Summary: In the three years since the Andean Strategy was announced, Colombia has actively thrown its support behind U.S. counternarcotics objectives. It has applied pressure against drug-traffickers through police and military operations, and drug trafficking by the Medellin cartel has been disrupted. The overall effectiveness of Colombia's efforts and U.S. programs is unclear, however, because U.S. officials lack the data needed to make such an assessment. Various obstacles have hindered the effectiveness of U.S. efforts in Colombia, including the limited ability of some Colombian agencies to mount effective programs, increased insurgency and narcoterrorism, expansion of the cartels into heroin, corruption in the Colombian government, and the lack of effective antidrug programs in other countries. Various U.S. management problems have also helped to hamstring antidrug programs in Colombia, ranging from State Department cuts in funding for military and law enforcement programs to poor coordination among U.S. agencies to inventory and financial weaknesses. U.S. officials cannot guarantee that U.S. policies on aid uses and human rights are being met. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: The Drug War: Colombia Is Implementing Antidrug Efforts, but Impact Is Uncertain, by Joseph E. Kelley, Director of International Affairs Issues, before the Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security, House Committee on Government Operations. GAO/T-NSIAD-94-53, Oct. 5, 1993 (13 pages).
