What Happens After the Drug War

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March 6, 2000

What Happens After the "Drug War?"

by Garry Leech

If the United States ever wins the "drug war," the loser will be Colombia. History has shown that the United States has repeatedly spent extraordinary amounts of money to fight wars against communist and, currently, drug-related threats to "U.S. security." However, as soon as the threat has been neutralized, U.S. aid has a habit of diminishing rapidly. It is clear that when it comes to providing foreign aid, Washington has repeatedly decided that funding war is more important than funding peace.

In the 1980s, the Reagan Administration provided more than $5 billion of military and economic aid to fight "communism" in El Salvador. In 1992, the Salvadoran government and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas signed the peace accords that ended the civil war. Shortly after hostilities had ceased, the levels of U.S. aid to El Salvador began to plummet and a nation that had been left economically devastated by twelve years of war was forced to fend for itself.

Since the conclusion of the civil war, the diminishing U.S. economic aid and the imposition of neoliberal economic policies have resulted in massive unemployment and deteriorating living conditions for the impoverished majority of Salvadorans. Consequently, many desperate Salvadorans have found the huge surplus of war weaponry, much of it supplied by the United States, easily accessible, and the result has been a dramatic increase in violent crime throughout the country.

Economic conditions for many Salvadorans are worse now than before the war, but that is of little concern to Washington as long as El Salvador is no longer perceived as posing a political or economic threat to U.S. interests. Apparently, it is of little relevance to Washington that U.S. aid, training and weaponry were a major factor in the destruction of the Salvadoran economy and the death of more than 75,000 Salvadorans.

More recently, Bolivia has proven itself to be a staunch ally of the United States in the "drug war." The Bolivian government, as a result of U.S. economic pressure, has deployed the military against its own people in order to help eradicate illegal coca production. It is a strategy that the United States, while all too willing to impose it on the people of Latin America, would never consider employing to fight the drug war on the streets of U.S. cities.

According to Washington, the Bolivian military has been winning the drug war in that nation's coca growing regions. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) claims that Bolivia has successfully eliminated 55% of the illegal coca fields in the last 30 months, however, it has become a victim of its own success. Washington recently rewarded Bolivia by reneging on a promised increase in aid from the $68 million provided in 1999.

With the massive $1.3 billion aid package to Colombia in mind, Bolivian Interior Minister Walter Guiteras pointed out that it is apparently necessary to have guerrillas and coca fields in order to receive U.S. aid. U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey confirmed Guiteras's statements when he stated that the smaller amount of aid being given to Bolivia and Peru is a result of their success in coca eradication. However, the "success" of a U.S. funded military assault on the Bolivian peasant coca growing population has resulted in ever-increasing social instability, largely due to the economic depravation faced by peasants who have not been provided with viable alternatives in order to support themselves and their families.

The same military strategy is being applied in Colombia where the cultivation of coca is the only means of economic survival for many peasants. Many Colombians view the drug problem as a North American problem. They claim that the huge demand for drugs in the United States stimulates the high levels of production and trafficking. The United States, on the other hand, views Colombia as the principal cause of the U.S. domestic drug problem. If Colombia, based on its role as the principal supplier, can be accused of being largely responsible for U.S. drug consumption; then conversely, Colombians should be able to hold the United States, the world's principal exporter of arms, largely responsible for the violence in Colombia.

Colombian government and military officials are benefiting from enormous amounts of U.S. aid and weaponry because of their inability to reduce coca production and defeat the insurgent threat. If these Colombian officials have been paying attention to recent U.S. foreign policy in the region, they probably realize that a victory in the drug war and the civil war will only result in a drastic decrease in U.S. funding.

Colombia's civil war has resulted in 35,000 deaths in the last decade, more than 1.5 million refugees and the economy sinking to its lowest point since the Great Depression. Clearly, it is when the hostilities come to an end that Colombia is going to need huge amounts of U.S. aid if it is to deal successfully with the social and economic ills that have been both a cause and a consequence of the war.

If the examples of El Salvador and Bolivia are anything to go by, huge amounts of U.S. weaponry will continue to flow into Colombia until the drug war and the civil war are resolved. However, as soon as victory is achieved and the United States no longer views the events in Colombia as a threat to its interests, the Colombian government and its people will most likely be abandoned to pick up the pieces alone. History has made it clear that the United States has no qualms about providing huge amounts of military funding and hardware to aid in the destruction of a country such as Colombia. History has also illustrated how rapidly the United States loses interest in a country once the war is over.

Meanwhile, the aid and often-repeated statements in support of a people's right to live a free and democratic life, so prevalent during times of conflict, soon evaporate when hostilities end and the real opportunity to aid in the creation of such a society presents itself.

This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).