Fears of Kosovo-Style War in Colombia
by Kintto Lucas
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by Kintto Lucas |
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(IPS) QUITO --
Analysts
and rights groups in Ecuador and Colombia fear that renewed efforts to crack down on drugs in Colombia will trigger an exodus of drug traffickers and guerrillas across the border to Ecuador and lead to a situation similar to the 1999 bombing of the Yugoslavian province of Kosovo.
Analysts warn that Colombia's decades-long civil conflict could spread over the border to Ecuador with the implementation of Colombian President Andres Pastrana's "Plan Colombia," a package of measures designed to fight drug trafficking and bolster development and crop substitution in regions where drug crops are grown. The initiative has a price tag of $7.5 billion, $4 billion of which is to be provided by the Colombian government. Another $1.6 billion in aid is being debated by the United States Congress, and $1.9 billion is to come from Europe and multilateral lending institutions. The El Colombiano newspaper in the Colombian city of Medell’n stated in a recent editorial that three-quarters of the proposed aid from Washington was military aid. The paper pointed out that Pastrana touted the Plan Colombia as a peace strategy, even though the majority of the funds would be used for waging war. A staff member of the Latin American Working Group, a Washington-based coalition of human rights and church groups, said in January that "though purportedly for counter-narcotics only, the proposed aid will greatly increase the U.S. financial commitment to Colombia's army, and will bring the United States still closer to involvement in Colombia's intractable conflict." The Plan Colombia, the use of the military base in the Ecuadorean port city of Manta by U.S. forces, and U.S. military activity along Colombia's border with Ecuador and Peru could all form part of a strategy aimed at eventual Kosovo-style aerial bombardments, say analysts. An Ecuadorean expert in military strategy, who preferred not to be identified, told IPS that a U.S. intervention by land had been ruled out, because it would mean large numbers of casualties for all of the countries involved in the conflict. But, he maintained, Washington had not thrown out the idea of a war waged from the air, like last year's NATO bombing of Kosovo. "An air war waged from bases used by the United States in the region, and from the sea, in which planes and missiles would play a major role, like in Kosovo, seems to be what that country (the U.S.) is aiming for, and what the Colombian government itself is working towards," said the source. In order for that to happen, a base at a prudent distance from the military theater of operations would be needed -- such as the one Ecuador has allowed the United States to use in Manta. The necessary logistics in the surrounding area, meanwhile, are apparently being prepared in the Tres Esquinas military base in southern Colombia -- where the largest insurgent group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is mainly active -- and in other bases in Ecuador and Peru along the border with Colombia.
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According
to the military expert, who is familiar with the border region, the possibility of a Kosovo-style war is confirmed by activity that in the past few months has driven an increasing flow of Colombian refugees from the southern part of that country over the border into Ecuador.
"In Kosovo it was demonstrated that missiles do not only hit military objectives, but also the population at large, which means it is better to remove local inhabitants from the area beforehand and thus reduce the risk of attacking civilians, which could bring catastrophic political costs," he added. "The withdrawal of the civilian population could mean that FARC and the ELN (National Liberation Army -- the second largest rebel group) are being isolated, to make it easier for the insurgents to be located and wiped out with the help of war technology similar to that used in Yugoslavia," he said. Ecuadorean Defence Minister Hugo Unda said that when drug enforcement efforts are stepped up as part of the implementation of the Plan Colombia, not only thousands of Colombian refugees could cross the border into Ecuador, but drug traffickers and insurgents as well. The source consulted by IPS maintained that the Switzerland-sized demilitarized area in south-central Colombia where the peace talks between the Pastrana administration and FARC are taking place "is just part of the same plan to clearly delineate guerrilla territories. "The talks are part of the military scheme itself, aimed at gaining time," he asserted. Washington's "drug czar," the director of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, retired general Barry McCaffrey, has systematically ruled out any possibility of direct U.S. military involvement in Colombia. Spokespersons for the U.S. State Department say the idea behind the Plan Colombia is to fight drugs, not guerrillas. They also argue that the United States only provides the Colombian armed forces with logistical support, training and equipment. But that is not true, according to the Medell’n newspaper El Colombiano, which pointed out that most of the aid to Colombia was earmarked for war technology and weapons for the Tres Esquinas base, located in southern Colombia in the middle of 77,000 hectares of land under coca cultivation. Press reports indicate that the Tres Esquinas base, where 8,000 army troops and anti-drugs police are posted, has been provided with state-of-the-art intelligence and communications equipment by the United States. The New York-based rights group watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that the Tres Esquinas military base had close ties to the right-wing paramilitary umbrella, United Self-Defense forces of Colombia (AUC), headed by Carlos Casta–o. In late February, HRW released a report, "The Ties That Bind: Colombia and Military-Paramilitary Links." After the report came out, several U.S. lawmakers said they would oppose an increase in military aid to Colombia if the plan did not place strict conditions aimed at bringing military agents implicated in human rights violations or found to have ties with the paramilitaries to justice in civilian courts. The chairman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Ted Stevens, asked who would intervene when the situation exploded, and demanded guarantees that Colombia would not become another Vietnam. But the head of the U.S. Army Southern Command, Charles Wilhelm, said the U.S. would not play the same role in Colombia, and would not become bogged down as it did in Vietnam. Political analysts in Ecuador say the Plan Colombia initiative demonstrates that a peaceful solution for the civil strife is becoming an increasingly remote dream, and that the peace process which awakened hopes among Colombians is on the verge of collapse. Jorge Rojas, with the Bogota-based Committee for Human Rights and Displacement, said the increased U.S. aid would not resolve the drug trafficking problem in Colombia (the U.S. market's single largest source of cocaine), but would lead to a spread of the conflict to other parts of Colombia's Amazon region and to neighboring countries. "The aid will lead to an increase in the forced displacement of civilians (who already number 1.5 million in Colombia), affect Peru and Ecuador, which could be dragged into the conflict, and have an irreversible impact on the environment," said Rojas. He added that human rights groups in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru planned to keep a close eye on the Plan Colombia, and on U.S. military aid in particular. The $1.6 billion aid proposal that Pres. Clinton submitted to Congress also includes $47 million in aid for Ecuador. Some observers argue that the financial aid that Washington promised the new government of Ecuador, headed by Gustavo Noboa, who took office on Jan. 22 after president Jamil Mahuad was removed, is conditioned on Ecuador's active participation in the Plan Colombia. The chairman of the International Affairs Commission of the Ecuadorean Congress, Osvaldo Molestina, pointed to the risk of his country being drawn into a regional conflict. Mart’n Corena, the commander of the southern forces of FARC, warned Cable News Network (CNN) last week that if the government of Ecuador continued supporting the United States from the Manta base, it would become a military target itself.
Albion Monitor
March 27, 2000 (http://www.monitor.net/monitor) All Rights Reserved. Contact rights@monitor.net for permission to use in any format. |
