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Plan Colombia, to be understood properly, should be located in a historical perspective both with relation to Colombia as well as in relation to the recent conflicts in Central America. Plan Colombia is both “new” policy and a continuation of past U.S. involvement in Colombia.
Beginning in the early 1960s, under President Kennedy, Washington launched its counter insurgency program, forming special forces, designed to attack “internal enemies.” The target was the self-defense communities in Colombia, particularly in Marquetalia and subsequently with greater or lesser intensity, the Pentagon continued its presence in Colombia. Plan Colombia thus is President Clinton’s extension and deepening of President Kennedy’s internal war.
The differences between the earlier version of the internal war doctrine and the current is found in the ideological justifications for U.S. intervention, the scale and scope of U.S. involvement and the regional context of the intervention.
Under Kennedy counter-insurgency was based on the threat of international communism, today the justification is based on the drug threat. In both instances there is total denial of the historical-sociological basis of the conflict.