COLOMBIA: Gov’t Plans to Boost War Budget by One Billion Dollars

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Yadira Ferrer

BOGOTA, Feb 22 2002 (IPS) - The Colombian government plans to reassign one billion dollars to military spending from other parts of the budget to tackle the new phase in the civil war that began this week with the collapse of the peace talks with the FARC, the main rebel group.

“Difficult times lie ahead, but we will respond to the terrorists with everything we have,” said Finance Minister Juan Santos, announcing the reallotment of resources to the counterinsurgency struggle.

The government plans to cut around one billion dollars from other parts of the budget, which have not yet been identified, in order to boost spending on national security, “which is a guarantee of economic stability,” said Santos.

That amount is just 23 percent less than the total aid provided by the United States to the government of Andrés Pastrana for the Plan Colombia anti-drug trafficking programme.

Washington has also approved Pastrana’s suggestion of using part of the U.S. aid for defending oil pipelines and other infrastructure threatened by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN).

The United States also reported that it is studying “specific forms of assistance” for the difficult situation currently faced by Colombia, the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, after Israel and Egypt.

But human rights groups continue to complain that the U.S. aid is only leading to an escalation of Colombia’s war, which has already stretched on for nearly four decades.

Colombia’s total budget amounts to 32.7 billion dollars, and military spending is already equivalent to 3.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Santos urged the business community to “remain calm” and continue “investing, working and generating employment, which is the best way to fight terrorism.”

Juan Echavarría, the director of the Foundation for Higher Education and Development, a private sector think-tank, said the breakdown of the talks with the FARC, announced by the government late Wednesday, would not have a major impact on the economy.

Colombia’s business community was already prepared for what happened, said Echavarría. He noted that the near-collapse of the peace process in January, when a deadline set by Pastrana for the FARC to pull out of their safe haven was averted at the last minute, had no impact on the country’s economic indicators.

Santiago Montenegro, president of the Association of Financial Institutions, said macroeconomic projections for this year would not be substantially altered. The government and the business sector project economic growth of between 2.0 and 2.5 percent for the year.

Montenegro said the magnitude of the internal armed conflict and the uncertainty were already high, even prior to the failure of the talks. “The country and its businesses have shown a great ability to operate in such complex conditions,” he said.

But Luis Valencia, an analyst at the public National University, told IPS that although Colombians have been living in the midst of war for nearly four decades, the conflict costs the country two percentage points of GDP growth annually, and around 7,000 lives, mainly unarmed civilians.

On Thursday, Pastrana urged public opinion to deal the insurgent groups a “political defeat.” But he admitted that “tough times” lay ahead.

This week’s events have returned this South American country of 42 million to the situation seen prior to January, 1999, when peace talks were formally launched by the government and the FARC, said the president.

He stated, however, that there was “one big difference, which is that we now have armed forces that are better prepared and have a greater capacity” for combat.

“We expect the FARC to react with more terrorist attacks,” Pastrana added. “I hope that doesn’t occur, but if there is a confrontation, may it be between the armed forces and the FARC,” leaving out the civilian population, “and respecting the standards of international humanitarian law and human rights.”

On Friday, army troops backed up by the air force reclaimed the Cazadores Battalion outpost, the main military garrison in the 42,000-square-kilometre area in southern Colombia that was demilitarised in November 1998 to pave the way for peace talks.

The operation was carried out by two companies of the army’s mobile brigades, with the backing of U.S.-trained special forces.

Air force commander Héctor Velasco told the local radio station Caracol that since the early morning of Thursday, when the government began to retake the guerrilla-controlled enclave, around 200 sorties have been carried out in the area.

The security forces’ bombs hit “13 key FARC targets, including deposits of inputs used in processing cocaine, lots full of stolen cars, and clandestine air strips,” said Velasco.

He also said the deaths of three civilians, including two minors, in the area where the bombing was carried out, were being investigated.

The secretary-general of the Organisation of American States (OAS), former Colombian president César Gaviria, said Thursday that the organisation’s 34 member countries “have closed ranks to support Colombia” and its government in the task of defending democracy.

According to Gaviria, the OAS member countries “are indivisibly committed to a frontal attack on terrorism.”