Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

December 8, 2014 – December 16, 2021 R43813

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations
December 16, 2021
Colombia—a close U.S. ally in Latin America—endured more than half a century of internal
armed conflict. To address the country’s role in illegal drug production, the United States and
June S. Beittel
Colombia forged a close relationship. Plan Colombia, a program focused initially on
Analyst in Latin American
counternarcotics and later on counterterrorism, laid the foundation for an enduring security
Affairs
partnership that has lasted more than two decades. The United States also has supported the

implementation of a peace accord that President Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018) concluded
with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—the country’s largest leftist

guerrilla organization at the time.
Fragility in Post-Conflict Colombia
Colombia’s Congress ratified the FARC-government peace accord in late 2016. During a U.N.-monitored demobilization in
2017, some 13,300 FARC disarmed. The FARC later transformed from a leftist guerrilla army into a political party known as
Comunes. Neither the government nor the rebels have upheld all their commitments under the agreement. Some guerrillas,
known collectively as FARC dissidents, include rearmed FARC and others who never demobilized. In early December 2021,
on the fifth anniversary of the peace accord’s signing, the U.S. government removed the FARC from its list of foreign
terrorist organizations (FTOs) and designated two FARC dissident groups, Segundo Marquetalia and FARC-EP, as FTOs.
According to one estimate, some 90 armed groups remain active in Colombia—including some former FARC and rightwing
paramilitaries that continued criminal activities after their respective disarmaments.
President Iván Duque from the conservative Democratic Center party came to office in 2018 as a peace accord critic. Many
Colombians have protested what they view as the Duque government’s lackadaisical peace accord compliance and
inadequate efforts to protect human rights defenders and other social activists. Others blame ongoing violence on the FARC
dissidents and on Colombia’s current largest insurgent group, the National Liberation Army (ELN).
Duque’s popularity has declined over the past year as his government has struggled to address several challenges. In mid-
2021, nationwide protests broke out over an unpopular government-proposed tax increase. A national strike lasted for nearly
eight weeks as diverse sectors protested about a host of grievances, including police brutality against demonstrators,
economic inequality, crime, and unaddressed corruption. Although many protested peacefully, crippling blockades and
vandalism resulted in an estimated $3 billion of damage. The slow rollout of vaccines to counter the Coronavirus Disease
2019 (COVID-19) pandemic also has harmed Duque’s standing, although the government reports that it has now fully
vaccinated 52% of the population. The shift in political sentiment could benefit leftist Senator Gustavo Petro, who lost to
Duque in 2018, but is once again seeking the presidency in national elections scheduled for March and May 2022.
Congress and U.S. Assistance
Since 2000, the U.S. government, with largely bipartisan congressional support, has provided about $12 billion in bilateral
aid to help implement Plan Colombia and its successor strategies. At times, congressional views have diverged regarding
whether U.S. assistance should be weighted toward counternarcotics and security or toward development, peace, and human
rights. The Biden Administration, in its FY2022 budget request, included $453.9 million in bilateral aid for Colombia that
would assist Colombia in implementing the peace accord, combating crime and building police capacity, protecting human
rights, and promoting environmental protection, among other goals. The House-passed foreign aid appropriations bill for
FY2022, H.R. 4373, would provide $461.4 million and would stipulate (for the first time) that 30% of funding under the
International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) account would be obligated only after the U.S. Secretary of
State certifies that Colombia has met certain human rights conditions. The proposed Senate bill for FY2022, S. 3075 would
prohibit assistance to the Colombian riot police and would withhold 5% of INCLE funding until the U.S. Secretary of State
certifies the riot police are held accountable for human rights violations.
For additional background, see CRS Insight IN11631, Colombia: Challenges for U.S. Policymakers in 2021, by June S.
Beittel.
Congressional Research Service

link to page 46 link to page 46 Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Appendixes
Appendix. Selected Online Human Rights Reporting on Colombia ............................................. 42

Contacts
Author Information ........................................................................................................................ 42

Congressional Research Service

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Political and Economic Situation
Political Background and Colombia’s Half Century Conflict
Colombia, one of the oldest democracies in the Western Hemisphere and the third-most-populous
Latin American country, endured a multisided civil conflict for more than five decades. Two-term
President Juan Manuel Santos declared the conflict over in August 2017 at the end of a U.N.-
monitored disarmament.1 According to a 2013 report of the National Center for Historical
Memory, presented to the Colombian government as part of the peace process, some 220,000
Colombians died in the armed conflict through 2012, 81% of them civilians.2 About 12,000
deaths or injuries requiring
Colombia at a Glance
amputation occurred from
antipersonnel land mines laid
Population: 51 mil ion (2021, IMF est.)
primarily by Colombia’s main
Area: 439,736 sq. miles, slightly less than twice the size of Texas
insurgent guerrilla group, the
(CIA)
Revolutionary Armed Forces of
GDP: $300.8 bil ion (2021, current prices, IMF est.)
Colombia (FARC).3 To date, more
Per Capita Income: $5,890 (2021, current prices, IMF est.)
than 9 million Colombians, or
Poverty Rate: 35.7% (2019, WB)
roughly 17% of the population,
Ethnic Makeup: Mixed (Mestizos) and Caucasian (White) 86.3%,
have registered as conflict victims.4
Afro-Colombian 9.3%, and Indigenous 4.4%. (Colombian National

Census, 2018)
Although the violence has scarred
Key Trading Partners: United States (26.1%), China (17.4%),
Colombia, the country has achieved
Mexico (5.5%) (2020, total trade, TDM)
a significant turnaround. Once
Exports: $31.0 bil ion total; top export products—crude petroleum
considered a likely candidate to
and coal, gold, and coffee (2020, TDM)
become a failed state, Colombia,
Imports: $41.2 bil ion total; top import products—machinery,
over the past two decades, has
cellular phones, motor vehicles, and pharmaceutical products (2020,
TDM)
overcome much of the violence that
had clouded its future. For example,
Legislature: Bicameral Congress, with 108-member Senate and
172-member Lower House. (Each chamber had 6 additional seats in
between 2000 and 2016, Colombia
the 2018-2022 Congress due to a constitutional change and peace
saw a 94% decrease in kidnappings
accord requirements; and wil have 16 added seats in the next
and a 53% reduction in homicides.
Congress, for a total of 295 in both houses of the legislature)
The homicide rate fell to a new low
Sources: International Monetary Fund (IMF); Central Intelligence
of 24.3 per 100,000 in 2020,
Agency (CIA); Trade Data Monitor (TDM); World Bank (WB).
partially due to the Coronavirus

1 Juan Manuel Santos, “Palabras del Presidente Juan Manuel Santos en el Acto Final de Dejación de Armas de las
Farc,” Presidencia de la Republica, June 27, 2017, at http://es.presidencia.gov.co/discursos/170627-Palabras-del-
Presidente-Juan-Manuel-Santos-en-el-acto-final-de-dejacion-de-armas-de-las-Farc; ad “Aquí Estamos Viendo que lo
Imposible Fue Posible,” Presidencia de la Republica, August 15, 2017.
2 Basta Ya! Colombia: Memorias de Guerra y Dignidad, Center for Historical Memory, at
http://www.centrodememoriahistorica.gov.co/micrositios/informeGeneral/.
3 About half of Colombia’s 32 departments (states) have land mines, and the government has estimated that the
weapons have injured or killed nearly 12,000 Colombians since 1990. “Estadísticas de Asistencia Integral a las
Víctimas de MAP y MUSE,” Oficina del Alto Comisionado para la Paz, August 31, 2020, at
http://www.accioncontraminas.gov.co/Estadisticas/estadisticas-de-victimas.
4 Government of Colombia, Victims Unit, at https://www.unidadvictimas.gov.co/es/registro-unico-de-victimas-ruv/
37394, accessed November 18, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
1

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.5 Nevertheless, violence and displacement remain quite
high in some rural locations and along borders.
Coupled with success in lowering violence, Colombia has opened its economy and promoted
trade, investment, and growth. Colombia has become one of Latin America’s most attractive
locations for foreign direct investment. Yet, after steady growth over several years, Colombia’s
economy began to slow in 2015, due in part to the decline in international prices for commodities
like oil, which remains one of Colombia’s top exports.6 In 2020, the Colombian economy
contracted by 6.8% due to the pandemic and another crash in the price of oil.7 The International
Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that Colombia’s gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 7.6%
in 2021 and 3.8% in 2022.8
President Iván Duque, who took office in August 2018, acknowledged his administration faced
multiple challenges related to the long internal conflict. He noted that implementation of a
majority of the peace accord’s provisions, which is supposed to be completed over a 15-year
period, had yet to get under way. The country faced a volatile internal security situation in which
the FARC had demobilized but the state had failed to assert control in rural, remote areas most
affected by the conflict. The historic influx of Venezuelan migrants, who sought refuge in
Colombia as they fled the authoritarian regime of President Nicolás Maduro, exacerbated the
instability. In early 2021, Duque reported that Venezuelans residing in Colombia comprised
nearly 40% the Venezuelan exodus.9 The COVID-19 pandemic slowed economic recovery and
further limited peace accord implementation.
Roots of the Conflict
The Colombian conflict predates the formal founding of the FARC in 1964, as the FARC had its
beginnings in the peasant self-defense groups of the 1940s and 1950s. Colombian political life
has long suffered from polarization and violence based on the significant inequalities suffered by
landless peasants in the country’s peripheral regions. In the late 19th century and part of the 20th
century, the elite Liberal and Conservative parties dominated Colombian political life. Violence
and competition between the parties erupted following the 1948 assassination of Liberal
presidential candidate Jorge Gaitán, which set off a decade-long period of extreme violence,
known as La Violencia.
After a brief military rule (1953-1958), the Liberal and Conservative parties agreed to a form of
coalition governance, known as the National Front. Under the arrangement, the presidency of the
country alternated between Conservatives and Liberals, each holding office in turn for four-year
intervals. This form of government continued for 16 years (1958-1974). The power-sharing
formula did not resolve the tension between the two historic parties, and many leftist, Marxist-
inspired insurgencies took root in Colombia, including the FARC, launched in 1964, and the

5 Statistics from Embassy of Colombia in the United States; Parker Asmann and Eimhin O’Reilly, “InSight Crime’s
2019 Homicide Round-Up,” InSight Crime, January 28, 2020; Parker Asmann and Katie Jones, “InSight Crime’s 2020
Homicide Round-Up,” InSight Crime, January 29, 2021.
6 Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Colombia: Country Report, October 2018.
7 International Monetary Fund (IMF), “Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean: An Intensifying Pandemic,” IMF
Blog, June 26, 2020; IMF, “Statistical Appendix,” in World Economic Outlook, October 2020: A Long and Difficult
Ascent, October 2020, at https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2020/09/30/world-economic-outlook-
october-2020.
8 IMF, World Economic Outlook: Recovery During a Pandemic, October 2021.
9 President Iván Duque, remarks at “Humanity in Motion and Colombia: A Conversation with President Iván Duque,”
Wilson Center, September 20, 2021, at https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/humanity-motion-and-colombia-
conversation-president-ivan-duque.
Congressional Research Service
2

link to page 20 link to page 8 Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

smaller National Liberation Army (ELN), which formed the following year. The FARC and ELN
conducted kidnappings, committed serious human rights violations, and carried out a campaign of
terror that aimed to unseat the central government in Bogotá.
Rightist paramilitary groups formed in the 1980s when wealthy ranchers and farmers, including
drug traffickers, hired armed groups to protect themselves from the kidnapping and extortion
plots of the FARC and ELN. In the 1990s, most of the paramilitary groups formed an umbrella
organization, the United-Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The AUC massacred and
assassinated suspected supporters of the insurgents and engaged them directly in military battles.
The Colombian military has long been accused of close collaboration with the AUC, accusations
ranging from ignoring their activities to actively supporting them, even though they became
deeply involved in drug trafficking and other crime. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the U.S.
government designated the FARC, ELN, and AUC as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).10
The AUC was formally dissolved in a collective demobilization between 2003 and 2006 after
many of its leaders stepped down. However, many former paramilitaries joined armed groups
(called criminal bands, or, in Spanish, Bacrim, by the Colombian government) that have
continued to participate in the lucrative drug trade and other crime and have committed grave
human rights abuses. The FARC whose members left behind their control of rural Colombia when
they demobilized in 2017, were replaced by an array of splinter groups. Among these groups were
FARC members who had not demobilized, new recruits, a wide array of criminal groups
(including Bacrim), and the ELN, all competing to fill the leadership void left by the FARC. (For
more, see “The Current Security Environment,” below).11
The Uribe Administration (2002-2010)
The inability of Colombia’s two dominant parties to address the root causes of violence in the
country led to the election of an independent, Álvaro Uribe, in the presidential contest of 2002.
Uribe, who served two terms, came to office with promises to take on the violent leftist guerrillas,
address the paramilitary problem, and combat illegal drug trafficking.
During the 1990s, Colombia had become the region’s—and the world’s—largest producer of
cocaine. Peace negotiations with the FARC under the prior administration of President Andrés
Pastrana (1998-2002) had ended in failure; the FARC used a large demilitarized zone located in
the central Meta department (see map, Figure 1) to regroup and strengthen itself. The central
Colombian government granted the FARC this demilitarized zone, a traditional practice in
Colombian peace negotiations, but the FARC used it to launch terror attacks, conduct operations,
and increase the cultivation of coca and its processing, while failing to negotiate seriously. Many
analysts, noting the FARC’s strength throughout the country, feared that the Colombian state
might fail and some Colombian citizens thought the FARC might at some point successfully take
power.12 The FARC was then reportedly at the apogee of its strength, numbering an estimated
16,000 to 20,000 fighters under arms.

10 For additional background on the Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) in Colombia and their evolution as part of
the multisided conflict, see CRS Report R42982, Colombia’s Peace Process Through 2016, by June S. Beittel.
11 For more, International Crisis Group, A Fight by Other Means: Keeping the Peace with Colombia’s FARC, report no.
92, November 30, 2021.
12 Peter DeShazo, Johanna Mendelson Forman, and Phillip McLean, Countering Threats to Security and Stability in a
Failing State: Lessons from Colombia, Center for Strategic & International Studies, September 2009.
Congressional Research Service
3

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Figure 1. Map of Colombia
(departments and capitals shown)

Source: Congressional Research Service (CRS).
This turmoil opened the way for the aggressive strategy advocated by Uribe. During President
Uribe’s August 2002 inauguration, the FARC showered the event with mortar fire, signaling the
group’s displeasure at the election of a hardliner, who believed a military victory over the Marxist
rebels was possible. In his first term (2002-2006), President Uribe strengthened and expanded the
country’s military, seeking to reverse the armed forces’ prior losses to the FARC. Uribe entered
into peace negotiations with the AUC.
President Pastrana had refused to negotiate with the rightist AUC, but Uribe promoted the process
and urged the country to back a controversial Justice and Peace Law that went into effect in July
2005 and provided a framework for the AUC demobilization. By mid-2006, some 31,000 AUC
paramilitary forces had demobilized. The AUC demobilization, combined with the stepped-up
Congressional Research Service
4

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

counternarcotics efforts of the Uribe administration and increased military victories against the
FARC’s irregular forces, helped to bring down violence, although a high level of human rights
violations still plagued the country.13 Uribe became widely popular for the effectiveness of his
security policies, a strategy he called “Democratic Security.” Uribe’s popular support was evident
when Colombian voters approved a referendum to amend their constitution in 2005 to permit
Uribe to run for a second term.
Following his reelection in 2006, President Uribe continued to aggressively combat the FARC.
For Uribe, 2008 was a critical year. In March 2008, the Colombian military bombed the camp of
FARC’s second-in-command, Raul Reyes (located inside Ecuador a short distance from the
border), killing him and 25 others. Also in March, another of FARC’s ruling seven-member
secretariat was murdered by his security guard. In May, the FARC announced that their supreme
leader and founder, Manuel Marulanda, had died of a heart attack. The near-simultaneous deaths
of three of the seven most important FARC leaders were a significant blow to the organization. In
July 2008, the Colombian government dramatically rescued 15 long-time FARC hostages,
including three U.S. defense contractors who had been held captive since 2003 and Colombian
senator and former presidential candidate Ingrid Bentancourt. The widely acclaimed, bloodless
rescue further undermined FARC morale.14
Uribe’s success and reputation, however, were marred by several scandals, including the
“parapolitics” scandal in 2006 that exposed links between illegal paramilitaries and politicians,
especially prominent members of the national legislature. Subsequent scandals that came to light
during the former president’s tenure included the “false positive” murders allegedly carried out
by the military (primarily the Colombian Army), in which innocent civilians were killed
extrajudicially. In 2009, the media revealed illegal wiretapping and other surveillance carried out
by the government intelligence agency, which attempted to discredit journalists, members of the
judiciary, and political opponents of the Uribe government. (In early 2012, the tarnished national
intelligence agency was replaced by Uribe’s successor, Juan Manuel Santos.) However, military
use of wiretapping continued to raise controversy, including a contentious revelation in late
2019.15
Despite the controversies, President Uribe remained popular and his supporters urged him to run
for a third term. Colombia’s Constitutional Court turned down a referendum proposed to alter the
constitution to allow President Uribe a third term in 2010.
The Santos Administration (2010-2018)
Once it became clear that President Uribe was constitutionally ineligible to run again, Juan
Manuel Santos of the pro-Uribe National Unity party (or Party of the U) quickly consolidated his
preeminence in the 2010 presidential campaign. Santos, a centrist from an elite family that once
owned the country’s largest newspaper, became Uribe’s defense minister through 2009. In 2010,

13 Many Colombians have expressed disappointment in the AUC demobilization for failing to provide adequate
punishments for perpetrators and adequate reparations to victims of paramilitary violence. It has also been seen as
incomplete because those who did not demobilize or those who re-mobilized into criminal gangs have left a legacy of
criminality. For a concise history of the AUC, see “AUC Profile,” InSight Crime: Organized Crime in the Americas, at
http://www.insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/auc-profile.
14 The rescue operation received U.S. assistance and support. See Juan Forero, “In Colombia Jungle Ruse, U.S. Played
A Quiet Role; Ambassador Spotlights Years of Aid, Training,” Washington Post, July 9, 2008.
15 See below for more on the wiretapping issues that plagued subsequent governments. Joe Parkin Daniels, “Colombia:
Spying on Reporters Shows Army Unable to Shake Habits of Dirty War,” Guardian, September 22, 2020.
Congressional Research Service
5

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Santos campaigned on a continuation of the Uribe government’s approach to security and its role
encouraging free markets and economic opening. Santos handily won a June 2010 runoff with
69% of the vote. Santos’s “National Unity” ruling coalition, formed during his campaign,
included the center-right National Unity and Conservative parties, the centrist Radical Change
Party, and the center-left Liberal party.16
During his first two years in office, President Santos reorganized the executive branch, built on
the market opening strategies of the Uribe administration, and secured a free-trade agreement
with the United States, Colombia’s largest trade partner. The trade agreement went into effect in
May 2012. To address U.S. congressional concerns about labor relations in Colombia, including
the issue of violence against labor union members, the United States and Colombia agreed to an
Action Plan Related to Labor Rights (Labor Action Plan) in April 2011. Many of the steps
prescribed by the plan were completed in 2011, while the U.S. Congress was considering the free
trade agreement.
Significantly, the Santos government maintained a vigorous security strategy and struck hard at
the FARC’s top leadership. In September 2010, the Colombian military killed the FARC’s top
military commander, Victor Julio Suárez (known as “Mono Jojoy”), in a bombing raid. In
November 2011, the FARC’s supreme leader, Guillermo Leon Saenz (aka “Alfonso Cano”) was
assassinated. He was replaced by Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri (known as “Timoleón Jiménez” or
“Timochenko”), the group’s current leader (and now the leader of the Comunes political party).
While continuing the security strategy, the Santos administration began to re-orient the
Colombian government’s stance toward the internal armed conflict.17 The first legislative reform
that moved this new vision along, signed by President Santos in June 2011, was the Victims’ and
Land Restitution Law (Victims’ Law), to provide comprehensive reparations to an estimated (at
the time) 4-5 million victims of the conflict. Reparations under the Victims’ Law included
monetary compensation, psychosocial support and other aid for victims, and the return of millions
of hectares of stolen land to those displaced.18 The law was intended to process an estimated
360,000 land restitution cases.19 (For more on the law, see textbox below on “Status of
Implementation of the Victims’ Law.”)
In August 2012, President Santos announced he had opened exploratory peace talks with the
FARC and was ready to launch formal talks. The countries of Norway, Cuba, Venezuela, and
Chile each held an international support role, with Norway and Cuba serving as peace talk hosts
and “guarantors.” Launched in Norway, FARC-government talks moved to Cuba, where the
negotiations continued until their conclusion in August 2016.
In the midst of extended peace negotiations, Colombia’s 2014 national elections presented a
unique juncture. As a result of the elections, the opposition Centro Democrático (CD) party
gained 20 seats in the Senate and 19 in the less powerful Chamber of Representatives,20 and its

16 In July 2011, the coalition contained 89 senators out of 102 in the Colombian upper house. However, in late
September 2013, the Green Party (renamed the Green Alliance) broke away from the ruling coalition, although it
sometimes continued to vote with the government.
17 In August 2014, for instance, the Colombian Constitutional Court ruled that demobilized guerrillas who had not
committed crimes against humanity could eventually run for political office.
18 The Victims’ and Land Restitution Law (Victims’ Law) covers harms against victims that date back to 1985, and
land restitution for acts that happened after 1991.
19 Embassy of Colombia, “Victims and Land Restitution Law: Addressing the Impact of Colombia’s Internal Armed
Conflict,” fact sheet, January 2013.
20 Final results for the 2014 legislative elections provided to the Congressional Research Service (CRS) by a
Colombian Embassy official, July 22, 2014.
Congressional Research Service
6

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

leader, former President Uribe, became a popular senator. His presence in the Senate challenged
the ruling coalition that backed President Santos, who won reelection in a second-round runoff in
June 2014 against a CD-nominated presidential candidate.
In February 2015, the Obama Administration provided support to the peace talks by naming a
former U.S. assistant secretary of state for Inter-American Affairs, as the U.S. Special Envoy to
the Colombian peace talks. In early October, after peace negotiations had ended, to the surprise of
many, the accord was narrowly defeated in a national plebiscite by less than a half percentage
point of the votes cast. Regardless, President Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in
December 2016, in part demonstrating strong international support for the peace agreement. In
response to the voters’ criticisms, the Santos government and the FARC crafted a modified
agreement, which they signed on November 24, 2016. Rather than presenting this agreement to a
plebiscite, President Santos sent it directly to the Colombian Congress, where it was ratified on
November 30, 2016. Although both chambers of Colombia’s Congress approved the agreement
unanimously, members of the opposition CD party, who criticized various provisions in the
accord, boycotted the vote.
The peace process was recognized as the most significant achievement of the Santos presidency
and lauded outside Colombia and throughout the region. Its innovative involvement of conflict
victims in the peace talks and other features received widespread approval, but it did not win
consistent support for President Santos inside Colombia, whose approval ratings fluctuated.
Disgruntled Colombians perceived Santos as an aloof president whose energy and political capital
were expended accommodating an often-despised criminal group. The accord—negotiated over
50 rounds of talks—covered five substantive topics: rural development and agricultural reform;
political participation by the FARC; an end to the conflict, including demobilization,
disarmament, and reintegration; and chapters on drug policy and justice for victims.
The Government of Iván Duque
Colombians elected a new congress in March 2018 and a new president in June 2018. Because no
presidential candidate won more than 50% of the vote in May 2018, as required for a victory in
the first round, a June 2018 second-round runoff was held between rightist candidate Iván Duque
and leftist candidate Gustavo Petro. Duque was carried to victory with almost 54% of the vote.
Runner-up Petro, a former mayor of Bogotá, former Colombian Senator, and once a member of
the M-19 guerilla insurgency, nevertheless did better than any leftist candidate in a presidential
race in the past century, winning 8 million votes (or 42% of the votes cast). Around 4.2% cast
blank ballots in protest.
Through alliance building, Duque achieved a functional majority, or a “unity” government, which
involved the Conservative Party and Santos’s prior National Unity (or Party of the U) joining the
CD, although compromise would be required to keep the two centrist parties in sync with the
more conservative CD. In the new Congress, two extra seats for the presidential and vice
presidential runners-up became automatic seats in the Colombian Senate and House, due to a
2015 constitutional change that allowed presidential runner-up Gustavo Petro to return to the
Senate. The CD party, which gained seats in both houses in the March vote, won the majority in
the Colombian Senate. However, the legislative majority fractured during Duque’s first year in
office, which left his government with limited support in Congress to accomplish major
legislative objectives.21

21 The FY2018-2022 Colombian Congress has 280 seats, including 10 for FARC party representatives (9 of which are
Congressional Research Service
7

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Duque campaigned on his experience as a technically oriented politician and presented himself as
a modernizer. Duque was inaugurated in August at the age of 42—Colombia’s youngest president
elected in a century. He possessed limited prior experience in Colombian politics. Duque was
partially educated in the United States and worked for a decade at the Inter-American
Development Bank in Washington, DC. He was the handpicked candidate of former president
Uribe, who vocally opposed many of Santos’s policies.
In a September 2018 speech before the U.N. General Assembly, the new president outlined his
policy objectives.22 Duque called for increasing legality, entrepreneurship, and fairness by (1)
promoting peace; (2) combating drug trafficking and recognizing it as a global menace; and (3)
fighting corruption, which he characterized as a threat to democracy. He also maintained that the
humanitarian crisis in neighboring Venezuela was an emergency that threatened to destabilize the
region. Duque embraced a leadership role for Colombia in denouncing the authoritarian
government—which he subsequently characterized as a dictatorship—of President Maduro.
By late 2018, Colombia’s acceptance of more than 1 million Venezuelans was adding pressure on
the government’s finances.23 The influx of Venezuelan refugees and migrants continued in 2020,
despite some reverse migration during the economic shutdown under the COVID-19 lockdown.
By September 2021, Colombia had received more than 2 million refugees and migrants from
neighboring Venezuela, out of a total 5.7 million in Latin America and elsewhere, according to
the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID).24
Colombian authorities have registered over 9 million internally displaced persons and other
conflict victims over the course of the country’s five-decade internal conflict—equivalent to
about 17% of the current population—with 7.2 million currently eligible for reparations under the
peace accord. Colombia has the world’s second-highest number of internally displaced persons.
Many observers raise concerns about human rights conditions inside Colombia and the ongoing
lack of governance in remote rural areas, such as the nearly 1,400-mile border area alongside
Venezuela.
Countering Illicit Crops, Corruption, and the COVID-19 Pandemic
Persistent challenges facing the Duque government include (1) spikes in coca cultivation and
cocaine production; (2) violence against human rights and other social activists; (3) mass anti-
government protests in mid-2021 that lasted nearly three months; and (4) instability spilling over
from Venezuela, including the migration of some 2 million Venezuelans fleeing their homeland’s

currently filled). The two legislative sessions run from July 20 to December 16 and from March 16 to June 20. The
Senate members are elected nationally (not by district or state), with two coming from a special ballot for indigenous
communities. The House of Representatives has two members from each of Colombia’s 32 departments (states) and 1
more for each 125,000-250,000 inhabitants in a department, beyond the first 250,000. In the House, two seats are
reserved for the Afro-Colombian community, one for indigenous communities, one for Colombians residing abroad,
and one for political minorities.
22 Embassy of Colombia in the United States, “The Pact for Fairness and Progress,” Remarks by the President of the
Republic, Iván Duque Márquez, before the General Assembly of the United Nations in the 73rd period of ordinary
sessions. September 26, 2018.
23 Antonio Maria Delgado, “Colombia Will Find It Hard to Accept Another 1 Million Venezuelan Migrants,” Miami
Herald, November 27, 2018.
24 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), “Venezuela Regional Crisis—Complex Emergency, Fact
Sheet #3, FY2020,” September 25, 2020; USAID, “Venezuela Regional Crisis—Complex Emergency, Fact Sheet #4,
FY2021,” September 24, 2021, at https://reliefweb.int/report/venezuela-bolivarian-republic/venezuela-regional-crisis-
complex-emergency-fact-sheet-4-1.
Congressional Research Service
8

link to page 42 Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

crises. Duque campaigned on restarting the practice of spraying coca crops with the herbicide
glyphosate to reduce supply. This shift would reverse Colombia’s decision in mid-2015 to end
aerial spraying, which had been a central—albeit controversial—feature of U.S.-Colombian
counterdrug cooperation for two decades.25 In 2017, Colombia’s Constitutional Court decided to
retain the suspension of the use of glyphosate until the government took measures to limit its
impact on humans. In 2020, Colombia continued to face challenges in destroying and removing
coca crops, as rural areas contend with rising levels of violence and economic desperation due to
competition over the FARC’s former illicit markets, such as drugs and gold mining (for more, see
“New Counternarcotics Direction Under the Duque Administration,” below.)
Corruption has become a top concern in Colombian politics, as members of the judicial branch,
politicians, and other officials have faced a series of corruption charges.26 Colombians’ concerns
about corruption became particularly acute during the 2018 elections, when major scandals about
official corruption were revealed. Several government officials had received funding from
Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction company embroiled in a region-wide corruption scandal.27 In
its Corruption Perceptions Index covering 2020, Transparency International ranked Colombia 92
out of 182 countries due to what the report maintained was an “alarming concentration of power”
in the executive producing “an explosion” of irregularities, and corruption cases associated with
procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic.28
Difficulties managing large influxes of migrants fleeing the political, economic, and humanitarian
crises in Venezuela increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The profound economic impact of
the pandemic, which struck in waves over 2020 and 2021, provided armed groups with
opportunities to recruit children due to economic hardship, school closures, and looming
starvation. Criminal groups continued to prey on vulnerable migrants, including women and
children.29
Despite a national lockdown from March to September 2020, Colombia was unable to stop a
severe COVID-19 outbreak that led to one of the Western Hemisphere’s highest daily death tolls.
Observers note that government measures failed to reach and protect the poor, who tend to be
more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection due to their living conditions and high levels of informal
employment.30 As of December 15, 2021, Colombia had recorded over 129,000 deaths from
COVID-19, with a mortality rate of 256 per 100,000.31
The Duque administration struggled with low approval ratings and dissent within its governing
coalition throughout 2019. The administration’s first budget for 2019 (presented in late October

25 For additional background, see CRS Report R44779, Colombia’s Changing Approach to Drug Policy, by June S.
Beittel and Liana W. Rosen.
26 A corruption national referendum in August 2018 was backed by President Duque but did not reach its threshold
(failing to do so by less than half a percentage point). The actual vote favored all seven proposed changes on the ballot,
and Duque pledged to address some of the anti-corruption measures presented in the referendum through legislation.
For recent polling on the public concern about corruption, see U.S. State Department, Office of Opinion Research,
“Colombia: Nearly Four Years On, the Public Down on FARC Peace,” OPN-X-20, September 23, 2020.
27 In 2014, President Santos’s reelection campaign and the opposition candidate’s campaign were both accused of
accepting Odebrecht funding.
28 Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2020, January 2021.
29 Elizabeth Dickinson, “Lockdowns Produced a New Generation of Child Soldiers,” Foreign Policy, December 6,
2021.
30 Ana Vanessa Herrero, “Locked-Down Colombians Fly Red Flags to Call for Help,” Washington Post, May 11, 2020.
31 Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Coronavirus Resource Center, “Mortality Analyses,” at
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality, December 15, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
9

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

2018) was linked to an unpopular tax reform that would subject food and agricultural
commodities to a value-added tax. Duque’s own CD party split with him on the value-added tax,
which quickly sank his approval ratings from 53% in early September 2018 to 27% in November
2018.32 Duque’s national coalition was further weakened when some parties broke from it and, in
October 2019, when Defense Minister Guillermo Botero was threatened with censure in the
Colombian Congress. Botero was forced to resign, leading to a major Cabinet reshuffle.33
However, during the earliest wave of COVID-19 cases, the government coalition widened to
include the centrist right-leaning Cambio Radical party and others, providing a majority in the
Colombian Senate and a near majority for the government coalition in the Chamber of
Representatives.34 This expanded coalition provided the Duque administration with sufficient
legislative support to enact several pandemic-related measures. Duque’s approval ratings
improved in April 2020 to over 50% in light of the government’s initial success in controlling the
virus and settled at 48% in early October 2020 polling.35 The government’s majority in Congress
fell apart in 2021, however, and Duque’s CD party again turned against some of his proposals and
policies.
In September 2020, the death of a Colombian lawyer at the hands of the national police in Bogotá
fueled protest against police brutality, indicating rising concern with police conduct. In those
protests, 11 civilians were killed.36 A U.N.-led investigation, called for by the mayor of Bogotá,
concluded the Colombian National Police, once a well-regarded institution, was responsible for
the massacre of those civilians.37
In April 2021, the Duque government introduced a tax reform that sparked mass popular protest.
The demonstrations mushroomed—even after the government withdrew the reform measure—
into weeks of anti-government marches and blockades that brought together unions; students;
indigenous and ethnic groups; human rights, anti-corruption, and peace activists; and vulnerable
sectors of Colombian society harmed by the pandemic’s economic damage.
Domestic and international monitoring groups condemned riot police and law enforcement
clashes with protesters, which resulted in nearly 60 deaths and thousands of injuries. In June
2021, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights denounced Colombian law
enforcement’s excessive use of force. Two ministers stepped aside: Duque’s minister of finance,
Alberto Carrasquilla, and his foreign minister, who was replaced by Vice President Marta Lucía
Ramírez de Rincón (who continues to hold both positions). In September 2021, the Duque
administration successfully passed through Congress a significantly revised tax reform with little
public opposition. Still, the government had lost significant traction and Duque’s approval rating

32 See Invamer’s Colombia Opina #2,” Semana, November 2018.
33 Arthur Dhont, “Colombian Government Likely to Struggle to Implement Economic Policies in 2020 Because of
Social and Legislative Opposition,” HIS Global Insight Analysis, November 12, 2019; “Colombia: Embattled Duque
Prepares for Protests,” LatinNews Weekly Report, November 14, 2019.
34 EIU, Country Report: Colombia, October 2020.
35 Invamer polling results from April 8-26, 2020, at https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://
noticias.caracoltv.com/sites/default/files/encuesta_invamer_abril_2020.pdf; “Encuesta de Opinión” and Centro
Nacional de Consultoría, S.A. October 5, 2020, at https://www.valoraanalitik.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/
Encuesta-CNC.pdf.
36 Juan Pappier, “The Urgent Need to Reform Colombia’s Security Policies,” Human Rights Watch, Americas
Quarterly, September 22, 2020; Steven Grattan and Anthony Failoa, “In Colombia, a Death in Police Custody Follows
a History of Brutality,” Washington Post, October 6, 2020.
37 Samantha Schmidt, Diana Durán, “Colombian Police Responsible for ‘Massacre’ of 11 People in 2020 Protests,
U.N.-Backed Investigators Conclude,” Washington Post, December 13, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
10

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

remained at 25% at the year’s end. European and U.S. lawmakers called for human rights
investigations into police brutality and better protection for Colombian citizens and their
constitutionally protected rights to assemble and protest.38
Economic Issues and Trade
The Colombian economy is the fourth largest in Latin America after Brazil, Mexico, and
Argentina. The World Bank characterizes Colombia as an upper-middle-income country, although
its commodities-dependent economy has been hit by oil price declines and peso devaluations, at
times eroding fiscal revenue. The United States is Colombia’s largest trade partner, and bilateral
economic relations have deepened since the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement entered into
force in May 2012.39 By 2021, the agreement is to phase out all tariffs on consumer and industrial
products.
In common with most Latin American nations, Colombia has sought over the past decade to
increase the attractiveness of investing. Some analysts contend that Colombia’s FDI increase
came not only from the extractive industries, such as petroleum and mining, but also from such
areas as agricultural products, transportation, and financial services. Investment from China in
Colombia has increased at a slow but steady rate in recent years, including in the Bogotá metro
system and communications.40 Over the past decade, the bulk of Chinese investment has been in
oil and gas.41
Despite its relative economic stability, high poverty rates and inequality have contributed to social
unrest in Colombia for decades. The poverty rate was slightly above 45% in 2005 but declined to
27% in 2018. According to a 2017 OXFAM report, land distribution remains skewed, with
Colombia ranking first in the region for “inequality in land distribution, ... with the top 1% of the
largest land holdings” controlling more than 80% of the land and the remaining 99% owning less
than 20%.42 Promoting more equitable growth and ending the internal conflict were twin goals of
the two-term former Santos administration. The unemployment rate, which historically has been
over 10%, fell below that double-digit mark during Santos’s first term but once again surpassed
10% in 2018. In 2019, the Duque administration’s first full year in office, Colombia’s
unemployment rate climbed to 10.5%. In 2020, the EIU estimated Colombia’s unemployment
rate at over 16%, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.43
According to State Department analysis of national investment climates, Colombia has
demonstrated a political commitment to create jobs, develop sound capital markets, and achieve a

38 See, International Crisis Group, A Fight by Other Means: Keeping the Peace with Colombia’s FARC, report no. 92,
November 30, 2021; “Despite the Polls, a Centrist Could Win Colombia’s Election in May,” Economist, December 11,
2021; “The Riots in Colombia Hint at Deep Problems,” Economist, May 21, 2021; and CRS Insight IN11631,
Colombia: Challenges for U.S. Policymakers in 2021, by June S. Beittel.
39 The agreement is officially known as the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement. For more background, see
CRS Report RL34470, The U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement: Background and Issues, by M. Angeles Villarreal
and Edward Y. Gracia.
40 “China’s Strong Push into Colombia,” Al Jazeera, February 22, 2020; “Foreign Investment in Colombia Holds Firm,
says Trade Minister,” Financial Times, October 7, 2020.
41 “Colombia: OFDI China a Nivel de Empresa (200-2019),” accessed October 28, 2020, distributed by Red Académica
de América Latina y el Caribe sobre China y Monitor de la OFDI de China en América Latina y el Caribe, at
https://www.redalc-china.org/monitor/informacion-por-pais/busqueda-por-pais/31-colombia.
42 Oxfam International, A Snapshot of Inequality: What the Latest Agricultural Census Reveals about Land Distribution
in Colombia, July 2017.
43 EIU, Country Report: Colombia, September 2020.
Congressional Research Service
11

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

legal and regulatory system that meets international norms. Within a framework of relative
economic stability, Colombia has a complicated tax system, high corporate tax burden, and
ongoing piracy and counterfeiting concerns. In Transparency International’s Corruption
Perception Index, Colombia ranked 92 out of 182 countries polled in 2020, placing it regionally
just behind Ecuador and ahead of Peru and Panama.44
Colombia’s rural sector activists periodically have demanded long-term and integrated-
agricultural reform in a country with one of the most unequal patterns of land ownership in the
world and many landless rural poor. The Duque government also has faced pressure from student
mobilizations and other groups demanding more public education funding, full peace accord
compliance, and greater employment opportunity.45 Although protests waned during the
pandemic, they reemerged with increased demands as restrictions lifted.
Colombia’s 2020 Stimulus to Foster a Recovery
Fol owing one of the longest national lockdowns in South America, begun in March 2020, Colombia lifted its
pandemic-related restrictions to reopen ful y in September 2020. The government enacted measures to counter a
historic economic contraction (more than 15%, from April to June 2020), the country’s worst quarter-on-quarter
economic performance on record. (For 2020 in total, Colombia’s government reported an economic contraction
of 6.8%.)
The Colombian government announced fiscal measures, including flexibility in the use of income to finance
extraordinary operating expenditures and a relaxation of debt rules. In a May 2020 executive decree, the
government announced it would subsidize 40% of the $250-per-month minimum wage for workers at companies
that have seen revenues drop by at least 20% during the pandemic. On September 22, the government announced
it would issue another round of subsidies in December to such businesses.
In September 2020, Colombia’s government signaled its plans to draw from an International Monetary Fund (IMF)
flexible credit line increased by the IMF to $17.2 bil ion. This is the first time any country had tapped resources
from that mechanism since it was set up in 2009.
The Colombian government’s recovery strategy included three planks: (1) refocusing on renewable energy, (2)
speeding development in its rural periphery most affected by the 50-year internal conflict, and (3) extending
broadband as part of a Colombian digital transition. These approaches aimed to transform Colombia from a
commodity-based economy to a value-added services economy.
Sources: Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Country Report: Colombia, September 2020; EIU, “Colombia to
Draw from IMF Flexible Credit Line,” October 6, 2020; Mariana Palau, “Colombia Pins Recovery Hopes on
Technology not Oil,” Financial Times, October 7, 2020; Luisa Horwitz, Paoloa Nagovitch, Hol y Sonneland,
and Carin Zissis, “The Coronavirus in Latin America,” Americas Society/Council of the Americas, September
23, 2020.
The United States is Colombia’s leading trade partner. Colombia accounts for a small percentage
of U.S. trade (slightly less than 1%), ranking 23rd among U.S. export markets and 32nd among
foreign exporters to the United States in 2020. Colombia has secured free-trade agreements with
the European Union, Canada, and the United States, as well as with most nations in Latin
America.
Colombia is a founding member of the Pacific Alliance along with Chile, Mexico, and Peru. The
Pacific Alliance aims to go beyond reducing trade barriers by creating a common stock market,
allowing for the eventual free movement of businesses and persons, and by serving as an export
platform to the Asia-Pacific region. In April 2020, Colombia became the third Latin American
country to join the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, after a seven-year
accession process.

44 Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2020, January 2021.
45 Steven Grattan, “Colombia Protests: What Prompted Them and Where Are They Headed?,” Al Jazeera, November
26, 2019.
Congressional Research Service
12

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

In August 2020, the Trump Administration announced a new U.S.-Colombia Growth Initiative,
Colombia Crece, to coordinate and increase assistance from various U.S. agencies, such as the
International Development Finance Corporation, to bring private investment to Colombia’s rural
areas and fight crime through sustainable development and growth. According to then-U.S.
National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, on an official visit to Colombia in August 2020,
investment levels were predicted to reach $5 billion.46
In September 2021, Biden Administration officials met with members of the Colombian private
sector and environmental, labor, and civil society leaders to solicit their views regarding how to
support local communities to meet their infrastructure needs after the economic decline caused by
the pandemic. According to the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, the
United States plans to provide infrastructure-related assistance while advancing the highest
standards for transparency and anti-corruption, financial sustainability, labor protections, and
environmental preservation.47
Peace Accord Implementation
The four-year peace talks between the FARC and the Santos administration started in Norway and
moved to Cuba, where negotiators worked through a six-point agenda during more than 50
rounds of talks. Over the course of four years, the Colombian government and the FARC
negotiated several central issues, with the following major sub-agreements:
 land use and rural development (May 2013);
 the FARC’s political participation after disarmament (November 2013);
 illicit crops and drug trafficking (May 2014);
 victims’ reparations and transitional justice (December 2015); and
 the demobilization and disarmament of the FARC and a bilateral cease-fire (June
2016).
A sixth topic provided for mechanisms to implement and monitor the peace agreement. All parties
to the accord recognized that implementation would be challenging, with many Colombians
questioning whether the FARC would be held accountable for its violent crimes.48
In August 2016, the Santos administration and FARC negotiators announced they had concluded
their talks and achieved a 300-page peace agreement. The accord was narrowly defeated in a
popular referendum held in early October 2016, but it was revised by the Santos government and
agreed to by the FARC. The Colombian Congress ratified a revised accord at the end of
November 2016.
Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled in October 2017 that over the next three presidential terms
(until 2030), Colombia must follow the peace accord commitments.49The Special Jurisdiction of
Peace (JEP, by its Spanish acronym), set up to adjudicate the most heinous crimes of Colombia’s

46 White House, “Statement by National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien, Press Release, August 17, 2020;
“Colombia y Estados Unidos Lanzan Iniciativa ‘Colombia Crece.’” El Tiempo. August 17, 2020.
https://www.eltiempo.com/politica/gobierno/colombia-y-estados-unidos-lanzan-iniciativa-colombia-crece-530200
47 U.S. Congress. House of Representatives. The Biden Administration’s Policy Priorities for Latin America and the
Caribbean. 117th Congress, 1st sess., November 16, 2021.
48 For more background on the peace talks and the actors involved in the conflict, see CRS Report R42982, Colombia’s
Peace Process Through 2016, by June S. Beittel.
49 “Colombia Peace Deal Cannot Be Modified for 12 years, Court Rules,” Reuters, October 11, 2017.
Congressional Research Service
13

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

decades-long armed conflict, began to hear cases in July 2018. However, Colombians remain
skeptical of the JEP’s capacity. Some analysts have estimated that implementing the programs
required in the accord may cost up to $45 billion over 15 years.50 The country faces steep
challenges to underwrite the post-accord peace programs in an era of declining revenues and
competing challenges, such as the influx of Venezuelan migrants and the health and economic
crises resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the peace accord, the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University
of Notre Dame is responsible for monitoring implementation of the peace agreement. The latest
assessment, covering developments through November 2020, showed that the portions of the
agreement furthest along in implementation are disarmament and demobilization. Of the 578
stipulations in the agreement, 29% have been fully implemented and another 18% are in an
intermediate level of progress. During a U.N.-monitored demobilization in 2017, some 13,300
FARC (armed combatants and militia members) disarmed, demobilized, and began the
reintegration process.51
By contrast, the least-implemented peace accord elements or commitments involve land reform
and rural development, particularly measures concerned with more equitable access to land for
rural inhabitants. There also have been limited advances in implementation of the National
Program for the Substitution of Illicit Crops and the Comprehensive Community and Municipal
Substitution and Alternative Development Programs in some 3,053 villages in 19 departments.52
Territorially Focused Development Programs (PDETs in Spanish) are a tool outlined in the peace
accord for planning and managing a broad rural development process, with the aim of
transforming 170 municipalities (11,000 villages in 19 departments) most affected by the armed
conflict. PDETs target counties (municipios) known to have the highest concentration of conflict
victims, with the highest numbers of mass killings and forced disappearances.53 These conflict-
battered areas generally have chronic poverty, high inequality, and illicit crops.
The development program outlined for the PDETs includes roads and transportation, health care
and education, and programs to foster economic development in these rural areas over a 10- to
15-year timeline. According to an October 2019 U.N. Verification Mission report, some 650 such
projects are complete; the government reported that 500 more were under way. The Defense
Ministry’s strategy for “post-conflict” Colombia also identifies priority zones for stabilization,
known as Zonas Futuros, (Future Zones/Strategic Zones of Comprehensive Intervention). The
995 villages identified by the Defense Ministry are located within the PDETs.54

50 See, for instance, “Implementacíon del Acuerdo de Paz Necesitaria $76 Billones Adicionales,” El Espectador,
September 21, 2018.
51 The 13,200 demobilized FARC include those who had been imprisoned for crimes of rebellion, who were accredited
by the Colombian government as eligible to demobilize. (Tally of demobilized from Luisa Fernando Mejía, “How
Colombia Is Welcoming Migrants—and Staying Solvent,” Americas Quarterly, September 11, 2019; The Colombian
Final Agreement in the Era of COVID-19: Institutional and Citizen Ownership is Key to Implementation, December
2019-November 2020, Executive Summary, Kroc Institute of International Studies, University of Notre Dame, 2021.
52 Germán Valencia and Fredy Chaverra, “PDET-PNIS Territories in Tension with the Future Zones,” Fundacion Paz y
Reconciliacion. July 20, 2020, at https://pares.com.co/2020/07/21/territorios-pdet-pnis-en-tension-con-las-zonas-futuro/
.
53 Ibid.
54 For more background, see Colombian Ministry of Defense, Defense and Security Policy – DSP: For Legality,
Entrepreneurship, and Equity, January 2019.
Congressional Research Service
14

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Progress and Setbacks
Although progress has been uneven across all commitments, some programs received external
and international pressure to proceed quickly and were “fast tracked” by the Colombian
Congress. For example, in a December 2016 ruling, the Colombian Constitutional Court granted
fast-track implementation to the revised peace accord, particularly as it applied to the FARC’s
disarmament and demobilization. Other factors that became obstacles to quick implementation
included efforts by the Duque government to revise the accord. In March 2019, the Duque
government sought changes to 6 of the 159 articles that make up the law governing the peace
accord, including proposed changes to the JEP. Those changes were defeated in the Colombian
Congress, however, and rejected by Colombia’s Constitutional Court.55
FARC assets are of interest to the U.S. State Department, which listed the FARC as a Foreign
Terrorist Organization through late 2021, and the Colombian government, which planned to use
the assets for remuneration to victims in compliance with Colombia’s peace accord. The FARC
disclosed in September 2017 what it claimed were its total hidden assets, listing more than $330
million in mostly real estate investments. This announcement drew criticism from several
analysts who maintain that FARC assets are likely much greater, with some estimating that FARC
profits from the various criminal economies it controlled prior to demobilization total above $500
million annually.56
One of Colombia’s greatest post-conflict challenges continues to be ensuring the personal
security for ex-combatants and demobilized FARC. The FARC’s reintegration into civil society
remains a charged topic; in the 1990s, FARC attempts to start a political party, known as the
Patriotic Union, resulted in more than 3,000 party members being killed by right-wing
paramilitaries and others.57 The demobilized FARC face numerous risks, although most remain
committed to the peace process. In October 2020, the JEP court announced it would take up the
issue of ex-combatant killings, which at the time had reached 230 killings of former and
demobilized FARC.58 The U.N. Security Council Verification Mission in Colombia reported
nearly 300 former FARC murdered as of September 2021.59
In addition to unmet government guarantees of security, the FARC has criticized the government
for not adequately preparing for the group’s demobilization and reintegration. The U.S. State
Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism covering 2018 noted that reintegration program
delays could encourage more ex-combatants to return to criminal activities, including terrorism.
The State Department’s terrorism report covering 2019 (published in 2020) stated that “roughly
13,000 FARC ex-combatants and former militia members continued to participate in social and
economic reincorporation activities.”60

55 The rejected changes reasserted that FARC must pay victims of their crimes with seized assets, revised extradition
rules, and toughened rules concerning sentencing of war crimes.
56 Jeremy McDermott, “The FARC’s Riches: Up to $580 Million in Annual Income,” InSight Crime, September 6,
2017.
57 For more about the decimation of the former FARC-linked party called the Patriotic Union in the 1980s, see CRS
Report R42982, Colombia’s Peace Process Through 2016, by June S. Beittel.
58 “JEP Cites Minister and Prosecutor for Murders Against Former Combatants, Fundación Paz & Reconciliación,”
October 16, 2020.
59 International Crisis Group, A Fight by Other Means: Keeping the Peace with Colombia’s FARC, report no. 92,
November 30, 2021.
60 U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism: Colombia Report, June 24, 2020, at https://www.state.gov/
reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2019/. Reporting from September 2019 suggests 35 collective reintegration
Congressional Research Service
15

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

According to observers, the government failed to provide basic resources to FARC members
gathered throughout the country in specially designated zones for disarmament and
demobilization (later renamed reintegration zones). Several U.N. reports have flagged the
dangers of failing to reintegrate former FARC combatants and not providing viable options for
income.61 Peace process advocates have cited inadequate attention to the inclusion of ethnic
Colombians such as Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities—who are among those
victimized and hit hardest by the conflict—in peace accord implementation, as required in the
peace accord’s ethnic chapter.62 For instance, only 13% of 80 stipulations related to the ethnic
chapter or matrix had been completed as of November 2020. COVID-19 pandemic restrictions
hindered mobility and especially affected the participatory processes at the core of the peace
accord’s implementation.
As agreed in the peace accord, the demobilized rebels transitioned to a political party that became
known as the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force (retaining the acronym FARC) in
September 2017.63 The FARC party ran several candidates in congressional races in March 2018
but failed to win any additional congressional race for which it competed. In October 2019
department and municipal elections, the FARC party won a mayoral contest in the Bolivar
department but lost most of the other races it entered, although it won some seats on city councils
in more rural municipalities or in coalitions with other leftist candidates.64 In January 2021,
FARC left behind its old party name and chose a new moniker, Comunes, which is recognized as
a legitimate political party with guaranteed seats in the Colombian Congress through 2026.
The Current Security Environment
Colombia has confronted a complex security environment of armed groups: two violent leftist
insurgencies, the FARC and the ELN, and groups that succeeded the AUC following its
demobilization during the Uribe Administration. The State Department’s 2019 Country Reports
on Terrorism, published in June 2020, stated that major terror attacks in the country during 2019
included bombings, attacks on police and military, and violence against civilians carried out by
FARC dissidents and ELN fighters.

productive projects have been approved; of those projects, funding has been dispersed for 22 projects. United Nations
Verification Mission in Colombia, Report of the Secretary-General, S/2019/780, October 1, 2019. However, FARC
living in the zones (around 3,000 in the fall of 2019) questioned their safety following the October 2019 murder of a
demobilized FARC fighter within a reintegration zone, the first to take place in an area under government protection.
61 Edith Lederer, “UN Official: Reintegrating Colombia’s Rebels is Not Going Well,” Associated Press, October 20,
2017; op. cit, United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia, Report of the Secretary-General, S/2019/780, October
1, 2019.
62 Colombia recognizes some 710 indigenous reserves, while Afro-Colombian territories encompass some 6.5 million
hectares of land. For more, see Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli, “The Slow Death of Colombia’s Peace Deal,” Foreign
Affairs, October 30, 2019; and “Colombia Update: Attacks on Social Leaders, Forced Eradication Operations, and the
Ongoing Abuses Amid the Pandemic,” June 26, 2020.
63 Lisa Haugaard and Andrea Fernández Aponte, “Colombia’s Peace Process: Successful Disarmament, But Other
Implementation Proceeds Slowly,” Latin America Working Group, September 28, 2017.
64 EIU, “Colombia Politics: Quick View-Local Elections Highlight Weakening of Party Machine,” ViewsWire, October
28, 2019.
Congressional Research Service
16

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

FARC Factions
Several sources estimate that nearly 3,000 former FARC are dissidents who either rejected the
peace settlement or have, since demobilizing, rejected it and returned to illicit activities.65 These
armed individuals remain a threat.
Seuxis Hernández, known by his alias Jesús Santrich, was a case example. Colombian authorities
jailed Santrich for allegedly committing drug trafficking crimes involving exporting 10,000
kilograms of cocaine in 2017, after the peace accord was ratified. Santrich did not show up in
court and left the reintegration camp where he was residing. He then joined the former FARC
leader and former head peace negotiator known by the alias Iván Márquez. In August 2019, a
FARC splinter faction lead by Márquez and Santrich called for a return to armed struggle,
alleging the Colombian government had not complied with the peace accord and had failed to
protect demobilized FARC. Rodrigo Londoño, the former top guerrilla leader who heads the
FARC political party,66 immediately denounced the call to return to war and said this faction of
dissidents would face consequences. He called for continuing implementation and enforcement of
the peace accord.67 Ultimately, Jesús Santrich was killed in Venezuela in mid-2021.
The U.S. government’s decision in late November 2021 to delist the FARC as a foreign terrorist
organization immediately following the fifth anniversary of the peace agreement’s signing
apparently came as a surprise to some in the Duque government.68 U.S. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken said the group “no longer exists as a unified organization that engages in terrorism” but
noted that the decision did not eliminate the capacity and interest of the U.S. government to bring
charges against former FARC for narcotics trafficking and other crimes. The Duque
administration welcomed the new listing of two FARC splinter groups or FARC dissident
factions, known as the Segunda Marquetalia and the FARC-EP, also announced in November
2021.69 One reason cited for removal of the original guerrilla organization’s FTO listing is that
certain types of U.S. assistance could now be provided to former FARC for reintegration into
Colombian society.70
ELN
Colombia’s second-largest rebel movement, the National Liberation Army (Ejército de
Liberación Nacional, or ELN), began formal peace talks with the Colombian government after
the FARC peace accord was approved in sessions held first in Ecuador and later in Cuba. In

65 Many analysts estimate the level of dissidence at under 10% though this may be increasing. In a mid-2019 study,
Ideas for Peace Foundation, a respected Colombian think tank, found that 8% of demobilized FARC are unaccounted
for, although some of those are unlikely to have rearmed. See Ideas for Peace Foundation, “La Reincorporación de los
excombatientes de las FARC,” July 2019. In June 2020, the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism,
maintained that 2,600 FARC had become peace accord dissidents, including those who never demobilized, who left the
peace process, or who constitute new recruits.
66 The FARC political party retained the insurgency acronym.
67 “FARC Splinter Takes Up Arms, Jeopardizing Peace Accord,” Latin News Weekly Report, September 5, 2019.
68 Michele Kelemen, “The U.S. Has Lifted the Terrorist Label on Colombia’s Farc,” National Public Radio, December
1, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/11/30/1060185901/the-u-s-has-lifted-the-terrorist-label-on-colombias-farc..
69 Steven Grattan, “What Next After Colombia’s FARC Removed from U.S. ‘Terrorist’ List?,” Al Jazeera, December
1, 2021; Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, Revocation of the Terrorist Designations of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) and Additional Terrorist Designations,” press statement, November 30, 2021. Note the
name “FARC-EP,” translates into English as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia- Peoples’ Army and was
the name the FARC guerrilla organization referred to itself as from the beginning in the mid-1960s
70 Reuters, “U.S. Set to Remove Colombia Rebel Group FARC from Terrorism List-Sources,” November 23, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
17

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

January 2019 the ELN exploded a car bomb at a National Police academy in southern Bogotá
shattering illusions that Colombia’s long internal conflict with insurgents was coming to an end.
The bombing, allegedly carried out by an experienced ELN bomb maker, killed 21 police cadets
(as well as the bomber) and injured several dozen more. The ELN took responsibility for the
attack in a published statement. Large demonstrations followed in Bogotá, protesting the return of
violence to Colombia’s capital city.
As a result of the bombing, the Duque government broke off peace talks with the ELN.71 Duque
requested the extradition of the team of ELN peace negotiators in Cuba to face charges of
terrorism in Colombia.72 He maintained that the ELN delegation members must have had prior
knowledge of the car bombing, which they denied. In September 2019, Duque threatened to
denounce Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism at the U.N. General Assembly if the ELN leaders
were not turned over to his government.73 In a speech at the United Nations, Duque described
military intelligence concerning some 1,400 ELN fighters present in Venezuela.74 According to
State Department’s 2019 terrorism report, published in 2020, there are about 3,000 active
members of the ELN.
Paramilitary Successors and Criminal Bands
The FARC’s demobilization has triggered open conflict among armed actors who fight to control
the illicit markets that the demobilized insurgents abandoned. The ongoing lack of governance in
remote rural areas recalls the conditions that originally gave rise to the FARC and other armed
groups. The AUC, (as noted earlier, was a national umbrella organization of paramilitaries that
officially disbanded a more than decade ago.75 Some 31,000 AUC members demobilized between
2003 and 2006, and Colombia’s 2005 Justice and Peace Law required demobilized AUC
combatants to confess to crimes such as forced disappearances and provided for victim
compensation. However, many former AUC paramilitaries subsequently joined criminal gangs,
which are more focused on profits than ideology.76 Opposing the national government does not
appear to be their objective, although some of these criminal groups have at times sought
territorial control in parts of Colombia.77
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s National Drug Threat Assessment, published in
January 2020, maintained that large-scale Colombian crime groups work closely with Mexican
and Central American transnational criminal organizations to export quantities of cocaine out of
Colombia every year.78 Typically, despite ideological differences, the dissident FARC and ELN

71 Joshua Goodman, “Colombia Asks Cuba to Arrest ELN Negotiators for Car Bombing,” Associated Press, January
19, 2019.
72 The Cuban government was a host and guarantor of the peace talks with the ELN.
73 Associated Press, “Colombia Threatens to Denounce Cuba as a Sponsor of Terrorism,” September 10, 2019.
74 President Iván Duque Márquez, “Llegó el Momento de Pasar de los Discursos a las Acciones, Y Colombia Está
Actuando,” Speech before the United Nations General Assembly, United Nations, September 25, 2019.
75 The U.S. State Department removed the organization from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in July 2014.
76 According to some analysts, all but one of the major Bacrim have their roots in the AUC. See Jeremy McDermott,
“The BACRIM and Their Position in Colombia’s Underworld,” InSight Crime, Organized Crime in the Americas, May
2, 2014.
77 For a discussion of the informal justice provided by Bacrim, see International Crisis Group, Colombia’s Armed
Groups Battle for the Spoils of Peace, October 19, 2017.
78 U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 2020 National Drug Threat Assessment,
DEA-DCT-DIR-008-21, March 2021.
Congressional Research Service
18

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

cooperate with paramilitary successor groups in drug trafficking and other illicit activities,
frequently using Venezuela as a drug transit corridor.79
Humanitarian Crisis in Venezuela and Its Consequences
for Colombia80
Overlaying the challenges that Colombia faces domestically, the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela
set in motion a mass exodus of migrants, the majority of whom are now residing in Colombia. In
early May 2019, the Director General of Colombia’s migration services announced that of the
more than 1 million Venezuelans living in Colombia, some 770,000 had a form of legal status
granting them access to social services and employment.81 Providing services to those migrants
has increased pressure on the Colombian government’s finances. The arrival of the COVID-19
pandemic led Colombia to close its borders with Venezuela, however, ending what had been a
welcoming approach to displaced Venezuelans.
Venezuelan migrants and refugees are vulnerable to a variety of threats, including sexual
violence, the use of minors in armed violence, exposure to excessive force, and homicide. Several
humanitarian organizations attempt to provide the Venezuelan arrivals with situational knowledge
in Colombia, as many come destitute, with significant health and emergency care needs, and with
almost no understanding of the precarious areas where they may be residing in Colombia.
Since early 2019, more than 1,000 Venezuelan security forces have deserted into Colombia. The
Colombian military has disarmed them and placed them in housing near the border, along with
their family members.82 In May 2019, Colombia’s migration agency signed an agreement with the
interim government of Venezuela to permit security forces (military and police) who have
defected from the Maduro government to have temporary legal status to work and receive
assistance in Colombia.83 As part of what many observers consider a more tolerant policy to
receiving Venezuelan migrants, the Duque government also granted citizenship to more than
24,000 children born to Venezuelans inside Colombia since 2015 and to those who may be born
in Colombia until August 2021.84

79 Since 2005, U.S. Administrations have made an annual determination that Venezuela has failed demonstrably to
adhere to its obligations under international narcotics agreements. Former President Trump made the determination for
FY2021 in September 2020, and President Biden did so for FY2022 on September 15, 2021:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/09/15/a-memorandum-for-the-secretary-of-state-
on-presidential-determination-on-major-drug-transit-or-major-illicit-drug-producing-countries-for-fiscal-year-2022/.
80 This section is drawn largely from CRS Insight IN11163, New U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela, coordinated by Clare
Ribando Seelke, and CRS In Focus IF11029, The Venezuela Regional Humanitarian Crisis and COVID-19, by Rhoda
Margesson and Clare Ribando Seelke. For background on Venezuela, see CRS Report R44841, Venezuela:
Background and U.S. Relations, coordinated by Clare Ribando Seelke.
81 Gobierno de Colombia, “Más de 1 Millón 260 Mil Venezolanos se Encuentran Radicados en el País: Director de
Migración Colombia,” May 2, 2019.
82 Karen DeYoung and Mary Beth Sheridan, “Venezuelan Military Foils U.S. Hopes,” Washington Post, April 14,
2019. The article states that more than 2,000 troops and family members from Venezuela were waiting in border-area
hotels.
83 Gobierno de Colombia, “Colombia Determina Esquema de Atención para Ex-Militares y Ex-Policias Venezolanos
que se Encuentran en el Territorio Nacional,” May 15, 2019.
84 USAID, “Venezuela Regional Crisis: Fact Sheet #3, FY2019,” September 4, 2019; Luisa Fernando Mejía, “How
Colombia Is Welcoming Migrants – and Staying Solvent,” Americas Quarterly, September 11, 2019.
Congressional Research Service
19

link to page 46 Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Some 2 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela have entered Colombia, either to traverse
the country or to seek shelter there.85 In February 2021, the Duque administration unveiled a
program offering Venezuelans who entered before January 2021 a decade of temporary protected
status. By September 2021, nearly 1.3 million Venezuelans had registered for access to health
care, work permits, other social services, and a path to citizenship. Duque stated that his
government has a moral duty to legalize migrants escaping a dictatorship. However, Venezuelans,
previously welcomed in Colombia, have become the focus of rising xenophobia, due in part to
hardships imposed by the pandemic. The U.S. government provided nearly $248.6 million in
humanitarian and emergency food assistance to support Venezuelan refugees and migrants in
Colombia in FY2021.86
Human Rights Concerns
Colombia’s multisided internal conflict over a half century generated a lengthy record of human
rights abuses. Although it is widely recognized that Colombia’s efforts to reduce violence,
combat drug trafficking and terrorism, and strengthen the economy have met with success, many
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights groups continue to report significant
human rights violations. These violations include violence targeting noncombatants, such as
killings, torture, kidnappings, enforced disappearance, forced displacements, forced recruitments,
massacres, and sexual attacks. According to official data reported in Colombia, more than 83,000
people were victims of enforced disappearances during the armed conflict.87
Colombia continues to experience murders and threats of violence against journalists, human
rights defenders, labor union members, social activists such as land rights leaders, and others.
Crimes of violence against women, children, Afro-Colombian and indigenous leaders, and other
vulnerable groups continue at high rates. In December 2018, the U.N. special rapporteur on
human rights defenders strongly criticized the heightened murders of human rights defenders,
which he maintained were committed by hitmen paid less than $100 per murder, according to
reports from activists and other community members.88 These ongoing assaults reflect constraints
of the Colombian judicial system to effectively prosecute crimes and overcome impunity. (See
Appendix for additional resources on human rights reporting in Colombia.)
In the recent years, issues of police brutality and an over-militarized approach to policing have
been pressing concerns for many activists. On December 15, 2021, the United Nations released a
report on the late April-July 2021 protests in 860 cities across Colombia, in which 46 people died
(including two police officers) and 27 remain missing. The U.N.’s major finding was that
“Colombia’s public force” was responsible for 28 protester deaths—linking 10 of the deaths to
specialized riot police, which used force disproportionately against peaceful protesters.89

85 The exact number of Venezuelan migrants and refugees has been difficult to assess. The number of Venezuelans
crossing into Colombia when its borders were officially closed for nearly two years due to security issues and the
COVID-19 pandemic with Venezuela, and some 18 months with Ecuador, many crossed illegally and went uncounted.
86 CRS In Focus IF11029, The Venezuela Regional Humanitarian Crisis and COVID-19, by Rhoda Margesson and
Clare Ribando Seelke; USAID, Venezuela Regional Crisis – Complex Emergency, September 24, 2021, at
https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2021_09_24_USG_Venezuela_Regional_Crisis_Response_Fact
Sheet_4.pdf.
87 Statement of Frederico Andreu-Guzmán, Witness, “Enforced Disappearance in Latin America,” Hearing of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, October 1, 2020. The statement also notes
only 130 convictions have been won for this gross human rights violation over recent decades.
88 Reuters, “UN: Human Rights Activists Say Hitmen Targeting Them in Colombia,” December 3, 2018.
89 Samantha Schmidt and Diana Durán, “Report Calls for Transformation of Riot Police,” Washington Post, December
Congressional Research Service
20

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Extrajudicial Executions and “False Positives.” For many years, human rights organizations
have raised concerns about extrajudicial executions committed by Colombian security forces,
particularly the military. In 2008, it was revealed that several young men from the impoverished
community of Soacha, neighboring the capital city of Bogotá, were lured, allegedly by military
personnel, from their homes to another part of the country with the promise of employment and
executed. The Soacha murder victims had been disguised as guerrilla fighters to inflate military
claims of enemy body counts, and reporters labeled the deaths false positives. Following an
investigation into the Soacha murders, the military fired 27 soldiers and officers, including three
generals, and the army’s top commander resigned.90
In 2009, the false positive phenomenon, which was happening more broadly in Colombia, was
investigated by the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, which issued a report.
The report concluded “the sheer number of cases, their geographic spread, and the diversity of
military units implicated, indicate that these killings were carried out in a more or less systematic
fashion by significant elements within the military.”91 The majority of the cases took place
between 2004 and 2008, when U.S. assistance to Colombia peaked.
The Attorney General’s Office reported that from 2017 to mid-2018, 246 security forces were
convicted in cases related to false positives, 716 cases were in the prosecution phase, and 10 new
investigations had been opened. In total, the government had convicted 1,176 members of the
security forces in cases related to false positives by mid-2018, including at least eight colonels.
For 2019, the State Department reported that in a similar period, from January through
September, investigations of past killings continued but slowed, resulting in seven new cases of
aggravated homicide by state agents. A new case was opened against a colonel for allegedly
ordering the killing of a demobilized member of the FARC, and the soldier who carried out the
shooting was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. In addition, the Attorney General’s
office reported two new convictions of security force members committing homicides of persons
protected under international humanitarian law, and by mid-2019 it had 2,504 open investigations
related to false positive killings or other extrajudicial killings.92 In December 2021, in a case
before Colombia’s transitional justice court, some 21 Colombian military officers and one
civilian admitted responsibility for extrajudicial murders of 247 victims.93
In May 2019, a New York Times press investigation revealed that several top Colombian military
officials had reintroduced a policy to reward high kill counts, causing an outpouring of criticism
regarding recreating the possibility for more false positives.94 In 2017, the U.S. Congress added to
its criteria for human rights reporting to release the final tranche of U.S. military financing
assistance that Colombia should demonstrate that senior military officers had been held to

16, 2021.
90 For example, as of mid-2013, 18 colonels were accused of links to the crimes committed in Soacha; two had been
convicted. See U.S. Department of State, Memorandum of Justification Concerning Human Rights Conditions with
Respect to Assistance for the Colombian Armed Forces, September 11, 2013.
91 United Nations, “Statement by Professor Philip Alston, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions–
Mission to Colombia, 8-18 June 2009,” press release, at http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/
C6390E2F247BF1A7C12575D9007732FD?opendocument.
92 U.S. State Department, Colombia: 2018 Human Rights Report, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, March
2019; Colombia: 2019 Human Rights Report, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, March 2020.
93 “Colombia: Officers Admit to Guilt in ‘False Positive’ Cases,” LatinNews Daily, December 13, 2021.
94 Nicholas Casey, “Colombia Debates Censuring Ministers for Army Kill Order,” New York Times, June 11, 2019;
Colombia’s Return to the discredited “Body Count” Strategy,” Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), June 2,
2019.
Congressional Research Service
21

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

account for their role in false positives, including being the intellectual authors for such crimes.
The Duque government responded to the 2018 scandal by rescinding the order to increase results
of guerrilla fighter deaths, and President Duque established an independent commission to come
up with recommendations to him to reinforce the respect for human rights within the armed
forces.95 Wiretapping scandals have periodically rocked the Colombian military and intelligence
services; in May 2020, one such scandal was revealed that is alleged to involve U.S. foreign
assistance to spy on dozens of public figures and journalists.96
Human Rights Defenders and Journalists. According to Somos Defensores (“We are
Defenders”), a Colombian NGO that tracks violence against defenders, the deaths of human
rights defenders and activists increased even after the end of the conflict was declared, with more
than 100 such individuals killed each year from 2017 through 2019. Such deaths have shot up in
2020, with massacres (defined as killing of more than three persons) that included ethnic teens
and activists, according to the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights advocacy
group.97 Cases against those making threats and those responsible for ordering or carrying out
assassinations are rarely resolved. In 2018, the Duque government launched a national Pact for
Life and the Protection of Social Leaders and Human Rights Defenders (PAO) and installed a
commission to operationalize the PAO, but the killing of social leaders continues. According to
many human rights activists, perpetrators of abuses still have little to fear in terms of legal
consequences.
Violence toward social leaders began to rise after the implementation of the 2011 Victims’ Law,
which authorized the return of stolen land. A September 2013 report by Human Rights Watch
pointed to the rise in violence against land activists and land claimants who had received positive
rulings but were too intimidated to return to their land. Within the first 18 months of the law’s
implementation, the Colombian government reported some 25 killings and Human Rights Watch
documented 500 serious threats against land claimants.98 The land return or full compensation
promised to victims in the law has been slow to date. (See textbox on “Status of Implementation
of Colombia’s Victims’ Law,” below.) For more than a decade, the Colombian government tried
to suppress violence against groups facing extraordinary risk through the National Protection Unit
(UPN by its Spanish acronym). Colombia’s UPN provides protection measures, such as
bodyguards and protective gear, to individuals in at-risk groups. In 2019, the UPN protected
about 7,300 individuals at extraordinary risk, including trade unionists and leaders, journalists,
human rights defenders, social leaders, and more than 330 land restitution claimants.99 Colombian
groups and international bodies such as the United Nations have criticized the Duque

95 U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, “Certification Related to Foreign Military Financing for Colombia Under
Section 7045 (b) (4) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2019
(Div. F, P.L. 116-6). The certification is described in more detail below in section on Human Rights Conditions on U.S.
Assistance. In addition, in November 2019, Defense Minister Guillermo Botero stepped down to avoid censure for
mishandling a raid against a FARC dissident camp in which several recruited children were alleged to have been
extrajudicially murdered.
96 Keyal Vyas, “Colombia Used U.S. Gear for Internal Spying,” Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2020.
97 Human rights defenders include community leaders, land rights activists, indigenous and Afro-Colombian leaders,
and women’s rights defenders., Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli, “The Slow Death of Colombia’s Peace Deal,” October 30,
2019; Steven Grattan, “Dozens of Young People Killed in Colombia, Perpetrators Unknown,” August 24, 2020.
98 Human Rights Watch, The Risk of Returning Home: Violence and Threats Against Displaced People: Reclaiming
Land in Colombia, September 2013.
99 Op. cit., U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, “Certification Related to Foreign Military Financing for Colombia
Under Section 7045 (b) (4) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act,
2019.
Congressional Research Service
22

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

administration’s efforts to protect social leaders, especially as the number of assassinated activists
rose through 2020.100
Violence and Labor. The issue of violence against the labor movement in Colombia has sparked
controversy and debate for years. In April 2011, the United States and Colombia agreed to an
“Action Plan Related to Labor Rights” (the Labor Action Plan, LAP), which contained 37
measures that Colombia would implement to address violence, impunity, and workers’ rights
protection. Before the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement entered into force in April 2012, the
U.S. Trade Representative determined that Colombia had met all the important milestones in the
LAP to date.101
Despite the programs launched and measures taken to implement the LAP, human rights and
labor organizations claim that violence targeting labor union members continues. (Some analysts
continue to debate whether labor activists are being targeted because of their union activities or
for other reasons.) The Colombian government has acknowledged that violence and threats
continue, but points to success in reducing violence generally and the number of homicides of
labor unionists specifically. Violence levels in general are high in Colombia, but have steadily
been decreasing. According to data reported by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in its annual
homicide report, rates have decreased dramatically since 2002, when the homicide rate was 68.9
per 100,000.102 Colombia’s national homicide rate fell below 25 per 100,000 in 2017; after a
slight increase in 2018, it returned to a rate of 24.3 per 100,000 in 2020.103
Murders of labor unionists also have declined. According to the Colombian labor rights NGO and
think tank the National Labor School (Escuela Nacional Sindical), there was a significant decline
from 191 labor union murders in 2001 to 29 reported in 2018. From January 2018 to June 2019,
the Attorney General’s Office reported 27 labor union members were killed. Although
prosecutions were slow, the rate of case resolution improved due to the standing up of an “elite
group” to implement a strategy to prioritize the resolution of labor unionist homicides.104

100 Human Rights Watch, Colombia: Protection Gaps Endanger Rights Defenders,” February 10, 2021, at
https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/02/10/colombia-protection-gaps-endanger-rights-defenders#.
101 U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), “FACT SHEET: Historic Progress on Labor Rights in Colombia,” April 15,
2012, at http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/fact-sheets/2012/april/historic-progress-labor-rights-colombia.
102 U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, Global Study on Homicide, 2013, March 2014.
103 Asmann and O’Reilly, “InSight Crime’s 2019 Homicide Round-Up,” InSight Crime, January 28, 2020; InSight
Crime’s 2020 Homicide Round-Up,” January 29, 2021.
104 State Department, Colombia: 2019 Human Rights Report, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, March
2020.
Congressional Research Service
23

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Status of Implementation of Colombia’s Victims’ Law
The 2011 Victims’ and Land Restitution Law (Victims’ Law) is a major piece of legislation entitling Colombian
conflict victims to compensation and, if displaced, to the return of their stolen land. Reparations to victims may
include access to health and psychosocial services, financial compensation, and community restoration projects.
With support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other donors, the Colombian
government set up a Victims’ Unit to coordinate the range of services by several government agencies. USAID
also supported the implementation of a Victims’ Registry, which now includes more than 9 mil ion registered
conflict victims. Reinforced by the 2016 peace agreement, the effort to compensate victims also allows
redistribution of assets obtained from the FARC. Through its Victims Unit, the Colombian government distributed
$735 mil ion in individual compensation between August 2018 and September 2021.
The law provides restitution of land to those displaced since January 1, 1991, encompassing as many as 360,000
families (impacting up to 1.5 mil ion people) that lost an estimated 6 mil ion hectares of land. According to
authorities, as much as half the land eligible for restitution contains land mines. As of 2021, the implementation of
land restitution program has been slower and less successful than anticipated. Colombia’s Land Restitution Unit
has received more than 133,000 requests as of 2021, and almost 78,000 cases have been processed in the
administrative phase, which is a necessary step before being sent to a qualified judge. The Colombian government
reports that 4,581 properties received rulings from judges (about 8%, according to some sources) in favor of
restitution, totaling 370,253 hectares (approximately 914,915 acres). In the case of indigenous and Afro-
Colombian communities, which fall under a distinct land restitution process, six cases were completed for
col ective reparations. A lack of comprehensive land titling remains a significant barrier even though land titling is a
major commitment of the peace accord and all field hearings slowed significantly due to pandemic-related
lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 and economic and travel limitations.
Sources: Colombian Government, Unidad Administrativa Especial de Gestión de Restitución de Tierras
Despojadas, [infographic], October 31, 2021, at https://www.restituciondetierras.gov.co/estadisticas-de-
restitucion-de-tierras; Fundación Forjando Futuros, “Así va la Restitución,” infographic, October 2019, at
http://www.forjandofuturos.org/resources/pdf/uploads/325-INFOGRAFIAS%20COMPLETAS.%20corregidas-
01.jpg.; Presidential Council for Stabilization and Consolidation, Peace with Legality: Short Management Report,
September 2021.
Internal Displacement. The internal conflict has been the major cause of a massive displacement
of the civilian population that has many societal consequences, including implications for
Colombia’s poverty levels and stability. Colombia has one of the largest populations of internally
displaced persons (IDPs) in the world. Most estimates place the total at more than 7 million IDPs,
or more than 10% of Colombia’s estimated population of 50 million. This number of Colombians,
forcibly displaced from some 6 million hectares of land and impoverished as a result of the armed
conflict, continues to grow. The number of mass displacements (tallies of forced displacement of
10 or more families or 50 individuals) spiked in 2019. The Colombian ombudsman’s office
reported some 58 instances of mass displacement in the first three-quarters of 2019, resulting in
more than 15,000 Colombians becoming IDPs. Indigenous and Afro-Colombian people make up
an estimated 15%-22% of the Colombian population, but they are disproportionately represented
among those displaced.105
IDPs suffer stigma and poverty and are often subject to abuse and exploitation. In addition to the
disproportionate representation of Colombia’s ethnic communities among the displaced, other
vulnerable populations, including women and children, have been disproportionally affected.
Women, who make up more than half of the displaced population in Colombia, can become
targets for sexual harassment, violence, and human trafficking. Displacement is driven by a
number of factors, though the leading cause is confrontations between insurgents and crime
groups and the Colombian security forces. Inter-urban displacement, which often results from

105 The government’s victims’ registry is a national database that includes in it victims going back to the 1960s. It
counts a total of 7.2 million individuals displaced since that time. See also Maria Alejandra Navarrence, “Increase in
Violence Leads to More Forced Displacements in Colombia,” InSight Crime, October 23, 2019.
Congressional Research Service
24

link to page 41 link to page 41 Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

violence and threats by organized crime groups, is a growing phenomenon in cities such as
Buenaventura and Medellin.
Regional Relations
Colombia shares long borders with neighboring countries, and some of these border areas have
been described as porous to illegal armed groups that threaten regional security. Colombia has a
1,370-mile border with Venezuela, approximately 1,000-mile borders with both Peru and Brazil,
and shorter borders with Ecuador and Panama. Much of the territory is remote and rugged and
suffers from inconsistent state presence. Although all of Colombia’s borders have been
problematic and subject to spillover effects from Colombia’s armed conflict, the most affected are
Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama.
Over the years, Colombia’s relations with Venezuela and Ecuador have been strained by
Colombia’s counterinsurgency operations, including cross-border military activity. The FARC
and ELN insurgents have been present in shared-border regions and in some cases the insurgent
groups used the neighboring countries to rest, resupply, and shelter.
Former President Uribe accused the former Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez of harboring
the FARC and ELN and maintained that he had evidence of FARC financing the 2006 political
campaign of Ecuador’s leftist President Rafael Correa. Relations between Ecuador and Colombia
remained tense following the Colombian military bombardment of a FARC camp inside Ecuador
in March 2008. Ecuador severed diplomatic relations with Colombia for 33 months.106
Venezuela’s economic crisis significantly worsened throughout 2018 and 2019, prompting a sharp
increase in migrants seeking to escape into or through Colombia.107 Venezuela’s instability,
porous border with Colombia, and corrupt and lawless environment have attracted drug
traffickers and other Colombian armed actors, such as the ELN and dissident FARC, who operate
openly there.
Duque acknowledged that Venezuela had once served as a vital escape valve for Colombian
refugees and displaced fleeing their half-century conflict, for which he was grateful. Part of the
welcoming policy his government has forged toward Venezuelan migrants was in recognition of
the escape valve that Venezuela provided for conflict victims of Colombia.
For many years, the region in Panama that borders Colombia, the Darien, was host to a permanent
presence of FARC soldiers who used the remote area for rest and resupply as well to transit drugs
north. By 2015, according to the State Department, the FARC was no longer maintaining a
permanent militarized presence in Panamanian territory, in part due to effective approaches taken
by Panama’s National Border Service in coordination with Colombia. Nevertheless, the remote
Darien region still faces challenges from smaller drug trafficking organizations and criminal
groups such as Bacrim and experiences problems with human smuggling with counterterrorism
implications.

106 Also in 2008, Ecuador filed a suit against Colombia in the International Court of Justice, claiming damages to
Ecuadorian residents affected by spray drift from Colombia’s aerial eradication of drug crops. In September 2013,
Colombia reached an out-of-court settlement with Ecuador. See section, “Drug Crop Eradication and Other Supply
Control Alternatives.”
107 For more on Venezuela, see CRS Report R44841, Venezuela: Background and U.S. Relations, coordinated by Clare
Ribando Seelke, and Juan Forero, “Venezuela’s Misery Fuels Mass Migration—Residents Flee Crumbling Economy in
Numbers that Echo Syrians to Europe,” Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2018.
Congressional Research Service
25

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Colombia’s Role in Training Security Personnel Abroad
When Colombia hosted the Sixth Summit of the Americas in April 2012, President Obama and
President Santos announced a new joint endeavor, the Action Plan on Regional Security
Cooperation (USCAP). This joint effort, built on ongoing security cooperation, addresses
hemispheric challenges, such as combating transnational organized crime, bolstering
counternarcotics, strengthening institutions, and fostering resilient communities.108 The Action
Plan focuses on capacity building for security personnel in Central America and the Caribbean by
Colombian security forces (both Colombian military and police). To implement the plan,
Colombia undertook several hundred activities in cooperation with Panama, Costa Rica, El
Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic, and between 2013 and 2017
trained almost 17,000 individuals.109 The Colombian government notes that this program grew
dramatically from 34 executed activities in 2013 to 372 activities completed in 2019.110 Although
there were fewer than 50 USCAP activities through October of 2020 because of the pandemic and
restricted travel, the Colombian government is in discussions when and how to resume the
training.
Colombia has increasingly trained military and police from other countries both under this
partnership and other arrangements, including countries across the globe. According to the
Colombian Ministry of Defense, around 80% of those trained were from Mexico, Central
America, and the Caribbean. U.S. and Colombian officials maintain that the broader effort is
designed to export Colombian expertise in combating crime and terrorism while promoting the
rule of law and greater bilateral and multilateral law enforcement cooperation.
Critics of the effort to “export Colombian security successes” maintain that human rights
concerns have not been adequately addressed.111 Some observers question the portion of these
activities that are funded by the U.S. government and want to see more transparency.112 In one
analysis of the training, a majority of the training was provided by Colombian National Police
rather than the Colombian Army, in such areas as ground, air, maritime, and river interdiction;
police testimony; explosives; intelligence operations; psychological operations; and Comando
JUNGLA, Colombia’s elite counternarcotics police program.113
Other analysts praise the Colombian training and maintain that U.S. assistance provided in this
way has helped to improve, professionalize, and expand the Colombian military, making it the
region’s second largest. As that highly trained military shifts from combating the insurgency and

108 U.S. Department of State, “Joint Press Release on the United States-Colombia Action Plan on Regional Security
Cooperation,” April 15, 2012, at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/04/187928.htm.
109 Colombian Embassy to the United States, “Colombia: Exporter of Security and Stability,” March 2015.
110 Colombian Ministry of Defense, “International Cooperation Balance, 2010-2018,” September 2018; Ministry of
Defense information provided by Colombian Embassy personnel, October 2020.
111 See, for example, Sarah Kinosian, John Lindsay-Poland, and Lisa Haugaard, “The U.S. Should not Export
Colombia’s Drug War ‘Success,’” InSight Crime: Investigation and Analysis of Organized Crime, July 9, 2015.
112 For example, critics have raised concerns that such programs circumvent congressionally imposed human rights
restrictions on U.S.-funded security cooperation, such as vetting participants to identify and bar human rights violators.
See Adam Isacson et al., Time to Listen: Trends in U.S. Security Assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean, Latin
America Working Group Education Fund, Center for International Policy, and the Washington Office on Latin
America, September 2013. For more on the Leahy Law provisions that seek to bar assistance to human rights violators,
see CRS Report R43361, “Leahy Law” Human Rights Provisions and Security Assistance: Issue Overview,
coordinated by Nina M. Serafino.
113 See interview with Professor Arlene Tickner at “Security Diplomacy Centerpiece of Colombia’s Foreign Policy,”
World Politics Review, September 5, 2014.
Congressional Research Service
26

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

the Colombian National Police take the dominant role in guaranteeing domestic security,
Colombia may play a greater role in regional security and even in coalition efforts
internationally.114 In September 2017, then-President Trump announced he had considered
designating Colombia in noncompliance with U.S. counternarcotics requirements. He did not take
the step in part because of Colombian training efforts to assist others in the region with combating
narcotics and related crime.115
U.S. Relations and Policy
Colombia is a key U.S. ally in the region. With diplomatic relations that began in the 19th century
following Colombia’s independence from Spain, the countries have enjoyed close and strong ties.
Because of Colombia’s prominence in the production of illegal drugs, the United States and
Colombia forged a close partnership over the past two decades. Focused initially on
counternarcotics, and later counterterrorism, a program called Plan Colombia laid the foundation
for a strategic partnership that has broadened to include sustainable development, human rights,
trade, regional security, and many other areas of cooperation.
Since FY2000, the U.S. Congress has appropriated more than $12 billion in assistance from U.S.
State Department and Department of Defense (DOD) accounts to carry out Plan Colombia and its
follow-on strategies. During this time, Colombia made notable progress combating drug
trafficking and terrorist activities and reestablishing government control over much of its territory.
Its economic and social policies lowered poverty levels, and its security policies reduced
Colombia’s homicide rate.
Counternarcotics policy has been the defining issue in U.S.-Colombian relations since the 1980s
because of Colombia’s preeminence as a source country for illicit drugs. Peru and Bolivia were
the main global producers of cocaine in the 1980s and early 1990s. However, successful efforts in
reducing supply in those countries pushed cocaine production to Colombia, which soon surpassed
both its Andean neighbors. At least since the 1990s, Colombia’s long internal armed conflict was
supercharged by profits from illicit crops, primarily cocaine. Other large illicit businesses
sustained both leftist guerrilla groups and Colombia’s paramilitaries, including human trafficking
and illicit resource extraction, such as logging and gold mining.116
Colombia emerged to dominate the cocaine trade by the late 1990s. National concern about the
crack cocaine epidemic and extensive drug use in the United States led to greater concern with
Colombia as a source. As Colombia became the largest producer of coca leaf and the largest
exporter of finished cocaine, heroin produced from Colombian-grown poppies was supplying a
growing proportion of the U.S. market.117 Alarm over the volumes of heroin and cocaine being

114 Colombia and NATO signed a memorandum of understanding focused on future security cooperation and consultation
in 2018, which was affirmed by the Constitutional Court. According to a consultation with the Colombian Embassy in
December 2019, Colombia has a standing International Partnership Cooperation Program with NATO and is the only
global partner presently in the region. Areas of cooperation include demining, gender, and cyber.
115 For more information on the certification process, see CRS Report RL34543, International Drug Control Policy:
Background and U.S. Responses, by Liana W. Rosen.
116 Nick Miroff, “Colombia Is Preparing for Peace. So Are Its Drug Traffickers,” Washington Post, February 2, 2016.
117 According to State Department testimony, by 2001, Colombia was providing 22% to 33% of the heroin consumed in
the United States. Paul E. Simons, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
Affairs, testimony before a hearing of the House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform, December 12,
2002.
Congressional Research Service
27

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

exported to the United States was a driving force behind U.S. support for Plan Colombia at its
inception.
The evolution of Plan Colombia took place under changing leadership and changing conditions in
both the United States and Colombia. Plan Colombia was followed by successor strategies such
as the National Consolidation Plan, described below, and U.S.-Colombia policy has reached a
new phase anticipating post-conflict Colombia.
Plan Colombia and Its Follow-On Strategies
Announced in 1999, Plan Colombia originally was a six-year strategy to end the country’s
decades-long armed conflict, eliminate drug trafficking, and promote development. The
counternarcotics and security strategy was developed by the government of President Andrés
Pastrana in consultation with U.S. officials.118 Colombia and its allies in the United States
realized that for the nation to gain control of drug trafficking required a stronger security
presence, the rebuilding of institutions, and extending state presence where it was weak or
nonexistent.
Analysts have long debated how effective Plan Colombia and its follow-on strategies were in
combating illegal drugs. Measured exclusively in counternarcotics terms, Plan Colombia has had
mixed results. It failed to meet a goal set in 1999 to lower cultivation, processing, and distribution
of illicit drugs by 50% in six years. Although Colombia achieved some significant reductions in
cultivation, these reductions have not been sustained. According to U.S. estimates, cultivation of
coca declined from 167,000 hectares in 2007 to 78,000 hectares in 2012.119 Likewise, opium
poppy cultivation declined by more than 90% between 2000 and 2009. Nevertheless, coca
cultivation levels have rebounded in recent years
Initially, the U.S. policy focus was on programs to reduce the production of illicit drugs. U.S.
support to Plan Colombia consisted of training and equipping counternarcotics battalions in the
Colombian Army and specialized units of the Colombian National Police, drug eradication
programs, alternative development, and other supply reduction programs. The original 1999 plan
had a goal to reduce “the cultivation, processing, and distribution of narcotics by 50%” over the
plan’s six-year timeframe. The means to achieve this ambitious goal were a special focus on
eradication and alternative development; strengthening, equipping, and professionalizing the
Colombian Armed Forces and the police; strengthening the judiciary; and fighting corruption.
Other objectives were to protect citizens from violence, promote human rights, bolster the
economy, and improve governance. U.S. officials expressed their support for the program by
emphasizing its counterdrug elements (including interdiction). The focus on counternarcotics was
the basis for building bipartisan support to fund the program in the U.S. Congress because some
Members of Congress were leery of involvement in fighting a counterinsurgency, which they
likened to the “slippery slope” of the war in Vietnam.120
President George W. Bush came to office in 2001 and oversaw some changes to Plan Colombia.
The primary vehicle for providing U.S. support to Plan Colombia was the Andean Counterdrug
Initiative, which was included in foreign operations appropriations. The Bush Administration
requested new flexibility so that U.S.-provided assistance would back a “unified campaign

118 For a nuanced description of U.S. involvement in the development of Plan Colombia, see Stuart Lippe, “There is No
Silver Bullet and Other Lessons from Colombia,” Interagency Journal, vol. 5, no. 3 (Fall 2014).
119 A hectare is about 2.5 acres.
120 Ibid.
Congressional Research Service
28

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

against narcotics trafficking, terrorist activities, and other threats to [Colombia’s] national
security” due to the breakdown of peace talks between the FARC and the Pastrana government in
February 2002.121 Congress granted this request for a unified campaign to fight drug trafficking
and terrorist organizations as Members of Congress came to realize how deeply intertwined the
activities of Colombia’s terrorist groups were with the illicit drug trade that funded them.122
However, Congress prohibited U.S. personnel from directly participating in combat missions.
Congress placed a legislative cap on the number of U.S. military and civilian contractor personnel
who could be stationed in Colombia, although the cap was adjusted to meet needs over time. The
current limit (first specified in the FY2015 National Defense Authorization Act, as amended) caps
total military personnel at 800 and civilian contractors at 600, although numbers deployed have
been far below the 1,400-person cap for years and now total fewer than 200.123
President Uribe (2002-2010) embraced Plan Colombia with an aggressive strategy toward the
insurgent forces that prioritized citizen security. His Democratic Security Policy, implemented
first in a military campaign called Plan Patriota, relied on the military to push FARC forces away
from the major cities to remote rural areas and the borderlands. Like his predecessor, President
Pastrana, Uribe continued to expand the Colombian military and police. He enhanced the
intelligence capacity, professionalization, and coordination of the forces, in part with training
provided by U.S. forces. His strategy resulted in expanded state control over national territory124
and a significant reduction in kidnappings, terrorist attacks, and homicides. In 2007, the Uribe
Administration announced a shift to a “Policy of Consolidation of Democratic Security.” The new
doctrine was based on a “whole-of-government” approach to consolidate state presence in
marginal areas that were historically neglected—vulnerable to drug crop cultivation, violence,
and control by illegal armed groups. Called a strategic leap forward by then-Defense Minister
Juan Manuel Santos, in 2009 the new strategy came to be called the National Consolidation Plan
(see below).
Colombian support for Plan Colombia and for the nation’s security program grew under Uribe’s
leadership. President Uribe levied a “wealth tax” to fund Colombia’s security efforts, taxing the
wealthiest taxpayers to fund growing defense and security expenditures. Overall U.S.
expenditures on Plan Colombia were only a portion of what Colombians spent on their own
security. By one 2009 estimate, U.S. expenditures were not more than 10% of what Colombians
invested in their total security costs.125 In 2000, Colombia devoted less than 2% of its GDP to

121 Cynthia J. Arnson, “The Peace Process in Colombia and U.S. Policy,” in Peace, Democracy, and Human Rights in
Colombia, eds. Christopher Welna and Gustavo Gallón (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), pp.
132-164.
122 Congress granted the expanded authority requested by the Bush Administration in an emergency supplemental
appropriations bill (H.R. 4775, P.L. 107-206), which gave the State Department and the Department of Defense (DOD)
flexibility to combat groups designated as terrorist organizations as well as to fight drug trafficking. The legislation was
signed into law on August 2, 2002. Congress granted this new authority in the aftermath of terrorist attacks on the
United States on September 11, 2001, and during a period when there was growing support in the U.S. Congress to
combat terrorism.
123 The FY2005 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 4200) raised the military cap from 400 to 800 and the
civilian cap from 400 to 600. The number of U.S. personnel has declined significantly from the peak years of 2005-
2007, reflecting the gradual nationalization of U.S.-supported programs.
124 Although Democratic Security evolved over Uribe’s two-terms in office, the strategy is credited by some analysts
for its coherence. “Uribe and his advisors developed a coherent counterinsurgency strategy based on taking and holding
territory, protecting local populations, controlling key geographic corridors ... and demobilizing the paramilitary forces
that threatened democracy and state authority as much as did the FARC.” Stuart Lippe, “There is No Silver Bullet and
Other Lessons from Colombia,” Interagency Journal, vol. 5, no. 3 (Fall 2014).
125 Peter DeShazo, Johanna Mendelson Forman, and Phillip McLean, Countering Threats to Security and Stability in a
Congressional Research Service
29

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

military and police expenditures and in 2010 that investment had grown to more than 4% of GDP.
One assessment notes “in the end there is no substitute for host country dedication and funding”
to turn around a security crisis such as Colombia faced at the beginning of the millennium.126
In 2008, congressional support for Plan Colombia and its successor programs also shifted. Some
Members of Congress believed that the balance of programming was too heavily weighted toward
security. Prior to 2008, the emphasis had been on “hard side” security assistance (to the military
and police) compared with “soft side” traditional development and rule of law programs.
Members debated if the roughly 75% / 25% mix should be realigned. Since FY2008, Congress
has reduced the proportion of assistance for security-related programs and increased the
proportion for economic and social aid. As Colombia’s security situation improved and
Colombia’s economy recovered, the United States also began turning over to Colombians
operational and financial responsibility for efforts formerly funded by the U.S. government. The
Colombian government “nationalized” the training, equipping, and support for Colombian
military programs, such as the counterdrug brigade, Colombian Army aviation, and the air bridge
denial program. U.S. funding overall began to decline. The nationalization efforts were not
intended to end U.S. assistance, but rather to gradually reduce it to pre-Plan Colombia levels,
adjusted for inflation.127
A key goal of Plan Colombia was to reduce the supply of illegal drugs produced and exported by
Colombia but the goals became broader over time. Bipartisan support for the policy existed
through three U.S. Administrations—President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, and
President Barack Obama. Plan Colombia came to be viewed by some analysts as one of the most
enduring and effective U.S. policy initiatives in the Western Hemisphere. Some have lauded the
strategy as a model. In 2009, William Brownfield, then-U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, described
Plan Colombia as “the most successful nation-building exercise that the United States has
associated itself with perhaps in the last 25-30 years.”
Other observers, however, were critical of the policy as it unfolded. Many in the NGO and human
rights community maintained the strategy, with its emphasis on militarization and security, was
inadequate for solving Colombia’s persistent, underlying problems of rural violence, poverty,
neglect and institutional weakness. Nevertheless, it appears that improvements in security
conditions have been accompanied by substantial economic growth and a reduction in poverty
levels over time.
National Consolidation Plan and Peace Colombia
The National Consolidation Plan first launched during the Uribe Administration, (renamed the
National Plan for Consolidation and Territorial Reconstruction), was designed to coordinate
government efforts in regions where marginalization, drug trafficking, and violence converge.
The whole-of-government consolidation was to integrate security, development, and
counternarcotics to achieve a permanent state presence in vulnerable areas. Once security forces
took control of a contested area, government agencies in housing, education, and development
would regularize the presence of the state and reintegrate the municipalities of these marginalized
zones into Colombia. The plan had been restructured several times by the Santos government.

Failing State: Lessons from Colombia, Center for Strategic & International Studies, September 2009.
126 Stuart Lippe, “There is No Silver Bullet and Other Lessons from Colombia,” Interagency Journal, vol. 5, no. 3 (Fall
2014).
127 U.S. Department of State, Report on Multiyear Strategy for U.S. Assistance Programs in Colombia, Report to
Congress, April 2009.
Congressional Research Service
30

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Some analysts criticize the Colombian government’s failure to assert control throughout the
national territory in the wake of the FARC’s demobilization.128
The United States supported the Colombian government’s consolidation strategy through an
inter-agency program called the Colombia Strategic Development Initiative (CSDI). CSDI
provided U.S. assistance to “fill gaps” in Colombian government programming. At the U.S.
Embassy in Colombia, CSDI coordinated efforts of USAID, the State Department’s Narcotics
Affairs Section, the U.S. Military Group, and the Department of Justice to assist Colombia in
carrying out the consolidation plan by expanding state presence and promoting economic
opportunities in priority zones.129 It combined traditional counternarcotics assistance for
eradication, interdiction, alternative development, and capacity building for the police, military,
and justice sector institutions with other development initiatives.
As the peace agreement between the FARC and the government moved forward into
implementation, the focus of U.S. assistance to Colombia has shifted again. With a foundation of
the work done to advance consolidation, U.S. assistance has begun to aid in post-conflict
planning and support Colombia’s transition to peace by building up democratic institutions,
protecting human rights and racial and ethnic minorities, and promoting economic opportunity.
USAID’s country cooperation strategy for 2014-2018 anticipated the Colombian government
reaching a negotiated agreement with the FARC, but remained flexible if an agreement was not
signed. It recognized early implementation efforts, especially in the first 24 months after
signature, would be critical to demonstrate or model effective practices. In the next five years, it
envisioned Colombia evolving from aid recipient to provider of technical assistance to
neighbors.130
Consolidating state authority and presence in the rural areas with weak institutions has been a
significant challenge since the FARC’s disarmament in summer 2017. Reintegration of the FARC
and possibly other insurgent forces, such as the ELN, will be expensive and delicate. In particular,
critics of the Colombian government’s consolidation efforts maintain the Santos administration
often lacked the commitment to hand off targeted areas from the military to civilian-led
development and achieve locally led democratic governance.131 Consolidation efforts suffered
from low political support, disorganization at the top levels of government, and failure to
administer national budgets effectively in more remote areas, among other challenges. The
Territorially Focused Development Programs (PDETs) for rural development (the land and rural
development sub-agreement of the 2016 peace accord) incorporated a participatory process to
achieve local development, which required sustained effort.
In August 2018, after President Duque took office, USAID announced a framework of priorities
for U.S. economic development assistance to Colombia. Some of these priorities include
promoting and supporting a whole-of-government strategy to include the dismantling of
organized crime; increasing the effectiveness of Colombia’s security and criminal justice
institutions; and promoting enhanced prosperity and job creation through trade.132 Some analysts

128 Remarks of Paul Angelo, Fellow, Council of Foreign Relations, “Waiting for Peace: Violence Against Social
Leaders in Colombia,” webinar from the Inter-American Dialogue, Washington, DC, October 21, 2020, at
https://www.thedialogue.org/events/online-event-waiting-for-peace-violence-against-social-leaders-in-colombia/.
129 Ibid.
130 USAID/Colombia, Country Development Cooperation Strategy 2014-2018, A Path to Peace, June 13, 2014.
131 See, for example, Adam Isacson, Consolidating “Consolidation,” Washington Office on Latin America, December
2012.
132 USAID, Colombia: Integrated Country Strategy, August 14, 2018.
Congressional Research Service
31

link to page 37 link to page 37 Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

contend that prioritizing voluntary eradication coupled with robust alternative development
sequenced over a longer time frame and bolstered with well-designed interdiction is the only
sustainable route to diminish coca cultivation.133
U.S. Funding for Plan Colombia and Follow-On Strategies
The U.S. Congress initially approved legislation in support of Plan Colombia in 2000, as part of
the Military Construction Appropriations Act of 2001 (P.L. 106-246). Plan Colombia was never
authorized by Congress, but it was funded annually through appropriations. From FY2000
through FY2016, U.S. funding for Plan Colombia and its follow-on strategies exceeded $10
billion in State Department and Defense Department programs. From FY2000 to FY2009, the
United States provided foreign operations assistance to Colombia through the Andean
Counterdrug Program (ACP) account, formerly known as the Andean Counterdrug Initiative, and
other aid accounts. In FY2008, Congress continued to fund eradication and interdiction programs
through the ACP account, but funded alternative development and institution building programs
through the Economic Support Fund (ESF) account. In the FY2010 request, the Obama
Administration shifted ACP funds into the International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement
(INCLE) account.
Since FY2008, U.S. assistance has gradually declined because of tighter foreign aid budgets and
nationalized Plan Colombia-related programs. In FY2014, in line with other foreign assistance
reductions, funds appropriated to Colombia from State Department accounts declined to slightly
below $325 million. In FY2015, Congress appropriated $300 million for bilateral assistance to
Colombia in foreign operation. The FY2016 Omnibus Appropriations bill (P.L. 114-113) provided
Colombia from U.S. State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development accounts,
slightly under $300 million, nearly identical to that appropriated in FY2015 (without P.L. 480, the
Food for Peace account), the total for FY2016 was $293 million as shown in Table 1. In FY2017,
Congress funded a program the Obama Administration had proposed called “Peace Colombia” to
re-balance U.S. assistance to support the peace process and implementation of the accord. The
FY2017 omnibus appropriations measure, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017 (P.L. 115-
31), funded the various programs of Peace Colombia at $391.3 million.
Table 1, based on data from annual international affairs congressional budget justifications,
shows congressional appropriations for foreign aid to Colombia from FY2013 to FY2022 request.
The U.S. government provided roughly $3.1 billion in State Department and USAID assistance
from FY2017 to FY2021, following the ratification of the peace accord.
FY2022 Appropriations. The Biden Administration’s FY2022 request would assist Colombia in
peace accord implementation, combating crime and building police capacity, protecting human
rights, and enhancing environmental protection, among other goals. The Senate Appropriations
Committee in late 2021 is considering an FY2022 appropriations bill for foreign operations. The
House-passed foreign aid appropriations bill for FY2022, H.R. 4373, would provide $461.4
million and stipulates (for the first time) that 30% of funding under the International Narcotics
Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) account would be obligated after the U.S. Secretary of
State certifies that Colombia has met certain human rights conditions. The proposed Senate bill
for FY2022 would have an outright ban on assistance to the Colombian riot police, and would
withhold 5% of INCLE funding until the U.S. Secretary of State certifies the riot police are held

133 See, for example, Felbab-Brown, Detoxifying Colombia’s Drug Policy: Colombian’s Counternarcotics Options and
their Impact on Peace and State Building, Brookings Institution, January 2020.
Congressional Research Service
32

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

accountable for human rights violations.134 Congress has yet to conclude action on FY2022
appropriations but approved a continuing resolution in December 2021 that provides foreign
assistance funding through February 18, 2022.
Table 1. U.S. Assistance for Colombia by State Department and USAID
Foreign Aid Account: FY2013-FY2022 Request
(in millions of current U.S. dollars)
2021
2022
Account
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
Est.
Req.
ESF
165.8
141.5
133.0
126.0
180.3
180.3
187.3
146.3
141.0
141.0
IMET
1.5
1.5
1.4
1.4
1.4
1.5
1.3
1.8
1.9
1.9
INCLE
152.3
149.0
135.2
135.2
143.0
143.0
170.0
180.0
189.0
175.0
NADR
5.1
4.3
4.3
3.5
21.0
21.0
21.0
21.0
21.0
21.0
FMF
28.9
28.5
27.0
27.0
38.5
38.5
38.5
45.5
38.5
40.0
DA
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
61.0
70.0
70.0
Total
353.6
324.8
300.9
293.1
384.2
384.3
418.1
455.6
461.4
448.9
Sources: CRS, with data from the annual International Affairs congressional budget justifications (FY2013-
FY2022).
Notes: Accounts as fol ows: ESF = Economic Support Fund; IMET = International Military Education and
Training; INCLE = International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement; NADR = Nonproliferation, Anti-
Terrorism, De-mining and Related Programs; and FMF = Foreign Military Financing; DA = Development
Assistance. Table does not include P.L. 480 (also known as Food for Peace) or Global Health.
Department of Defense Assistance
A variety of funding streams support DOD training and equipment programs. Some DOD
equipment programs are funded by annual State Department appropriations for FMF, which
totaled $45.5 million in FY2020 but was $38.5 million for FY2017-FY2019, and estimated for
FY2021. International Military Education and Training (IMET) funds, which totaled and
estimated $1.9 million in FY2021, support training programs for the Colombian military,
including courses in the United States. Apart from State Department funding, DOD provides
additional training, equipping, and other support through its own accounts. Individuals and units
receiving DOD support are vetted for potential human rights issues in compliance with the Leahy
Law described below. Between FY2016 and FY2018, DOD-funded programs aimed at
counternarcotics and security goals averaged $70 million per year.
The compromise FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), S. 1605, approved by the
House and the Senate in December 2021, requires a new human rights report on Colombia,
including efforts to build the institutional capacity of the Colombian military or other Colombian
security forces on human rights and adherence to the rule of law. Other NDAA language
authorizes DOD spending of not more than $2 million for training programs for the United
States-Colombia Action Plan (USCAP). The bill also reauthorizes through FY2023 a provision

134 For further background on the Senate bill, see Samantha Schmidt and Diant Durán, “Probe: Colombian Police are
Culpable in 2020 ‘Massacre,” Washington Post, December 14, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
33

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

that has been in place since FY2005 in support of Colombia’s unified “counterdrug and
counterterrorism” campaign.135
Human Rights Conditions on U.S. Assistance
Some Members of Congress have been concerned about human rights violations in Colombia—
especially those perpetrated by any recipients or potential recipients of U.S. assistance. In
Colombia’s multisided conflict, the FARC and the ELN, the paramilitaries and their successors,
and Colombia’s security forces all have committed serious violations. Colombians have endured
generations of noncombatant killings, massacres, kidnappings, forced displacements, forced
disappearances, land mine casualties, and acts of violence that violate international humanitarian
law. The extent of the crimes and the backlog of human rights cases to be prosecuted have
overwhelmed the Colombian judiciary, which some describe as inefficient and overburdened.
Many human rights groups maintain that although some prosecutions have gone forward, most
remain unresolved and the backlog of cases has been reduced slowly. Moreover, new violations
continue to occur.
Since 2002, Congress has required in annual foreign operations appropriations legislation that the
Secretary of State certify annually to Congress that the Colombian military is severing ties to
paramilitaries and that the government is investigating complaints of human rights abuses and
meeting other human rights statutory criteria. (The certification criteria have evolved over time.)
For several years, certification was required before 30% of funds to the Colombian military could
be released. The FY2014 appropriations legislation reduced that to 25% of funding under the
FMF program be held back pending certification by the Secretary of State. Some human rights
groups have criticized the regular certification of Colombia, maintaining that evidence they have
presented to the State Department has contradicted U.S. findings. However, some critics have
acknowledged the human rights conditions on military assistance to Colombia to be “a flawed but
useful tool” because the certification process requires that the U.S. government regularly consult
with Colombian and international human rights groups. Critics generally acknowledge that over
time, conditionality can improve human rights compliance.136
Additional tools for monitoring human rights compliance by Colombian security forces receiving
U.S. assistance are the so-called “Leahy Law” restrictions, which Congress first passed in the late
1990s prior to the outset of Plan Colombia. First introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy, these
provisions deny U.S. assistance to a foreign country’s security forces if the U.S. Secretary of
State has credible information that such units have committed “a gross violation of human
rights.” The provisions apply to security assistance provided by the State Department and DOD.
The Leahy Law under the State Department is authorized by the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of
1961, as amended, and is codified at 22 U.S.C. 2378d (§520M of the FAA). The DOD Leahy
provisions, which for years applied just to DOD training, now include a broader range of
assistance, as modified in the FY2014 appropriations legislation. The provision related to the
Leahy Laws for DOD assistance is codified at 10 U.S.C. 362, and prohibits “any training,

135 Joint Explanatory Statement to Accompany the National Defense Authorization Act for the Fiscal Year 2022,
NDAA, S. 1605, December 7, 2022.
136 Lisa Haugaard, Adam Isacson, and Jennifer Johnson, A Cautionary Tale: Plan Colombia’s Lessons for U.S. Policy
Toward Mexico and Beyond, Latin America Working Group Education Fund, Center for International Policy,
Washington Office on Latin America, November 2011. The authors caution that the benefits of the certification are
present only under certain conditions: “Human rights conditions only became a useful lever in extreme circumstances
and with enormous effort by human rights groups.”
Congressional Research Service
34

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

equipment, or other assistance,” to a foreign security force unit if there is credible information
that the unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.137
Both the State Department and DOD Leahy provisions require the State Department to review
and clear—or vet—foreign security forces to determine if any individual or unit is credibly
believed to be guilty of a gross human rights violation. Leahy vetting is typically conducted by
U.S. embassies and State Department headquarters. Reportedly on an annual basis about 1% of
foreign security forces are disqualified from receiving assistance under the Leahy provisions,
although many more are affected by administrative issues and are denied assistance until those
conditions are resolved. Tainted security force units that are denied assistance may be remediated
or cleared, but the procedures for remediation differ slightly between the DOD and State (or
FAA) provisions.
Because of the large amount of security assistance provided to Colombian forces (including the
military and police), the State Department reportedly vets more candidates for assistance in
Colombia than in any other country.138 In the late 1990s, poor human rights conditions in
Colombia were a driving concern for developing the Leahy Law provisions.139 The U.S. Embassy
in Bogotá, with nearly two decades of experience in its vetting operations, was cited in recent
times as a source of best practices for other embassies seeking to bring their operations into
compliance or enhance their performance.
Some human rights organizations are critical of the Leahy vetting process and assert that U.S.
assistance under the Leahy process has failed to remove human rights violators from the
Colombian military. A human rights NGO, Fellowship of Reconciliation, has published reports
alleging an association between false positive killings and Colombian military units vetted by the
State Department to receive U.S. assistance.140 However, some have questioned the group’s
methodology. Some human rights organizations contend that the U.S. government has tolerated
abusive behavior by Colombian security forces without taking action or withholding assistance.
At the end of October 2019, the Duque government formally renewed the mandate of the U.N.’s
High Commissioner of Human Rights for three more years, which has had a significant presence
in Colombia during the internal conflict and beyond.
In response to the armed services wiretapping scandal in 2020, the FY2021 National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA) directed the State Department to report on possible misuse of U.S.
security-sector funds for illegal surveillance by Colombia’s armed services. As noted, the FY2022
NDAA, S. 1605, requires a human rights report on Colombia that includes a discussion of efforts
to build the institutional capacity of the Colombian military or other Colombian security forces on
human rights and adherence to the rule of law.

137 See CRS In Focus IF10575, Human Rights Issues: Security Forces Vetting (“Leahy Laws”), by Liana W. Rosen.
138 See “Colombia Case Study” in CRS Report R43361, “Leahy Law” Human Rights Provisions and Security
Assistance: Issue Overview, coordinated by Nina M. Serafino.
139 The first enactment of the Leahy provisions restricted international narcotics control assistance in an amendment to
the 1997 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act.
140 See Fellowship of Reconciliation and U.S. Office on Colombia, Military Aid and Human Rights: Colombia, U.S.
Accountability, and Global Implications, 2010; Fellowship of Reconciliation and Colombia-Europe-U.S. Human
Rights Observatory, The Rise and Fall of “False Positive” Killings in Colombia: The Role of U.S. Military Assistance,
2000-2010, May 2014.
Congressional Research Service
35

link to page 40 link to page 40 link to page 40 link to page 40 Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Cocaine Continues Its Reign in Colombia141
According to U.S. government estimates, Colombia’s potential production of pure cocaine fell to
170 metric tons in 2012, the lowest level in two decades. However, it started to rise slightly in
2013 and more dramatically from 2014 through 2020 (see Table 2 and Table 3), which show the
U.S. estimates for coca cultivation and cocaine production in Colombia over several years.
Following a U.N. agency affiliate’s determination that the herbicide used to spray coca crops was
probably carcinogenic, Colombia’s minister of health determined that aerial eradication of coca
was not consistent with requirements of Colombia’s Constitutional Court. In 2019, the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) reported that 93% of cocaine seized in the United States
originated in Colombia.
At the same time, Colombia has set records for many years in drug interdiction and generally is
seen as a strong and reliable U.S. counternarcotics partner. However, even with record seizures in
2019 (487 metric tons of cocaine seized) and 2020 (nearly 427 metric tons in first nine months of
the year), the interdiction of cocaine was insufficient to counter the large increases in
production.142 According to some estimates, Colombia produces roughly two-thirds of the world’s
current supply.143 As indicated in Table 2 and Table 3, cultivation and production remain at
historically high levels.
Table 2. U.S. Estimates of Coca Cultivation in Colombia
Year
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
Area (in
100
83
78
80
112
159
188
209
208
212
245
thousand
hectares))
% Change

-17
-6
3
39
42
18
11
-0.5
0.02
.16
Sources: Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), “New Annual Data Released by White House Drug
Policy Office Shows Record High Cocaine Cultivation and Production in Colombia,” June 28, 2018; “United
States and Colombian Officials Set Bilateral Agenda to Reduce Cocaine Supply,” fact sheet, March 5, 2020; U.S.
Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), volume I, Colombia country reports
for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019; ONDCP, “Updated: ONDCP Releases Data on Coca Cultivation and
Potential Cocaine Production in the Andean Region,” July 16, 2021.
Table 3. U.S. Estimates of Pure Cocaine Production in Colombia
Year
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
Amount (in
326
273
263
279
353
564
775
906
869
918
1,010
metric
tons)
% Change

-16
-.03
16
27
60
37
17
-.04
.05
.11
Source: ONDCP, “United States and Colombian Officials Set Bilateral Agenda to Reduce Cocaine Supply,” fact
sheet, March 5, 2020; every year revised from prior estimates, ONDCP, “Updated: ONDCP Releases Data on
Coca Cultivation and Potential Cocaine Production in the Andean Region,” July 16, 2021.

141 For more background, see CRS Report R44779, Colombia’s Changing Approach to Drug Policy, by June S. Beittel
and Liana W. Rosen.
142 U.S. Department of State, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), Vol. I, March 2021.
143 “Five Years After Colombia’s Peace Deal, Militias Continue to Cause Havoc,” Economist, November 29, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
36

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Drug Crop Eradication and Other Supply Control Alternatives
Both manual eradication and aerial eradication were central components of Plan Colombia to
reduce coca and poppy cultivation. Manual eradication is conducted by teams, usually security
personnel, who uproot and kill the plant. Aerial eradication involves spraying the plants from
aircraft with an herbicide mixture to destroy the drug crop, but it may not kill the plants. In the
context of Colombia’s continuing internal conflict, manual eradication was far more dangerous
than aerial spraying. U.S. and Colombian policymakers recognized the dangers of manual
eradication and, therefore, employed large-scale aerial spray campaigns to reduce coca crop
yields, especially from large coca plantations. Colombia is the only country globally that aerially
sprayed its illicit crops, and the practice has been controversial for health and environmental
reasons, resulting in a Colombian decision to end aerial eradication in 2015.
In late 2013, Ecuador won an out-of-court settlement in a case filed in 2008 before the
International Court of Justice in The Hague for the negative effects of spray drift over its border
with Colombia.144 In negotiations with the FARC in the peace talks, the government and the
FARC provisionally agreed in May 2014 that voluntary manual eradication would be prioritized
over forced eradication. Aerial eradication remained a viable tool in the government’s drug
control strategy, according to the agreement, but would be permitted only if voluntary and manual
eradication could not be conducted safely.
At the U.S.-Colombia High Level Dialogue held in Bogotá in March 2018, a renewed
commitment to the enduring partnership between the United States and Colombia was
announced. A major outcome was a U.S.-Colombia pledge to reduce illegal narcotics trafficking
through expanded counternarcotics cooperation. The new goal set was to reduce Colombia’s
estimated cocaine production and coca cultivation to 50% of current levels by 2023.145
After Duque took office, USAID announced a framework of priorities for U.S. development
assistance to Colombia in August 2018. Some of these priorities to stabilize the peace include
promoting and supporting a whole-of-government strategy to dismantle organized crime;
increasing the effectiveness of Colombia’s security and criminal justice institutions; promoting
enhanced prosperity and job creation through trade; and strengthening governance and civil
society to transition to sustainable peace, including reconciliation among victims, rural
communities, and combatants.146 The causes of conflict in Colombian society, such as lack of
access to land addressed in the peace accord, need to be resolved to promote a sustainable peace,
according to USAID.
U.S. assistance administered by the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and
Law Enforcement includes funding with a focus on the manual eradication of coca crops, support
for the Colombian National Police, and judicial reform efforts. The assistance also supports
Colombian training to counterpart security forces in other countries to counter transnational
organized crime and drug trafficking. Several programs attempt to increase accountability and

144 Ecuador received $15 million in compensation from Colombia for alleged health and environmental harms, and the
formal imposition of a ban on spraying in the 10 kilometer zone up to the border with Ecuador. “Ecuador Wins
Favorable Settlement from Colombia, Terminates Aerial Spraying Case in International Court of Justice,” Business
Wire, September 19, 2013; Pablo Jaramillo Viteri and Chris Kraul, “Colombia to Pay Ecuador $15 Million to Settle
Coca Herbicide Suit,” Los Angeles Times, September 16, 2013.
145 U.S. Department of State, “U.S.-Colombia Dialogue Reaffirms an Enduring Partnership,” Press Release, March 1,
2018.
146 USAID, Colombia: Integrated Country Strategy, August 14, 2018.
Congressional Research Service
37

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

transparency in troubled rural regions, expand access to justice, and increase coordination
between municipal and regional governments to access Colombian resources at the national level.
New Counternarcotics Direction Under the Duque Administration
Experimentation with delivering glyphosate by drones (rather than planes) began in June 2018
under the Santos administration and continues under the Duque government.147 Drug trafficking
continues to trigger conflict over land in Colombia and affects the most vulnerable groups,
including Afro-Colombian, peasant, and indigenous populations. Some analysts warn that
national and international pressure for drug eradication could lead to increased human rights
violations.
Colombia has set records in cocaine production in recent years. In 2019, according to U.S.
estimates, the country produced 951 metric tons of pure cocaine. In 2019, President Duque and
then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reaffirmed a March 2018 commitment to work together to
lower coca crop levels and cocaine production by 50% by 2023.148 Duque campaigned on
resuming forced aerial eradication (or spraying of coca crops) with the herbicide glyphosate; in
August 2020, he called again for the resumption of spraying while escalating other methods of
forced eradication, such as forced manual eradication. His focus on “peace with legality,” critics
contend, replaced the approach of participatory planning and development embodied in the peace
accord with a focus on national security that is primarily led by the defense ministry.149 The
Trump Administration notably endorsed aerial eradication as “an irreplaceable tool” for Colombia
in the September 2020 Presidential Determination on Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries for
FY2021.150
The Trump Administration prioritized joint counternarcotics efforts in its cooperation with
Colombia. As noted, from 2013 to 2017, Colombia experienced its highest increase in illicit crop
cultivation. In the spring and summer of 2020, the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM)
conducted a counternarcotics surge.151 U.S. Admiral Craig S. Faller, former Commander of
SOUTHCOM, hailed the surge operation as an all-of-government exercise involving 22 countries
in the region, including Colombia, to demonstrate partner country commitment and capacity to
combat narcotics trafficking and the national security threat of transnational crime.152 The surge

147 John Otis, “Colombia is Growing Record Amounts of Coca, The Key Ingredient in Cocaine,” National Public
Radio, October 22, 2018; “Colombia to Use Drones to Fumigate Coca Leaf with Herbicide,” Reuters, June 26, 2018.
148 Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), “United States and Colombian Officials Set Bilateral Agenda to
Reduce Cocaine Supply,” fact sheet, March 5, 2020.
149 Juan Fernando Cristo, former Colombian Minister of Interior, “Waiting for Peace: Violence Against Social Leaders
in Colombia,” webinar from the Inter-American Dialogue, Washington, DC, October 21, 2020, at
https://www.thedialogue.org/events/online-event-waiting-for-peace-violence-against-social-leaders-in-colombia/.
150 White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “Presidential Determination on Major Drug Transit or Major Illicit
Drug Producing Countries for Fiscal Year 2021,” presidential memorandum, September 16, 2020, at
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-determination-major-drug-transit-major-illicit-drug-
producing-countries-fiscal-year-2021/.
151 U.S. Southern Command begins at the Mexican border and contains within its regional command the remaining
elements of Central and South America (31 countries and 16 dependencies and areas of special sovereignty). For more,
see CRS In Focus IF11464, United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), by Kathleen J. McInnis and Brendan W.
McGarry.
152 Admiral Craig S. Fuller, Commander, U.S. Southern Command, Press Briefing, U.S. State Department, April 20,
2020; remarks by President Trump, “Briefing on SOUTHCOM’s Enhanced Counternarcotics Operations,” July 10
2020, at https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-briefing-southcom-enhanced-
counternarcotics-operations/ (hereinafter cited as Remarks by President Trump in Briefing on SOUTHCOM).
Congressional Research Service
38

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

was one of the largest recent engagements of U.S. assets for anti-drug activities, such as Navy
ships, AWACS surveillance aircraft, and on-ground special forces.153 In July 2020, SOUTHCOM
reported the surge had netted 122 metric tons of illegal drugs, mostly cocaine and marijuana. The
surge anti-drug mission was run in parallel with a Colombian-led operation known as Orion 5,
which encompassed 25 nations in Latin America and the Caribbean and in Europe.154
In addition, in June 2020, the U.S. Army deployed a Security Force Assistance Brigade to
Colombia, the first such deployment to the Western Hemisphere. The company-sized deployment
of 53 U.S. Army personnel was in place for four months to train Colombian forces in
counternarcotics logistics, services, and intelligence capabilities to support U.S.-Colombian
collaboration.155
Colombia and Climate Change
Colombia has a variegated geography and is one of the world’s most biodiverse nations.156 With
50 million people spanning a country about twice the size of the U.S. state of Texas, it includes
Andean mountain ranges, about 10% of the Amazon basin watershed, and an abundance of rivers
allowing for more than 70% of its electricity to be generated by hydropower.157 Colombia exports
petroleum and was the fourth largest source of imported petroleum by the United States after
Canada, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia in 2020.158 Colombia is also one of the world’s five top
producers of coal, and is South America’s largest coal producer. Colombian coal is mostly
exported rather than used for domestic consumption.159
The Biden Administration has embraced climate change mitigation as a top priority and is
engaging with countries around the world, including Colombia, to meet this goal. In mid-October
2021, U.S. Secretary of State Blinken traveled to Colombia to meet with President Duque and
other top Colombian officials. During the trip, the Secretary stated that what he called “the
climate crisis” is a challenge that is “too big and too complex for either of us to address alone…
no country - no group of countries, even, can do enough alone to limit the Earth’s warming to 1.5
degrees Celsius, which science tells us is our ceiling if we want to avoid catastrophe.” In the 2021
National Intelligence Estimate, Climate Change and International Responses, released in
December, the Biden Administration identified Colombia as 1 of 11 countries globally threatened
by climate change that would be “especially helpful in mitigating future risks to U.S. interests.”160
Sustainable development has been a Colombian government priority for many years. In 2021, the
Duque government launched the National Council for the Fight against Deforestation and other

153 Joshua Goodman, “U.S. Naval Buildup in Caribbean Not Aimed at Ousting Maduro,” Associated Press, April 20,
2020.
154 Remarks by President Trump in Briefing on SOUTHCOM.
155 For more background, see CRS In Focus IF10675, Army Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs), by Andrew
Feickert.
156 The government of Colombia describes Colombia as “megadiverse” with its 91 types of ecosystems. See,
Colombian Embassy to the United States, “National Environmental Agenda,” August 17, 2021.
157 Walter Vergara et al., “Colombia Shows Leadership in the Race Against Climate,” World Resources Institute,
February 11, 2021.
158 Information accessed on Trade Data Monitor on October 25, 2021.
159 Colombia, Executive Summary, U.S. Energy Information Administration, January 7, 2019.
160 National Intelligence Council, “Climate Change and International Responses Increasing Challenges to US National
Security Through 2040, NIC-NIE-2021-10030-A, December 2021, at
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/NIE_Climate_Change_and_National_Security.pdf.
Congressional Research Service
39

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Environmental Crimes (CONALDEF in Spanish), an interagency coordinating body, and the
Colombian Congress approved a new Law on Environmental Crimes, which includes
deforestation-related crimes. Critics of the obligations embraced by Duque note that his climate
pledges to promote energy transitions and curb deforestation may be aspirational and may not be
fully implemented due to economic and political pressures.161
In addition, the sustainable development efforts of the Colombian government have been
disrupted frequently by environmental crimes committed by insurgents and other illegal armed
groups. Such activities include blowing up oil pipelines, permitting oil spills into rivers and other
water bodies, and accelerating destruction of watersheds by discharging chemicals for extracting
cocaine from coca leaf or clearcutting for illegal mining or other illicit purposes. In a novel use of
the new environmental law, the Colombian government charged three dissident FARC
commanders, aliases Gentil Duarte, Iván Mordisco, and John 40, with criminal deforestation and
environmental devastation, including fomenting destruction of the Amazon.162
Colombia has aligned its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement
with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which seek to comply with the principle
of intergenerational equity.163 To meet the harmonized goals, some analysts argue Colombia
should utilize a targeted and cross-sectoral stimulus plan to manage the economic consequences
of the pandemic, use sustainability-minded and incentive-based grants to facilitate meeting SDGs,
tap special International Monetary Fund drawing rights to meet both SDGs and NDCs, and make
new investments in social services and green economic growth.164 One feature of close U.S.-
Colombian collaboration on combating climate change was cited in an October 2021 House
hearing held in advance of the COP26 meeting held in Glasgow, United Kingdom in November.
The U.S. Agency for International Development Climate Coordinator observed, that Colombia,
with U.S. support, held its first-ever renewable energy auction, which attracted $2 billion in
private investment, including from the U.S. private sector, for new, large-scale renewable energy
plants.165
Outlook
Congress remains interested in Colombia because the country has become one of the United
States’ closest allies in the region and because the United States has invested in Colombia’s
security and stability for more than two decades. The U.S.-Colombia relationship evolved from a
counternarcotics and security focus to a broader collaboration for democratic development,
human rights protections, humanitarian relief, economic growth, regional security, climate
mitigation, and trade. Congress has been interested in expanding investment and trade
opportunities bilaterally with Colombia and with regional trade groups, such as the Pacific
Alliance in which Colombia was a founding member. Furthermore, as near-shoring

161 “Latin America’s Rock Road to Net Zero Emissions,” EIU, October 22, 2021.
162 Juan Diego Cárdenas, “FARC Dissidents First to be Charged Under New Colombian Environmental Law,” InSight
Crime, December 8, 2021.
163 For background on Colombia’s current NDC please see https://www4.unfccc.int/sites/ndcstaging/
PublishedDocuments/Colombia%20First/NDC%20actualizada%20de%20Colombia.pdf.
164 Op cit., Berg, Rechkemmer, and Espinel, et al.
165 Remarks by Climate Change Coordinator, Gillian Caldwell, USAID, at Hearing before the Subcommittee on
International Development, International Organizations and Global Corporate Social Impact, House Foreign Affairs
Committee, Preparing for COP26: United States Strategy to Combat Climate Change through International
Development, October 21, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
40

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

manufacturing becomes a relevant alternative to Asia in the wake of the pandemic, some
Members see U.S.-Colombian trade as a potential opportunity.166
The annual level of foreign assistance provided by Congress for Colombia began to decline in
FY2008 but rose again between FY2017 and FY2021 to support peace accord implementation
and post-conflict stability. As Congress considers future appropriations, it may assess whether and
how to build on cooperation with Colombian partners to continue to train Central American
security forces and other third-country nationals in counternarcotics and security. Congress may
continue to oversee issues related to drug trafficking; Colombia’s effort to combat illegal armed
groups; the status of human rights protections; and the expansion of health, economic,
environmental, energy, and educational cooperation. Many policymakers continue to value
Colombia’s leadership in the region to counter authoritarian political control in Venezuela. U.S.
Secretary of State Blinken has praised the extension of temporary protected status and economic
rights as part of Colombia’s humanitarian response to migrants fleeing Venezuela’s dire
conditions. Some analysts are advocating new metrics to evaluate the impact of U.S. assistance,
such as holistic data on the improvement of territorial stabilization efforts rather than mere
quantities of coca grown or cocaine seized.167
The record expansion of coca cultivation and cocaine exports to the United States since 2016 may
significantly hinder the consolidation of peace in Colombia and could increase corruption and
extortion. A long-standing debate is whether to support traditional coca control measures, such as
the Duque administration’s efforts to restart aerial eradication, a policy historically advocated by
the United States. Some critics urge greater financial backing from the U.S. government for
alternative approaches, such as prioritizing alternative development by substituting legal crops,
and voluntary eradication, as favored in the peace accord.
A significant portion of the Colombian public is skeptical of the peace process and the FARC’s
role in Colombia’s democracy—although most Colombians increasingly rank implementation of
the five-year-old peace agreement much lower as a concern than street crime, corruption, and the
economy. Other Colombians maintain that full implementation of the peace accord is vital. The
polarizing debate about the peace agreement inside Colombia is subsiding, while new issues take
prominence. For this reason, some observers predict a center, center-right, or a leftist populist
leader, such as former Mayor of Bogotá Gustavo Petro, could be elected president in 2022, as
parties on the right are less unified than in the past.168 In addition, Colombian government
investigations into police brutality for the violence that took place in large cities and rural towns
across Colombia over months in 2021 are ongoing.

166 Senator Roy Blunt, “A Plan for Colombia’s COVID-19 Recovery and Why It Matters for the United States,”
Atlantic Council, remote event, December 8, 2021.
167 “Lastly, the group’s third mandate should be to establish and advance the adoption of more holistic metrics.... These
metrics should go beyond narrow indicators of success, including total cocaine production and coca cultivated, which
have historically defined US-Colombia relations.” “A Plan for Colombia’s COVID-19 Recovery and Why It Matters
for the United States: A report by the Atlantic Council US-Colombia Task Force,” Atlantic Council US-Colombia Task
Force, December 2021, p. 17.
168 Gabriella Levy, Juan Tellez, Mateo Villamizar-Chaparro, “Five Years After Colombia\’s Peace Deal, the Farc Is No
Longer on U.S. Terrorist Group Lists” Washington Post, December 2, 2021; “Despite the Polls, a Centrist Could Win
Colombia’s Election in May,” Economist, December 11, 2021.
Congressional Research Service
41

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Appendix. Selected Online Human Rights
Reporting on Colombia
Amnesty International
https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/americas/colombia/
Committee to Protect
http://cpj.org/americas/colombia/
Journalists
Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org/americas/colombia
Colombia
Latin America Working
http://www.lawg.org/our-campaigns/stand-by-colombias-victims-of-violence
Group
Programa Somos Defensores https://somosdefensores.org/report-in-english-2/
(We Are Defenders
Program)
Transparency International
https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/colombia#
United Nations High
http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/colombia.html
Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR)
U.S. Department of State,
https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/
Country Report on Human
colombia/
Rights Practices, 2020
Washington Office on Latin
http://www.wola.org/program/colombia
America (WOLA)

Author Information

June S. Beittel

Analyst in Latin American Affairs

Acknowledgments
Research Assistant Rachel Martin provided diligent and expert research to update this report, and Analyst
Christina Arabia provided advice on Department of Defense funding.
Congressional Research Service
42

Colombia: Background and U.S. Relations

Disclaimer
This document was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS serves as nonpartisan
shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress. It operates solely at the behest of and
under the direction of Congress. Information in a CRS Report should not be relied upon for purposes other
than public understanding of information that has been provided by CRS to Members of Congress in
connection with CRS’s institutional role. CRS Reports, as a work of the United States Government, are not
subject to copyright protection in the United States. Any CRS Report may be reproduced and distributed in
its entirety without permission from CRS. However, as a CRS Report may include copyrighted images or
material from a third party, you may need to obtain the permission of the copyright holder if you wish to
copy or otherwise use copyrighted material.

Congressional Research Service
R43813 · VERSION 30 · UPDATED
43

Download PDF

Download EPUB

Revision History

Dec. 16, 2021

HTML · PDF

18% changed

Oct. 26, 2020

HTML · PDF

35% changed

Nov. 29, 2019

HTML · PDF

5% changed