With the formation of ALBA, Unasur, IIRSA, and many others, Latin American nations are pushing towards a new era of economic, political, and social integration. But how innovative are these efforts really? Will they differ from the failed attempts of the past? I recently wrote the following article for World Politics Review on the promise and perils of the region’s integration.
The Promise and Perils of South American Integration
Shannon O’Neil
January 12, 2009
World Politics Review
In the 21st century so far, regional integration has been one of the most notable elements of South American foreign relations. Picking up speed in recent years, the continent’s heads of state have enthusiastically met in numerous summits, promising increased political, economic, social, and development cooperation. Across the spectrum, governments are expanding current integration frameworks and entering into new agreements. Expectations are no less grand. As Brazil’s President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva recently stated, “South America, united, will move the board game of power in the world, not for its own benefit, but for everyone’s.” Read the entire article here.
It has been two years since the United States and Colombia signed a free trade agreement, and it still has not been approved by Congress, in part due to concerns over Colombia’s human rights record. In the op-ed below published by the Washington Times today CFR Research Associate Sebastian Chaskel and I argue that withholding the agreement will not improve human rights in Colombia, but that the U.S. has other policy tools that could have an impact.
The Washington Times
Monday, December 1, 2008
O’NEIL/CHASKEL: Pass FTA and amend Plan Colombia
Shannon O’Neil and Sebastian Chaskel
Two years ago President Bush and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe negotiated a free trade agreement (FTA). Yet when Barack Obama steps into the White House in January, it will still await congressional ratification.
Experts agree that both countries will benefit from the pact – Colombia by attracting investment and the United States by reducing tariffs on its Colombia-bound exports. As a senator and presidential candidate, Mr. Obama opposed the FTA for non-economic reasons, arguing along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that as long as Colombia maintains a dismal human-rights record Congress should not review the agreement. During the last campaign debate, Mr. Obama stated that Colombian “labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis, and there have not been prosecutions.”
While true, withholding the FTA will not solve this situation. Instead, the United States can improve Colombia’s human-rights situation by bolstering economic opportunities through the FTA and more importantly by strengthening Colombia’s courts through Plan Colombia, the multi-billion dollar aid program to fight drug production and insecurity in Colombia.
Colombia has made great strides in the last decade, reducing the violence tied to the drug trade from a threat to the state itself to a serious law enforcement problem. Yet even though Colombians are now safer, political killings continue.
In 2007 at least 39 trade unionists were murdered. This year 41 have died, comprising about half of the assassinated union leaders worldwide. Perhaps more important is that impunity remains rampant. Of the nearly 500 union murders during Mr. Uribe’s presidency, only 14 perpetrators have been brought to justice. The latest news, that members of the armed forces kidnapped poor civilians and presented them as combat deaths, is one more gruesome reminder of the lack of accountability and widespread impunity enjoyed by human rights violators.
President Uribe reacted to this most recent scandal by purging the military. But he tellingly said that human-rights scandals “make us look bad,” as if the problem were simply one of perception. He also called a representative of Human Rights Watch, an organization that helped uncover the violations, an “accomplice of the FARC,” Colombia’s largest guerrilla group. These actions suggest that the Colombian government is more concerned with wooing American congressional representatives than with stopping human-rights violations.
Yet the lack of presidential will is not the only problem.
Just as detrimental is the weak capacity of Colombia’s judiciary, the branch responsible for investigating human-rights violations and prosecuting its perpetrators. Since 2006 the Colombian attorney general has valiantly tried to prioritize the top 200 union-leader cases, out of the backlog of some 2,600 assaults. But his two-plus years of work garnered only five convictions. This lack of progress shows that without strengthening Colombia’s court system, human rights will continue to suffer.
Withholding the FTA will not improve the courts’ capacity, but redirecting U.S. aid to Colombia could. As it stands, the United States gives Colombia $600 million a year to fight the drug trade. Starting in 1999, when the government was nearly toppled by drug dealers, this aid provided armament and military training, and was a key element in Colombia’s success against the drug lords. Recognizing the new, safer situation, in 2007 the Democratic Congress decreased Plan Colombia’s military component somewhat. But the aid package remains lopsided, funding predominantly military programs while largely excluding support for the country’s democratic institutions.
Nine years into Plan Colombia the country’s new Achilles heel is its civil governance, particularly its judicial branch. Using Plan Colombia to support the work of the country’s attorney general, inspector general, and ombudsman, and tying that aid to benchmark reductions in impunity, could, unlike withholding the FTA, improve human rights.
Combined with a revamped Plan Colombia, the FTA can then promote both human rights and the overall quality of life in Colombia. One of the loudest proponents for the FTA is Asocolflores, Colombia’s flower exporters association. Dependent on the U.S. market, its companies employ 200,000 Colombians. This and other export industries create jobs and opportunities that provide poor Colombians alternatives to growing coca, the plant used to make cocaine.
Real change will not come from bulletproof armor, helicopters, and tanks, but will depend on Colombia’s institutional capabilities and the economic opportunities it can offer its citizens. The United States should focus Plan Colombia on improving justice and human rights, and pass the FTA to improve economic opportunities for both countries’ citizens. President-elect Obama’s campaign promised change; our regional partners could use some, too.
Shannon O’Neil is Douglas Dillon fellow and Sebastian Chaskel is a research associate with the Latin America Studies Program at the Council on Foreign Relations.
After taking a 3 plus month maternity hiatus, I am back and will be posting regularly again.
To kick things off, here is a link to a new Independent Task Force report from the Council on Foreign Relations, titled U.S.-Latin America Relations: A New Direction for a New Reality. The Council brought together 19 individuals of various interest and expertise under the chairmanship of Charlene Barshefsky and General James T. Hill. As director of the project, I can attest to the long hours of intense and at times spirited discussion among its members.
The group decided that U.S. policy should focus on four critical areas: poverty and inequality, public security, migration, and energy integration. The main recommendations are the following:
Poverty and Inequality:
- U.S. should expand targeted assistance for poverty alleviation and institution building by fully funding the Millennium Challenge Account and developing new initiatives to reach the poor regions of the larger middle income countries. These programs should reflect the priorities of Latin American governments and also involve restructuring and integrating the programs of various U.S. government bureaucracies and multilateral institutions.
- Alongside aid, the United States should approve pending free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama and extend trade preferences to Bolivia and Ecuador to encourage productive relations with these complex countries.
Public Security:
- The United States should assist Latin American countries in strengthening their law enforcement and judicial systems. Only through strong institutions can criminal networks and drug traffickers be controlled in the long term. The United States should also focus more on the demand side of the drug equation, working closely with other large drug consuming nations, specifically those in the European Union.
Migration:
- Push through a comprehensive reform in 2009. This must deal with border security, employer responsibility, some sort of regularization of the 12 million unauthorized workers here today, and a flexible guest worker program to deal with future labor demands.
Energy Security:
- The United States should provide FDI incentives to help build energy infrastructure i the region. It should also sponsor regional and subregional working groups to forward best practices.
Finally, the task force touches briefly on 4 bilateral relations. It recommends deepening U.S. relations with Brazil to promote global trade negotiations and manage energy demands; strengthening cooperation with Mexico to stop narcotics trafficking, increase U.S. investment in energy production, and reform immigration policies; using multilateral institutions to address foreign and domestic policies of Venezuela; and opening informal and formal channels of communication with Cuba, with the eventual goal of lifting the embargo.
