Taking Stock of the $10 Billion Washington Spent on Colombia’s War

Taking Stock of the $10 Billion Washington Spent on Colombia’s War
By Ernesto Londoño
November 16, 2015 11:59 am


[font size=1]
Kevin Whitaker, the American ambassador to Colombia, right, listens to former Colombian
defense minister Juan Carlos Pinzón speak.Credit -- Guillermo Legaria/Agence France-Presse
— Getty Images
[/font]
The United States has spent more than $10 billion dollars beefing up Colombia’s security forces, supporting development and backing reform of the judicial system in an effort known as Plan Colombia. After playing an instrumental role in giving the Colombian government the upper hand in its decades-long war against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a Marxist guerrilla group, Washington has turned its attention to peacemaking. I talked with Kevin Whitaker, the American ambassador in Bogotá, by email about this evolution and Washington’s decision to sit down with leaders who are under indictment in the United States.

American taxpayers have spent tens of billions of dollars in largely dispiriting efforts to build security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. What did they get for the $10 billion Washington has spent in Colombia?

Over the last 16 years, that nation has gone from a near-failed state, with a barracks-bound military unable to control a large, geographically segmented nation swarming with guerrillas, paramilitary groups and predatory criminal organizations, to a vibrant institutional democracy with a strong, free-market economy and powerful, capable security forces fully respectful of their civilian masters.

Why has the Colombia model proved to difficult to replicate elsewhere?

Even in its darkest days, Colombia enjoyed certain advantages that do not exist everywhere. Colombia has a great degree of linguistic, religious, racial, and cultural homogeneity. Colombians have a profound sense of nationhood: Even the rebels wear the Colombian flag on their sleeves. Colombia has had a functioning democracy for many decades, and the notion of civilian control of the military is well established. Perhaps the most important factor is the enduring will of the Colombian government and people to save their nation.

More:
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/taking-stock-of-the-10-billion-washington-spent-on-colombias-war/?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

Good reads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016137185