To the editor:

In 2000, Plan Colombia was implemented by the U.S. government. Plan Colombia was supposed to be a war against the extensive drug problem in Colombia. Since 2000, the U.S. has spent $7.5 billion on this supposed war on drugs, and yet the only results are thousands of people dead or missing.

In addition, according to Duroyan Fertl, writer for The Green Left Weekly, there is a bill currently before the U.S. Congress requesting another $741.7 million for 2006 for military aid in Colombia. One might ask, if this Plan Colombia is not working, why would the U.S. continue to spend millions of dollars in military aid?

The answer is simple. Oil. According to Fertl, “While most of the country has not been explored for oil, Colombia is already the third largest export in Latin America. This situation makes Colombian oil a priority for the U.S.” In fact, the military expenditure has been concentrated in the oil rich areas of Colombia. So what initially started out as a war on drugs, seems to have changed to a war for oil.

With training provided by the United States, nearly two-thirds of the Colombian Army is now protecting oil rich areas of Colombia (The Green Left Weekly). I encourage U.S. citizens to investigate this issue more. With as much contact as we have with Latin America, we, as U.S. citizens, should know more about what is going on outside the United States, especially when we could potentially prevent thousands of innocent deaths.

Tricia Prohaska,

Lawrence