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1 1 (May 3, 2002)

handle is hein.crs/crsmthabbdy0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Order Code RS21213 May 3, 2002 Colombia: Summary and Tables on U.S. Assistance, FY1 989-FY2003 Nina M. Serafino Specialist in International Security Affairs Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division Summary In early 2002, the Bush Administration requested $573.2 million for Colombia ($538.2 million in FY03 State Department foreign operations funds and $35.0 million in FY2002 emergency supplemental funds). This request builds on the programs developed during the Clinton Administration, whose centerpiece counternarcotics (CN) program was Plan Colombia, through which Congress provided funding of $860 million in FY2000 emergency supplemental funds and $257 million in related FY2001 funds. These programs were continued by the Bush Administration's FY2002 Andean Regional Initiative (ARI). President Bush's FY2002 supplemental request also seeks to expand the circumstances under which funding for the Colombian security forces can be used, however, lifting the longstanding restrictions limiting it to CN efforts. U.S. funding for Colombian CN efforts dates back to at least the 1970s. Funding for the decade FY1989 to FY1998 totaled some $692.7 million, as calculated from available figures. Funding from FY1999 through FY2002 has totaled over $2 billion. Pre-Plan Colombia Funding FY1989-FY1999 While the United States has been providing counternarcotics (CN) assistance to Colombia at least as far back as the mid-1970s, former President George H.W. Bush dramatically increased CN aid to Colombia through his 1989 Andean Initiative. Grant aid to Colombia had increased gradually, albeit not evenly, through the 1980s, as Colombia evolved from a major supplier of marijuana to the United States, to nearly the sole supplier of cocaine. By the end of the 1980s, with coca leaf cultivation and cocaine production rising in the Andean region, and Colombia suffering increased political violence from the Medellin drug-trafficking cartel, the former Bush Administration established its new CN program. Under this region-wide initiative, the United States substantially increased State Department support for Colombian counternarcotics efforts, and provided Colombian security forces, primarily the police, with equipment through foreign military financing grants and DOD equipment drawdowns. As part of the effort to bring military resources to bear on the war against drugs, in 1991, Congress enacted Section 1004 of the 1991 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) (P.L. 101-510), Congressional Research Service + The Library of Congress CRS Report for Congress Received through the CRS Web