Sunday, April 12, 2009

Plan Colombia and cocaine

Top blog 'Plan Colombia and Beyond' put up the following chart this week and asked a couple of interesting questions.

1) If the US funded Plan Colombia (at seven billion dollars and counting) is working, then why hasn't Colombia's cocaine production dropped?

2) If there's the same or even more cocaine being produced at the same time as the FARC is being defeated, then who is in control of the industry now? And who is making all the money?

Any suggestions, folks?

By the way, that chart from an official UN report (available as a download from that Plan Colombia article) doesn't take into account the 27% rise in coca plantations YoY 2008 recently reported by the UN.