While many Oberlin students spent their Winter Term learning to knit or catching up on sleep, Oberlin sophomore Anna Hendricks traveled to Colombia to examine first-hand the effects of the U.S.’s $1.3 billion military aid package, known as Plan Colombia. A key element of the ongoing “War on Drugs,” the goals of Plan Colombia include curbing the drug supply that leaves the nation, the world’s leading producer of cocaine. However, in the 10 days Hendricks spent meeting with farmers, labor leaders and government officials, she discovered that the goals of the Plan are far more complex. “Plan Colombia will make Colombia ready for globalization through violence [and] through intimidation,” Hendricks said.
Much of the $1.3 billion in U.S. tax dollars earmarked for Plan Colombia goes directly to anti-narcotic efforts. Part of the program involves using U.S. manufactured aircraft to spray pesticides onto coca farms, eradicating the crop used to manufacture cocaine. After examining the situation in Colombia, Hendricks came to the conclusion that the fumigation program is ultimately ineffective. “If you fumigate someone’s crops and don’t give them enough money, they’re going to keep growing coca,” Hendricks said.
Hendricks emphasized that subsidiary programs for farmers who lose their crop are rarely effective, as individual farmers are unable to compete with large-scale produce distributors. Therefore, Colombian farmers continue to turn to coca as the only viable crop to sustain their farms. Alternatives to the fumigation plan have been proposed by Colombian leaders but have been rejected by the U.S. Congress as unworkable.
By examining first-hand the effects of Plan Colombia, Hendricks came to the conclusion that the Plan is about much more than drugs. Geographically, Colombia is situated at the head of South America, and has been called the “gateway to the FTAA” (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas), according to Hendricks. By stabilizing Colombia, a nation engaged in a civil war, the U.S. could make it easier for economic investment. “If you’re going to make South American countries [economically] similar to the United States, you need a labor force and consumers, not farmers,” Hendricks said. Stabilizing Colombia would also open up the country’s wealth of natural resources, including oil, to the global market.

Hendricks also witnessed how U.S. military aid contributes to violence in Colombia. The civil war in Colombia involves conflict between the military as well as paramilitary and guerrilla forces. “The paramilitary forces…commit 79 percent of human rights offenses. The military work with the paramilitary, and we’re funding the military,” Hendricks said. In her view, American tax dollars are contributing directly to violence in Colombia, where 30,000 people die every year.
The violence in Colombia is not confined to the military, but rather is a daily part of life for civilians. Hendricks met with several families who had been affected by the conflict, including one father whose son was killed in a massacre of 10 students. These families “don’t want any more military anywhere…the military, paramilitary and guerilla forces are all against them,” Hendricks said.
Some Colombians encouraged Hendricks to take action, expressing distaste for what they see as “political tourism,” coming into a country like Colombia to examine the situation, but accomplishing little to no change in the situation at home. For Hendricks, a sense of responsibility for U.S. policies emerged out of all that she saw in Colombia. “We made a commitment to get thousands of people to protest [Plan Colombia] in Washington, D.C. in April,” Hendricks said. “We do have a say, however small that say is.”
Hendricks traveled to Colombia as a part of a 10-person student delegation with Witness For Peace, a non-violent organization whose primary goal is to change U.S. policy in Latin America by educating U.S. citizens. After spending Winter Term learning about U.S. policies in Colombia, Hendricks hopes to spread awareness of these issues, beginning with the Oberlin campus. “My job is to educate people who don’t have the resources to go to Colombia themselves,” Hendricks said.