ABSTRACT
After much controversy in the mainstream news media, in June of 2000 the Clinton administration finally passed a $1.3 billion aid package to Colombia called Plan Colombia-including military training, helicopters, and intelligence-despite various confirmed reports of widespread human rights abuses on the part of the Colombian government as well as growing evidence of its escalating support for paramilitary death squads.1 The Colombian government at the time made a show
of assuring the out-going Clinton administration that the money and equipment would not be used in counter-insurgency but instead would be strictly confined to use in the “War on Drugs,” even as these two projects were becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish.
