HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- September 23, 2002 Fill the Land With Smoke On August 7th, a new president assumed office in Colombia. Like the president who took power in the United States in 2001, Colombia's new leader Alvaro Uribe is a right-winger who supports military solutions to social problems and, also like President Bush, was elected by less than 30 percent of the eligible voting population. Another parallel to Mr. Bush is Uribe's distaste for democracy. Indeed, he has announced plans to eliminate the current two houses of Congress and replace them with a single house. Also, governmental actions that currently require legislation would in future simply require presidential decrees. Uribe justifies his plans by claiming they will make the government leaner and meaner. Most observers agree, however, that the underlying motive is to free up more money for the military and police forces. Uribe has already asked the United States to increase military aid to Colombia. Washington has given Colombia over $2 billion in mostly military aid since 2000, making Colombia the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid. During these years state repression and paramilitary violence have increased. The war in Colombia has been going on for many years. This war is essentially the rich and their hired guns against the poor, with a relatively large middle-class in the middle. Some of the middle-class support the army and the rich in the hopes that their already tenuous position in a fragile economic and social situation will be preserved. Others in the middle-class find themselves supporting those who organize and work for the poor like labor unions, church groups, and other social service organizations, because they believe that improving the economic well-being of all is the way to make their country a better, more stable place to live. Middle-income Colombians also know that when push comes to shove they are more likely to end up poor than rich. Indeed, many members of Colombia's middle-class have already seen their economic situation worsen thanks to U.S. corporate pressure (through the World Bank and IMF loan requirements) to privatize publicly owned utilities like the phone company and the electrical power company. Once these utilities are privatized, services often become more expensive and thousands of workers usually lose their jobs because the newly privatized companies need to show a quick profit in order to satisfy their new owners and financiers who often include multinational banks like Citigroup and Chase Manhattan. In an attempt to prevent job loss and the accompanying poverty and downward spiral of despair, workers from these companies have organized and held mass protests in Colombia's cities. The government's response to these protests has been one of increased repression. Protest leaders have been kidnapped and gunned down by paramilitary death squads who receive financial support from the same people who funded the new president's campaign. These paramilitaries are also involved in the drug trade and intimately connected to the Colombian Armed Forces. The right-wing death squads have been responsible for almost 70 percent of Colombia's political killings over the past 30 years. In what can only be construed as a cynical public relations ploy designed to
mislead the Colombian public and the U.S. Congress, paramilitary leader Carlos
Casta�o recently announced that he was disbanding the national paramilitary
umbrella organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), because
of his inability to control the human rights violations and drug trafficking
activities of regional groups. The guerrillas' involvement in the drug trade is the pretext used by the U.S. government to send almost two billion dollars in military aid to Colombia. Even though the war on drugs has consistently proven to be a failed exercise--except for those on both sides of the law who profit from it--we here in the United States continue to act under the assumption that military action against drug producers will end the use of drugs in our country. It won't! Nonetheless, the United States is deeply involved in this struggle. Why? Is it because Washington is concerned about the rights of the Colombia people? Is it because the United States cares about the poverty endured by 64 percent of the Colombian people? Is it because it abhors the violence the Colombian people are subjected to daily? No! The primary objective of U.S. involvement in Colombia and the surrounding region has never been the defense of democracy and justice. In fact, more often than not, Washington has supported, directly and covertly, the greatest purveyors of violence in Colombia. And it continues to do so, under the guise of supporting the government of President Uribe. The U.S. government is involved in the civil war in Colombia for one reason: to defend the profit-making interests of the people and companies that keep politicians like the Bushes and Clintons in power. The folks in Washington want to help U.S. oil companies protect and expand their Colombian profits. Additionally, Washington's financiers are seeking greater access to cheap labor, cheap resources, and new markets to sell U.S. goods. Plan Colombia--the plan under which Washington has sent $1.3 billion to Colombia over the past two years, mostly in the form of weapons and ammunition--is designed to facilitate the expansion of the FTAA free trade agreement. A new funding cycle is beginning under the guise of the war on terrorism that includes $98 million for the creation of a special Colombian army battalion whose only mission will be to protect the Ca�o Lim�n oil pipeline, which is owned by Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum. If Washington considers this endeavor successful, then the program will likely be expanded to include other pipelines in the country. Is this protecting democracy? Many people still believe that serving one's country is an honorable thing to do. But funding foreign troops to defend a U.S. company's oil pipeline is not the same thing. Ninety-eight million dollars could build a lot of schools and create a lot of jobs, both here and in Colombia. If the United States truly cared about the people of Colombia, it would spend its money on these types of projects, not on helicopter gunships and pipeline protection. Ron Jacobs lives in Burlington, Vermont, and has been involved in antiwar activism since Vietnam. He is the author of The Way the Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground (Verso 1997). ------------------------------------------ --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bacIlu Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================ |
