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05 February 2003
By Eric Green
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is helping to fund a community development project in Panama's Darien region that would serve as a buffer against the spillover of violence and narco-trafficking activities from neighboring Colombia.
USAID officials said the three-year, $6-million effort will provide small grants, technical assistance, training, and commodities to Darien communities. USAID is providing $5 million for the project, working with ACDI/VOCA, a private non-profit Washington-based organization that promotes economic growth and development of civil society in developing countries. The key local partner in Panana for the project is Fundacion Pro-Niños del Darien.
The project complements an $80-million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank for road building and community development in the Darien, an area that officials consider dangerous because of its close proximity to war-ravaged Colombia. The sparsely populated Darien is a region of dense tropical rainforest, with its indigenous population of Embera, Wounaan, and Kuna communities living in settlements scattered along numerous river valleys. USAID said most Darien communities are extremely vulnerable to "adverse external effects" due to the region's isolation and poverty.
USAID said its assistance to the Darien would focus on increased economic opportunities, with a special emphasis on community participation and self-help. Sample activities include construction of small infrastructure, such as potable water, latrines, footbridges, and appropriate waste disposal. Other goals are to increase the effectiveness of local government, improving agriculture production and marketing, fostering eco-tourism, and improving the efficiency of the riverine transportation system.
A major objective of the program, USAID officials said, is to build up communities in the Darien where lawlessness often reigns due to frequent incursions from Colombia by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the right-wing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The U.S. State Department designates both groups as terrorist organizations.
In January, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) voiced concern over the most recent attack by the AUC on villages in the Darien. Such attacks, the UNHCR said, have driven hundreds of indigenous people from their homes. The Darien's native population, officials said, are often caught in the middle between members of the warring Colombian factions, who accuse the villagers of providing food and shelter to whichever armed Colombian group has just swept through the region.
The UNHCR says the Darien region also hosts many refugees from Colombia, who are allowed to stay in Panama due to special status entitling them to humanitarian protection.
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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