Plan Colombia Devastates Afro-Colombian Communities

[Judi Lynn]

December 1, 2008

Plan Colombia Devastates Afro-Colombian Communities

by Garry Leech

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In 2000, the Clinton administration launched the multi-billion dollar counter-narcotics initiative called Plan Colombia. The primary objective was to eradicate cocaine at its source: the coca plant. Almost 50 percent of the coca cultivated in Colombia at the time was located in the southern department of Putumayo. In the ensuing years, as increasing amounts of coca were fumigated in that region, cultivation shifted to neighboring departments, including Nariño. Coca cultivation in San José and its surrounding environs began in 2001, suggesting that it resulted from the process of coca displacement caused by Plan Colombia’s intensive aerial spraying in Putumayo.

The continued presence of coca along the Tapaje River illustrates the failure of Plan Colombia to attain its principal counternarcotics objective of reducing coca cultivation by 50 percent in five years. In fact, according to a recently released U.S. congressional report, coca cultivation increased by 15 percent between 2000 and 2006 despite more than $5 billion in U.S. funding for Plan Colombia. Furthermore, the arrival of coca and Plan Colombia in Nariño has resulted in the region having more armed fighters per square meter than anywhere in the world outside of Iraq.

Afro-Colombians constitute the overwhelming majority of the residents of San José and as such, under Law 70 of 1993, the village and its surrounding land exist under collective title. Many residents farm on small plots of land outside the village, cultivating cacao, bananas, papaya, corn and their only viable cash crop, coca. According to many residents, villagers turned to coca cultivation in 2001 in order to improve their dire economic situation. However, Plan Colombia’s aerial fumigation operations soon began targeting the department of Nariño, including the Tapaje region.

According to Colonel Fredy Cruz of the Colombian army’s Special Counternarcotics Brigade based in the city of Tumaco, his units fumigated 32,700 hectares of coca in the first six months of 2008—a total that did not include the number of hectares sprayed by the counternarcotics units of the Colombian National Police. But as has occurred in other parts of Colombia, the spraying killed not only coca, but also food crops.

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Plan Colombia and President Alvaro Uribe’s Democratic Security Strategy have not only brought fumigations to this remote region, they have also brought violence in the form of the Colombian military. In its efforts to gain control of the country’s remote rural regions, much of which has traditionally been the domain of the FARC, the national government is establishing a presence in many villages. However, this state presence often only consists of soldiers. Such is the case in San José and other communities along the Tapaje River. The arrival of the Colombian army’s 19th Mobile Brigade in 2007 led to massive displacement and killings. More than a thousand villagers were forced to flee their homes and to make their way downriver to the towns of El Charco and Guapi—the latter in the neighboring department of Cauca.

Numerous killings occurred in San José and in the surrounding villages. Many locals blame the military and the paramilitaries for the violence. “I don’t call what the government is doing ‘democratic security,’ in my way of thinking it is increasing the violence.” said one displaced villager who is now living with more than 300 other displaced people in El Charco. “We didn’t have problems with illegal groups before, but under ‘democratic security’ we now have to deal with a single group where we live: the paramilitaries. The government says that there are guerrillas in our communities but that’s not true. Democratic security has only brought us more violence.”

More:
http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia299.htm