Colombia’s drug traffickers stunned government officials and the US Drug Enforcement Administration in 2000 when they managed to purchase a Russian submarine and began reconstructing it in the outskirts of Bogota, 210 miles from the sea.

Local workers discovered a warehouse containing the steel sections of the underwater craft, which could have been used to transport tons of illegal drugs. Actions like these have compelled the US government to increase counternarcotics efforts in the troubled nation, which now produces 90 percent of the world’s cocaine. However, the Clinton administration’s US$1.6 billion package of primarily military and counternarcotics aid, dubbed “Plan Colombia” and now sanctioned by the Bush administration, has proven problematic.

One of the main concerns about US military and economic aid to Colombia’s counternarcotics program is that it could inadvertently be subsidizing rightist paramilitary groups recently designated as “terrorist organizations” by the US State Department. Colombia’s armed forces, which receive US aid, are suspected of colluding with the paramilitaries and in 2001, Human Rights Watch published a 120-page report documenting ties between three Colombian military brigades and the paramilitaries.

In the United States’ new campaign against international terrorism, Colombia poses an intriguing dilemma: the US government cannot allow the continuation of the drug trade, with its close ties to arms proliferation and money laundering, but the Bush administration also must not indirectly support groups that it has denounced as terrorist. First, the administration should reinstate human-rights standards as conditions for aid to the Colombian military. Second, the United States should send more aid to encourage crop substitution instead of relying on the controversial fumigation of suspected coca-growing plantations. Finally, the US government should renew its support for Colombia’s increasingly unpopular peace talks in the hope that peace agreement could pull the leftist rebels into a coalition against drug trafficking.

Plan Colombia originated as Colombian president Andres Pastrana’s response to the country’s drug-trafficking problem. A multi-pronged counter-narcotics strategy has been developed to accomplish several objectives: use of the strengthened Colombian armed forces to uproot drug traffickers; discouragement of coca growth through fumigation and crop substitution; and extradition of top traffickers. The United States is transferring helicopters, weapons, communications equipment, and even armored crop dusters (for fumigation) to the Colombian armed forces. Moreover, US defense officials are training Colombian army battalions to deal with drug traffickers.

This emphasis on US support of the Colombian armed forces has raised the issue of Colombia’s dealings with rightist groups, especially the AUC (United Self-Defense Alliance). The paramilitary group opposes the leftist rebel groups, FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and ELN (National Liberation Army). The AUC uses random killings to scare civilians, many of them impoverished peasants. The paramilitaries have links to drug traffickers and are paid by the traffickers to protect coca plantations and processing plants. According to Human Rights Watch, Colombia’s 3rd, 5th, and 24th Brigades, which worked with the US-sponsored counternarcotics battalions, “actively coordinated operations with paramilitaries” and “received regular payment from paramilitaries.” The armed forces may see the paramilitaries as allies, but the AUC’s ties to drug traffickers and its disastrous record of targeting civilians make it a group of outlaws. Unfortunately, despite increased anti-paramilitary rhetoric from Colombian officials, a rise in arrests of paramilitaries, and the US State Department’s tagging of the AUC as a terrorist organization, atrocities continue.

The United States must reassess its relationship with Colombia’s armed forces in light of their ties to paramilitaries. All aid to Colombia’s counternarcotics program should be conditional upon the government’s elimination of collusion between the armed forces and terrorist groups. Such conditions will give greater legitimacy to Plan Colombia.

In addition to changing the conditions of aid, the United States should change the nature of that aid. Currently, a large portion of aid goes to the military. The US government would do well to increase the budget for crop substitution, which would give impoverished farmers other options besides growing coca leaves. Moreover, the United States should reconsider its advocacy of spraying fungicides on suspected coca fields. This policy not only creates environmental hazards, but also unintentionally damages other crops and possibly prevents future, non-coca crops from growing. Favorable trade treaties, especially with respect to coffee and bananas, would help as well.

Finally, the Bush administration should promote rapprochement between the Colombian government and leftist rebels. Pastrana’s peace plan has increasingly been criticized by Colombians. Despite receiving from the government an autonomous section of land the size of Switzerland called the “despeje,” the rebels have kept up their kidnappings and terror. Washington may be wary of doing business with the FARC, but the only real alternative is all-out civil war. The best strategy would be to put military pressure on the FARC to bring its leaders to the negotiation table. It is not clear whether the FARC and ELN just want power for themselves or if their Marxist-Leninist leaders envision a more socially just government, a concern that Colombia should be able to accommodate.

In the wake of September 11, the US government has embarked on an international anti-terrorism campaign. US policy toward Colombia must aim to erase narcotics trafficking while directly targeting groups, like the rightist paramilitaries, that are active terrorists. A reassessment of US aid to Plan Colombia will ensure that these objectives can best be met.