Sara Ritchie Archive

Promoting sustainable peace for Colombia–A reorienting strategy

April 30, 2015 Sara Ritchie

In 2000, the Clinton administration enacted Plan Colombia, the $1.3 billion aid package to help Colombia in efforts to reduce drug production. Profits from the drug trade have fueled various actors in Colombia’s ongoing guerilla warfare, which began in 1964. In the first ten years of Plan Colombia alone, the U.S. provided more than $8 billion with nearly 80 percent of funding going towards military and police assistance, according to Amnesty International. This militaristic approach continued well past the Plan’s ten year anniversary as the U.S. continues to pour money into Colombian military and police forces and ineffective aerial fumigation […]