wola's cautionary tale - plan colombia and plan merida

8/3/2019 WOLA's Cautionary Tale - Plan Colombia and Plan Merida

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A Cautionary Tale:Plan Colombias Lessons for U.S. Policy

Toward Mexico and Beyond

Latin America

Working Group

Education Fund

NOVEMBER 2

A joint publication of the Latin America

Working Group Education Fund, the

Center for International Policy, and the

Washington Ofce on Latin America

By Lisa Haugaard, Adam Isacson and Jennifer Johnson

CENTER FOR

INTERNATIONAL

POLICY

Working in Washington on U.S. policy towards

Colombia since 1998, we have been in ring-side

seats observing and participating in debates on

the U.S. aid program and policy known as Plan

Colombia. As we watched another massive multi-

year counternarcotics package, the Mrida Initiative

for Mexico and Central America, and as we

advocated for an approach that protected human

rights, we wanted to share some of the lessons we

have learned. Although there are some positive

lessons, it is mainly a cautionary tale.

Lisa Haugaard and Adam Isacson

The Mrida Initiative Launches

In December 2006, Felipe Caldern began hispresidency with a virtual declaration of war. As the

new President of Mexico, his electoral mandatewas weak after having barely won a plurality of thevote, less than a single percentage point over hisopponent, Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador. Seekingto bolster popular support and legitimacy, he seizedon a political initiative engineered to take on one ofMexicans central concernsviolence linked to drugtrafcking and the countrys deteriorating publicsecurity crisis.

More cocaine was transiting through Mexico fromAndean source countries to U.S. drug users, and

Mexican criminal organizations had taken over thehighly lucrative business of transporting the drugs tothe United States, supplanting Colombias weakened

cartels. Violence between these organized crimegroups, and their deep inltration and corruptionof government institutions, were approachingemergency levels in several regions of thecountry.

Drug and organized crime-related violence killedover 2,000 Mexicans in 2006, roughly doublingthe annual number of killings attributed toorganized crime just 5 years earlier.1 Opinionpolls routinely showed security outranking theeconomy and corruption among the Mexicanpeoples concerns.2 The impact of drug andgang violence on peoples lives, and thelikelihood of being extorted or kidnapped bycriminal groups branching out from the drugtrade, was growing rapidly.

President Caldern announced that his

administration would turn to Mexicos armedforces to ght the countrys criminal networks.Mexicos military had been assigned this internalpolicing role decades ago, but its engagementhad never been as far-reaching as what the newpresident proposed. Recognizing that Mexicosfederal, state and local police forces wereoutgunned and hobbled by their own corruptionand lack of professional training, equipment,and capacity to carry out complex operations,Calderns government deployed whatwould grow to about 45,000 federal troops,

supplemented by federal police, to the streets ofcities and the roads of regions hard hit by drugtrafcking-related violence. This was a dramatic


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2 A Cautionary Tale

Lessons from Plan Colombia forU.S. Policy towards Mexico, and Beyond

1. Clean your own house. The United States undermines its own strategy when it failsto invest in prevention and treatment to reduce domestic drug demanda far moreeffective and humane strategy than any supply-reduction approach. The United Stateshas also failed to stop the illegal ow of arms into Mexico, act aggressively againstmoney laundering, or pass comprehensive immigration reform. These essential domesticmeasures require confronting powerful constituencies, but there is no other option.

2. Ensure that every element of an aid strategy seeks to strengthen civilian government,

curtail impunity, or create opportunity for excluded sectors. Extending governmentpresence cannot simply mean militarily occupying territory. If government representativesabuse human rights or engage in corruption with impunity, their presence could do moreharm than good. Aid strategies must directly benet the most vulnerable people.

3. Know whom you are working with. Corruption and inltration by illegal groups ororganized crime is a constant threat. But so is a sense that partner nations elites lack thepolitical will to do the job effectively and with full respect for human rights, or when theyfail to make the necessary nancial sacrices. A binational partnership should not be amarriage: maintain critical distance.

4. Know whom you are opposing. Lack of clarity about the adversary can paralyze theresponse, or can lead to an unbalanced approach that ignores some of the maingenerators of violence.

5. Dont militarize. The United States should not promote internal roles for militaries,violating the rules that guide it at home and putting human and civil rights in jeopardy.Instead, the United States should support and encourage strategies that strengthencivilian capacitiesparticularly public security, criminal investigations, and provision ofbasic services.

6. Measure the results that matter. Dont confuse process goals, like number of hectares ofcoca sprayed, with actual results, like the harm that illegal drugs do to our societies.

7. Know this: With U.S. military aid, human rights abuses may increase. The right choiceis simply: do not fund an abusive military. But if the United States does choose to trainand fund a military with a history of abuses, it has an absolute obligation to press fora climate that supports human rights. This includes demanding an end to impunity formilitary abuses, and urging promotion and incentive policies that reward respect for

human rights. It is not just about providing human rights training.

8. Strengthening justice is essential, but pay attention to political will. Pouring resourcesinto the judicial sector is not enough. Programs must be adapted to the specic situation,and accompanied by regular evaluations and benchmarks aimed at reducing impunity.Aid must be paired with tough diplomacy to ensure results.

9. Human rights conditions are a awed but useful tool. Country-specic conditions tiedto security assistance are essential to ensure that the important perspectives of humanrights groups are taken into account.


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The Mrida Initiative Launches 3

expansion of the military deployment throughOperativo Mexico Seguro (Operation SafeMexico) initiated by Calderns predecessor,Vicente Fox.3

In Washington, the Bush administrationapplauded President Calderns effort. Bythe end of 2007, the U.S. and Mexicangovernments had agreed on a $1.4 billion,three-year package of U.S. aid, three-quartersof it for Mexicos military and police forces.The package was called the Mrida Initiative,named for the southern Mexican city wherethe two presidents met in March 2007 to

commit to deeper anti-drug cooperation. Dueto long-standing sensitivities about sovereigntyand distrust of U.S. intervention in Mexico,the Caldern and Bush administrations tookpains to present this package not as U.S.meddling in Mexican affairs, but instead anacknowledgment of co-responsibility by theUnited States and a Mexican-initiated requestfor intensied cooperation.

Yet at rst, the U.S. and Mexican mediacalled the package Plan Mexico.4 They were

referring to a 2000 aid package to Colombia, acontribution toward an anti-drug strategy knownas Plan Colombia, which provided a frameworkfor $8 billion in mostly military-police aid to thatcountry over the following decade. Plan Colombiahas been controversial because of its mixedresults and the severe human rights abuses thatColombias U.S.-aided security forces committed.With another heavily military package on theway to Mexico, it looked like the Plan Colombiaexperience was about to repeat itself.

Indeed, both the Caldern and Bushadministrations may have had Colombia in mind.The Mexican president was doubtless awareof the results that Colombian President lvaroUribe had achievedon the battleeld and inthe pollswith a military offensive he launchedagainst guerrilla groups after his 2002 election.But the Mexican government and civil societygroups alike were wary of a name that suggesteddirect U.S. intervention in Mexican affairs. InWashington, meanwhile, many ofcials andanalysts portrayed Plan Colombia as a successto be replicated in U.S. policy toward Mexico.

Nearly four years after the Mrida Initiativelaunched, meaningful improvements in publicsecurity have not been achieved. Rather thanstemming the violence, the capture or killingof dozens of major organized crime leaders hasmade violence more generalized. Organizedcrime groups, their numbers proliferating fromapproximately six national confederations totwelve today, have taken on the state and eachother in a war of all against all.5 The removalof cartel leaders has caused the groups tofragment, triggering new power struggles that

have multiplied the violence.

Since Caldern launched the anti-carteloffensive in December 2006, drug andorganized crime-related violence has killedabout 40,000 people in Mexico. Organizedcrime has moved into other illegal activities forprot. Extortion of small and large businessesalike have skyrocketed, pushing many to closedoors or, in cities like Ciudad Jurez, to ee.Kidnappings for ransom have exploded. Cartels

10. Even positive human rights and development activities can get subsumed to military

goals. U.S. policymakers must take care to ensure that civilian agencies and programsare not subordinated and undermined by military agencies and priorities.

11. U.S. intelligence assistance, even when provided for legitimate purposes, may be used

for criminal ends. Congress must conduct far more vigorous oversight to ensure thatintelligence support does not undermine democratic values.

12. First and foremost, protect the population. As the U.S. and partner governments seekto combat drug trafcking cartels or insurgents, protecting the population is often low ontheir list of objectives. It should be at the top.


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4 A Cautionary Tale

have taken control of human trafcking inmany border zones and migrant travel routes,kidnapping, extorting and murdering tens ofthousands of migrants, many from CentralAmerica. Routes leading up to the U.S. borderhave become notoriously dangerous, and

criminal groups now compete for control ofcities ever more distant from the border.

The army, meanwhile, is the subject ofan escalating number of reports of humanrights abuses. Mexicos National HumanRights Commission (Comisin Nacional delos Derechos Humanos, or CNDH) receivedover 4,772 reports of human rights-relatedcomplaints committed by members of themilitary from when Caldern assumed thepresidency in December 2006 until March2011.6 These violationswhich includearbitrary detention, torture and unlawfulkillingsreect an increase of roughly 1000percent in alleged abuses during the rst threeyears of President Calderns administration.Moreover, impunity for security force abuses,whether by the army or by the police, is thenorm. According to ofcial data, only a singlemilitary human rights violation committedduring this time period has resulted in aconviction, when a soldier was found guilty ofkilling a civilian who failed to stop at a military

checkpoint and was sentenced in military courtto nine months of prison.7

By 2011, Calderons drug-war approach hadbecome unpopular in Mexico, as communitiesin the northern border region and central Mexicowere suffering brutally escalated violence andincreased citizen security force abuses withoutseeing an increase in citizen security. Growingfrustration was reected in opinion pollsindicating 49 percent of Mexicans felt that the

governments efforts against organized crime hadbeen a failure.8 A series of mass mobilizations inmid-2011 were spurred by the murder of sevenyoung people in Cuernavaca, Morelos, one ofwhom was the son of acclaimed Mexican poetand author Javier Sicilia. Upon hearing the news

that his 24-year-old son had been murdered,Sicilia called for nationwide demonstrations in astirring open letter to Mexicos politicians andcriminals, declaring that we will go out into thestreet: because we do not want one more child,one more son, assassinated.

Open Letter from Poet Javier SiciliaUpon the Death of his Son

We have had it up to here with you,

politicians... because in your ght for

power you have torn apart the fabric ofthe nation. Because in the middle of

this poorly designed, poorly managed,

poorly led war that has put the country

in a state of emergency, you have been

incapable of creating the consensus

that the nation needs to nd unity

We have had it up to here because the

corruption of the judicial institutions

generates the complicity with crime and

the impunity to commit it We have

had it up to here because you only have

imagination for violence, for weapons,

for insults We have had it up to here

because the citizenry has lost condence

in its governors, its police, its army, and is

afraid and in pain.

Sicilias grief and cry of indignation resonatedwith Mexicans across the country and provedto be a catalyst for unied action.9 A growingmovement of Mexican civil society, ranging

from business leaders to intellectuals, youthand womens organizations to religious leaders,called for No Mas Sangre (No More Bloodshed).Victims groups, frustrated because their lovedones are too often framed by authorities as merestatistics or collateral damage, or blamed forbeing involved in drug trafcking themselves,are playing a pivotal role in this movement.

This anger was given an even more public stagewhen Javier Sicilia and other leaders from the

Mexicos National Human Rights Commission

received over 4,772 reports of human rights-

related complaints committed by members of

the military from when Caldern assumed the

presidency in December 2006 until March 2011.


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The United States Weighs Its Options 5

Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity(Movimiento por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad)

participated in a televised meeting with PresidentCaldern in June 2011. Leaders and victimsfamily members shared their personal storiesof loss, anger and frustrationand urged theadministration to shift its offensive on organizedcrime away from showy captures and dramaticactions towards a focus on protecting citizens.

The United States Weighs Its OptionsThe U.S. governments concern with theviolence in Mexico is growing. It continues todeliver hundreds of millions of dollars worth ofaid within the Mrida Initiative framework, anddespite the U.S. budget crunch it appears thatnew aid will continue to be approved.

The U.S. government has not settled on oneapproach in terms of the kinds of aid provided.

After a focus on big-ticket equipment such ashelicopters in the initial aid package, FY2010assistance placed more emphasis on rule oflaw, including judicial assistance, a shift forwhich our organizations advocated. But thenal FY2011 package cut proposed nonmilitaryassistance, shifting the balance back towardsthe military side of the scale while reducingoverall amounts.

Beyond the assistance described in the

accompanying chart, there also are intelligenceand other kinds of security support that arenot easily traceable in foreign aid budgets.The New York Times recently reported,The United States is expanding its role inMexicos bloody ght against drug trafckingorganizations, sending new C.I.A. operativesand retired military personnel to the countryand considering plans to deploy private securitycontractors in hopes of turning around amultibillion-dollar effort that so far has shown

1,000,0000,000

900,0000,000

800,0000,000

700,0000,000

600,0000,000

500,0000,000

400,0000,000

300,0000,000

200,0000,000

100,0000,000

01998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

U.S. Aid to Colombia and Mexico, 1998-2011

Source: Just the Facts aid database: www.justf.org

n Colombia Economic and Institution-Building

n Colombia Military and Police

n Mexico Economic and Institution-Building

n Mexico Military and Police

Plan Colombia Begins

Mrida Initiative

(U.S.

Dollars)


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6 A Cautionary Tale

few results.10 The Times notes that the U.S.government is sending unmanned drones overMexican territory to capture video of smugglingroutes, and is ying manned planes witheavesdropping capacity. The Washington Postreports that Mexico is at the top of its wish

list for the U.S. militarys Special OperationsJoint Command, although so far the Mexicangovernment, whose constitution limits contactwith the U.S. military, is relying on the otherfederal agenciesthe CIA, the Departmentof Homeland Security, the Drug EnforcementAdministration and Immigration and CustomsEnforcementfor intelligence collection andother help.11

Some voices in the Washington debate wantto ramp up military, police, and even counter-

insurgency aid to Mexico. These includecongressional Republicans and commentatorswho are pushing for a U.S. policy that treatsMexicos criminal groups like terrorists orinsurgents. Others distrust any non-militaryassistance, arguing that Mexicos institutionsare hopelessly corrupt and dysfunctional,instead advocating more funds for U.S.-side border security efforts. As despair overMexicos lack of progress against violencemounts, those who liken its challenges toterrorism or insurgencyand thus favora counter-terror or counterinsurgencyapproachcontinue to point to Plan Colombiaas a model for how to proceed.

U.S. policymakers desire for Mexicosleadership to come together on a coherent,comprehensive strategy is understandable.But the idea of Colombia as an example tofollow is troubling. The success of the pastseveral years in Colombia is only a partial, andfragile, victory at bestand it has come at an

unacceptably high human and institutionalcost. Meanwhile the Colombian and Mexicancontexts are wildly different. The blueprintand strategy behind the Colombia aid packagemakes little sense when applied to Mexico.

Plan Colombia does carry a host of lessons forU.S. policy toward Mexico, Central Americaand other areas of the world. These lessons,though, are not the ones that the PlanColombia is a model crowd might expect to

draw from the Colombia experience. Especiallywhere human rights are concerned, it is mainlya cautionary tale.

Plan Colombias ResultsIn July 2000, the U.S. Congress approvedthe Clinton administrations request for $1.3billion in emergency aid to Colombia andits neighbors. Of the initial $860 million forColombia, three-quarters went to the countryssecurity forces. Over the next ten years,successive U.S. administrations would provideColombia with an additional $6.5 billion, withthe same three-quarters going to Colombiasarmy, navy, air force and police.

As the Clinton Administration launched U.S.support for Plan Colombia in 2000, Colombiawas aame. The government of PresidentAndrs Pastrana was making no progressin talks with leftist guerrilla groups, whosecombined strength exceeded 20,000. Theyand a similar number of pro-governmentparamilitary militias massacred, disappeared,displaced, and indiscriminately bombed tensof thousands of Colombian civilians each year,while the military and police stood accused notjust of their own murders and tortures, but ofwidespread collaboration with the brutal, drug-funded paramilitaries. The likelihood of beingone of nearly 3,000 yearly kidnap victimshad made road travel between major citiesimpossible, while Colombia produced three-quarters of the worlds supply of cocaine andcoca, the plant used to produce it.

By 2002, peace talks with the FARC andELN guerrillas had fallen apart. Colombianselected a new president, lvaro Uribe, who

promised to take the ght to the guerrillas.His Democratic Security policy ratchetedup Colombias military budget, with a specialtax on the wealthiest, increased the size ofthe security forces by about two-thirds, andsent them on a nationwide anti-guerrillaoffensive. Non-combatants were encouragedto get involved in the conict by providingintelligence about guerrilla activity in exchangefor rewards. Uribes government negotiated adeal with the pro-government paramilitaries:


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Plan Colombias Results 7

if they agreed to demobilize, most would beamnestied and the worst abusers would haveto confess and serve light sentences. PresidentUribe defended the military from all criticism.In the presidents discourse, those whodenounced military human rights abuse were

sympathizers of the guerrillaswords thatput human rights defenders, journalists andopposition politicians in danger.

The Bush administration, which was in theprocess of delivering Plan Colombia aid, wasdelighted to have a partner who shared itsgoals. U.S. assistance paid for a massivecampaign to eradicate coca by sprayingherbicides from aircraft, as well as cocaineinterdiction programs, an effort to protectan oil pipeline from guerrilla bombings, the

creation of mobile military units, adjustmentsto Colombian doctrine and strategy, andby the mid-2000saccompaniment oflarge-scale anti-guerrilla military offensives.This aid included the delivery of about 90helicopters, the spraying of 3.2 millionacres of Colombian territory with herbicides,and the training of over 70,000 Colombianmilitary and police personnel.

This massive investments results onreducing coca production are mixed. ThoughU.S. and UN estimates differ, both sourcesshow a similar trend: coca and cocainecultivation have been dropping in Colombiain the last several years, after severalyears of increases. The most importantreductions have occurred since about 2007,however, after the fumigation programthecenterpiece of Plan Colombia at its outsetbegan to be scaled back in favor of effortsto increase the governments on-the-groundpresence in coca-growing zones. Still,

Colombia remains the worlds number-oneproducer of coca and cocaine, and Mexicanofcials say publicly that the ow of cocainefrom the Andes has not changed noticeably.While much of their product now ends upquickly in the hands of Mexican cartels,Colombias drug syndicates, which includenew paramilitaries and guerrilla fronts aswell as narco-criminals, continue exercisingeconomic power, and corrupting thegovernment, in much of the country.

If you look at Plan Colombias impact on the

total tonnage of drugs that go to the market of

international consumers, or the total number of

hectares of coca in Colombia, I think that without

risk of angering our Colombian friends we can say

that Plan Colombia has not had an impact on the

mitigation of production or trafcking.

Arturo Sarukhan, ambassador of Mexico to the United States,

May 2011.12

Global Cocaine Flows, 1998 and 2008

Source: UNODC World Drug Report 2009 and UNODCcalculations informed by US ONDCP. Cocaine ConsumptionEstimates Methodology, September 2008 (internal paper).

26763

12

9

14

17

165126


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8 A Cautionary Tale

The U.S. and Colombian governments maintainthat Plan Colombia has led to a reduction inviolence. Comparing the violence now to thelevels of the 1990s, it is evident that Colombiassituation has improved in many areas ofthe country. Kidnappings have been deeplycurtailed, and government statistics show thathomicides were reduced by a thirdthoughColombias murder rate of 34 per 100,000residents is still nearly double Mexicos. TheFARC and ELN have seen their numbersreduced by more than half, and their ability to

abuse the population has been reduced as theyhave been pushed into more remote areas. Theparamilitary umbrella organization dominant adecade ago, the United Self-Defense Forces ofColombia (AUC), has disbanded.

But this simple before-and-after comparison isnot the full human rights story. First, comparingthe 1990s to today leaves out the violence andhuman rights abuses that took place during theU.S.-funded Plan Colombia. From 2000-2004,

paramilitary violence, often with collaborationby the army, spiraled tragically upwards. Thesewere nightmare years for many living in ruralareas, with massacres, selected killings, and thehigh peak of forced disappearances.13 Between2000 and 2010, over 3 million people weredriven from their homes by violence.14 Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities weredisproportionately affected by displacementand human rights abuses, to devastating effect:Thirty-two indigenous groups are on the vergeof extinction, and Afro-Colombian communities

make up a disproportionate share of thedisplaced and the dispossessed. An estimated12,800 women may have been raped by illegalarmed actors, over 1,900 of them raped bymembers of the army, according to one survey.15Under pressure to produce high body counts,soldiers allegedly murdered more than 3,000civilians, the vast majority between 2004 to2008.16 In this false positives scandal, soldiersdressed their victims in guerrilla uniforms andclaimed them as killed in battle. Institutions

Coca Cultivation and Eradication

250,000

187,500

125,500

62,500

0

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

n Aerial Eradication n Manual Eradication Coca Cultivation

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Areial Eradication 43,246 47,371 84,251 122,695 132,817 136,555 138,775 171,613 153,133 133,496 104,771 101,000

Manual Eradication 0 0 0 0 0 10,991 31,285 42,111 66,805 95,731 60,544 44,775

Coca Cultivation 122,500 136,200 169,800 144,400 113,850 114,100 144,000 157,200 167,000 119,000 116,000 116,000

Source: U.S. State Department International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports.


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The Contexts 9

of government were corrupted and democracyundermined as members of Congress, manylinked to the governing coalition, colluded withparamilitary leaders. The Uribe administrationspresidential intelligence agency spied on andthreatened members of the Supreme Court,

Constitutional Court, journalists, unions andhuman rights groups.

Second, some of the security gains maybe transitory. While the guerrillas scope ofoperations has been reduced, both groupscombined strength is still about 10,000 andthey carry out attacks on a daily basis. In 2010,guerrilla actions killed over 450 Colombianmilitary and police personnel, about the samenumber as 2002. Thousands of former AUCparamilitaries or new ghters have taken

up arms again, in a proliferation of newparamilitary groups that kill and intimidate anywho stand in the way of their narcotrafckingand large-scale theft of agricultural land. Thereare now ve or six major groupings of newparamilitaries, totaling 4,000 to 10,000members.17 Their increasing activity underliesa leveling-off or reversal in Colombias drop inviolence. Many parts of the country, includingmajor cities like Bogot, Medelln and Cali,have seen murder rates creeping back upsince 2008.18

The failure to achieve justice in these cases isone factor allowing violence to spiral anew. TheJustice and Peace law governing demobilizationof paramilitaries established reduced sentencesfor paramilitaries who confessed to majorcrimes, but only four leaders have actuallybeen convicted for mass atrocities, receivingeight-year alternative sentences. Nearlythirty of the AUC leaders were extraditedto the United States to face drug-trafcking

charges,19

undercutting efforts to have themface some limited justice for mass atrocities.The Colombian government failed to effectivelyuse the demobilization to dismantle theparamilitaries political and nancial supportnetworks. While the Santos Administration thattook ofce in August 2010 has acknowledgedthe expanding paramilitary successor groupsas a problem, it has not yet been able tosuccessfully direct the security forces to devoteequal time to confronting these groups and

protecting communities at risk from theirviolence.

As of 2011, the human rights situation issomewhat improved but still grim. While thenew paramilitaries violence is increasing, it

is not to the levels of the AUC, and guerrillacapacity to inict damage to civilians isreduced. Extrajudicial executions allegedlycommitted by the army have been reduced.The Santos Administration has decidedly turnedaway from rhetoric that placed human rightsactivists in danger, and shepherded throughCongress a landmark victims law that promisesto provide reparations and land return to victimsof all actors in the conict.

Still, conict-related violence kills nearly a

thousand people each year and displaceshundreds of thousands from their homes,paramilitary successor groups have regroupedand continue to devastate communities, threatsand attacks against human rights defendersand community leaders, especially landrights leaders, have escalated, and humanrights abuses are still rarely investigated andpunished. The civilian justice systems efforts toinvestigate and punish extrajudicial killings havebeen slow, often facing erce resistance fromthe U.S.-aided military.

The Contexts

Plan Colombias mixed results should givepause to any who would view it as a model forapplication in Mexico or Central America. Still,Colombia is the only Latin American countryto have signicantly reduced violent crimein the past ten years, so the Plan Colombiaand Democratic Security recipes may appear

tempting to policymakers. The contexts are sodifferent, though, that it would make little senseto prepare the same ingredients in the sameway in Mexico or Central America.

Yes, there are some similarities. These countrieshave some of the worlds most unequaldistributions of wealth. They suffer from arelated phenomenon of chronic impunity:corruption, violence and human rights abusehave rarely been punished when committed


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10 A Cautionary Tale

by the powerful few; this low probability ofpunishment allowed the drug trade to take rootwith little initial resistance.

But the contexts similarities largely end there.The territorial nature of the violence, and itsrelationship to the government, are different.Colombia is a democratic state with a weakpresence in much of the national territory. Sincethe mid-1990sfollowing the demise of the bigdrug cartels discussed belowits main securitychallenge has been a mostly rural conictinvolving a leftist insurgency and rightwingparamilitary militia network, both funded bydrugs and organized as military structures. Theconict is worst in rural territories and urbanslums where national and local authoritiesnever bothered to govern, leaving a vacuum that

armed groups quickly lled.By contrast, Mexico is emerging from 70 yearsof authoritarian rule by a one-party governmentthat, through a combination of repression andco-optation, managed to be strongly presentin most of the national territory. This presencewas only rarely military: unlike their Colombiancounterparts, Mexicos secretive, aloof armedforces spent most of the 20th century outof the political and social arena, guarding

their institutional prerogatives and, in mostterritories, interacting infrequently with citizens.Though the civilian state and police werephysically present, they tended to be so easilycorrupted that organized crime penetrated manyinstitutions, especially along key trafckingcorridors like main roads and populationcenters. As a result, organized crimes powerand violenceis most keenly felt in areas, likemajor border cities, where the governmentis already present. While some parts of ruralMexico are dangerous, particularly trafckingcorridors and zones of marijuana cultivation, thegeographic coverage, participation and impactof Mexicos insurgency or paramilitary networkshave been far less than those of Colombias inrecent decades, with a presence notable in onlycertain regions of central and southern Mexico.

If anything, levels of violence and entrenchedcorruption in regions of Mexico today bearsome resemblance to Colombia long before thePlan Colombia years, during the late 1980sand early 1990s. It is important to rememberthat Plan Colombia, the strategy launched in2000, was not an anti-cartel effort. By the timePlan Colombia came about, Colombias era ofbig drug cartels was already over. Instead, PlanColombia in its initial incarnation focused on

Policymakers See Plan Colombia as Model

I see the same kinds of challenges in Afghanistan, and I also see them in Mexico. And

theres a great deal to be learned from the success that has been seen here in Colombia.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, on a June 2010 visit to Colombia.

I know that Plan Colombia was controversial. I was just in Colombia and there were

problems and there were mistakes, but it worked. And we need to gure out what are the

equivalents for Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, September 8, 2010.

There are lessons that have been learned in Colombia over the past 10 years, some of

which can be applied to Mexico. The logic is that Colombia can serve as a trainer and

supporter of Mexico and the Mrida Initiative in this regard.

Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Control William Browneld, interviewed by theHouston Chronicle in June 2010, when he served as U.S. ambassador in Colombia.


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The Contexts 11

eradicating illicit crop cultivation, increasingdrug interdiction, and improving the securityforces ability to confront guerrillas.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Colombiawas experiencing levels of violence nearly as

critical as those of the Plan Colombia perioda decade later. During this earlier period,the worst of the violence was taking place inpopulated areas and key trafcking corridors,much like Mexico today.

At the time, guerrillas were viewed as arelatively low-level problem. The SovietUnion was collapsing, leftist guerrilla groupswere negotiating peace deals throughoutthe Americas, and those that remained inColombias countrysidethe FARC and ELN,

which got little money from drugs at the timewere expected to fade away. The most urgentproblem on Colombian and U.S. leaders mindswere the big drug cartels, which acted likeillegal multinational corporations.

Pablo Escobars Medelln cartel and theRodrguez Orejuela brothers Cali cartelamassed great wealth and power, operatingbrazenly in zones that appeared to be under thegovernments control. They did so by corruptinggovernment institutions: the security forces, thejudiciary, and local ofcials. Elite, Bogot-basedpolice units hunting for fugitive Pablo Escobarwent to great lengths to keep regular Medellnpolice at a distance, as they were widely viewedas controlled by the narcos (the police SearchBloc hunting Escobar, wrote journalist MarkBowden in his 2001 book Killing Pablo, didntdare ask the Medelln police for help, becauseit was known to be largely on the cartelspayroll).20 The Caldern government has facedsimilar challenges in Mexico today, as many

state and municipal police units appear to havebeen thoroughly penetrated (or outgunned andthreatened into submission) by the countrys bigtrafcking organizations.

Violence levels steadily rose as the Medellnand Cali cartels fought each other. Then, asthe United States prodded Colombias stateto do more to confront themand especiallyto extradite their leaders the cartels beganaiming their attacks at the state and civilians.

Escobars anti-extradition campaign, whichincluded terrorist acts ranging from car bombsto blowing up aircraft to assassinating leadingpresidential candidates, claimed thousandsof civilian lives. As in Mexico today, thegovernments decision to kick the hornets nest

brought a sharp rise in violence.

By 1995, however, Escobar and most of histop henchmen were dead or in jail, and theRodrguez Orejuela brothers had been captured.The Medelln and Cali cartels were decapitatedand dismantled.

What took the cartels down was not the PlanColombia model of crop eradication combinedwith shock and awe military offensives.Dozens of helicopters were not needed. All of

that came much later. What did the job in theearly 1990s was:

n Intelligence work carried out by heavily vettedpolice units, almost a police within a policedue to a lack of trust in the larger, corruptedregular security forces. Colombias NationalPolice underwent a major purge later, in themid-1990s. This improved its reputationand lowered corruption levels, though policecorruption at the local level remains a veryserious challenge today.

n Units within the justice system, includinga prosecutor-generals ofce (Fiscala)empowered by a new (1991) constitution,played an instrumental role in building casesand unraveling networks.

n Colombias armed forces, which stronglypreferred to focus on the guerrilla war,played only a minimal role, devoting only asmall share of their resources to the cartel

ght. Unlike Mexico today, Colombia neversent the soldiers into the streets with thesame policing powers, or with the goal ofsupplanting local police.

Of course, as Mexico may yet nd, bringingdown the cartels proved to be a hollow victoryfor Colombia. The Medelln and Cali cartelsmid-1990s disappearance registered as littlemore than a blip on cocaine supplies, pricesor purity levels in the U.S. drug market.


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U.S. addicts voracious demand for cocainepersisted, as access to drug treatment remainedinsufcient at home. The absence of Colombiasstate, and its corruption at the local level,persisted as well. As a result, smaller drug-trafcking structures, plus guerrillas and

paramilitaries, rushed to ll the vacuum.

Colombia found itself confronting dozens ofbaby cartels, small trafcking organizationsthat, while lacking the fallen cartelsmultinational reach, maintained violent controlover production or trafcking in specic zones.Today, Mexico may be on the verge of its ownmicro-cartel phenomenon as big criminalsyndicates, their top leaders arrested or killed,are fragmenting. Analyst Eduardo Guerrerocounted six principal cartels in Mexico in 2007;

by 2010, as cartels suffer schisms betweenmid-level leaders, he found twelve major groupsand a host of smaller bands.21 Journalist PatrickCorcoran calls it the dominance of a handful ofhegemonic groups replaced by a criminal free-for-all.22

With the cartels gone, Colombias violencetook on a whole new form as the FARC andthe paramilitaries got more deeply involvedin the more lucrative parts of the drug trade,production and transshipment. They encouraged

coca-growing in the territories they controlled,and gained control of processing laboratories andshipping routes. This quickly brought them atorrent of cash; both the FARC and AUC roughlyquadrupled in size during the 1990s. Thedecades-old conict escalated sharply, takingviolence levels to new heights and spurring thehemispheres worst humanitarian crisis.

Plan Colombia was developed to take on thatform of the problem, and as weve seen, it

achieved only mixed results. The strategiesthat Colombia pursued in its earlier cartelperiodspecialized police units, intelligenceimprovements, efforts to increase police andjudicial capacities, and a minimal militaryroleachieved their immediate goal of toppling

the big drug organizations, but failed to reduceeither drug supplies or levels of violence.

Instead of a model to be emulated, Colombia

whether in its Plan Colombia phase or its

earlier anti-cartel phaseis an experience from

which to draw lessons. Often, we would do wellto learn from something that was not done, orthat had a damaging impact, in Colombia.

Several of these lessons have to do with theoverall strategy:

1. Clean your own house.

2. Ensure that every element of an aid strategyseeks to strengthen civilian government,curtail impunity, or create opportunity forexcluded sectors.

3. Know whom you are working with.

4. Know whom you are opposing.

5. Dont militarize.

6. Measure the results that matter.Several more have to do with the strategysimpact on human rights:

7. Know this: With U.S. military aid, humanrights abuses may increase.

8. Strengthening justice is essential, but payattention to political will.

9. Human rights conditions are a awed butuseful tool.

10. Even positive human rights anddevelopment activities can get subsumed tomilitary goals.

11. U.S. intelligence assistance, even whenprovided for legitimate purposes, may beused for criminal ends.

12. First and foremost, protect the population.

The rest of this publication will discuss theselessons.

The United States is letting Colombia, Mexico

and Central America down when it fails to act

on drug treatment, arms-trafcking control, andmoney laundering.


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Six Lessons for the Overall Strategy 13

Six Lessons for the Overall Strategy

1. Clean Your Own House.

The United States domestic drug demand-reduction efforts were always viewed as

peripheral to Plan Colombia. Though anincreasing body of studies tells us thataccess to drug treatment is the most cost-effective way to reduce demand, the Bushadministration oversaw a slight reduction in thefederal drug-treatment budget during the PlanColombia years.23 While policymakers routinelyacknowledged the necessity of drug treatmentprograms, these are administered by an entirelydifferent bureaucracy (Health and HumanServices) and funded by entirely differentcongressional committees. Plan Colombia

and drug treatment were never combined ascomponents of a coherent approach. Andpolicymakers have never seriously consideredthe advantages of moving towards a publichealth, rather than a criminal justice, approachtowards illicit drug users.

As a result, while cocaine use in the UnitedStates has declined over the past 20 years asusers preferences have shifted, the United Statesis still the number-one consuming country. U.S.users consumed approximately 36 percent of theworlds supply of cocaine in 2010, according tothe UN Ofce on Drugs and Crimemore thanall of West and Central Europe.24

Americas failure to clean its house is perhapseven more evident in the non-response toone of Mexicos chief requests: that the U.S.government do more to control the southboundow of rearms trafcked from the United Statesinto criminals hands in Mexico. When PresidentCaldern addressed a joint session of the U.S.

Congress in May 2010, he underscored thatthere is one issue where Mexico needs yourcooperation. And that is stopping the ow ofassault weapons and other deadly arms acrossthe border. He urged legislators to renew thefederal assault weapons ban that expired in2004.

U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms andExplosives (ATF) data revealed in June 2011tell us that 70 percent of guns that Mexican

authorities captured at crime scenes in 2009and 2010 came from the United States, mostof them purchased at gun shops and gun showsin border states.25 The Obama administrationnally took a small step forward to address thiscritical issue, with President Obama announcing

in July 2011 a new requirement that obligatesrearms dealers in the four southwest borderstates to report to the ATF if an individualtries to purchase two or more semi-automaticries over a ve-day period. The outcry fromMexico in response to the controversial ATFgun trafcking sting, Operation Fast andFurious,26 has drawn attention to not just thestaggering number of rearms that ow overthe U.S. southwest border, but to loopholes andshortcomings in U.S. policies regarding rearmspurchases that have enabled straw purchasers

and other gun trafckers in the United Statesto channel thousands of weapons to organizedcrime in Mexico. However, the political falloutover the highly awed Operation Fast andFurious and the NRAs reaction to the ObamaAdministrations modest step illustrate howdifcult it will be to muster the political will inthe United States to tackle its contribution toMexicos devastating gun violence.

The United States also falls short in the effort tostop Mexican trafckers from laundering money.The U.S. Justice Department estimates thatMexican groups manage to bring between $25billion and $40 billion in proceeds from theUnited States to Mexico every year, an amountsimilar to Mexicos oil revenues. As muchas two-thirds of that may go simply as bulkcash transfers, of which the United States hasdetected perhaps 3 percent. Though the UnitedStates has strong laws like the Bank SecrecyAct and the Patriot Act, enforcement is modest.Money-laundering convictions average no more

than 2,000 annually, according to a study byPeter Reuter of the University of Maryland andformer U.S. Treasury ofcial Edwin Truman.Given the suspected scope of the activity,say the authors, this suggests that money-laundering is not a very risky activity.27

The United States is letting Colombia, Mexicoand Central America down when it fails to acton drug treatment, arms-trafcking control,and money laundering. Yet U.S. politicians


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have shown themselves unwilling to take stepsnecessary to address these three areas. That ismainly because cleaning our house is politicallymore difcult than sending aid packages.

Increasing access to drug treatment means

challenging not only budget hawks opposedto domestic spending, but running afoulof constituents who dont want treatmentcenters bringing undesirable addicts to theirneighborhoods. Proposing anything that soundsremotely like gun control means taking onthe powerful U.S. gun lobby. (Witness theanger of Republican legislators after PresidentCalderns 2010 address; It was inappropriatefor President Caldern to lecture Americans onour own state and federal laws, said SenatorJohn Cornyn (R-Texas). Moreover, the Second

Amendment is not a subject open for diplomaticnegotiation, with Mexico or any other nation.)Finally, increasing money-laundering enforcementwill mean taking on the banking sector, anotherpowerful lobby.

U.S. politicians have avoided these hard choices.Sending helicopters and spray planes is a fareasier choice politically, even if the net impactis far smaller. The United States is askingauthorities in Colombia, Mexico and elsewhere totake a number of politically difcult, even widely

unpopular, steps in the name of ghting drugsand organized crime. We should lead by exampleand take more politically difcult steps at home.

2. Be guided by three goals: strengtheningthe civilian government, curtailingimpunity, and creating opportunity forexcluded sectors.

Strengthening the civilian government meansmaking sure that, for the rst time, none of the

population lives without a government. Statelessareas are not a vacuum: they get occupied byviolent groups that menace the population.

The experience of Colombia has made clear thatgovernment must mean far more than military

or police. While security is arguably the mostbasic public good the government can provide, amilitary occupation cannot create the conditionsfor economic prosperity or the exercise of basicfreedoms. Military occupations of ungovernedareas fail if the rest of the governmentteachers, health care workers, road-builders,judges, policedoesnt arrive quickly.

In its rst years, Plan Colombia badlyneglected civilian governance. The emphasiswas instead on military operations and aerial

eradication. Eighty percent of U.S. aid wentto those priorities; most of the rest went tohastily arranged, geographically limited crop-substitution programs managed by contractors.Manylikely mostrural inhabitants saw littlemore than army patrols and spray planes. Thecoca-growing zones where Plan Colombia begana decade ago, like Guaviare, Putumayo, Caquetand Nario, remain as violent and poor as theywere then.

In 2004-2006, a large-scale military offensive,with U.S. advice and logistical support, allowedthe military to occupy towns throughout avast region that had been the FARCs principalstronghold. This offensive, known as PlanPatriota, came with no plan to bring inthe rest of the civilian government. Militarypersonnel found themselves on their own,playing governance roles for which they had notraining. Years later, with a lack of investmentleaving the state presence uncertain, this zoneis among those in which the FARC remains

most active.During the second half of the decade, someofcials began to realize that the civiliangovernance element was missing. By 2008the prevailing strategy had shifted towarda concept called Consolidation. In severalconictive zones of Colombia, the plan is nowfor security operations to give way quickly toother, civilian government agencies. Whereit has been attemptedand at great cost

U.S. politicians have avoided these hard choices.

Sending helicopters and spray planes is a far

easier choice politically, even if the net impact is

far smaller. . . . We should lead by example and

take more politically difcult steps at home.


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Consolidation certainly represents learningover what came before. However, in no zonehas the military yet given way to a functioningcivilian government. Instead, soldiers arecarrying out a host of untraditional, non-combat roles, from paving roads to holding

community development meetings.

Bringing in a state presence, meanwhile, cando more harm than good if the governmentsrepresentatives can act with impunity. Curtailingimpunity is vital, and it requires a well-resourced justice system but also political will.Whether they are military or civilian, if ofcialsknow they will not be punished for violatinghuman rights, abusing their power, engagingin corruption or working with organized crime,they will be far more likely to do so. Unless it is

investigated, tried and punished with swiftnessand transparency, abuse or corruption canundermine the entire strategy.

A population that knows no governmentpresence may want to be governed, buta population that sees the security forcescolluding with armed groups and criminalsmay want no part of the state in their territory.That lack of trust is one of the tragic results ofColombias unpunished human rights abuses.

Creating opportunity for excluded sectors of the

population is also vital to the strategys success.Smallholding farmers, forcibly displaced people,and unemployed urban youth are unlikely toemerge from poverty through market forcesalone. Those with no marketable skills willbe ignored by the legal market, but not bythe illegal market. It is up to governments toinvest in their people, building capacities andencouraging local, small-scale enterprise, toensure that organized crime no longer appears

to be a rational economic choice for so many.Above all, governments must avoid policychoices that do harm to economically vulnerablepopulations. Favoring capital-intensiveagribusiness, forcibly eradicating coca withoutalternatives, failing to prevent displacementor help its victims, or neglecting the ni-nipopulation (young people who neither study norhold jobs) can undermine any effort to reduceviolence and illegal activity.

A strong state, in more than just the militarysense; a justice system that can punishwrongdoing; and an effort to create legal waysto make a living. If an element of the strategyis not supporting these goals, it should bereconsidered. Aerial fumigation, 80-percent-

military/police aid packages, downplayingof human rights abuses, and insufcientattention to displaced populations were allhallmarks of Plan Colombia. They did notsupport these goals, and should have beenchanged from the start.

The Obama administrations framework forMexico aid, based on four pillars, appearsto recognize the importance of these goals.(These pillars are Disrupt Capacity ofOrganized Crime to Operate, Institutionalize

Capacity to Sustain Rule of Law, Create a21st Century Border Structure, and BuildStrong and Resilient Communities.) Thisis a signicant shift, especially after theconspicuous emphasis on military hardwareduring the Mrida initiatives rst years.However, only timeand close citizen andlegislative oversightwill tell whether theframework will in fact guide U.S. assistance,or whether the highest prole will be given tostrengthening the uniformed part of Mexicosstate. The same concern is paramount forColombias Consolidation program.

3. Know whom you are working with.

For the United States, achieving these goalsrequires a close working relationship withthe partner countrys government, or at leastwith key institutions in that government. Ifthat relationship is based on bonds of trust,all the better. But this is not a marriage: it isan arrangement that is meant to be mutually

benecial. A healthy degree of mistrustorat least, of distance and skeptical supportisneeded. The partner government should notbe defended if a defense is undeserved.

That of course goes for human rightsabuses; as discussed below, the U.S.governments use of human rights conditionsin foreign aid law was far too timid inColombia. U.S. ofcials uncritical embraceof their Colombian military counterparts led


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them to miss completely the false positiveshorror that took place in their midst in the mid-2000s, at least until human rights groups andColombian media made it impossible for themto ignore.

Corruption, including partner-governmentofcials collusion with violent or criminalgroups, is another concern about which U.S.policymakers must be more aware lest itundermine the policy. In Colombia, this concernled the United States to fund the creation ofspecial vetted units within, but separate from,the larger security forces. Still, U.S. ofcialssystematically downplayed relations betweenparamilitary narcotrafckers and Colombiasmilitary, intelligence, and political agencies.

U.S. ofcials must honestly consider theirpartners commitment to strengthening thecivilian government, curtailing impunity, andcreating opportunity. Are leaders collectingsufcient taxes to fund the violence reductionstrategy? Are they taking politically difcultsteps necessary to detect and punish humanrights abuse and corruption? Do leaders actionsreect the urgency of the countrys crisis, or dothey appear more concerned with short-termpolitical maneuvering?

Analysts, and occasionally even U.S. ofcials,

express this concern frequently about Mexicotoday. There exists a perception that manyin high government positions lack a senseof urgency, have been inltrated by corruptelements, and are unwilling to demandsacrice in order to deal with the crisis. Thissentiment is reected in numerous U.S.diplomatic cables released through Wikileaks,including a 2010 cable by U.S. Deputy ofChief of Mission in Mexico John Feeley inwhich he writes:

Mexican security institutions are often

locked in a zero-sum competition in

which one agencys success is viewed

as anothers failure, information is

closely guarded, and joint operations

are all but unheard of. Ofcial

corruption is widespread, leading toa compartmentalized siege mentality

among clean law enforcement leaders

and their lieutenants. Prosecution rates

for organized crime-related offenses are

dismal; two percent of those detained are

brought to trial. Only two percent of those

arrested in Ciudad Juarez have even been

charged with a crime.28

Mexicos political leaders frequently point tohealthy economic growth or portray the violence

as conned to a few territories, even as thedaily headlines chronicle acts of unspeakablecruelty. Efforts to collect more taxes from thewealthy, or to deepen reforms to the policeand justice system, including human rightsmeasures, have been unable to move beyondbaby steps; anything signicant has stalled inthe legislature. (Mexicos tax collection rates areamong the hemispheres lowest, similar to thoseof Guatemala or Honduras as a percentageof the economy.29) Many Mexican politiciansfocus has turned to the July 2012 elections,which has greatly reduced the possibility thatbold measures might be adopted during FelipeCalderns nal year.

4. Know whom you are opposing.

Colombia is embroiled in an internal armedconict against groups under responsiblecommand, exercise[ing] such control overa part of its territory as to enable them tocarry out sustained and concerted military

operations, as laid out in Additional ProtocolII of the Geneva Conventions. During the PlanColombia period, the United States chose tohelp Colombias government ght the leftistFARC and ELN guerrillas.

While the guerrillas brutality against civilianshas been horric, the pro-governmentparamilitaries killed and displaced far greaternumbers of civilians during Plan Colombiasoutset. However, the U.S.-supported strategy

U.S. ofcials systematically downplayed

relations between paramilitary narcotrafckers

and Colombias military, intelligence, and

political agencies.


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put far less emphasis on stopping theparamilitaries, and when President lvaro Uribeoffered them lenient terms for demobilizing,including a process patently unlikely todismantle their networks, the U.S. governmentlent support. The new paramilitaries that

succeeded them have been around for veyears, but have only recently begun to gainnotice as a security issue for the U.S. andColombian governments. The countrys urbangangs, though contributing to worsening crimerates in cities, are not at all a U.S. priority.

Regarding Mexico, the lack of clarity about theadversary is so complete that Washington iseven debating what to call it. The word cartel,a frequent bit of shorthand, doesnt really t,as it implies cooperation to control a single

economic activity, nor does drug trafckingorganization as many of these organized crimegroups have expanded their operations beyonddrugs. The U.S. and Mexican governmentsseem to be settling on Transnational CriminalOrganizations (TCOs).

Some members of Congress, like HouseHomeland Security Oversight SubcommitteeChairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), want thegroups classied as terrorists and added tothe State Departments list of foreign terroristorganizations alongside Colombias FARC, ELNand AUC. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton andArmy Undersecretary Gen. Joseph Westphalhave angered Mexico by publicly musing thatthe groups resemble an insurgency.

The TCO-insurgent-cartel-terrorist distinctionmay seem like semantics, but the difference isimportant. Deciding what they are determineshow to confront themas a law enforcementissue, as a military issue, as a socioeconomic

or state-building issue, through a peacenegotiation, or a combination of the above.TCOs are best confronted by using civilianintelligence, detective work, communitypolicing and the justice system to dismantletheir networks. This means going after upper-and mid-level gures while increasing thestates presence (increasingly civilian, withoutimpunity) to protect populations, createeconomic opportunity and make territoryinhospitable for TCO operations.

5. Dont militarize the response.

When a security crisis overwhelms policecapacities, leaders often turn instinctivelyto the military to support or even supplantthe regular civilian order-keeping forces. The

militarization of anti-crime efforts has been ahallmark of unsuccessful iron-st strategiesin Central America, but has also taken placenearly everywhere in the region, from Colombiato Venezuela to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to,of course, Mexico even before Felipe Caldernescalated the armed forces involvement.

In conict-ridden Colombia, the line betweenmilitary and civilian security responsibilitieshas been blurred for decades. The armed forcesand the police are both located in the Defense

Ministry. Police are deployed in conictive zonesand often nd themselves in combat. Thoughthey lack judicial police powers, Colombiasarmy, navy and air force interdict drugs, pursuetrafckers, perform wiretaps, searches andseizures, and back up the police in dangerousneighborhoods.

Though the United States supported Colombiasarmed forces during the cold war, PlanColombia was the rst time Colombias militarygot signicant aid from U.S. counter-drug

accounts. In the early 1990s, the countrysarmed forces were reluctant to get involved inthe ght against the Medelln and Cali cartels,arguing that the risk of corruption was toogreat and that their main mission was to ghtguerrillas. In 1992, notes Robin Kirk, theColombian military had atly rejected a U.S.offer of $2.8 million to set up army counterdrugunits.30 By the end of the 1990s, however,the United States had overcome the Colombianmilitarys resistance to this internal role; aDecember 1998 agreement paved the way

for the creation of the rst Colombian ArmyCounter-Narcotics Battalion.

Encouraging the military to take on policingroles is hugely problematic. First, it is notwhat the military is trained for: there is a largedifference between defeating an enemy withoverwhelming violence and serving a populationwith minimal force. This increases the likelihoodof abuse. Second, most military units are notdesigned to have the investigative capacity to


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build criminal cases, to work with the justicesystem, or to untangle and dismantle complexnetworks of criminal support and activity. Third,even if they are assigned such roles, soldierswill run into the same frustrations as policeif suspects and witnesses are turned over to

a badly dysfunctional justice system. Fourth,the effect on civil-military relations can betoxic: once the armed forces are given a rolethat places them amid the population, civilianleaders may nd it hard to get them to give upthat role and return to the barracks.

The argument that police capacities areoverwhelmed is compelling. But Colombiasthoroughly blurred police and militaryinstitutional roles will pose a seriousinstitutional challenge if the country ever moves

into a post-conict phase. To stave off thisoutcome, Mexico needs to devote even moreresources to get the civilian security sector up tocapacity quickly, so that the soldiers can standdown. Mexico claims to have a plan to do this,but efforts to reorganize and professionalizethe police, improve coordination, and combatcorruption have made limited progress, andadvances have been even more halting for stateand municipal forces. Instead, former militaryofcers have been given command of keyfederal, state and municipal police units andthe army sent in to take over control of somemunicipal police departments.

6. Measure the Results that Matter.

In Colombia, U.S. ofcials repeatedly confusedthe achievement of process goals withactual results. They soon found, though, thatthere is a great difference between meetingan eradication target and actually affectingdrug supplies, or racking up a high body count

and actually bringing a functioning state intoungoverned territories.

If the goal is to strengthen the state, curtailimpunity and create opportunity, the usual listof achievements tells us little. Body counts,hectares sprayed, tons interdicted, evennumbers of high-ranking crime gures arrestedare not the measures that matter most. Evenmurder rates can be deceptive: the experienceof Medellns 2004-2008 public order miracle

showed that a drop in homicides might owein part to a temporary, fragile arrangementbetween criminal groups.

Better measures of success would includepublic perceptions of whether the government

is seen as effective and contributing to acommunitys well-being, as measured by pollingat all levels of society, and the degree of civil-society participation in governance efforts.Rates of impunity (ratio of crimes committedto verdicts and sentences) tell us much moreabout anti-crime efforts than arrest statistics ornumbers of courts constructed or prosecutorstrained, as do subsets like impunity rates forofcial corruption cases or human rights cases.The youth unemployment rate can tell us a greatdeal about criminal groups ability to recruit.

Where drug policy is concerned, estimates ofprice and purity of drugs sold on U.S. streetstell us approximately whether supplies are beingaffected, although it is hard to tell whether anapparent trend is short-term noise or a longer-term signal. Another, perhaps more important,set of indicators are changes in the harmscaused by use of drugs, such as the size of theaddict population or trends in drug-related crimeand health emergencies.

Six Lessons for Human Rights

7. Know this: With U.S. military aid,human rights abuses may increase.

At the start of Plan Colombia, U.S.-basedhuman rights groups cautioned U.S.policymakers that U.S. military aid andtraining would escalate human rights abuses.From the State Departments human rights

and Western Hemisphere bureaus, Clintonadministration appointees, the U.S. militarySouthern Command and many congressionalofces, we were met with one answer. Dontworry, U.S. training will include a stronghuman rights component, and youll see, thehuman rights performance of the Colombianmilitary will improve with U.S. aid and training.We were presented with examples of humanrights curricula, train-the-human-rights-trainerprograms, and laminated cards with human


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Six Lessons for Human Rights 19

rights rules on them, which every Colombiansoldier was to carry.

And yet at least during 2004-2008, after yearsof massive U.S. investment in and trainingof Colombias armed forces, accompanied by

unprecedented levels of human rights training,deliberate killings of civilians by the ColombianArmy escalated dramatically.31

What went wrong?

Starting in 2004, Colombian human rightsgroups began to blow the whistle, at rstwithout much impact, on a pattern of deliberatekillings by the army. These extrajudicialexecutions, which became known as falsepositives, typically involved groups of soldiers

detaining a civilian who is seen by witnesses,and who later turns up dead, dressed in guerrillaclothing and claimed by the army as killedin combat. In October 2008, the Colombiangovernment was forced to acknowledge thisgrowing practice when the Soacha killingswere exposed. Paramilitary or criminal gangslured poor young men from Soacha, on theoutskirts of Bogot, with the promise of jobs,and then delivered them to distant parts ofthe country where they were found dead,dressed as guerrillas or paramilitaries and

claimed by the army as killed in combat. Ina June 2009 mission to Colombia, the UNSpecial Rapporteur on extrajudicial executionsdetermined that I have found no evidence tosuggest that these killings were carried out asa matter of ofcial Government policy On theother hand, the explanation favored by manyin Governmentthat the killings were carriedout on a small scale by a few bad applesisequally unsustainable. The sheer numberof cases, their geographic spread, and thediversity of military units implicated, indicatethat these killings were carried out in a more orless systematic fashion by signicant elementswithin the military.32

Two major factors contributed to these killings.The rst was a system of incentives that wasleading army ofcials and soldiers to carry outthese crimes. Soldiers were under pressure,coming from the very topthe President,defense minister and military brass, and, to be

honest, U.S. political and military leaderstoshow results in the war. They were offeredincentives such as cash bonuses, vacations andpromotions for body counts. The second factorwas that these crimes remained in impunity.The vast majority of abuses, even when

reported, went to military courts, where caseswere routinely dismissed.33

Military units receiving U.S. aid and trainingcommitted numerous extrajudicial executions(although units that did not receive substantialU.S. aid were also implicated). A detailedstudy of extrajudicial executions in Colombiaduring this period reveals geographic areaswhere brigades received substantial U.S. aidcoincided with areas that saw high numbers ofextrajudicial executions.34

Human rights training for soldiers may makea valuable contribution to creating a cultureof respect for human rights. The lesson fromthe Colombia experience, however, is that noamount of standardized human rights trainingcan prevent violations from occurring if theoverall climate fosters abuse. Elements of sucha climate include incentives and promotionsthat generate abuses, military and civilianleadership whose discourse projects a disregardfor human rights, and systematic lack ofaccountability for human rights crimes.

8. Strengthening justice is essential, but itrequires political will.

The Colombia experience teaches us that oneof the potentially best investmentsthe justicesectorrequires not just money, but carefulevaluation and political will.

The U.S. Department of Justice and USAID

channeled well over 100 million dollars inassistance into Colombias justice sector,from training for prosecutors in the AttorneyGenerals ofce, to disciplinary investigationsin the Inspector Generals ofce, to humanrights reporting and protection programs inthe Ombudsmans ofce. Such funding canpotentially have a major payoff in long-termstructural reforms that will help to protecthuman rights while strengthening efforts tocombat drug trafcking, illegal armed groups


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and organized crime. However, well-designed aidmust be continuously evaluated and paired withtough diplomacy to produce the desired results.

Colombias aid package included the standardassistance that the United States has provided

to transition Latin American judicial systemsfrom a written, Napoleonic code to an oral,accusatory system. Mexico, with U.S. support,is undergoing a similar transition today. It alsoincluded programs targeted to the countrysspecic challenges, such as assistance forunits investigating assassinations of tradeunion leaders or extrajudicial executions,and programs to uncover mass graves andinvestigate paramilitary leaders.

Yet justice is not just a technical problem.

Personnel and political will matter. Efforts toaddress impunity were affected by who wasat the helm of specic agencies. Initiativestook a sharp turn for the worse during AttorneyGeneral Luis Camilo Osorios term (2001-2005), before showing modest improvementwith Mario Iguarns leadership and a SupremeCourt determined to investigate politiciansparamilitary ties. The Inspector Generals ofce,which administers disciplinary sanctions ofpublic ofcials and also receives major U.S.funding, is less vigorously pursuing human rightscases involving public ofcials, after havingmade advances under previous leadership.

The United States has poured money intothe transition to the accusatorial system,yet there are serious problems. Extrajudicialexecution cases are moving only slowly,with few cases led under the new systemyet resulting in convictions.35 Human rightslawyers representing families of victims ofextrajudicial executions claim that the new

system excludes victims and their lawyers,limiting their access to the case les and theirparticipation in hearings. Restoring the abilityof victims representatives to take part in suchcases would help address a serious problem inthe new accusatory system. Case managementsystems are poorly designed, making it difcultto track progress.36 While in the long run thetransition to an accusatorial system will likely bebenecial, there are serious transitional issuesthat neither the Colombian judicial system nor

the U.S. Department of Justice ofcials whopromoted this transition are acknowledging ordealing with effectively.37

U.S. justice sector aid could be improvedby more explicit recognition of the element

of political will. The Department of Justice(DOJ) should work with USAID and the StateDepartment to ensure that assistance isdelivered with a consistent message and tieddirectly to benchmarks in reducing impunity,developing such benchmarks for each judicialagency. The embassy and State Departmentshould more vigorously use all diplomatic toolsat their disposal, including the leverage of thehuman rights conditions, to achieve the goal ofreducing impunity.

Changes should also be made in the kinds ofassistance provided. DOJ assistance, whiletechnically procient, tends to be a standardizedpackage. It can be slow to arrive, fails to adaptexibly to situations on the ground, and in theColombian case failed to include evaluationmechanisms that would allow it to identifyobstacles to implementing judicial reforms. DOJ-directed aid could be improved if DOJ personnelwere more open to exchanging ideas withlocal nongovernmental human rights experts,who often have recommendations about waysto improve investigations, exhumations andprosecutions in human rights cases. USAIDshould play a leading role in developing judicialassistance that is more geared to the countrysspecic human rights problems.

Finally, the question of what to do about themilitary justice system is important and relevantto Mexico. At the start of Plan Colombia,human rights groups urged the United Statesto press for shifting human rights cases from

military to civilian courts, as required by aColombian Constitutional Court decision. Atrst, U.S. policymakers argued, Wouldnt itbe good enough if we just made the militaryjustice system work better? Doesnt our ownJAG system work ne, and shouldnt our partnermilitary be able to be judged by its own? Butwith the insistence of Congress and humanrights groups, the U.S. government encouragedthe Colombian government to move humanrights cases to civilian courts.


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Given the reluctance of the military justicesystem to punish abusers, this shift may proveto be one of the most positive human rightsimpacts of U.S. policy in Colombiaand it mayprove positive in Mexico too. Congress explicitlyconditioned assistance to Mexico on changes

in shifting jurisdiction for human rights crimesaway from notoriously opaque military tribunalsto civilian courts. Although substantial transferof cases has yet to occur, a historic July 2011ruling by Mexicos Supreme Court establishedthat members of the military accused of humanrights violations should be tried in civilian courts,not military tribunals. With this promisingdecision, the Mexican Congress is now obligatedto pass a legislative reform that fully complieswith the Supreme Courts judgment.

9. Human rights conditions are a awedbut useful tool.

Current foreign aid appropriations come withconditions that limit some aid to the Colombianand Mexican militaries until certain humanrights standards are met. These country-specichuman rights conditions, even if they havelimits, are one of the few valuable tools availableto ensure human rights concerns are raised.

At the start of Plan Colombia, members ofCongress concerned about human rights,particularly Senator Patrick Leahy and SenatorEdward Kennedy, insisted upon includinghuman rights conditions on the aid package.They did this over the objections of the Clintonadministration, which like most administrationssaw this congressional oversight tool as limitingadministration exibility.

The conditions governing aid to Colombia weredesigned to address two of Colombias major

human rights problems: lack of accountabilityfor violations by the military, and collaborationbetween security forces and illegal paramilitarygroups. They included an importantmechanism, a consultation at regular intervalsbetween human rights groups and the StateDepartment. In practice, these consultationswere carried out both in Washington with U.S.rights groups and in Bogot with Colombianorganizations. These specic countryconditions operate in addition to the Leahy

Law provision barring U.S. aid and training toabusive units of security forces worldwide.

As skeptics of conditions expected, the StateDepartmentunder Bill Clinton, George W.Bush, and Barack Obamahas routinely

certied that Colombia meets the conditions.It has done so no matter what was occurringon the ground, from systematic collaborationwith paramilitaries engaged in escalatingmassacres and massive displacement; tothe 2005 San Jos de Apartad massacre ofmen, women and children by soldiers; to thedeliberate killing of over 3,000 civilians in thefalse positive scandal. The State Departmentcertied despite the passionate appealsaccompanied by stacks of documentationplaced in front of high-level State Department

ofcials several times a year by U.S. andColombian human rights groups.

And yet over time, the conditions have had animpact. When the February 2005 San Jos deApartad massacre took place and the StateDepartment subsequently certied, SenatorLeahy, ranking member of the foreign operationssubcommittee, placed a hold upon some of themilitary aid subject to the conditions. Sincethat time, the Senate has temporarily held up aportion of assistance at strategic moments.

This congressional pressure has led the StateDepartment to try to leverage changes from theColombian government. The State Departmenthas delayed certifying until it can documentprogress in at least some cases, often waitinguntil the last possible date it can certify withoutlosing funds permanently. This dialogue betweenthe State Department and U.S. Embassy andColombian counterparts has been one importantfactor leading to the limited progress against

impunity that has taken place.U.S. pressure, triggered by the conditions, hascontributed to progress in emblematic cases ofviolations by soldiers, including the murder ofthree trade unionists in Arauca, the killing of afamily in Cajamarca, the Mapiripn massacre,the murder of indigenous leader Jos EdwinLegarda Vasquez, the Santo Domingo bombingof civilians, and the San Jos de Apartadmassacre. It has also led to the transfer of


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hundreds of extrajudicial execution cases frommilitary to civilian courts;38 a restructuring ofarmy leadership in the wake of the Soachascandal; issuance of new directives by theDefense Minister intended to minimize thepractice of extrajudicial executions; and, most

importantly, a sharp reduction in new cases ofextrajudicial executions.

This progress is still partial. Even in thehighest-prole cases, the intellectual authorsof the crimes have never been indicted,much less prosecuted. The incentives thatdrove extrajudicial executions have not beenfully dismantled, and the vast majority ofcases remain in impunity. Some extrajudicialexecutions continue, and human rights groupsreport an increase in forced disappearances,

some of which might be extrajudicial executionsby security forces.

Human rights conditions only became auseful lever in extreme circumstances andwith enormous effort by human rights groups.In the Colombian case, well-documentedpatterns of systematic, gross human rightsviolations emerged. U.S. and Colombian humanrights organizations, collaborating closely,made a sustained effort, over years, not onlydocumenting abuses, but continuously engagingwith U.S. Embassy and State Departmentpersonnel despite the frustrating nature of thecertication process. Some State Departmentpersonnel demonstrated a real commitmentto help correct abuses. This appeared to havehad less to do with which administration wasin power and more to do with individual careerofcials who chose to demonstrate genuineinterest in human rights problems and awillingness, within the scope of their positions,to do something to address them.

In the Colombian case, human rights conditionsdid not prevent security force abuses fromescalating as U.S. military aid and trainingowed. However, the conditions did give humanrights groups in the United States and Colombiaa forum with which to raise these issues withthe State Department and U.S. Embassy, inways that ultimately forced the U.S. governmentto convince its Colombian partner to act to curband prosecute these abuses. Our views would

not have been taken seriously without the edgeprovided by the conditions and the Senateswillingness to place a hold on military aid.

In 2010, the Obama Administration decidedto try a new approach on human rights in

Colombia. It created a High Level PartnershipDialogue with the intention of crafting a morecollaborative bilateral approach on human rightsas well as other issues. It is difcult to evaluatethis initiative yet. On the positive side, it madeclear that human rights issues were of rst-orderimportance, and the topics chosen includedthose most important to human rights groups,such as extrajudicial executions, the wiretappingscandal, protection for human rights defenders,and land restitution. The rst round of dialoguemay have helped to reafrm the Santos

Administrations improved rhetoric on humanrights and determination to pass the victimslaw. But this partnership dialogue approachfails to link progress on human rights toassistance or any other tangible benet. Humanrights groups fear that it will produce nebulousdiscussions rather than specic results.

Implementing the country-specic humanrights conditions for Mexico has its ownchallenges. The Mexican government lobbiedhard against human rights conditions,claiming they affected its sovereignty. SomeMexican civil society activists and journalistsjoined the government, denouncing theconditions as hypocritical and impinging onsovereignty. Members of the U.S. Congresssoftened the provisions in reaction to Mexicansensitivities, calling them requirementsrather than conditions, only permitting theState Department to issue a report rather thanformally certify, and lowering the percentageof funds subject to these requirements.

But the provisions are still one of the fewrecourses available to human rights groupsto call both countries policymakers attentionto abuses. U.S. and Mexican human rightsgroups have mobilized in a coordinatedfashion to document abuses, monitorthe implementation of the human rightsrequirements, call for specic advances andinsist that the State Department use thisleverage.39 In a September 2010 report to


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Congress, the State Department stated itsintention to hold up a portion of assistanceuntil the Caldern Administration introducedlegislation to reform the military code of justiceto limit prosecution of human rights crimes inmilitary courts. One month later, in October

2010, President Caldern presented an initiativeto the Mexican Senate that would excludejust three human rights violationsforceddisappearance, torture, and rapefrom militaryjurisdiction. This awed proposal has nowbeen rendered moot by the July 2011 SupremeCourt decision establishing that human rightscrimes committed by the military must be triedin civilian jurisdiction. While Mexico has yet toimplement the Supreme Court ruling, there hasbeen movement on this issue. It is an importantstep forward that the State Department chose to

use its diplomacy in favor of civilian jurisdiction,and that it did so publicly.

These specic country conditions operate inaddition to the Leahy Law provision barringU.S. aid and training to abusive units of securityforces worldwide. At the start of Plan Colombia,we were assured that the Leahy Law, whichrequires vetting of foreign security-force unitsto receive U.S. aid and training, would excludesecurity force units and individuals with recordsof abuse.

The Leahy Law can be useful in speciccircumstances but provides no guarantee thatU.S. aid and training will not go to abusers.Indeed, in Colombia, some of the areas of thecountry where the largest number of soldiershave been vetted to receive U.S. trainingwere those in which the largest number ofextrajudicial executions occurred, according tostudies by Amnesty International/Fellowship ofReconciliation and Fellowship of Reconciliation/

US Ofce on Colombia.40

The Leahy Law wasinvoked to some effect in banning assistance tocertain particularly egregious units, including the24th and 17th Brigades in Putumayo and Urab,and the air force unit responsible for the civilianskilled in the Santo Domingo bombing case.

Colombia is one of the few countries in theworld where human rights groups have activelytried to make the Leahy Law apply. Doing sorequires identifying specic security force units

responsible for abuses, and documenting thatthose units received U.S. aid or training. Theserequirements are difcult to meet in a timelyway, since human rights groups only obtainaccess to information regarding which unitsreceive U.S. training several years after the fact.

U.S. embassies are supposed to maintain LeahyLaw databases of abuses, but these databasesare often poorly researched and updated. Evenin best-case Colombia, they result in relativelyfew units excluded. Human rights groupsability to obtain the information they need toencourage implementation of the Leahy Law orevaluate whether it is being respected is greatlyinhibited by an Obama administration decisionto classify lists of vetted units. Nonetheless, itis worth encouraging U.S. embassies to developa serious Leahy Law compliance plan and

database, since these can trigger cutoffs of aidand training to egregiously abusive units.

10. Even positive human rights anddevelopment activities can getsubsumed to military goals.

In Plan Colombia, and indeed to date inthe Mrida Initiative, two agencies play thedominant role in the U.S. interagency processfor aid design and delivery. One is the StateDepartments International Narcotics and LawEnforcement Bureau (INL), and the secondis the Defense Department. USAID, whichcarries out the softer side of U.S. policyinColombia, alternative development programs,human rights, aid to displaced persons andAfro-Colombian and indigenous communitiesis often overshadowed by these big brothers ininter-agency debates and public perception.

Within the U.S. embassy, the Narcotics AffairsSection (NAS) director, responsible to INL,

tends to play a strong coordinating, if notdominant, role. Yet INL is focused narrowlyon the hard side of drug policy: interdiction,destruction of laboratories and drug crops, andin the case of Colombia, the aerial sprayingprogram. In the rst years of

wola's cautionary tale - plan colombia and plan merida

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