It is rich in natural resources including oil, gold, iron, emeralds and timber. It is one of the largest exporters of coffee globally and is rated second in the world for its biodiversity, with ecosystems ranging from coastal plains to the jutting Andes mountains to Amazonian jungle.

These facts go a long way in explaining why in 2000, Colombia received the third highest amount of U.S. aid (primarily in the form of helicopter gunships, weapons, and military training) only after Israel and Egypt. It also helps explain why there has been a massive military build-up in Colombia's neighbors: Central America, Ecuador, Peru and the Caribbean.

Plan Colombia, the $7.5 billion regional plan for Colombia and its neighbors, though touted as aid in the War on Drugs, is not really concerned with stopping the flow of drugs north. A study by the Rand Corporation found that money spent on drug treatment and education in the U.S.
would be 23 times more cost effective in reducing drug consumption than the present policy of militarization of the region and eradication of coca and poppy crops by herbicide spraying. Furthermore, decades of drug wars have shown that when drug production is rubbed out in one country, it inevitably resurfaces elsewhere.

Plan Colombia is about making South America safe for capitalism and the unimpeded expansion of multinational corporations with "free trade." Colombia is the gateway for the FTAA in South America, which in turn is the gateway for globalization in the Western Hemisphere.

There are a number of elements that make Colombia critically important to all of Latin America at this point in time:

1) The pacification of Colombia is essential for the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Colombia must be "stabilized" for trade to flow freely through Central and South America. In addition, its oil and other natural resources are highly coveted by multinational corporations.

2) All the elements are present in Colombia for an escalating, protracted and unwinnable war, comparable in scale to the war in Vietnam this time in our own hemisphere.

3) Indigenous peoples are targeted and removed from their traditional lands to increase the holdings of wealthy landowners. The U'wa people have fought Occidental Petroleum for seven years and have taken a life or death stand by threatening mass suicide if drilling for oil proceeds on the ancestral land. There could be no clearer example of what is wrong with Plan Colombia and the FTAA than this life or death struggle by the U'wa. Many other communities have already been annihilated or dispersed to cities.

4) Colombia's incredibly rich ecosystem has been the target of massive toxic herbicide spraying since 1995. The herbicide is indiscriminant, killing whatever it comes in contact with. It also causes serious health problems for the people living in the targeted areas, and poisons the water. The assault on the population is matched by an assault on the environment.

5) A proposed site for an inter-oceanic "dry-canal", or "corridor of investment" goes across the NW corner of the country. Such dry canals are critical to the expansion of inter-oceanic trade.

6) Colombia is the focus of a militarybuild-up throughout the Caribbean and Central and South America.

There is a long tradition of political violence in Colombia. Along with the Spanish legacy which left a great majority of wealth and land concentrated in a handful of families, there have been rebellions and suppression. In 1949, the assassination of Jorge Galtan, an indigenous leader about to become president, began what is referred to as La Violencia (the violence). The FARC rebel group was
formed in the 50s, with other smaller rebel groups forming later, and the country has been embroiled in a civil war for going on 40 years. At one point, the rebel armies agreed to lay down their arms and form a political party. Consequently, over 1600 members of their party were assassinated, so the rebels abandoned the political process and took up arms again. The rebels currently control about 40% of the country.

As another legacy of Spanish rule, there is widespread corruption in the government and military, which are also widely acknowledged to be involved in the drug trade. The military has close ties to strong paramilitary groups, which often work for the wealthiest families, and which regularly carry out massacres of peasants who live on desirable land or are suspected of being rebel sympathizers.

Judges, labor organizers, human rights workers and journalists are also frequent assassination targets of the paramilitaries. In 1999, half of the 120 labor leaders killed worldwide were killed in Colombia. Colombia is a violent, virtually lawless society where the wealthy rule with impunity, and an assassin can be hired for about U.S. $20.

In order to pass the aid package, Clinton had to waive restrictions on military aid to countries with poor human rights records contained in the Leahy Amendment, because Colombia has the worst human rights record in the western hemisphere. Over 35,000 people have died in the violence there in the last ten years. It is called a genocidal democracy. A portion of the weapons being given to the Colombian military will undoubtedly end up in the hands of paramilitaries. The U.S. is largely alone in its promotion of a military solution to this complex situation. Most European countries oppose Plan Colombia and have held back non-military aid which is part of the $7.5 billion regional have already been at least two assassinations of indigenous leaders as well a other assassinations and several large massacres. Now that Bush is in office and we have a general for secretary of state, snowballing escalation of the conflict is in the forecast.