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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 03/04
Andes 2020: A New Strategy for the Challenges of Colombia and the Region
Daniel W. Christman and John G. Heimann, Co-Chairs Julia E. Sweig, Project Director
January 2004
Executive Summary
The democracies of the Andean region Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia—are at risk. The problems that characterize other developing regions— including political instability, economic stagnancy, widening inequality, and social divisions along class, color, ethnic, ideological, and urban-rural fault lines—are all present in the Andes. Most important is the region’s physical insecurity, due in some countries to ongoing or resurgent violent conflict, and in every country to the lack of state control over significant territory and to porous borders that enable the easy movement of drugs, arms, and conflict. Equally sobering, expectations for strong democracy and economic prosperity in the Andes remain unrealized. Recognizing its interests in the Andes, the United States over the past two decades has spent billions of dollars and significant manpower to stem the flow of illegal drugs from the region northward; to assist local security forces in the fight against drugs, terror, and insurgency; and to promote free markets, human rights, and democratic consolidation. Yet the region remains on the brink of collapse, an outcome that would pose a serious threat to the U.S. goal of achieving democracy, prosperity, and security in the hemisphere.
