Latest news with #PlanColombia
Yahoo
16-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Colombia warns Trump against drug blacklisting
Colombia's defense minister on Sunday warned Donald Trump's administration against blacklisting his country for failing to curb drug exports, saying the decision would bring yet more cocaine to the United States. Washington is currently weighing whether to "decertify" Colombia as a partner in the battle against drugs, a move that could restrict millions in US military aid and be a hammer blow to Colombia's reputation. In an interview with AFP, recently appointed defense minister Pedro Sanchez said decertification would mean "we simply lose the ability to contain the threat." "Not being able to contain it would go against the interests of the United States. Because more cocaine would arrive and the United States would not be stronger, more prosperous, or safer." "Fracturing relations and cooperation between our states is an opportunity for drug trafficking," Sanchez insisted. Colombia has launched a diplomatic offensive to avoid blacklisting ahead of a September US review. But many officials are privately pessimistic that blacklisting can be avoided, putting at risk nearly half a billion dollars in annual US funding. Since President Gustavo Petro came to power in 2022, the area under coca cultivation has increased by about 70 percent, according to Colombian government and UN estimates. Trump has taken a hardline stance against drugs entering the United States from Mexico and Canada, hitting both countries with tariffs as apparent punishment. And there is no love lost between Trump and Colombia's similarly pugilistic president Petro. The pair recently got into a spat on social media over migrant deportations, prompting Trump to threaten sanctions on Colombia. - Plan Colombia - The United States has poured billions of dollars into Colombia's security forces over decades, helping to beat back insurgent groups and cartels that produce 90-plus percent of cocaine in the United States. But Petro's signature policy of "total peace" has led to fewer military operations against drug-running militias and an abandonment of forced coca eradication. Sanchez admitted that "total peace" had led to an increase in the strength of some armed groups. "They grew because they betrayed the goodwill of the national government," he said. He revealed that armed fighters had increased by about 1,500 in the last year alone. Decertification would be a major blow to the Colombian military, just as it tries to rebuild strength and retake territory from insurgent leftist guerrilla groups. Sanchez said the military's capabilities had been degraded in recent years, as military spending had been cut. "They are weaker in certain capabilities, in intelligence, for example. We have fallen a little short in advancing rapidly in disruptive technology, such as drones and anti-drone weapons," he said. "We don't have the same aircraft flying that we had 10 years ago." The United States decertified Colombia once before, during the presidency of Ernesto Samper, whose 1994 campaign was accused of receiving money from the Cali cartel. Some vital aid was frozen and foreign investment to Colombia dipped. Eventually, the US resumed funding and, with a new government in Bogota, established "Plan Colombia" -- a billion-dollar US plan to overhaul the Colombian security services. Despite today's challenges, Sanchez said the military's goal was to assert territorial control over all Colombia. ELN guerrillas currently control a swathe of land near the Venezuelan border, where fighting has displaced about 56,000 people. In a recent interview with AFP, ELN commanders vowed to repel a government counteroffensive and said years of "total peace" risk turning into "total war." Sanchez dismissed the ELN as a "narco-criminal group" and vowed they would be met with "full force." He also pledged to retake a major coca-growing region in the south of the country, a virtual microstate run by the Estado Mayor Central (Central General Staff). Sanchez admitted retaking territory was a "wicked problem," but said it would be achieved. "We're going to have to make a lot of sacrifice, we're even going to have tears, but in the end, we're going to achieve it." das/arb/st
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Trump needs a lesson on the Monroe Doctrine for US-Colombia relations
When President Biden declared Colombia a major non-NATO ally in 2019, he called it the 'linchpin … to the whole hemisphere.' The designation, meant to reinforce economic and security cooperation between Colombia and the U.S., also recognized a unique 200-year relationship based on shared values: democracy, trust, rule of law, security and sovereignty. In the early 21st century, bilateral cooperation in 'Plan Colombia' had transformed the country from a near-failed state to the most reliable U.S. security partner in Latin America. Once besieged by violent narco-insurgencies it was powerless to combat, Colombia by 2016 had become an emerging economy with a burgeoning middle class and strong institutions. The recent social media standoff between Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Trump portends a deterioration of the U.S.-Colombia relationship, which has been declining since 2022. The decoupling, examined alongside the doubling of cocaine production potential in Colombia in 2023, and the fact of a former violent revolutionary occupying the Casa Nariño, have several common causes. But seen under a broader lens, those causes can be linked to a stream of self-serving misinterpretations of the 200-year-old Monroe Doctrine — a policy originally intended to extend goodwill and protect fledgling South American democracies. Last month's war of words between the two populist presidents expressed mutual ill will and deep ideological differences. Petro refused to receive 200 deportees back to Colombia, citing inhumane treatment. Trump used economic leverage to bully Petro into submission, threatening immediate sanctions, tariffs and a freeze of Colombia's aid. That furnished Petro fresh ammunition to rant about American arrogance and imperialism, his favorite grievance and a key component of his political messaging. Trump's exploitative version of the Monroe Doctrine only bolsters Petro's propaganda power. In 2019 Trump invoked the doctrine in a speech to the United Nations, linking it to his brand of 'America First' hegemony, and reducing it to 'rejecting foreign interference,' which is code for China. Ironically, Trump's bullying might drive Colombia into China's arms. The decline of positive U.S. engagement in Colombia had already contributed to the spread of faux-democratic thinking and disinformation-fueled populism throughout the hemisphere. Today U.S. policy in Latin America is reduced to one of two extremes, neglect or bullying. Neither supports Colombia's democracy. Biden's policy of neglect in Colombia coincided with the inclusion of former guerrillas as prominent players in Colombian politics. Mayor Elicier Camacho Gral, former general of the Colombian National Police, told me in an interview that Colombia declined rapidly from a sophisticated democracy to a destabilized territory with a compromised government where criminal groups have a presence in two-thirds of the nation. Many Colombians believe their first leftist president is more friendly to narco-terrorist groups than to the democratic state Colombia has arduously built. To be sure, the Monroe Doctrine has been interpreted in varied ways, sometimes to justify military intervention and imperialism. But its original intent, as articulated in President Monroe's seventh address to Congress, was to protect the Western Hemisphere from outside interventions and show respect for the sovereignty of governments that the U.S. recognized as independent. It said that the U.S. 'could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.' If transnational terrorist groups can be considered oppressors, Plan Colombia was a successful manifestation of the Monroe Doctrine. Colombian General Eliecer Camacho told me Colombia's security crisis is related to the gradual dismantling of Plan Colombia in favor of the 2016 Peace Deal between the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the Colombian government, which he feels started an ethos of 'permissiveness towards delinquency.' 'Contrary to popular opinion, the U.S.-Colombian partnership was a success,' he said. Plan Colombia trained and modernized the national army into something capable of combating the armed insurgencies. It also trained and strengthened Colombia's judiciary, ushering in an era of accountability and stability. Today, Colombia is isolated, with a president complicit in institutionalizing impunity for terrorists. Until last month, there was no military or police presence in the volatile border region of Catatumbo, when a border-control war broke out between the ELN (National Liberation Army, now a proxy of the Venezuelan dictatorship) and FARC dissidents, in which 80 people died and 50,000 were displaced. In response, Camacho said, 'Petro sent forces to Catatumbo, but the military had already been drained of its strength — both financially and by the firing of leadership.' But instead of declaring a state of conflict in the region, the president declared a 90-day state of emergency over all of Colombia. Camacho said, 'Analysts believe the president is trying actually to increase the presence of delinquents, in order to take emergency controls to the point of staying in power in 2026.' 'For the United States, losing Colombia as a security ally is like losing Israel,' the general warned. Venezuela's patronage of Iran's Hezbollah and the ELN constitute a 'grave security threat to Colombia and the entire hemisphere.' Ingrid Serrato, a San Francisco-based immigration legal consultant, left her position in the Petro mayoral administration because of rampant corruption. 'Colombia's democracy is falling apart under a false leftist discourse,' she told me. 'Petro's reforms have a criminal origin. They buy votes and reforms with the money they are stealing.' From my experience living in Colombia, many there share her concern, as evidenced by the president's 60 percent disapproval rate of 60 percent. There is a hidden link between self-oriented U.S. foreign policies and the rise of faux democracies in South America. 'America First' threatens everything in its barbaric path, from security to trust to public opinion. Colombia doesn't need a vacuum or a bully; it needs trustworthy partners. Trumpism is the opposite; it lacks the goodwill necessary to build trust. Deconstructionists want to tear down all that has been built together for the public good. Amid the ensuing gloom, it's imperative for democracy builders to cling to those values that have historically brought people together, instead of those that tear us apart. Kristina Foltz is a Rotary ambassadorial scholar. She writes on U.S.-Latin American affairs Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
25-02-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Trump needs a lesson on the Monroe Doctrine for US-Colombia relations
When President Biden declared Colombia a major non-NATO ally in 2019, he called it the ' linchpin … to the whole hemisphere.' The designation, meant to reinforce economic and security cooperation between Colombia and the U.S., also recognized a unique 200-year relationship based on shared values: democracy, trust, rule of law, security and sovereignty. In the early 21st century, bilateral cooperation in ' Plan Colombia ' had transformed the country from a near-failed state to the most reliable U.S. security partner in Latin America. Once besieged by violent narco-insurgencies it was powerless to combat, Colombia by 2016 had become an emerging economy with a burgeoning middle class and strong institutions. The recent social media standoff between Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Trump portends a deterioration of the U.S.-Colombia relationship, which has been declining since 2022. The decoupling, examined alongside the doubling of cocaine production potential in Colombia in 2023, and the fact of a former violent revolutionary occupying the Casa Nariño, have several common causes. But seen under a broader lens, those causes can be linked to a stream of self-serving misinterpretations of the 200-year-old Monroe Doctrine — a policy originally intended to extend goodwill and protect fledgling South American democracies. Last month's war of words between the two populist presidents expressed mutual ill will and deep ideological differences. Petro refused to receive 200 deportees back to Colombia, citing inhumane treatment. Trump used economic leverage to bully Petro into submission, threatening immediate sanctions, tariffs and a freeze of Colombia's aid. That furnished Petro fresh ammunition to rant about American arrogance and imperialism, his favorite grievance and a key component of his political messaging. Trump's exploitative version of the Monroe Doctrine only bolsters Petro's propaganda power. In 2019 Trump invoked the doctrine in a speech to the United Nations, linking it to his brand of 'America First' hegemony, and reducing it to 'rejecting foreign interference,' which is code for China. Ironically, Trump's bullying might drive Colombia into China's arms. The decline of positive U.S. engagement in Colombia had already contributed to the spread of faux-democratic thinking and disinformation-fueled populism throughout the hemisphere. Today U.S. policy in Latin America is reduced to one of two extremes, neglect or bullying. Neither supports Colombia's democracy. Biden's policy of neglect in Colombia coincided with the inclusion of former guerrillas as prominent players in Colombian politics. Mayor Elicier Camacho Gral, former general of the Colombian National Police, told me in an interview that Colombia declined rapidly from a sophisticated democracy to a destabilized territory with a compromised government where criminal groups have a presence in two-thirds of the nation. Many Colombians believe their first leftist president is more friendly to narco-terrorist groups than to the democratic state Colombia has arduously built. To be sure, the Monroe Doctrine has been interpreted in varied ways, sometimes to justify military intervention and imperialism. But its original intent, as articulated in President Monroe's seventh address to Congress, was to protect the Western Hemisphere from outside interventions and show respect for the sovereignty of governments that the U.S. recognized as independent. It said that the U.S. 'could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.' If transnational terrorist groups can be considered oppressors, Plan Colombia was a successful manifestation of the Monroe Doctrine. Colombian General Eliecer Camacho told me Colombia's security crisis is related to the gradual dismantling of Plan Colombia in favor of the 2016 Peace Deal between the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the Colombian government, which he feels started an ethos of 'permissiveness towards delinquency.' 'Contrary to popular opinion, the U.S.-Colombian partnership was a success,' he said. Plan Colombia trained and modernized the national army into something capable of combating the armed insurgencies. It also trained and strengthened Colombia's judiciary, ushering in an era of accountability and stability. Today, Colombia is isolated, with a president complicit in institutionalizing impunity for terrorists. Until last month, there was no military or police presence in the volatile border region of Catatumbo, when a border-control war broke out between the ELN (National Liberation Army, now a proxy of the Venezuelan dictatorship) and FARC dissidents, in which 80 people died and 50,000 were displaced. In response, Camacho said, 'Petro sent forces to Catatumbo, but the military had already been drained of its strength — both financially and by the firing of leadership.' But instead of declaring a state of conflict in the region, the president declared a 90-day state of emergency over all of Colombia. Camacho said, 'Analysts believe the president is trying actually to increase the presence of delinquents, in order to take emergency controls to the point of staying in power in 2026.' 'For the United States, losing Colombia as a security ally is like losing Israel,' the general warned. Venezuela's patronage of Iran's Hezbollah and the ELN constitute a 'grave security threat to Colombia and the entire hemisphere.' Ingrid Serrato, a San Francisco-based immigration legal consultant, left her position in the Petro mayoral administration because of rampant corruption. 'Colombia's democracy is falling apart under a false leftist discourse,' she told me. 'Petro's reforms have a criminal origin. They buy votes and reforms with the money they are stealing.' From my experience living in Colombia, many there share her concern, as evidenced by the president's 60 percent disapproval rate of 60 percent. There is a hidden link between self-oriented U.S. foreign policies and the rise of faux democracies in South America. 'America First' threatens everything in its barbaric path, from security to trust to public opinion. Colombia doesn't need a vacuum or a bully; it needs trustworthy partners. Trumpism is the opposite; it lacks the goodwill necessary to build trust. Deconstructionists want to tear down all that has been built together for the public good. Amid the ensuing gloom, it's imperative for democracy builders to cling to those values that have historically brought people together, instead of those that tear us apart.
