On June 20, the U.S. Senate voted by a margin of 89 to 11 to reject an amendment from Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone that would have removed $225 million of military aid for Colombia and redirected that money toward drug treatment and prevention programs in the United States. Later the Senate voted 79 to 19 to reject an amendment from Washington Senator Slade Gorton that would have reduced the Colombia package from $1 billion to $200 million. The lopsided votes against these amendments clearly demonstrated that the majority of senators in both parties had decided to back massive military aid, representing a devastating blow to human rights activists who have worked to oppose military aid for Colombia since the Clinton Administration announced its Colombia package in January. Patty Murray's praiseworthy vote against military aid was an exception among Senate Democrats. For human rights activists who have traditionally placed some faith in the Democratic Party, the Senate Democrats' lopsided vote in favor of military aid is, plainly put, a betrayal that will not be forgotten.

For those who came to believe that the Democrats' opposition to Reagan's policies in Central America in the 1980s was a firm indication of their commitment to human rights, the vote on the Colombia package has shattered many illusions. As human rights groups and non-governmental organizations in Colombia have frequently pointed out, the Colombian army has a deplorable human rights record. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented numerous examples of collaboration between Colombian army units and brutal paramilitaries who are guilty of over 75% of the human rights violations that have been committed in Colombia's civil conflict. Human Rights Watch accuses the Colombian army of contracting out "dirty work" to paramilitaries, who routinely murder civilians whom they suspect of being guerrilla sympathizers. Paramilitaries and Colombian state security forces are also deeply implicated in the murders of Colombian trade unionists, over 2,500 of whom have been assassinated since 1986, according to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. In view of the fact that the Colombian state has routinely neglected to bring the murderers of trade unionists to justice, the International Labor Organization has strongly criticized the Pastrana government. And just when it seemed that Colombia's macabre record on human rights could get no worse, Colombian President Andres Pastrana vetoed the Colombian congress' "Heinous Crimes Act," which would have imposed a maximum 60 year jail term for anyone involved in killings aimed at the partial or total destruction of a political group. The legislation represented a clear effort to halt atrocities against the legal political opposition, such as the leftist Patriotic Union that was destroyed through the murder of 3,000 of its members in the 1980s and '90s.

Many Senate Democrats claim that the main goal in Colombia is to stop the influx of cocaine and heroin into the United States. The areas that the U.S. plans to target are the southern regions of Colombia that are controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). While there is considerable coca cultivation in these regions and the FARC does tax the coca industry, other evidence suggests that the primary interest of the Administration is to assist counterinsurgency efforts rather than counter-narcotics efforts. One important factor that casts serious doubt about the Administration's stated intentions is that there is no mention of counter-narcotics operations against the paramilitaries. The DEA itself has described Carlos Castaņo, the self-proclaimed leader of the paramilitary death squads, as a trafficker linked to a powerful cartel.

Senate Democrats seem indifferent to extensive evidence that efforts to eradicate coca and arrest cocaine production in source countries are extremely ineffective at bringing down domestic cocaine consumption. In 1994 the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy and the U.S. Army commissioned a study by the Rand Institute's Drug Policy Research Center to assess four strategies for bringing down domestic cocaine consumption. One option that was explored is known as "source-country control," defined as coca leaf eradication and seizures of coca base, cocaine paste, and the final cocaine product in the source countries (primarily Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia). The other "supply-control" strategies that were assessed were interdiction and domestic enforcement, while the lone "demand-control" strategy that was evaluated was treatment of heavy users, defined as outpatient and residential treatment programs. Rand's findings were not soothing for the masterminds of the United States' heavily militarized "drug policy." Treatment was found to be seven times more cost-effective than domestic enforcement, 11 times more cost-effective than interdiction and a whopping 23 times more cost-effective than source-country control, the policy that we are now supposedly embarking upon. The Office of National Drug Control Policy and the U.S. Army attempted to get Rand to "soften its conclusion that money should be cut from law enforcement," said Jonathan Caulkins, the Rand research center's co-director. But the institute persevered, concluding that $3 billion should be slashed from federal and local law enforcement and switched to drug treatment programs. Not surprisingly, the Clinton administration issued a response soon thereafter rejecting the findings of the study that it had commissioned.

Given the stark evidence put forth in the Rand Study, the decision of all but nine Senate Democrats to vote against Senator Wellstone's amendment is mind-boggling. How, one might ask, could any coherent policy to bring down domestic cocaine consumption embrace the least cost-effective means of achieving its goal while rejecting the most cost-effective strategy?

Several corporations whose interests have nothing to do with drug policy have been pushing the Colombia package from day one. Multinationals and U.S.-based weapons producers who support the package include Occidental Petroleum Corp. (in which Vice President Al Gore has substantial holdings), Enron Corp., BP Amoco, Colgate-Palmolive Co., United Technologies Corp., and Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. Occidental Petroleum's strong backing of the package derives partly from the fact that its extensive oil operations in Colombia have been frequently sabotaged by guerrilla groups who object to the terms of the agreement between the Colombian government and multinational oil corporations that operate in the country. Occidental Petroleum's Vice-President Lawrence Meriage was even called to testify before the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Drug Policy, leading observers to wonder how oil executives suddenly qualified as drug policy experts. Bell Helicopter Textron, the producer of the Huey helicopter, and United Technologies, the producer of the Blackhawk helicopter, have pushed military "aid" in their competitive pursuit to guarantee the purchase of approximately 60 helicopters for the Colombian military. Federal election records show that Textron and United Technologies donated $1.25 million to both parties between 1997 and 1999.

The mainstream press consistently relies on official sources and unquestioningly frames the Colombia package as "anti-drug aid" in the titles of its news reports. When the mainstream press does, on very rare occasions, pose tough questions about U.S. intentions in Colombia, it soon lapses right back into its routine regurgitation of the Administration's line. For example, the Seattle Times printed a surprise report on July 29, 1999, titled "Are Americans fighting drugs or guerrillas in Colombia?" The title and the article clearly indicated that there was a real and serious debate about the United States' primary objectives in Colombia. Yet in the next six months, the Times followed this story with reports entitled "U.S. ready to step up Colombia's drug war" (August 23, 1999), "U.S. offers big package to aid Colombia drug war" (January 12, 2000) and "Wife of Army anti-drug officer pleads guilty to drug charges" (January 28, 2000). Even after acknowledging evidence that contradicts the official line, the Times promptly goes back to peddling that line by entitling its reports with terms like "drug war" and "anti-drug officer."

In sum, Senate Democrats are backing a "counter-narcotics" policy that embraces the least cost-effective means for reducing domestic cocaine consumption while rejecting the strategy that is the most cost-effective at bringing down cocaine use. Furthermore, the Colombia policy neglects to acknowledge that paramilitaries are, in the words of The Economist, "far deeper into drugs" than the guerrillas (Feb. 21, 1999). In the name of preserving "Latin America's oldest democracy," Clinton and the Senate Democrats are massively backing a state that is implicated in the virtual annihilation of a leftist political party that merely sought to compete in Colombia's electoral process. In the name of "human rights," Clinton and the Senate Democrats are backing a state that has consistently neglected to bring the murderers of over 2,500 Colombian trade unionists to justice. Once considered by some to be the friends of labor and human rights groups, Senate Democrats have largely ignored the calls of both in their support of this truly deplorable policy that will intensify the bloodshed and possibly destroy fragile peace negotiations. With "friends" like these, who needs enemies?

--Justin Delacour is a Latin American solidarity activist and member of the Seattle Colombia Committee.