Washington's 'New War' in Colombia
Isacson, Adam
In 1997-back when there was no such thing as a "war on terror" and George W. Bush was just a Texas governor on the make-U.S. aid for Colombia rose to a previously unheard-of level, $88.5 million....
...9 U.S...
...mission into a "unified campaign...
...1 1 Its lobbyists have long been among Washington's leading proponents for increased military assistance to Colombia, and their persistence paid off in 2002...
...By allowing aid to be used against Colombia's "terrorist" groups-which in fact are not shadowy undercover cells but territorial armies with a combined total of nearly 40,000 members--the bill made official the switch to counterinsurgency...
...Army Ranger battalion, will learn long-range tactical level reconnaissance and surveillance, and direct action...
...role in the Central 13 Adam Isacson is a senior associate at the Center for International Policy where he coordinates a program that monitors and seeks limits on U.S...
...In fact, there are several rea- to Colombia's confl sons to believe that the conflict is about to get much of counterinsurgenc worse...
...The tactics suggest the FARC has cution of aid progr regained its war footing after a year of logistical plan- groups have no sh ning," suggests Washington Post correspondent Scott States should be i Wilson...
...The Bush administration sent the opposite message, however, by certifying-despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary presented by all major human rights groups-that the Colombian military was punishing violators, cooperating with human rights investigators and fighting the paramilitaries...
...Concerns about human rights violations declare a unilateral cease-fire before the government and military over-commitment have lost prominence, will sit at the table...
...But at least, unlike the version y the Bush and Uribe governments an bring that end closer, not farther...
...5 who seem least aware of Colombian public opinion NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 14REPORT ON COLOMBIA and political realities...
...military assistance to the Western Hemisphere...
...After September 11, though, most obstacles to an expanded U.S...
...Guerrilla secretariat leaders reportedly held a rare meeting to re-think their strategy...
...The new president has offered civilians an active role in the conflict as part of a network of informants, some of whom, wear- The coffin of slain community leader Dario de JesOs Roman at the mayor's office in San ing hoods to protect their iden- Vicente del Caguin...
...They are responding to Uribe's requests for more weapons, training, equipment and intelligence for his heightened war effort...
...frustrated U.S...
...Vol XXXVI, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 2003REPORT ON COLOMBIA Colombia's military budget is increasing sharply under Uribe, fed by cuts in social spending and a "war tax" on the wealthiest...
...The number of peo- to drag on...
...The U.S...
...Despite Uribe's frequent promises that he would not neglect social needs, his government is slashing social spending to pay for its war effort...
...Colombia waits as rebels move out," British Broadcasting Corporation, January 14, 2002, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1758582.stm...
...8. U.S...
...Certainly, security is a crucial need that even the policy's critics cannot ignore-the role of any state is to protect its citizens from harm...
...To pressure for the release of imprisoned fighters, the FARC have kidnapped dozens of public officials during the last two years, including presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, the governor of Antioquia and a former defense minister...
...This is a major policy change," warned Representative Skelton, the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee...
...During a May 2002 battle with paramilitaries in the village of Bojayi in northwestern Colombia, FARC fighters launched a crude, poorly aimed gas-canister mortar into a church sheltering frightened residents, killing 119 of them...
...tity, have accompanied the military on operations to round American wars of the 1980s, pushed through a U.S...
...But perhaps "counterinsurgency" is not the right term for what Uribe and Bush are pursuing in Colombia...
...To continue the war on drugs and terror to that point (or beyond) will lead only to quagmire and tragedy...
...aid mission...
...1 2 Ambassador Patterson told a Colombian newspaper that pipeline defense could be only a first step...
...emerged from its "tactical retreat...
...Scott Wilson, "A Worsening War in Colombia," The Washington Post, February 1, 2003...
...These traditionally excluded portage of proposals...
...The present policy in Colombia, however, has only an anemic, underfunded poverty alleviation and institutionbuilding component...
...Kim Burger, "US Special Forces Give Colombians Anti-Terrorism Training," Jane's Defence Weekly, London, January 8, 2003...
...officials could not permit the Colombians to use their U.S.-donated helicopters, guns, or specially trained brigades against guerrillas or paramilitaries, unless this use was part of a counterdrug mission...
...3 Frechette's concerns about human rights and "mission creep"-though still unresolved-have melted away...
...Guerrilla threats in early 2002 forced at least half of Colombia's 1,050 mayors either to resign or to govern from provincial capitals...
...After the breakdown of the FARC peace talks, this author predicted that the second half of 2002 would be "the bloodiest we've seen...
...are pursuing, they c; On the battlefield, the resource-strapped A new policy must r Colombian military may see its effectiveness improve structural, historic only marginally as a result of Uribe's security policy deserve far more a and the broadened U.S...
...Controls on citizen movement are stronger still in two so-called "rehabilitation and consolidation zones" in the departments of Arauca, Bolivar and Sucre...
...4 Most of this aid in their homes instead of barracks...
...U If even some of this comes to pass, the failure of the counterinsurgency consensus will be evident to all...
...The largest initiative so far is the $104 million effort to help Colombia's armed forces guard an oil pipeline...
...By September 2002 nearly all of the 2000 "Plan NACILA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 16REPORT ON COLOMBIA Colombia" aid package's $642 million in military and police assistance had been delivered...
...The Bush administration has since joined Uribe in a counterinsurgency alliance...
...But efforts to deliver alternative development assistance, improve civilian governance or aid displaced persons are either too small to reach more than a tiny fraction of the target population, or too mired in bureaucracy to respond in a timely way...
...Relying increas- strengthen Colomb: ingly on bombings in population centers-such as a greatly broaden ti February 2003 car-bombing that destroyed a crowded involved in the desi social club in one of Bogotd's most exclusive neigh- and fully involve lo borhoods-the guerrillas' methods have reached new tatives, and target pc levels of brutality...
...4. For the Center for International Policy's most current documentation of U.S...
...Galen Jackman, U.S...
...1 9 would be a radical But now this "light at the end of the tunnel" view is tries...
...14 The United States is ned by also helping Colombia's police to equip and train sixty-four Petroleum...
...When critics point out the weakness of economic and social assistance, the policy's proponents frequently respond that it is impossible to think about economic aid in the absence of security...
...1 7 I was wrong...
...After launching unprecedented mortar attacks in Bogotdi during Uribe's August 7 inauguration, the FARC entered into a months-long "tactical retreat...
...Barry McCaffrey, was still promising that "as a matter of Administration policy, the United States will not support Colombian counterinsurgency efforts...
...As signs of failure continue to mount, the need to discard counterinsurgency becomes ever more urgent...
...Pilots contracted by the U.S...
...In the interval between the two comments, as "Plan Colombia" and the "war on terror" fundamentally re-shaped Washington's approach, the Bush administration managed to remove long-standing legal curbs that had kept the war on drugs officially separate from counterinsurgency...
...Historically, local military leaders have been able to abuse their power with impunity and act at the whim of the wealthy and powerful...
...mission disappeared...
...The Bush team, which includes some of the most enthusiastic architects of the U.S...
...The latter two were taken hostage while on a peace march...
...For the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) first time in memory, opinion polls are showing a guerrillas in 1983...
...The paramilitaries-increasingly divided and openly supportive of President Uribe-reduced the States-distracted by wars elsewhere-could come to find even a billion dollars per year having little impact on a war in a country more than twice the size of all of Central America...
...and Colombian governments-and even It would have been impossible to imagine a most Colombians, if polls reflect reality-are eagerly Colombian president with such an agenda in 1997, backing a sharp escalation in their nation's 39-year- back when Ambassador Frechette was trying to limit old war, which already kills over 3,500 people a year...
...This cable was unearthed by researcher Michael Evans of the National Security Archive and is available on the archive's website at: <http://www.gwu.edu/-nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB69/col51 .pdf.> Human Rights Watch researcher Robin Kirk cites the statement in her excellent new book on Colombia, More Terrible than Death, [See Review p. 46.] 2. U.S...
...Other than the occasional ambush or kidnapping-such as the failed abduction of Jorge Enriquez, the bishop of Zipaquiri--the guerrillas made few moves...
...Heavily guarded "caravans" allowed holiday travelers to drive to the beach unmolested...
...government caught up in its unfolding "war on terror...
...policy was not advisable at the moment because of uncertainty about congressional reaction...
...The lack of progress will create great pressures to go back to Congress to ask for further big aid increases...
...Department of Defense, "DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms," Washington, August 14, 2002, <http://www.dtic.mil/doctrinefjeVdoddict...
...Bush administration officials praise the new Colombian president's "courage" and "commitment...
...scale of their operations, largely complying with a policy of avoiding attention-grabbing The war in Colombia is likely massacres...
...2 Note the post-September 11 change in vocabulary: the word "terrorism" appears in the place of "guerrillas" in Patterson's statement...
...Uribe has frequently signaled his will to "spray and spray" until no more coca exists in Colombia...
...To fight against narcotrafficking and terrorism, it is necessary to attack all links of the chain simultaneously...
...Classic counterinsurgency doctrine, for all its many tragic faults, at least had a so-called "heartsand-minds" component: a large-scale effort to address poverty and the lack of economic opportunity that encourages insurgency in the first place...
...officials...
...9. Gen...
...Colombia's militar The next day he promised that Colombia would be even the most vuln able to wipe out the entire drug trade by the end of the punishing human-r year...
...ple killed and kidnapped in Colombia's conflict actually officials will go back to decreased in 2002...
...Alexei Barrionuevo and Thaddeus Herrick, "Threat of Terror Abroad Isn't New For Oil Companies Like Occidental," The Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2002...
...It must consult cal officials, civil-society represenopulations in the planning and exeams...
...Army Special Forces soldier in Saravena, Colombia...
...seeks to turn the Colombian armed forces into effec- The new president has set near-impossible terms tive defenders of oil pipelines and drug-crop fumiga- for renewed peace talks, demanding that guerrillas tion planes...
...7. Rachel Van Dongen, "Legal Crops' Damage," The Washington Times, October 15, 2002, <http://www.washtimes.com/world/20021015-82149522.htm...
...government assistance for fighting the guerrillas," the ambassador in Bogoti, Myles Frechette, flatly stated in a January 1997 cable to Washington, "The issue raises too many human rights concerns and has been a searing experience for us in Central America...
...cuidara intereses petroleros en Colombia, dice embajadora," Bogota: El Tiempo, February 10, 2002, <http://llciponline.org/colombia/02021001.htm...
...campesino soldiers" or well-paid informants...
...1 8 Uribe's to provide security combined justice and interior minister, Fernando have a proud histor: Londofio, told Colombia's El Tiempo newspaper that Latin America...
...Their attempt failed, but not overwhelmingly: It lost by a narrow margin of 192 to 225...
...s do not promise an immediate end ict...
...Actually protecting all Colombians-even the poorest and most vulnerable-would be a revolutionary change in the Colombian Army's mission...
...6 close supervision of the military-including weekly In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that Uribe owes calls to cajole brigade commanders into greater his popularity to the FARC, which appears to be action-led the Colombian newsweekly Semana to solidly in the hands of its hardest-line leaders, those dub him Colombia's "field marshal...
...Nowhere is this more evident than in areas where coca is being fumigated...
...They are thrilled by his desire to expand aerial eradication of drug crops...
...The Bush administration was quick to oblige...
...The decision," according to the Post, "reflected a belief by Rice and Powell that a fundamental shift in U.S...
...150-man mobile "carabinero" squads to operate in rural zones where Colombia's government maintains little presence...
...Organizations like Plante, the state alternative development agency, desperately needed to be strengthened, but are instead being eviscerated...
...The incoming Bush team shared the Colombian military's frustration with these restrictions-but saw little congressional support for reversing McCaffrey's promise and dismantling the "firewall" between counternarcotics and counterinsurgency...
...Embassy Bogota, "Ambassador's January 12 Meeting with New MOD [Minister of Defense] Designate," cable, BogotA, January 13, 1997...
...This meant that U.S...
...Colombians began to think that the new president's policies were working...
...an( dynamite attacks-in 2001, a militaries a record 170 bombings forced a shutdown in the flow of oil for together to much of the year...
...Though administration documents and statements are careful to use the term "counterterrorism," it is clear to all that the line between counternarcotics and counterinsurgency has been obliterated...
...1 6 Only the repressive part of counterinsurgency seems to be working...
...ambassador had a much different message...
...This extreme behavior has led even many of the poorest and most vulnerable Colombians-the population for whom the FARC claims to be fighting-to give up on peace talks and to seek protection from a wealthy landowning president and an army with a history of abuse...
...There will be no U.S...
...Army field manuals define as "those military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat subversive insurgency...
...The United reserves...
...August...
...At that time, The prime beneficiaries of the current mood are the Colombians were filling the streets to demand peace Colombian military and a new hard-line president- negotiations with guerrillas, and the following year Alvaro Uribe, who won a first-round victory in they elected a new president, Andr6s Pastrana, who Colombia's May 2002 elections and took office in promised to follow through with a peace process...
...Arauca-a zone with oil, thousands of hectares of coca, and a heavy presence of all three armed groups-may be Colombia's most intensely contested battleground in 2003...
...The Uribe government's two "rehabilita- 480-mile-lon tion zones"-where something partly o akin to martial law reigns-are on either end of the pipeline...
...protect the The unit is set to be operational by the end of [Fiscal year oil pipeline 2003...
...These brigades that we're talking about will be very offensively oriented," Gen...
...As Washington prepared for a global antiterrorist crusade, officials looked south and saw three Colombian groups-the FARC, the ELN and the AUC-already on the State Department's list of international terrorist groups...
...Defense Minister Marta Lucia Ramfrez said in January 2003 that Colombia's guerrillas were "on the verge of demise...
...Washington's 'New War' in Colombia 1. U.S...
...Spraying has taken away tens of thousands of peasant families' illegal means of feeding themselves-but other than a lucky few thousand, most have received no help in making a living in these neglected rural zones where no legal crop can make a profit...
...Most paramilitary groups, howand military programs have far outpaced the search ever, have accepted Uribe's offer, raising concerns for peaceful, long-term solutions to Colombia's cri- that members of the United Self-Defense Groups of sis...
...On March 21, it asked Congress for a $28.9 billion "emergency" budget outlay for counterterrorism efforts at home and abroad...
...A U.S...
...Uribe is also very popular with a U.S...
...Colombia (AUC), the main paramilitary umbrella In fact, it is difficult today even to discuss peace organization, may be amnestied and "recycled" as negotiations or non-military solutions in Colombia...
...During the May 2002 House debate on the bill, Representatives Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts) and Ike Skelton (D-Missouri) led an effort to remove the "unified campaign" language...
...The air force reported that Vol X)(XVI, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 2003 17 Vol XXXVI, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 2003 17REPORT ON COLOMBIA bombing raids had destroyed dozens of guerrilla encampments...
...Brig...
...How ironic," a Colombian human-rights activist said to me recently, "that while the FARC is winning support for Uribe, the United States is winning support for the FARC...
...If spraying had killed every last coca bush in Putumayo...
...strategy," Anne Patterson told Colombia's cattlemen's federation, "is to give the Colombian government the tools to combat terrorism and narcotrafficking, two struggles that have become one...
...officials may find themselves frustrated by the poor coverage that 100-plus helicopters and a few thousand men in vetted units can offer in such a large country...
...The war is likely to drag on, with guerrillas far from being forced into a unilateral cease-fire...
...Since August 2, when the bill became law, the United States can support Colombia's war against insurgents, just as the United States supported El Salvador's military effort against the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) in the 1980s...
...The United States has shown remarkable efficiency in getting helicopters delivered and doubling the rate of fumigation...
...focused on terrorist leaders...
...Southern Command J-3 (Operations), Media roundtable, September 29, 2002, <http://ciponline.org/colombia/02100401.htm...
...umphalism...
...Fernando, el deslenguado," Bogota: Semana, February 2, 2003...
...Congress did put human rights conditions on its 2002 aid to Colombia, freezing aid until the Colombian military took a tougher approach to violators within its ranks...
...Karen DeYoung, "Colombia Aid Proposals Shelved," The Washington Post, February 28, 2002...
...aid amounts, visit: <http://ciponline.org/colombia/aidtable.htm.> 5. "El Hombre del Aflo," Bogota, Semana, December 15, 2002, <http://www.terra.com.co/actualidad/nacional/15-122002/nota74747.html...
...Those talks failed spectacularly in February 2002, President Uribe is the scion of a wealthy Antioquia though, leaving in their wake a bitter public mood and landowning family whose father was assassinated by a thirst for a forceful anti-guerrilla campaign...
...An additional $6 million to "jump-start" the pipeline-defense program was part of the same anti-terror legislation that broadened the U.S...
...military-aid mission...
...He has held dozens of regional can win the war against the 18,000-member FARC "town meetings" to discuss security needs, and his and 4,000-strong National Liberation Army (ELN...
...Resentment and distrust of Colombia's government has grown among a population in areas where guerrillas and paramilitaries are strong and recruit frequently...
...The Bush administration's 2003 foreign aid request-which, after long delays, was expected to pass Congress in February 2003-includes $98 million in weapons, equipment, helicopters and training for the Colombian Army's 18th Brigade and a new 5th Mobile Brigade, both of which will operate in Arauca...
...The result is tantamount to counterinsurgency in reverse...
...The result is a growing harmony of interests and strategies behind a common goal: counterinsurgency, which U.S...
...Even so, in the days after the February 20, 2002, collapse of Pastrana's talks with the FARC, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell shot down a Pentagon plan for Colombia's "formal inclusion in the war on terrorism," the Washington Post reported...
...7 The goal for 2003 is to spray 200,000 hectares...
...Clara Inds Rueda G, "E.U...
...8 The imperatives of counterinsurgency underlie virtually all of the Uribe government's initiatives since August 2002...
...A genuine "hearts and minds" approach would also call for encouraging Colombian security forces to respect human rights and punishing those members who violate them or work with the paramilitaries...
...Special Forces members arrived in Arauca in January 2003 to begin training their Colombian counterparts...
...A state of emergency decree has limited civil liberties and increased the security forces' power to monitor civilians and perform "preventive arrests...
...That is, focused on the enemy, as opposed to a static defense around the pipeline...
...1 0 Within a week, however, House Republicans had made clear that the Pentagon's proposal would get a green light from them...
...ecognize that Colombia's crisis has al, and complex causes...
...Then, U.S...
...Occidental The pipeline is the property of a joint venture between Colombia's state-owned oil company, Spain's Repsol, and-with a 7/16 share-Occidental Petroleum of Los Angeles, California...
...There are more than 300 strategic infrastructure points for the United States in Colombia...
...Embassy Bogota, "Discurso de la Embajadora Anne W. Patterson ante Fedegan," Bogota, November 22, 2002, <http://usembassy.state.gov/posts/co lv/wwwsa037.shtml> 3. Colombia's guerrilla groups had been referred to as "terrorists" before - in fact, the FARC and ELN made it onto the State Department's list of international terrorist groups in 1997, and the words "terrorist" and "narco-terrorist" had been applied to them since the 1980s -but after September 11 it became the overwhelming term of choice among U.S...
...Though Democrats softened the language somewhat, the House of Representatives passed a March 6 resolution calling on President Bush to submit legislation "to assist the Government of Colombia to protect its democracy from United States-designated foreign terrorist organizations...
...This money was tightly restricted to police counterdrug efforts, and almost none supported the Colombian military's decades-old war against insurgent groups...
...The army is creaid package that now gives Colombia over seven ating a hybrid force of lightly trained "campesino soltimes as much aid as in 1997-$650 million in 2003, diers," charged with defending rural towns but living $500 million for the security forces...
...Deep within the bill was a single sentence with a major change in the law, allowing Colombia to use all past counterdrug aid for "a unified campaign against narcotics trafficking [and] against activities by organizations designated as terrorist organizations" such as the FARC, ELN and AUC...
...Accompanied by hooded informants, the army retook Medellin's Comuna 13 slum from ELN militias in an unprecedented urban battle...
...Embassy Bogota, "Discurso de la Embajadora Anne W. Patterson ante Fedeg6n," Cartagena: November 21, 2002, <http://usembassy.state.gov/posts/col /wwwsa037.shtml...
...According to Britain's Jane's Defence Weekly, "The d Colombian Ir winrkinn 9 g F commando unit, to be modeled on a U.S...
...1 3 Beyond the pipeline program, the United States is using counterinsurgency aid to establish a new commando battalion within the Colombian Army...
...The U.S...
...The paramilitaries with whom the ELN was disputing control of the neighborhood were left in place, however...
...In fact, there is reason to wonder whether aiding Colombia's military can truly protect Colombians from illegal armed groups...
...United States Congress, General Accounting Office, "Efforts to Develop Alternatives to Cultivating Illicit Crops in Colombia Have Made Little Progress and Face Serious Obstacles," GAO-02-291, Washington D.C., February 2002, <http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02291.pdf> United States Congress, House Appropriations Committee Report 107-663 on H.R...
...6. Scott Wilson, "A Worsening War in Colombia," The Washington Post, February 1, 2003, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8508-2003Jan31 .html...
...In January 2003, the FARC currently underway...
...and protected by the army's new counterdrug brigade sprayed 60,500 hectares in and around Putumayo...
...The U.S...
...Uribe government officials Congress to ask for even began sounding notes of tri- bigger aid increases...
...His killers remain unknown...
...Working fre- A new policy rr quently with the ELN, guerrillas have hit the military pipeline protection and paramilitaries-and civilian populations-hard ing military aid i in Arauca, Antioquia and Narifio...
...We could find ourselves engulfed in a Vol XXXVI, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 2003 15REPORT ON COLOMBIA morass that would eat up American soldiers like we have not seen in years...
...Galen Jackman, the Southern Command's director of operations said at a media roundtable last September...
...the U.S...
...1 5 For 2004, the Bush administration is requesting a $50 million increase in military and police assistance, bringing the total somewhere near $550 million...
...nearly all aid to Colombia during the late 1990s and early 2000s-including the controversial "Plan Colombia" aid package-had been appropriated through counternarcotics aid programs...
...There is abso increasingly shaky...
...Minister: Colombia Armed Groups Declining," Associated Press, January 18, 2003, <http://abcnews.go.comANwireAWorld/ap20030118_1448.html...
...foreign aid law divides military assistance among several programs, according to their purpose...
...While the military has proven poor at fending off armed groups, it has shown itself all too skilled at taking out non-violent reformers, from labor leaders to human rights defenders to land-reform advocates...
...But first we'll see how this Caflo Lim6n project goes...
...These ttention than coca bushes and oil reserves...
...A new policy, however, will still have to confront the need Yet the United States does not y of offering security assistance in the United States were to help y become a force that protects erable Colombians, while swiftly ights abusers within its ranks, it break with the past for both counlutely no sign that such a break is aust abandon costly projects like and fumigation expansion, decreasn favor of long-term efforts to ia's democracy...
...For months after Uribe's inauguration, the movement toward all-out counterinsurgency was met withnothing...
...The 480-milelong Cafio Lim6n-Covefias tube, which runs from the oil fields of Arauca near the Venezuelan border to the Caribbean port of Covefias, is a frequent target of guerrilla The U.S...
...Barry R. McCaffrey, Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy, "Remarks to the Atlantic Council of the United States," Washington D.C., November 28, 2000, <http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/112801.htm...
...up suspected guerrilla collaborators...
...5410, Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, September 19, 2002, <http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgiin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107 _congreports&docid=f:hr663.107.pdf...
...Using those funds, seventy U.S...
...he has made security his over- majority of Colombians believing that the military whelming priority...
...2 0 reformers, both wit While it won the FARC no support, the offensive want to make state i showed that the guerrillas have not been weakened by These alternative, six months under Uribe...
...The United dentifying and supporting honest hin and outside government, who institutions viable and accountable...
...Occidental, whose Colombian oil operations gained notoriety in the 1990s when it sought to drill on the traditional lands of the U'Wa indigenous group, pays about 50 cents per barrel in security costs...
...Alternative-development aid deliveries, by contrast, totaled $31.8 million out of $68.5 million appropriated in 2000, and more than half of funds for judicial reform remained unspent...
...Washington must he circle of Colombian leaders gn of its assistance...
...I By November 2002, though, the U.S...
...As recently as November 2000, however, Bill Clinton's drug czar, Gen...
Vol. 36 • March 2003 • No. 5
