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Actualizada: 29/IV/02
Funcionario del Pentágono expone amenazas a democracia colombiana
English version
La situación política y militar en Colombia ha llegado a un punto muerto, al estar bajo control de los tres grupos que el Departamento de Estado ha calificado de terroristas, más del 40% del territorio de ese país, dice Peter Rodman, Secretario de Defensa adjunto para Asuntos Internacionales de Seguridad. En declaraciones ante el Congreso el 24 de abril, Rodman dijo que el punto muerto favorece a esos grupos, "cuyos actos de terrorismo y narcotráfico continúan sin disminución, aunque la contienda militar en general" contra el gobierno colombiano sigue siendo "indecisa". Los grupos terroristas a que se refirió Rodman son dos organizaciones izquierdistas: las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) y el Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), y los narcoterroristas paramilitares de derechas Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC). Agregó Rodman que la débil presencia del gobierno colombiano en muchas partes del país hace que muchos ciudadanos crean que los grupos paramilitares de derecha como las AUC son más efectivas que el gobierno en cuanto a la seguridad. A su vez, las AUC reciben mayor apoyo y legitimidad, lo cual dificulta todavía más la capacidad del Estado de llenar el vacío. Las actividades de los paramilitares menoscaban también el apoyo político de Estados Unidos a Colombia, explicó Rodman a la Subcomisión del Hemisferio Occidental, Cuerpo de Paz y Asuntos de Narcóticos, parte de la Subcomisión de Relaciones Exteriores del Senado. Añadió que Estados Unidos no puede resolver todos los problemas de Colombia aumentandp los niveles de ayuda y, "dados los recursos humanos y de capital de Colombia, no necesitamos hacerlo". Colombia debe asumir una parte mayor de la carga para superar sus problemas, financiando la estructura de seguridad del país "lo cual significa tanto los militares como la policía, a niveles que sean más apropiados para una época de guerra". Argumentó Rodman que la política de Estados Unidos en Colombia "debería aumentar los programas antidrogas tradicionales con programas para ayudar a Colombia a mejorar la seguridad básica". Un gobierno democrático amistoso, como el de Colombia, declaró, "lucha para preservar su autoridad soberana del ataque de los extremistas" tanto de la izquierda como de la derecha del espectro político. La política estadounidense en relación con Colombia requiere un "consenso bipartidista en Estados Unidos a favor de una estrategia a largo plazo para poner en vigor la soberanía efectiva y preservar la democracia". En Colombia la victoria sólo puede lograrse (y sirve a los intereses estadounidenses en ese país) "una vez que el gobierno de Colombia afirme su soberanía efectiva sobre su territorio nacional", y agregó "es hora de que Estados Unidos refuerce su compromiso con la democracia colombiana".
Peter Rodman
Prepared remarks
The Administration has wrestled with developing a more effective
policy and strategy to address terrorism as well as narcotics
trafficking-the twin challenges posed by Colombia's illegal armed
groups.
Both the U.S. and Colombian governments recognize that the threat has
evolved and now requires new thinking and new programs. President
Pastrana's decision to terminate the FARC safe-haven and this
Administration's request for new authority, as described by Ambassador
Grossman, reflect our shared assessment that terrorism and narcotics
trafficking are inextricably linked in Colombia today.
For the past decade, U.S. aid has focused almost exclusively on
counternarcotics. Although counterdrug programs remain an important
part of the security equation in Colombia, our assistance has not yet
had a decisive impact on the political and security challenges that
continue to threaten both Colombian democracy and U.S. interests.
Therefore, President Bush has asked Congress for:
These authorities will provide the Government of Colombia with the
flexibility and resources needed to combat violent and formidable
narco-terrorist threats to Colombia's national security. Over the past
several years, these groups have increased their involvement in
illicit drug operations. These drug revenues contribute to their war
chests and have enabled them to increase their terrorist activities,
placing further pressure on Colombia's democracy. This critical
assistance will allow the Colombian security forces to confront more
vigorously the increasing narco-terrorist attacks by the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN) and
deal more effectively with the narco-terrorist paramilitary groups,
like the United Self Defense Group of Colombia (AUC).
These three groups (the AUC, ELN, and FARC) already are designated
under U.S. law as terrorist organizations. Although not considered
terrorists with global reach, they threaten regional stability and
U.S. interests through transnational arms and drug trafficking,
kidnapping, and extortion. Together, these groups are responsible for
more than 90 percent of the terrorist incidents in this hemisphere.
The changes in authorities described by Ambassador Grossman will help
Colombia fight these groups more effectively, not only in traditional
coca-growing regions such as Putumayo and Caqueta, but throughout
Colombia.
Beyond the toll in Colombian lives and treasure, these organizations
have kidnapped and murdered U.S. citizens with impunity and damaged
major U.S. commercial interests, such as oil pipelines. Accordingly,
the Administration's strategy is to provide the Colombian government
with the wherewithal and incentive to confront these groups throughout
the national territory, whether or not individual units or combatants
are engaged directly in drug-related activities. This is because, as
we have learned, Colombia's major terrorist organizations both enable
the drug trade and are financed in significant part by the revenues
drugs provide. Attempting to segregate drugs and terrorism into
distinct and severable threats is both politically unrealistic and
militarily futile. Colombia urgently needs to establish the rule of
law in its many regions that are presently ruled by lawless violence.
A crucial component in this objective is a stronger, more effective
security presence.
Today, the political/military situation in Colombia has reached a
stalemate. Taken together, the FARC, ELN and AUC effectively control
over 40% of Colombian territory. This stalemate works to the advantage
of those groups, whose acts of terror and narcotics trafficking
continue unabated even though the overall military contest remains
inconclusive. Hence, this situation compounds all of Colombia's
problems:
The Colombian State's weakness in many parts of the country leads many
citizens to believe that the paramilitary groups are more effective in
promoting security. In turn, these groups receive greater support and
legitimacy, making the state's ability to fill the vacuum even more
difficult. The activities of the paramilitaries, of course, also undercut
political support for Colombia in the United States.
The United States cannot solve all of Colombia's problems with
increased levels of aid, and given Colombia's human and capital
resources, we need not do so. Currently, the government devotes
approximately 3.5% of GDP to combating the narco-terrorists. Colombia
must shoulder more of the burden by funding its security
structure-meaning both military and police-at levels that are more
appropriate for a wartime footing.
We are encouraged by President Pastrana's recent decision to increase
the force structure by 10,000 soldiers and provide an additional $110
million for military operations related to elimination of the FARC
safe-haven. But current funding for security forces is simply
inadequate to meet the current threat, and Colombian forces are simply
too small and poorly equipped to provide basic security to large areas
of the country. At the end of the conflict in El Salvador, the
military had 50 helicopters while Colombia, fifty times larger, has
only roughly four times as many. The Colombian military has roughly an
8:1 soldier advantage over the narco-terrorist, an inadequate ratio if
the military is to seize the initiative in the conflict.
The Colombian military's situation is partly due to the evolving
nature of the threat, partly due to a lag in the Colombian public's
learning curve, and partly due to lingering hope that numerous peace
proposals would be successful.
As Ambassador Grossman pointed out, after three years of FARC
duplicity at the negotiating table, on 20 February 2002 President
Pastrana eliminated the FARC safe-haven. Frustrated at the FARC's lack
of good faith, the Colombian public appears to be gaining a more
realistic understanding of the security challenges their country
faces. But Colombia's difficulty in providing for its own security is
due in no small part to its inability to protect significant
revenue-producing infrastructure such as oil pipelines, which leads us
back to the imperative for expanded authorities that Ambassador
Grossman has described.
If U.S. aims in Colombia are cast solely in terms of reducing the
production and export of drugs to the United States, important aspects
of the violence there and the inability of the government to respond
effectively will be ignored. As a practical matter, we cannot view
Colombia as a country in which we either adhere to a counterdrug
program or slide unwittingly into a Vietnam-style counterinsurgency.
More realistically, we must pursue policies and fashion programs that
permit Colombia to meet the challenge of the narco-terrorists so that
U.S. forces are not called upon to do so. There is a strong moral and
strategic impetus behind this support for one of the United States'
oldest and most reliable hemispheric allies.
Virtually all experts concur that the problems of narcotrafficking and
guerrilla violence are intertwined. Both the United States and the
government of Colombia hold that reducing drug exports can serve
important political and security objectives by reducing drug-related
income available to illegal armed groups. Nevertheless, though
drug-related income is an important factor in sustaining insurgents
and paramilitaries, it is doubtful that even effective counternarcotic
operations in specific areas within Colombia can, on their own, be
decisive in disabling illegal armed groups or forcing them to
negotiate seriously for peace.
Continuing to link U.S. aid to Colombia to a narrow counternarcotics
focus means that, by law, we must refrain from providing Colombia
certain kinds of military assistance and intelligence support that
could immediately strengthen the government's position throughout the
country. Hundreds of attacks by the ELN and FARC have been directed at
electrical, natural gas and oil infrastructure. As Ambassador Grossman
has noted, the guerrillas' sabotage of oil pipelines alone has cost
the Government of Colombia lost revenue on the order of $500 million
per year. The pipeline was bombed 170 times in 2001, spilling 2.9
million barrels of oil; eleven times the amount of the Exxon Valdez.
The Administration has proposed to Congress $6 million in FY02
supplemental funding and $98 million in FY03 Foreign Military Finance
funding to train and equip vetted Colombian units to protect that
country's most threatened piece of critical economic infrastructure:
the first 170 kilometers of the Cano-Limon oil pipeline. This segment
is the most often attacked. U.S. assistance and training will support
two Colombian Army brigades, National Police and Marines operating in
the area. These units through ground and air mobility will be in a
better position to prevent and disrupt attacks on the pipeline and
defend key facilities and vulnerable points such as pumping stations.
These units will also send a message that the Colombian State is
committed to defending its economic infrastructure (resources that
provide sorely needed employment and revenue) from terrorist
attacks.
Basic security throughout Colombia's national territory is the
essential but missing ingredient. The Pastrana administration's Plan
Colombia was an admirable start toward resolving Colombia's
interrelated problems, of which the security component is only one
part. But there can be no rule of law, economic development and new
job creation, strengthening of human rights or any other noble goals,
where there is no basic security.
Therefore, our policy in Colombia should augment traditional
counterdrug programs with programs to help Colombia enhance basic
security. A friendly democratic government in our hemisphere is
struggling to preserve its sovereign authority under assault from
extremists of both left and right. U.S. policy towards Colombia
requires a bipartisan consensus at home for a long-term strategy aimed
at strengthening Colombia's ability to enforce effective sovereignty
and preserve democracy. The new and more explicit legal authorities
that the Administration is proposing are intended to serve these
goals.
The Administration is concerned, as are many Members of Congress,
about human rights in Colombia. President Pastrana has instituted
important reforms. The practices and procedures that the U.S.
government has put in place, often at the behest of concerned Members
of Congress, and the example set by the small number of our U.S.
troops training Colombian forces, have also had an impact.
Professionalism is, after all, what we teach. Human rights violations
attributed to the armed forces dropped by 95% during the period of
1993-1998, to fewer than three percent of the total reported abuses.
Armed forces cooperation with the civilian court system in prosecuting
human rights violations committed by military personnel has improved.
Over 600 officers and noncommissioned officers have been relieved of
duty under a 2000 Presidential decree that provides military
commanders a legal means for removing personnel suspected of human
rights violations and collusion with the paramilitaries. Officers have
been dismissed for collaboration with or tolerance of paramilitary
activities, while others face prosecution. The armed forces have
demonstrated aggressiveness recently in seeking out and attacking
paramilitary groups.
Indeed, as already stated, the problem of the paramilitaries is itself
partly a function of the vacuum left by the weakness of the national
government and the Colombian military. By bolstering the democratic
government and its effective assertion of national sovereignty, we
weaken the paramilitaries.
Although a policy cast in terms of basic security should enhance
overall prospects for peace and for more effective counternarcotics,
neither goal is assured without a firm and enduring commitment by the
Colombian government and Colombian people to devote a greater share of
their own national resources to the effort. The key principle should
remain that the Colombian people bear the ultimate responsibility for
their own security and must demonstrate their national will through a
commitment of resources.
The Colombian military, by its own admission, is not optimally
structured or organized to execute sustained operations. The Colombian
military has greatly improved in many respects over the last several
years -- especially in the areas of tactical and operational
effectiveness, increased professionalism, human rights training and
awareness, and has realized a modest but sustained increase in force
structure. But the military continues to suffer from limited
resources, inadequate training practices, significant shortfalls in
intelligence and air mobility, and lack of joint planning and
operations. They need to better coordinate operations among the
services and with the Colombian National Police. Adequate funding and
restructuring of the military are essential if Colombia is to have
continuing operational success against its national threats.
The adoption of Plan Colombia demonstrates that Colombia is moving
forward aggressively, exercising its political will to address, and
ultimately solve, domestic problems that have persisted for decades.
The U.S. has an enormous stake in the success of this plan.
Victory in Colombia can only come (and U.S. interests in Colombia
can best be served) once the Government of Colombia asserts
effective sovereignty over its national territory. It is time for the
United States to reinforce its commitment to Colombian democracy.
President Pastrana has asked for both international and U.S. support
to address an internal problem that has international dimensions --
fueled in part by our country's and the international demand for
cocaine. It is time to move forward, in partnership between the
Administration and Congress.
Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, I again thank you for the
opportunity to discuss these issues with you. |