added a provision to its Plan Colombia aid package that called for the employment of mycoherbicides against coca and opium crops. The potential use of
Fusarium oxysporum as part of these efforts was questioned and opposed by environmentalists. Colombia rejected the proposal and the Clinton administration waived the provision in light of continued criticism. ==Military programs==