Plan Colombia By The Numbers

Adam Isaacson’s got the data:

• Total U.S. aid to Colombia over the seven years between 2000 and 2006: $4.72 billion
• Square miles of Colombia sprayed with “Round-Up Ultra” herbicide, 2000-2005: 2,550
• Land area of Delaware, square miles: 1,954
• Square miles planted in Colombia with coca, the plant used to make cocaine, in 2000, the year Plan Colombia began: 526
• Approximate cost of fumigating one square mile, conservative estimate: $162,000
• Reduction in Colombian coca-growing from 2003 to 2004, in acres: 0
• Percentage of coca plots detected by the United Nations in 2004 that did not exist the year before: 62
• Amount per month, according to the United Nations, that a Colombian farmer nets from a hectare (2.5 acres) of coca: $199
• Percentage of Colombia’s rural population living below the poverty line: 82
• “Arbitrary arrests” documented by Colombian human-rights groups between August 2002 and August 2004: 6,332
• Percentage of murders in Colombia that end in a sentencing: 4%
• Colombians forcibly displaced from their homes by violence, January 2000-September 2005: 1.8 million

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