What is the real purpose of Plan Colombia?
Since the implementation of Plan Colombia under the Clinton administration, some detractors have been saying the official purpose of the policy—to fight drugs—is just a smoke screen. They assert the real interest behind Plan Colombia is geopolitical control of a strategic and oil-rich region which is fast deviating from the US orbit. On December 21, 2006, Ecuador’s President-elect Rafael Correa canceled his visit to Colombia at the last minute to protest Colombia’s refusal to halt US-backed aerial fumigation of coca crops along the nations’ shared border. “With much pain, we have decided to suspend the visit to Bogota,” Correa said in Caracas at a joint news conference with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Correa had been scheduled to fly from Venezuela’s capital to Bogota the following day. Correa, a leftist and ally of Venezuela’s anti-U.S. leader, had called for Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to at least temporarily stop glyphosate spraying during the two days that he had
