Colombia Program

"Colombia: Where U.S. Policy Kills" Fact Sheet Series

Witness for Peace Colombia Reports

An Exercise in Futility: Nine Years of Fumigation in Colombia
March 2009. Nearly a decade after dramatically expanding aerial fumigation in Colombia - the spraying of an herbicide mixture from a crop duster with the intention of eliminating coca crops - Witness for Peace, Asociacion MINGA and the Institute for Policy Studies argue that fumigation is an ineffective and inhumane drug control strategy. The report examines the latest coca production figures from Washington while also providing insights gained from field verification missions to two key coca producing regions - Putumayo and Guaviare in southern Colombia.

Examples of Failure: COSURCA Coffee Hit Again by U.S.-Backed Fumigation While Coca Production in Colombia Remains Steady
May 2007. Despite over $5 billion and approximately two million acres fumigated in Colombia, the State Department reports increased coca production—the raw material for cocaine—during Plan Colombia’s seven years. For years Witness for Peace and others have documented that U.S.-backed fumigation has destroyed legitimate crops. In a representative example of a widespread problem, for the second time in two years a coffee producers’ cooperative, COSURCA, has been wrongly fumigated. The evidence is clear—the fumigation policy has failed and must be discontinued. The program has failed to accomplish its stated goal of reducing coca production and has destroyed the livelihoods of family farmers. Read a COSURCA report on the 2005 round of fumigations that destroyed numerous crops.

Faces of Colombia: Who are the Victims of Free Trade?
2006. As the U.S. and Colombian governments seek a free trade agreement modeled on the failed NAFTA and CAFTA agreements, the people of both countries are working to block the deal. This trade agreement would not protect workers in Colombia--the most dangerous country in the world to be a union activist. The deal would also devastate rural family farmers, driving millions into poverty and others into the drug trade. Download a two page flyer on the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement.

Putumayo, 2004. An Evaluation of Four Years of Plan Colombia in Putumayo
July 2004. Plan Colombia turns four in July 2004, and Putumayo, Colombia's southern department, has been the primary focus of U.S. military aid to Colombia. This updated report demonstrates that the U.S. aerial fumigations program has been a failure, that human rights violations have increased and that civilian security has decreased in Putumayo.

Plan Colombia: Failing to Follow the Letter of U.S. law
June 2004. This short document references the specific fumigation complaint of Mr. Jimenez, a farmer living in the southern Colombian province of Putumayo, and thereby demonstrates that Plan Colombia's fumigation compensation program is racked with bureaucracy, contradiction and conflict of interest. As an element of our failed policy in the region, the compensation program calls for serious scrutiny and review by U.S. policy makers.

Plan Colombia's First Two Years: An Evaluation of Human Rights in Putumayo
April 2003. An in-depth evaluation of the issues of human rights and civilian security in Putumayo, Colombia's southern department which has been the primary focus of U.S. military aid to Colombia. This document's findings of a worsened human rights situation, ongoing collusion between Colombian military and the paramilitaries, and increased displacement are crucial to the debate on the 2004 Foreign Appropriation requests by the Bush administration.

The Real Cost of Pipeline Protection in Colombia: Corporate Welfare with Deadly Consequences
July 2002. An in-depth analysis of the potential consequences of the proposed $98 million in U.S. aid to protect an oil pipeline in the war-torn state of Arauca. Released to Congress in time for the debate on the 2003 Foreign Appropriations bills, its findings are essential to head off this costly and potentially devastating piece of corporate welfare for the California-based Occidental Petroleum.

The Bojayá Massacre: Escalating Conflict on Colombia's Pacific Coast
May 2002. A joint report released by Witness for Peace and the Colombian human rights organization, Justapaz. Provides on-the-ground information from Chocó, the border region with Panamá and site of the recent Bojayá massacre.

FUMIGATION REPORT
December 2001. The latest round of fumigations in Southern Colombia began in November 2001. Read this important document and see the photographs revealing how legal crops and pact-signers were targeted.

More resources on Colombia