How to Really Advance Social Justice in Colombia

Brian Grzelkowski recently traveled to Colombia to visit Mercy Corps programs and speak with various local officials, partners and beneficiaries. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

During his recent Latin American tour, U.S. President George W. Bush was greeted by warm handshakes, marching bands and wild street protests, vivid reminders of both the influence the U.S. wields and the suspicion it engenders in the region.

Nowhere is this dynamic more pronounced than in Colombia, the U.S.'s closest regional ally and the largest recipient of U.S. aid outside the Middle East and Afghanistan.

President Bush visited Colombia in part to bolster embattled Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and in part to promote U.S. foreign policy and advance "the cause of social justice." Since 2000, the U.S. has provided Colombia with over $4.5 billion, mostly through a controversial aid program known as Plan Colombia, which gives assistance to military, police, counter-narcotics - and to a far lesser extent - social and economic development programs. The problem is that Plan Colombia and all these U.S. dollars simply haven't worked.

Despite this multibillion dollar U.S. investment, Colombia remains plagued by many of the same problems that Plan Colombia was originally meant to address. Large swaths of the country remain outside government control and suffused with violence, drug trafficking, poverty and human suffering on a massive scale. Sixty-five percent of Colombians still live below the poverty line and almost 5 million, or 12 percent of the population, have been displaced from their homes. Only Sudan has more displaced people.

Much of Colombia's rural population is now simply trapped in a continuous cycle of violence, organized terror and economic hardship so severe that families have little choice but to flee from their homes or die. And many of those who do flee end up on the margins of Colombia's sprawling cities, living in squalid slums with little access to social services, few resources, and even fewer urban coping skills. This is the Colombia that has become one of the world's worst silent disasters.

This is also the Colombia where humanitarian aid organizations like Mercy Corps are working to assist Colombia's deplazados - the urban and rural displaced. These people are the very real collateral damage of 40 years of constant violence and upheaval, and they are the ones being most failed by their government's policies and Plan Colombia's imbalanced focus on military, rather than human, needs.

It is now high time for a change in course.

President Uribe has realized that a more balanced, holistic approach is needed to successfully combat both conflict and poverty in his country. He is now promoting Plan Colombia II, a $44 billion, six-year proposal that will, pending sufficient resources, devote 86 percent of its funding to social and economic programs and only 14 percent to the military and counter-narcotics efforts.

But the Bush administration is still resisting changes to its strategy in Colombia. Since its inception in 2000, Plan Colombia has pumped more than 80 percent of U.S. assistance into military, police and counter-narcotics activities. The President's 2008 budget proposal, currently before Congress, essentially leaves this ratio unchanged: out of over $700 million, only about 20 percent is targeted toward urgent social and economic needs.

If the Bush Administration and the U.S. Congress are serious about advancing social justice in Colombia, then they need to reorient U.S. policy and ensure that it supports this new approach. They can start doing so by taking the following steps:

• First, they should ensure that at least fifty percent of U.S. assistance is devoted to humanitarian and other social and economic development programs.
• Second, they should leverage U.S. influence to encourage President Uribe to fully fund and implement the social and economic parts of Plan Colombia II. Specifically, the government of Colombia should implement the Peace and Justice Law that governs the paramilitary demobilization, justice and reconciliation processes. All human rights offenders should be punished, paramilitary networks dismantled, and the displaced fairly compensated. The Colombian government should also implement its excellent law on Internally Displaced Persons and finance the special fund intended to compensate victims. And future U.S. funding should be conditioned on measurable progress on these critical social and economic fronts.
• Third, U.S. assistance programs should include funding and training to assist the Colombian government and civilian ministries in extending their presence to conflict-affected and isolated parts of the country. Military and police operations must be followed by basic social services if vulnerable communities are to remain viable and the flow of desplazados staunched. This happens too infrequently today.
• Finally, the U.S. should lead through example, making sure that key social and economic priorities are funded. These should include programs for the displaced and economically vulnerable, human rights protection, and political reform. U.S. aid should also support the Colombian judiciary in its efforts to hold the Colombian government accountable to its constitutional responsibilities.

Over the coming months, President Bush and the U.S. Congress will have historic opportunities to help Colombia advance toward peace and prosperity. Together they can reshape U.S. policy and Plan Colombia to ensure that social and economic priorities receive greater emphasis in the 2008 budget.

Aid groups like Mercy Corps have seen the benefits of generous and well-targeted US assistance through its work with deplazados in Colombia. With strong diplomacy, a few choice words and a more balanced aid package, President Bush and the U.S. Congress can substantially improve people's lives in Colombia. Now that would really be a way to advance the cause of social justice in Colombia.