|
Colombia Relations with the United States
Although Colombia and the United States had cordial and
friendly relations during the nineteenth century,
relations were
strained during the first two decades of the twentieth
century as
a result of the involvement of President Theodore
Roosevelt's
administration in the Panama revolt
(see Consolidation of Political Divisions
, ch. 1). Despite the diplomatic strain, economic
ties
with the United States were of great importance to
Colombia even in
the early twentieth century. The United States was the
major market
for Colombia's leading export and source of revenue:
coffee.
In the early 1920s, Colombian president Marco Fidel
Suárez (in
office 1918-21) advocated a doctrine called Res Pice Polum
(Follow
the North Star), which linked Colombia's destiny to that
of the
"North Star," the United States, through geography, trade,
and
democracy. Colombia's powerful coffee exporters were
particularly
fond of the doctrine. Enrique Olaya Herrera, Colombia's
first
Liberal president of the century (in office 1930-34),
reaffirmed
the Northern Star doctrine, but Colombia did not fully
embrace it
until the nation enthusiastically received United States
president
Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy
(see The Reformist Period, 1930-45
, ch. 1).
A United States agreement to provide a military
training
mission and a 1940 bilateral trade agreement strengthened
pre-World
War II relations between Bogotá and Washington. Colombia's
position
as a close ally of the United States became evident during
World
War II. Although Bogotá's commitment to the Allied cause
did not
entail the sending of troops, Colombia's strategic
position near
the Caribbean and the Panama Canal and its pro-United
States stance
within the region were helpful to the Allied nations.
Colombia's relations with the United States were
somewhat
strained during the late 1940s and throughout most of the
1950s
because of the pro-Catholic Conservative government's
persecution
of the nation's few Protestants, who were also PL members,
during
the early years of la violencia and the dangers
posed by the
internal disorders to United States nationals living in
Colombia.
Nevertheless, Colombia's partnership with the United
States
prompted it to contribute troops to the UN Peacekeeping
Force in
the Korean War (1950-53)
(see The Development of the Modern Armed Forces
, ch. 5). Colombia also provided the only Latin
American
troops to the UN Emergency Force in the Suez conflict
(1956-58).
Colombia became one of the largest recipients of United
States
assistance in Latin America during the 1960s and early
1970s. Much
of the United States aid was designed to enable Colombia
to ease
its external balance of payments problems while increasing
its
internal economic development through industrialization,
as well as
agrarian and social reforms. Nonetheless, Colombia failed
to
implement significant reforms. By the late 1960s and early
1970s,
many Colombian policy makers had become disenchanted with
the
Alliance for Progress--a program, conceived during the
administration of President John F. Kennedy, that called
for
extensive United States financial assistance to Latin
America as
well as Latin American support for social change measures,
such as
agrarian reform--and with United States economic
assistance in
general. Many felt that Colombia's economic dependence on
the
United States had only increased. By 1975, however, the
United
States was purchasing only 28 percent of Colombia's
exports, as
compared with 40 to 65 percent during the 1960s. In 1985
the United
States accounted for 33 percent of Colombian exports and
35 percent
of Colombian imports
(see Direction of Trade
, ch. 3).
Although Colombia voted fairly consistently with the
United
States in international security forums, such as the UN
General
Assembly and Security Council, its willingness to follow
the lead
of the United States within the inter-American system had
become
less pronounced by the mid-1970s. In 1975 President López
Michelsen
resumed diplomatic relations with Cuba. He also refused
further
American economic assistance to Colombia and terminated
funding
from the United States Agency for International
Development,
complaining that his nation's unhealthy economic
dependency
resulted from foreign aid. Other indicators of López
Michelsen's
independent stance included his refusal to condemn Cuban
intervention in the Angolan civil war, his willingness to
recognize
the new Marxist government in Angola, and his support for
Panama in
its desire to negotiate a new canal treaty with the United
States.
During the first half of his administration, President
Turbay
continued Colombia's policy of nonalignment. He
demonstrated the
nation's foreign policy independence in 1979 when his
foreign
minister, along with the foreign ministers of other Andean
countries, recognized Nicaragua's Sandinista guerrillas as
a
belligerent force.
The Turbay government retreated from its nonaligned
policy
course, however, after becoming concerned about the
ideological
direction of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua,
Nicaragua's
territorial claims to Caribbean islands long held by
Colombia, and
Cuba's support of the M-19 in early 1981. Turbay
reestablished
close relations with the United States. A fervent
anticommunist, he
became the most outspoken Latin American leader affirming
the
thesis of United States president Ronald Reagan that Cuba
and
Nicaragua were the principal sources of subversion and
domestic
unrest in Latin America. Bogotá suspended diplomatic
relations with
Havana after the government of Fidel Castro Ruz admitted
that it
had supported M-19 guerrilla activities. The Turbay
government
condemned the rebel movement in El Salvador, strongly
criticized
the joint declaration by France and Mexico in 1981 that
called for
a negotiated settlement of the Salvadoran insurgency, and
strongly
supported the provisional government in El Salvador headed
by José
Napoleón Duarte Fuentes in 1981 and 1982. During the 1982
South
Atlantic War between Argentina and Britain in the
Falkland/Malvinas
Islands, the Turbay government, along with the United
States,
abstained on the key OAS vote to invoke the Inter-American
Treaty
of Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Treaty). After the war,
Colombia
remained one of the few Latin American countries still
willing to
participate with the United States in joint naval
maneuvers in the
Caribbean. Colombia also sent troops to the Sinai in 1982
as part
of the UN Peacekeeping Force required by the 1979 Treaty
of Peace
Between Egypt and Israel.
Turbay's good relations with Washington contributed to
the
resolution of a longstanding territorial problem between
the two
countries: the status of three small, uninhabited
outcroppings of
coral banks and cays in the Caribbean. Under the Quita
Sueño
Treaty, signed on September 8, 1972, the United States
renounced
all claims to the banks and cays--Banco de Quita Sueño,
Cayos de
Roncador, Banco de Serrana--without prejudicing the claims
of third
parties. The United States Senate, however, did not ratify
the
treaty until 1981. In the meantime, the new Sandinista
government--
emboldened by the extended delay--revived Nicaragua's
longstanding
claim in December 1979 over the reefs, as well as the San
Andrés
and Providencia archipelago, located about 640 kilometers
northwest
of Colombia's Caribbean coast. To emphasize its claimed
sovereignty
over the Isla de San Andrés, Colombia began building up a
naval
presence on the island, including an arsenal of Exocet
missiles.
During his campaign for president in 1982, Betancur
gave no
indication that he intended to transform Colombia's
foreign policy.
His only foreign policy statement was a promise, which he
made
repeatedly, that he would not normalize relations with
Cuba.
Shortly after assuming the presidency, however, Betancur
steered
Colombia away from support of the Reagan administration's
Latin
American policies and toward a nonaligned stance. Betancur
reversed
Turbay's anti-Argentine position on the South Atlantic War
and
called for greater solidarity between Latin America and
the Third
World. In 1983 Colombia, with the sponsorship of Cuba and
Panama,
joined the Nonaligned Movement, then headed by Castro.
Betancur also urged an end to all foreign intervention
in
Central America in order to prevent the region from
becoming a zone
of East-West conflict. At the same time, he was critical
of what he
viewed as United States attempts to isolate Cuba and
Nicaragua from
peace efforts in the region, its growing "protectionist"
trade
policies, its unwillingness to increase its contributions
to the
International Monetary Fund
(IMF--see Glossary) and the
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and its failure to do
more to
reduce the North American demand for drugs. Confronted
with
Colombia's financial problems, however, by 1985 Betancur
had
abandoned his nationalistic rhetoric on the debt and drug
issues,
adopted strict austerity measures to deal with his
government's
financial crisis, and cooperated more closely with the
United
States in the antidrug trafficking campaign. As a result,
the
United States supported Colombia's debt renegotiations
with the IMF
and the
World Bank (see Glossary).
In his first year of office, Barco adopted a more
pragmatic
approach to foreign relations, returning Colombia to a
lower
profile in international politics. Colombia was fourth
among the
Nonaligned Movement's 100 members in voting with United
States
positions in international forums. Colombian-United States
relations in the late 1980s were regarded as generally
excellent,
with minor differences confined to Colombia's antidrug
trafficking
efforts, its support of the August 1987 Central American
Peace
Agreement initiated by Costa Rican president Oscar Arias
Sánchez,
negotiations of new coffee and textile agreements, and
Bogotá's
refusal to condemn Cuba for its human rights violations.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Colombia's standing as the
major source
of illegal cocaine and marijuana smuggled into the United
States
plagued relations between these two countries. Although
the
bilateral Extradition Treaty Between Colombia and the
United
States, signed by both countries in 1979, and US$26
million in
United States aid helped to produce what Washington
considered to
be a model antinarcotics program, Betancur initially
refused to
extradite Colombians as a matter of principle. By
mid-term,
however, he changed his position after becoming alarmed
over the
implications for Colombia's political stability of the
increasing
narcotics-related corruption and drug abuse among
Colombian youth
and the Medellín Cartel's assassination of Justice
Minister Lara
Bonilla. In May 1984, following the murder of the strongly
antidrug
minister, Betancur launched a "war without quarter"
against the
cartel and began extraditing drug traffickers to the
United States.
During the November 1984 to June 1987 period, Colombia
extradited
thirteen nationals--including cartel kingpin Carlos Lehder
Rivas--
and three foreigners to the United States. (A United
States jury
convicted Lehder in May 1988 of massive drug trafficking.)
In a major setback for the antidrug effort, however,
the
Colombian Supreme Court in June 1987 declared
unconstitutional a
law ratifying the United States-Colombian extradition
treaty.
United States authorities had more than seventy
extradition cases
still pending, including requests for the three principal
members
of the Medellín Cartel still at large (Escobar, Ochoa, and
Rodríguez). The annulment of the extradition treaty
resulted from
a ruling of the Supreme Court in December 1986
invalidating the
treaty's enabling legislation
(see The Judiciary
, this
ch.). New
enabling legislation signed by President Barco worked only
until
February 17, 1987, when the eight-member criminal chamber
of the
Supreme Court refused to rule on an extradition because
the treaty
was not in force. After the Council of State argued
otherwise, the
Supreme Court ruled on the matter, voiding the enabling
legislation
on June 25, 1987. Consequently, the only course left open
to the
Barco administration was to resubmit the enabling
legislation to
Congress, which was not eager to act, being caught in the
same
world of threats and bribes.
The extradition issue came to a head after Ochoa was
released
from prison on December 30, 1987, prompting the United
States to
protest. The United States endorsed the Colombian Supreme
Court's
suggestion that extradition decisions could be made
directly by the
Colombian government, thereby bypassing the court, under
an 1888
treaty between the two countries. Barco's justice minister
argued,
however, that the old treaty was revoked by the 1979
treaty. In any
event, in early May 1988 the Supreme Court rejected the
use of
existing laws to send more drug traffickers to the United
States
for trial. The Council of State thereupon suspended the
issuing of
warrants for the arrests--for the purpose of
extradition--of cartel
leaders, beginning with Escobar. Consequently, for future
extraditions, the Colombian government will have to seek
approval
through Congress for a new law to validate the 1979
extradition
treaty, or dispense with the treaty altogether in order to
use the
1933 multilateral Montevideo Convention as the basis for
extradition.
Data as of December 1988
|
