Trends in INL funding to Colombia
Every year, the U.S. Department of State submits a report to Congress with its detailed budget request for International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) assistance. This program is the largest source of military and police assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean, and during the past decade has funded programs like Plan Colombia, the Andean Counterdrug Initiative, the Mérida Initiative for both Mexico and Central America, and the recently approved Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, which is an extension of the Mérida Initiative programs in the Caribbean region. This report, known as the "Program and Budget Guide," is usually made public around September. It provides Congress with more detail about its INCLE budget request for the next fiscal year, and gives detail about how the assistance was spent during the past two years. It was only recently uploaded to the State Department website. (Download the FY2010 Program and Budget Guide) Information from the FY2010 INCLE Program and Budget Guide relevant to Latin America is now on the Just the Facts database (see country totals here, click on a country for more details on how the assistance was allocated) and a few trends are worth noting, especially with regard to Colombia. As seen in the graph below, INCLE military and police assistance to Colombia has decreased significantly since 2007, when assistance reached almost $400 million, to $209 million budgeted for Fiscal Year 2010, of which Congress approved just under $200 million when it passed the foreign aid budget bill last month. The decline in INCLE military assistance to Colombia owes mainly to the Democratic Party's takeover of the majority in Congress after the November 2006 legislative elections. Beginning in early 2007, as it considered the 2008 budget, the new leadership sought to reduce the overwhelmingly military emphasis of the program in Colombia, which relied heavily on forced aerial eradication of coca, and to place a greater priority on economic development, humanitarian aid and judicial reform. The decline in INCLE military aid to Colombia can especially be seen in the decline in funding for both coca eradication and aviation support. INCLE's aviation support for the Colombian Army and National Police includes aviation maintenance and logistics support for the dozens of helicopters and planes used by the Colombian Army and Police. In 2005, INCLE allocated over $195 million to the Colombian Army and National Police for aviation support, while in 2010 the amount budgeted for both programs is $91 million, of which Congress approved $85 million. Similarly, the funding for coca eradication for the Colombian National Police in 2005 was $82.5 million, compared to $60 million requested for 2010, of which Congress approved $53 million. 