-Caveat Lector-
>
>
> www.wsws.org
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> WSWS : News & Analysis : South & Central America
>
> US continues buildup
>
> Warnings of "Vietnamization" of Colombian civil war
>
> By Bill Vann
> 17 August 1999
>
> Back to screen version
>
> Warnings that the United States was preparing a major military
> intervention in the conflict between the Colombian government and
> the country's 40-year-old guerrilla movement grew more insistent
> as Washington prepared yet another high-level diplomatic tour to
> discuss the crisis in the Latin American nation.
>
> The Clinton Administration's "drug czar" Gen. Barry McCaffrey
> will commence a swing through Latin America beginning next week
> in an attempt to drum up support from regional governments for a
> more concerted international effort to bring the Colombian
> guerrillas to heel.
>
> The trip will be McCaffrey's second to the region. In between,
> Gen. Charles Wilhelm, the commanding officer of the US Southern
> Command, flew to Bogota to consult with his military
> counterparts, and Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering
> completed a visit to the Colombian capital where he held talks
> with President Andres Pastrana.
>
> While in Bogota, Pickering found himself compelled to offer
> reassurances that Washington was not preparing a military
> invasion of Colombia. Speculation about a direct US intervention,
> he said, is "totally false, totally crazy."
>
> Even as Pickering spoke, however, 1,000 US Marines were preparing
> to land at the Colombian military base of Bahia Malaga to conduct
> joint war games dubbed "Unitas 99," further fueling fears that a
> US intervention is imminent. The country's leading news magazine,
> Cambio, devoted an entire issue to the threat.
>
> Hugo Chavez, the former military officer and new president of
> Venezuela, warned recently that increased outside military
> involvement in Colombia could unleash "a little Vietnam" on the
> Latin American continent.
>
> Having adopted a de facto military policy of engaging US forces
> only in one-sided conflicts where it is able to wage war at long
> distance with cruise missiles and high-altitude bombers, it would
> appear highly unlikely that Washington is preparing the
> large-scale deployment of US troops as its preferred option in
> Colombia.
>
> What is increasingly apparent, however, is that preparations are
> underway for a greatly expanded US participation in a
> low-intensity counterinsurgency campaign the likes of which
> Washington sponsored and directed in El Salvador and Guatemala in
> the 1970s and 1980s at the cost of hundreds of thousands of
> civilian casualties.
>
> While Pickering disparaged the "canard" that "the United States
> is about to introduce a military intervention Colombia," a key
> element that emerged from his mission to Colombia was a US
> attempt to discourage the on-again, off-again peace talks between
> the Pastrana government and the largest of the guerrilla
> movements, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by
> its Spanish acronym FARC.
>
> "The question we ask ourselves is, 'Has there been sufficient
> action to make the process worthwhile,'" the US Undersecretary of
> State said in Colombia.
>
> Writing in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Secretary of
> State Madeleine Albright sounded a similar note, declaring that
> while Mr. Pastrana may have had reason to initiate talks with the
> guerrillas, "...the question is whether he can muster a
> combination of pressure and incentives that will cause the
> guerrillas to respond."
>
> The peace talks, revived last year after Pastrana was elected as
> the candidate of Colombia's Conservative Party, were placed on
> hold again following an offensive by the FARC in June. The
> guerrillas have rejected the government's demand that they accept
> an international commission to oversee a Switzerland-sized
> demilitarized zone in southern Colombia, where the guerrilla
> group has concentrated its 20,000-strong force. FARC leaders have
> charged that the condition was imposed at Washington's
> suggestion.
>
> US expressions of distrust about the so-called peace process came
> as the Colombian military command made its own demands for
> increased power to wage war on the guerrillas. Leading military
> commanders have branded the negotiations a farce and have called
> for the imposition of what amounts to martial law throughout the
> country to pave the way for a more aggressive counterinsurgency
> campaign.
>
> "We need juridical instruments of war for a nation that is at
> war," declared Gen. Jaime Cortes, the commander of the Army's
> Third Division. "We now have a Constitution and laws for a
> country at peace." The commander of the country's armed forces,
> Gen. Fernando Tapias, demanded that the government formally
> indict FARC for "international terrorism" in connection with the
> guerrillas' hijacking of a Venezuelan aircraft.
>
> Earlier this year the country's defense minister and much of the
> military's high command resigned in protest over Pastrana's
> concessions to FARC to get the negotiations going. While he
> accepted the minister's resignation, the senior officers were
> asked to remain on duty. With polls showing the Colombian
> president's support having dropped to an all-time low and with
> increasing pressure from Washington for a more aggressive
> military posture toward the guerrillas, the dangers of a military
> coup will inevitably grow.
>
> Gen. McCaffrey will begin his Latin American tour on Aug. 23. The
> goal, he said, will be to get other Latin American governments to
> participate in containing the Colombian conflict. "The argument
> is that this is not the problem of Colombia," McCaffrey said.
> "This is a regional problem and they need the political
> participation of all of us in the hemisphere."
>
> The US drug czar may sound out the possibility of creating a
> regional intervention force to aid the Colombian military against
> the guerrillas. He will almost certainly seek political backing
> for an increased US military role.
>
> Similar efforts to win Latin American backing, or at least
> acquiesence, were carried out in the early 1980s as the US
> steadily escalated its involvement in El Salvador's civil war.
> Washington's diplomatic efforts succeeded in bringing some direct
> support�for example military "advisers" from Argentina�and in
> staving off continent-wide criticism.
>
> While discounting direct participation of US troops in the
> fighting, McCaffrey added, "We can support them with resources,
> training, equipment and intelligence."
>
> The US already has some 370 "advisers" in Colombia�including
> military personnel as well as agents of the CIA and the Drug
> Enforcement Administration�and is providing the country with $289
> million annually in military aid. This makes it the third-largest
> recipient of US military aid in the world, trailing only Israel
> and Egypt. McCaffrey suggested recently that Washington increase
> the military aid to $600 million.
>
> US forces are operating out of three bases in Colombia:
> Palanquero, Tolemaida and Tres Esquinas. The last of these bases,
> where the US installed a $20 million radar facility, will be the
> home of an elite Colombian anti-drug battalion that is being
> trained by the Pentagon, the CIA and the DEA. According to one
> recent report, the Pentagon has asked the Colombian military for
> permission for US personnel to operate out of three other bases
> as well�Bahia Malaga, Barranquillas and San Andres.
>
> Washington has justified its growing involvement in the Colombian
> conflict as part of the "war on drugs," pointing to links between
> the guerrilla movements and the cocaine trade. There is little
> doubt that FARC and other guerrilla organizations have seen their
> coffers swell�even as their base of popular support has
> diminished�as a result of ties with coca cultivators and others
> involved in the drug trade. But this is hardly unique to the
> guerrillas. The vast economic resources of the cocaine cartels
> have been used to buy support in Colombia's military and police,
> to fund right-wing death squads and even to finance presidential
> campaigns.
>
> The corrupting influence of the drug trade is pervasive in a
> country where the rest of the economy�as throughout Latin
> America�has been driven into depression. This reality struck all
> too close to home earlier this month with the indictment of the
> wife of the chief US military officer in Colombia on charges of
> shipping $235,000 worth of cocaine back to the US through the US
> Embassy's mail. Laurie Hiett, the wife of Col. James Hiett, who
> headed the US Military Group in Colombia, was arraigned on the
> drug charges August 5 in Federal court in Brooklyn. The Colonel
> was transferred to another post.
>
>
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
>
> Copyright 1998-99
> World Socialist Web Site
> All rights reserved
>
>
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