Problem Narrative
Despite the United States providing almost $5 billion in military aid to Colombia, the country continues to be plagued by a three-way violent struggle between communist guerilla groups, right-wing paramilitary units, and the Colombian government. The outcome of this situation is of critical importance to America, as Colombia is the world’s leading cocaine producer and is a hotbed of civilian kidnapping, massacres, corruption and political instability. Accurate generalizations that can be made about the relationship of military aid to political conflict in Colombia could be extremely useful in other analogous circumstances across the globe.
Behavior over Time
There are two key behaviors over time in this case: increasing military aid to Colombia from the United States and a stable-to-increasing amount of political violence in the country. In 1990, the United States provided $200 million under the “Andean Initiative” to fight drugs and train the Colombian military. Aid then fell in 1994 for various political reasons, but in 2000 the United States developed “Plan Colombia”, providing Colombia with $1.2 billion. Although Colombia ranked third in terms of U.S. aid in the 1990’s, and fifth in the present decade, aid to the country has increased in terms of raw dollars. Although “political violence” is somewhat nebulous, there is specific data to suggest that violent activities caused by Colombian instability – kidnapping, civil war, drug production, extortion – has been at least stable, if not increasing, since 1900! From 1899-1903, 120,000 people were killed in a Colombian civil war, and up to 300,000 were killed in a civil war from 1948-1957 (BBC). Major guerilla activity against the government began in the 1960’s, with nearly 23,000 people being killed in political violence in 1985 alone (BBC). 1,200 people were killed in political violence during the first ten months of 1987 (NYTimes.com). In the current decade, groups such as the Human Rights Watch continue to report that paramilitary and guerilla violence against civilians continues to plague the country. In 2005, 6,000 people were displaced from the Cauca region of Colombia due to violence (UNICEF), and there is emerging evidence that the government may be providing paramilitary groups with weapons and other resources under the table.
Goal and Scope
The goal of this analysis is to develop a model that will provide insight on the relationship between military aid and political violence in “fragile” states. U.S. policymakers need to know how a number of complicated factors influence whether aid contributes to the instability, and insight gained examining the Colombia case may be relevant in other circumstances, as well. The study will focus on factors that are relevant to military aid and political violence, such as how aid is allocated to military bases, “detailed” political violence data, paramilitary homicides during election years, election activity, and cooperation between the government and paramilitary groups. The study will use its ultimate assessment of “political stability” in terms of election participation from 1988-2005.
Questions
Several important questions to focus could help provide insight to policymakers:
- Why does the government sometimes aid/encourage paramilitary groups?
- What effect does the “Leahy Amendment” have on political violence?
- Why does military aid not make the government more efficient at fighting guerillas?
- What effect does military aid have on drug production?
- Why is Colombia such a good environment for drug production/trafficking?
- **What would happen to Colombia if military aid was reduced or cut off completely?
Sources:
- New York Times. “In Colombia, Rising Violence Breeds New Doubts”. October 31, 1987. Available online http://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/31/world/in-Colombia-rising-violence-breeds-new-doubts.html?pagewanted=1.
- BBCNews. “Colombia timeline”. Available online March 2, 2010 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1212827.stm.
- UNICEF. “Violence in Colombia displaces indigenous families”. April 29, 2005. Available online http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/colombia_26334.html.
- Center for Global Development. “Bases, Bullets…Conflict in Colombia”. (Assigned reading).
I agree with your comment that there are two key behaviors over time described in this case- the first of which being increasing the military aid to Colombia from the United States, and a stable to increasing amount of political violence in the country.
ReplyDeleteI really liked your question on Why does the government sometimes aid and encourage paramilitary groups? I feel that in this case, it is important to identify possible unintended consequences and important factors that contribute to the fact that government aid may in some circumstances aid these paramilitary groups. Additionally, I found it important to understand the question as to why does military aid not make the government more effective at fighting guerillas. It may seem obvious that military aid does not make the government more effective, but its important to look at the context of this question, in the whole system