Narco News 2001
March 16, 2001
Digs Under the Surface of Plan Colombia and is...
IT MIGHT REALLY BE ALL ABOUT
PERU-Though the stated objectives of
Plan Colombia are to end the 30-plus year old civil war that
has cost the lives of more than 35,000 Colombians and to end
the production of cocaine and heroin, there may
be a simpler reality: oil.
There have long been rumors that somewhere
between the vast oilfields of Venezuela and the third-rate shale-oil
fields of the Peruvian Amazon's northwest there might lie the
motherload of South America's oil.
Recently, geologists have been targeting
those rumors to the southeastern foothills of Colombia's Andes.
While it is only a rumor at this time-because those scientists
passing it not yet willing to put their names on the record-if
true, then Plan Colombia has an even more wretched face than
previously thought. Could it be possible that Plan Colombia is
simply a cover for eliminating the people in the region who stand
between the oil exploration and the potential riches it would
Of course, that idea begs this question:
if we already know there are unimaginably rich oil fields in
the region, why not simply move in as businessmen and purchase
the rights? The answer, if such oil fields exist, is twofold:
first, Colombia is in the midst of a civil war and US oil companies
are already having tremendous difficulty maintaining qualified
men there because of how dangerous the job has become. US oil
companies in Colombia are currently paying a premium of $1,000
a day to men who, in other countries for the same work, are earning
$200 or less per day. And they are still short men willing to
risk their lives in the ongoing civil war. Exploring for oil
in the heart of rebel-held territory would simply be impossible
in the present political climate.
There is also the question of public relations.
Several indigenous peoples live in the region in question, including
the Cofan tribal group, and drilling for oil in traditional indigenous
territory has already proven to be a political and public relations
nightmare in South America, one which has cost companies years
of work and millions and millions of dollars in legal battles,
most recently in Waorani territory in Ecuador.
If, however, those traditional peoples,
as well as the FARC, were moved from the region because of war,
they would largely lose their claims to the "traditional
territory." Imagine the FARC and locals in the region slaughtered
or displaced in a US-backed war, after which US oil companies
quickly move into the now-vacated territory and discover terribly
rich oilfields. Rather than being a public relations debacle
for the oil companies they would appear as proverbial White Knights
rushing in to help rebuild a decimated land.
If such fields exist, it is not difficult
to imagine the possibility of someone or several people in the
US State Department knowing of them, and subsequently pushing
for the passage of Plan Colombia under the guise of fighting
the War on Drugs. As noted, to date the existence of the oil
motherload is just a rumor, but it would explain why the US position
went from one of having no interest in Colombia's civil war-even
at the height of the cocaine epidemic in the US-to the billion-dollar-plus
Plan Colombia with all of its war components, after the FARC
agreed to peace talks. It would also explain why those war components
of Plan Colombia are nearly all aimed at the FARC demilitarized
zone and not at the paramilitary (AUC) held regions, which are
the primary sources of finished cocaine and the exclusive regions
of distribution and export of same.
the Surface of Plan Colombia