With the inauguration of Juan Manuel Santos as the new president of Colombia on August 7, we are reminded how far that Andean country has come from near failed state status just a decade ago. In 1999, about 70 percent of the countryside was in the hands of drug traffickers and marauding guerrillas when then-president Andrés Pastrana concluded the only thing that would save the nation was a European-style Marshall Plan, soon dubbed Plan Colombia.
Today following a U.S. and multinational aid effort and considerable native resources invested in change, rural bandits are on the run, violent crime is down, the country's human rights climate has improved, the economy is thriving, and Colombia is sharing its counternarcotics and counterterrorism expertise with other nations such as Mexico and Afghanistan. Now it's time to treat Colombia differently.
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