The United States is renewing its policy of funding the Colombian military in its efforts to shoot down planes suspected of carrying illicit drugs. This practice was banned for two years, after a Peruvian aircraft (also backed by U.S. funds) downed the plane of a North American missionary family, killing two adults and an infant. Though U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld insists that safety precautions have improved, no specific changes have been announced. Plan Colombia has been critiqued by indigenous people in the region, who argue that it is destroying their livelihoods and environments, and causing further violence in their communities.
