Colombian Refugees in Ecuador: The collateral damage of a drug war and an insurgency

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s summer visit to Washington reignited the still sputtering debate over U.S. military aid to Colombia and the country’s contentious human rights delinquency. These issues were then joined by the brand new firestorm brought on by the pending military pact between Bogotá and Washington. But students of the Colombia conflict have devoted considerably less attention to the effects of Colombia’s internal conflict on its neighboring countries. It is easy to focus on the successes that many attribute to the U.S.-funded Plan Colombia: the decline in Colombia’s murder and kidnapping rates, the fall in the purity of its cocaine, and the relative safety now enjoyed by its urban populations. Yet, rather than eliminating the violence, Uribe’s escalation of the war against narcotics traffickers has pushed Colombia’s illegal armed groups to rural border zones, where they continue to harass, intimidate and coerce the largely indigenous populations of these regions. Moreover, Uribe’s policies have resulted in an upsurge of violence and drug cultivation in neighboring countries such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Panamá, in addition to a stream of refugees fleeing to these countries.

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