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From: Pakito Arriaran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Sent: Monday, April 03, 2000 2:33 PM
Subject: MLL: Weekly News Update on Colombia #531, 4/2/00
WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
ISSUE #531, APRIL 2, 2000
NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012
(212) 674-9499 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*3. US HOUSE PASSES COLOMBIA "AID"
On Mar. 30, the US House of Representatives voted 263 to 146 to
approve a $12.7 billion emergency spending bill which includes
some $1.7 billion in mostly military aid to Colombia, including
funds for artilleried helicopters and aerial fumigation of the
rainforest with defoliant chemicals. The votes were split across
party lines, with 143 Republicans and 119 Democrats voting in
favor, and 61 Republicans and 84 Democrats voting against. The
two independents in Congress were also split, with Bernie Sanders
(VT) voting against, and Virgil Goode (VA, formerly a Democrat)
voting for the package. [New York Times 3/31/00]
The night before the bill was passed, the House voted 239-186 to
defeat an amendment that would have held up $522 million in
military aid to Colombia while Congress reviewed the plan, but
would have allowed the non-military portions of the aid to be
disbursed. "We're being asked to enter into a huge new commitment
to underwrite a war in Colombia," warned Rep. David Obey (D-WI),
ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, who introduced
the amendment. [Reuters 3/29/00]
When it passed the bill, the House approved by voice vote an
amendment to limit US military personnel sent to Colombia to 300
at any one time, unless more are needed for a rescue mission. The
aid package must now pass the Senate, where some lawmakers are
concerned that it has been bloated and contains too many non-
emergency measures. The bill originally provided for $5.2
billion, but the House Appropriations Committee added about $3.8
billion before passing the package earlier on Mar. 9 [see Update
#528], and another $4 billion in military spending was added on
the night of Mar. 29. [NYT 3/31/00]
*4. COLOMBIA: "DRUG WAR" POLL WAS FINANCED BY DEFENSE CONTRACTOR
US Congress members pushing for the Colombia aid package used the
argument of the "war on drugs" to pressure their colleagues. "I
cannot believe any member is going to pull out the white flag and
say we surrender on the war on drugs," said Porter Goss (R-FL).
[Financial Times (London) 3/30/00]
The Washington Times had suggested in a Feb. 9 editorial that the
aid package was influenced by an opinion poll carried out by the
Mellman Group, a polling firm linked to the Democratic Party,
which showed that Democrats were seen as weak on the drug issue
[see Update #524]. In its Apr. 3 edition, Newsweek revealed that
the Mellman poll was commissioned by the defense contractor
Lockheed Martin: "As the maker of P-3 radar planes used to track
drug smugglers, the company had been pushing for heavy increases
for drug interdiction. But Lockheed was facing resistance,
especially from `liberal' Democrats on Capitol Hill, a company
official says. Mellman's findings--based on telephone interviews
with 800 registered voters--concluded that `56 percent' of the
electorate would support a $2 billion increase in funding for
"tracking planes to be flown in drug producing areas."
The Newsweek article also reveals more about the campaign
donations of two helicopter companies whose role in lobbying for
the aid package was exposed in the Legal Times on Feb. 23:
Textron, maker of the Bell Huey helicopter, and United
Technologies Corp., whose Sikorsky Aircraft division makes the
Black Hawk [see Update #526]. Federal election records show that
the two companies donated $1.25 million to both the Republican
and Democratic parties between 1997 and 1999. In 1999 United
Technologies, which had previously favored gift-giving to
Republicans, made what Newsweek calls "a strategic shift" and
wrote four checks totaling $125,000 to various Democratic
committees. Of the total, $75,000 was deposited in party accounts
on one day, Dec. 31, 1999--11 days before the Colombia aid
package was first announced. [Newsweek 4/3/00]
In an opinion piece against the Colombia aid package published on
Mar. 15 in Salon.com and the San Francisco Examiner, political
columnist Arianna Huffington points to what she calls the
"incestuous relationship between commerce and drug policy"
evident in the Colombia aid debate. "Tom Umberg, the architect of
the administration's Colombian initiative, is now moving from the
White House Office of Drug Control Policy to the law firm of
Morrison & Foerster, where he will represent Colombia and other
Latin American countries on trade issues," Huffington notes.
"[P]utting $1.7 billion into Colombia, in the middle of a civil
war, is more than misguided--it's nuts," she concluded.
[Salon.com 3/15/00; SFE 3/15/00]
US Rep. Sonny Callahan (R-AL), who voted in favor of the Colombia
aid package, has meanwhile ordered the suspension of almost $20
million in US aid to Ecuador to protest what he considers unjust
treatment of Florida resident James Williams, who is serving an
eight-year prison term in Ecuador on a 1998 money-laundering
conviction. Williams waited more than two years for his trial and
has now waited more than a year for his appeal to be heard by the
Ecuadoran Supreme Court. Williams has also been charged with drug
trafficking and money laundering in Florida; if released, he
would face trial in the US. As the chair of the House
Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Callahan has
the authority to discontinue aid programs. [Miami Herald 3/16/00
from wire services; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 3/16/00 from AP; NYT
3/31/00]
*5. COLOMBIAN COURT HALTS OIL DRILLING, U'WA LEADER CONFRONTS OXY
On Mar. 30, a Colombian court ordered Occidental Petroleum Corp
(Oxy) to halt all work on an oil drilling site located on land
owned by the indigenous U'wa tribe. The announcement was made on
Mar. 31 by Alberto Calderon, president of Colombia's state-owned
oil company Ecopetrol; he said that the court injunction, if
upheld on appeal, would halt Oxy's oil exploration project in the
Samore block. Calderon said that the Bogota judge supported the
U'wa tribe's claim that the drill site--while located just
outside their official reservation--is part of their ancestral
lands, and that drilling there would violate the indigenous
community's "fundamental rights," including their right to life.
Calderon said the government would appeal the ruling during the
week of Apr. 3, on the grounds that it favors the U'wa over the
general population of Colombia. [Reuters 3/31/00]
Roberto Perez, president of the U'wa Traditional Authority, was
in Washington when the news came down; he had arrived there on
Mar. 27 to meet with US elected officials and Oxy investors. In a
statement, Perez called the injunction "an important step," but
emphasized that it only "speaks of the suspension of the project
not cancellation," and said the struggle against the oil project
will continue. [U'wa Defense Working Group Press Release 3/31/00]
On Mar. 30, the same day the injunction was handed down, Perez
confronted Oxy vice president Lawrence Meriage in the
congressional office of Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), ranking
member of the House International Relations Subcommittee on
International Operations and Human Rights. According to McKinney,
Meriage had requested a meeting with her in apparent response to
her remarks on Oxy's controversial oil project during the Mar. 29
house floor debate on the Colombia aid package. [Meriage has been
lobbying for the aid package--see Update #525.] When Oxy
officials arrived at McKinney's office on the morning of Mar. 30,
they were surprised to find Perez and eight representatives of
the U'wa Defense Working Group waiting there. During a one-hour
meeting, McKinney asked Oxy pointed questions about the impacts
of the oil project on the U'wa, and asked Perez to respond.
According to the U'wa Defense Working Group, Meriage "admitted on
record that the U'wa had not been consulted on the company's
plans to drill the Gibraltar 1 oil well." This confession "gives
strong credence to the ongoing legal challenges to Oxy's drilling
permit in international and Colombian courts," says the Working
Group, since "consultation with indigenous communities is a legal
requirement both under the Colombian Constitution and under
international conventions such as Convention 169 of the
International Labor Organization (ILO)."
"Oxy must immediately suspend their project pending a mediated
settlement with the U'wa," said McKinney. "If any deaths occur in
association with this project, the blood will be on Occidental's
hands." Oxy began construction of the drill site in early
February. Some 2,700 U'wa people and supporters have been
protesting at the site since November in an attempt to block the
operation. [U'wa Defense Working Group Press Release 3/30/00]
*6. COLOMBIA: REBELS ATTACK PARAMILITARIES
Aside from the US aid debate, one of the top stories of the week
in Colombia was the dramatic Mar. 25 attack by leftist rebels of
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on the small
impoverished town of Vigia del Fuerte, in Antioquia department,
and Bellavista, across the Atrato river in Choco department.
After evacuating most of the civilians from Vigia del Fuerte, the
rebels launched a full-scale assault on the police station and
surrounding buildings, leaving the entire block demolished.
According to press reports, eight civilians--including an elderly
woman, two toddlers and the mayor of Vigia del Fuerte--and 21
police agents were killed in the assault. [El Colombiano
(Medellin) 3/27/00, 3/28/00; FARC Communique 3/28/00] Government
troops regained control of the area on the night of Mar. 26. [New
York Times 3/28/00 from AP]
In a Mar. 28 communique, the FARC's Jose Maria Cordoba bloc
reported that 24 police agents were killed and three wounded in
the attacks on the two towns; seven prisoners of war were taken;
and five paramilitaries were killed, "among them the mayor of
Vigia del Fuerte, Pastor Daniel Perezy, and his two bodyguards."
The FARC said three of its own troops were killed and five
wounded in the attack. The communique also claims the destruction
of four police command posts, "including the mayor's offices
which also served that function." [FARC Communique 3/28/00] "Here
the only source of employment was the mayor's office, and now not
even that's left," a resident identified as Joaquin told the
Medellin daily El Colombiano. [EC 3/28/00]
The Quibdo church parish condemned the guerrilla action, but
confirmed the paramilitary presence, noting that the church had
issued constant warnings about the presence of armed groups in
the Atrato river area, and especially about an alleged
paramilitary base located in Vigia del Fuerte, "since that
activity put residents of the region at serious risk." [EC
3/30/00] According to El Colombiano, residents of the area had
complained last year that paramilitaries from the Campesino Self-
Defense Forces of Cordoba and Uraba (ACCU) maintained a
checkpoint some 600 meters from the police station in Vigia del
Fuerte. [EC 3/28/00]
Army commander Jorge Enrique Mora Rangel and other officials were
quick to jump on the propaganda value of the dramatic attack to
suggest that peace talks under way between the government and the
FARC in the southern area of Caguan are not working, and to
criticize those who support the negotiations process. "All those
who have gone to embrace [FARC founder and leader] Tirofijo in
the Caguan, should go to Vigia del Fuerte to embrace those
negritos," said Mora, referring to the primarily Afro-Colombian
residents of the area with a term that most people would consider
to be perjorative in the context. [EC 3/30/00]
"This action is a response to the multiple crimes and offenses of
the paramilitaries and their allies, the police of Vigia del
Fuerte, against the defenseless civilian population of the Rio
Atrato," said the FARC in its communique. "The state has never
helped the thousands of local residents under attack by the
paramilitaries, much less given any attention to the popular
outcry demanding the lifting of the food and fuel blockade that
the paramilitaries, the national navy and the police maintained
jointly over the black communities of the Atrato and its
tributaries," said the FARC. [FARC Communique 3/28/00]
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339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012 * 212-674-9499 fax: 212-674-9139
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