April 17, 2006

Coca Figures Make Evident the Failure of Plan Colombia

by Garry Leech

The U.S. government’s recently released annual survey of coca cultivation in Colombia makes evident that Plan Colombia is a failure. However, while the latest figures for 2005 are clearly unambiguous, the Bush administration is contorting itself in every which way to present them as positive. The U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) report reveals that there was 144,000 hectares of coca cultivation in Colombia in 2005, a 26 percent increase over the previous year’s 114,100 hectares. Despite the gloomy statistics, U.S. Drug Czar John Walters astoundingly insisted that Plan Colombia was succeeding in its objective to reduce coca cultivation.

When Plan Colombia was launched in 2000, the Clinton administration claimed it would achieve a 50 percent reduction in Colombian coca cultivation in five years. Coca cultivation that year was estimated to cover 136,200 hectares. After five years of aerial fumigation, Plan Colombia hasn’t even come close to halving cultivation. In fact, according to the newly released ONDCP report, there were more hectares under cultivation in 2005 than the year Plan Colombia was launched.

The ONDCP claims that the 2005 survey covered 81 percent more territory than in previous years. “The newly imaged areas show about 39,000 additional hectares of coca,” the report stated. It goes on to declare, “Because these areas were not previously surveyed, it is impossible to determine for how long they have been under coca cultivation. Because of this uncertainty and the significantly expanded survey area, a direct year-to-year comparison is not possible.”

This explanation may be convenient for the Bush administration, but it fails to address several important questions. For instance, why were the surveys for previous years not as comprehensive as 2005? And given that they were not as comprehensive, why did U.S. officials repeatedly emphasize the accuracy of past survey results indicating reductions in cultivation in 2002 and 2003? And doesn’t the fact that the Bush administration has now admitted that past surveys were not comprehensive discredit official claims that Plan Colombia succeeded in reducing Colombian coca cultivation in 2002 and 2003? Finally, isn’t it likely that some of the 39,000 hectares of coca cultivation discovered in the newly surveyed regions was also being cultivated during 2002 and 2003 when the ONDCP was trumpeting Plan Colombia’s successes?

While it may not be possible to make exact comparisons between the latest figures and those from previous years, certain patterns can be assumed. Firstly, as many critics of Plan Colombia have been pointing out since its inception, aerial fumigation conducted without parallel and effective alternative economic programs will only lead to the “balloon effect”—putting the squeeze on cultivation in one region will lead it to shift to another region, like the shifting of air in a squeezed balloon. And secondly, as long as demand remains relatively constant, impoverished peasants in the Andean Region will continue to cultivate coca while no viable economic alternatives exist.

When asked about Plan Colombia following the release of the ONDCP’s latest report, Drug Czar Walters stated: “The obvious question is, ‘Is it working?’ And I think the answer is obvious. Where there was no spraying cultivation was up, where spraying is occurring, cultivation is shrinking.” In other words, Plan Colombia is working in the regions in which it is being implemented. However, if we ignore the newly surveyed areas, there was still only an eight percent reduction in cultivation in the areas that were surveyed in both 2004 and 2005, despite record amounts of spraying last year. Consequently, even looking only at those regions surveyed in each of the past five years, it is clear that the United States has failed to come close to achieving its stated goal of reducing coca cultivation by 50 percent in five years.

Nevertheless, Walters seems to be suggesting that we only focus our measurement of succes and failure on those areas being targeted by aerial fumigation and ignore the consequences for surrounding regions. In this case, so goes ONDCP logic, Plan Colombia is clearly succeeding in reducing coca cultivation, albeit at a much slower than anticipated rate. Such an analysis, however, is akin to viewing a zero tolerance policy against crime as successful if it reduces the crime rate in one neighborhood while simultaneously increasing crime at a higher rate in an adjoining neighborhood.

Such a zero tolerance policy could only be viewed as successful if measured solely by the crime statistics in the original neighborhood while the increased crime rates in adjoining neighborhoods to which criminals have relocated are ignored. Some would no doubt claim that the solution to such a persistent crime problem does not rest in addressing motivating factors such as poverty and inequality, but in applying zero tolerance in every neighborhood. In effect, establishing some sort of police state.

The police state solution is what Walters is advocating for coca cultivation in Colombia: Aerial fumigation needs to be expanded to every region in which coca is being grown, while the socio-economic issues that lie at the root of the problem are mostly ignored. In other words, if we continuously fumigate every inch of Colombian territory that is suitable for coca cultivation then Plan Colombia will eventually succeed at some point in the distant future. But at what cost? Five years of Plan Colombia has cost U.S. taxpayers $4.7 billion, devastated the lives of thousands of Colombian farmers and led to increased deforestation as growers move deeper into the rainforest to escape the fumigations.

And what has Plan Colombia achieved? Despite the best efforts of the Bush administration to convince the public that Plan Colombia is working, all evidence illustrates that U.S. drug policy in Colombia has failed miserably in its attempts to halve coca cultivation in five years. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, it is becoming increasingly apparent that Plan Colombia is not financially, socially or environmentally sustainable.

Back to Top . Comments