Colombia: Counter-terrorism as a tool to suppress domestic conflict

In the Colombian case, counter-terrorism (CT) has proven to be a useful tool to help powerful forces inside and outside government achieve their goals. A long-standing domestic conflict was used as the basis for a CT policy to enhance government stability and power by increasing the military’s role in society, bolstering support for existing elites by pursuing policies that advanced their economic interests and receiving vast economic and military aid from the United States. As a result, the Colombian government has been able to present itself as a model citizen in the Global War on Terror by being a poster child for regional and global CT efforts even though the threats it faces are almost exclusively from domestic opposition rather than from international sources.