THE GLOBAL WAR AGAINST TERROR,
PLAN
COLOMBIA, THE ANDEAN REGIONAL INITIATIVE, AND THE ANDEAN-AMAZON REGION:
WANTED OR CERTIFIED?
Ricardo Soberón Garrido
ABSTRACT
Colombia is neither Iraq, nor Afghanistan nor the
Middle East. However, Colombia currently
presents the main elements and tendencies that are predominant in international
politics and relations as concerns security, economics and international law together
with the risk of spill over into neighboring countries, which share
approximately 6,000 kilometers of their borders with Colombia.
As in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S.
objective in Latin America is not the search to capture the heads of terrorist
networks but a search for territorial predominance. In this case The U.S. objective is its
predominance over the Amazon basin. What is most alarming is that contrasts and
opposition to this hegemonic tendency has been diluted and that the scope of
the thematic agenda has merged into one sole issue: politics against terror and
against drugs. Nobody can challenge this new paradigm even though one of its
apparent results has been the improvement of worldwide narcotics trafficking.
Former US agendas in Latin America no longer hold
and the U.S.'s Latin America agenda is now basically centered on terrorism and
drugs and one-sided economic initiatives.
In a search to block European and Asian competition, US economic
interests in Latin America are projected in the Free Trade Area of the Americas
(ALCA in its Spanish acronym): keeping economic exchange in uneven terms for
the countries in the region, seeking a monopoly for US exports investments; and
control over the banking system. The implications for the region's states,
societies and, in particular, rural areas, are to be felt: the bankruptcy of
the industrial sector, the loss of food sovereignty and control over own
resources, a specialization in raw (primary) goods, and the dollarization of
these economies (as in the cases of Ecuador and Panama).
The Drug War in the Andes has reached a new stage
in the 21st century. Local instruments are no longer a consideration nor
discussed in sovereign terms. They have been made uniform under the banner of
the United States without even being discussed in national congresses. Multilateralism has also caved in and
countries can no longer withdraw from Washington's coercive pressure over the
region.
The main criticism against antinarcotics policies
as projected in the Plan Colombia and the Counterdrug Initiative of May 2001 is
that they are not policies designed for drug control but rather security and
public order policies whose aim is reorganized the U.S. military structure in
Latin America. If at one point indiscriminate fumigation policy could be
criticized because of its scarce results and alarming environmental
repercussions, it can now be understood as an instrument to attack guerrilla
finances.
As refers to armed conflict in Colombia, the
"democratic security" model is becoming extensive to the border
areas, with the acceptance of Andean governments including Ecuador and
Venezuela. With reference to the nucleus
of the armed conflict itself, apart from intensified fumigation we now see an
intense struggle to control crops, routs, strategic corridors −mostly in
the border zones− thus affecting mainly peasants, indigenous peoples,
Afro Colombians, and displaced women and children.
Other factors affecting Colombia's armed conflict
are the conditions which reign in neighboring countries: the political crisis in
Venezuela and that of Argentina which has been stabilized; Peru's social crisis,
weakened governance in Ecuador and Bolivia, and economic crises in the whole
region. Recent conferences of heads of states or their representatives show the
tendency towards an acceptance of the absolute internationalization of
interdiction and judicial measures, without any consideration whatsoever to
national jurisdictions.
There are certainly other options to the
repressive stereotype and paradigm which is leading a spiral of militarization,
criminalization and regionalization: To contrast and criticize communication
media’s alarmist tabloid articles and news. To demand a halt to U.S. Armed
Forces-supervised military training and maneuvers in the regions. To establish dialogues with the Armed Forces
and Police forces regarding the best way to handle security without violating
human rights. To involve national
universities in an effort to follow-up on the Andean national borders'
situation. To do a follow up on the
development of the importance attained by the issue of frontier zones in the
Andean community of nations' agenda. To establish dialogue with U.S. Congress
committees so as to approach the Andean borders' situation, propose legislation
to promote these zones, and demand that democratic procedures be implemented by
Foreign Affairs Ministries in their approach to border issues.
Translated from Spanish by MM Moreno,
Mama Coca www.mamacoca.org