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Sent: Saturday, July 22, 2000 6:55 PM
Subject: [Cuba SI] TRIcont'l: Yankee military intervention in Colombia
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Subject: TRIcont'l: Yankee military intervention in Colombia
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Tricontinental . NUMBER 143, 1999
-- Yankee Military Intervention in Colombia --
"Not the future tense"
By Heinz Dieterich Steffan, president of the Forum for the
Emancipation and Identity of Latin America
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"A marriage for life".... That's how Gen. Charles E. Wilhelm, chief
of the US Army Southern Command, defined his country's intervention
in the conflict in Colombia.
In November 1998, the US Congress agreed to triple "security
assistance" to Colombia to the tune of 289 million dollars,
converting the Latin American country into the largest recipient of
such aid after Israel and Egypt. This is just the tip of the iceberg
of US military intervention in a region extending from Panama to
Ecuador, Peru, Guyana, and the Caribbean.
Unpublished US government documents obtained by this analyst
and information published in the North American press reveal that the
Colombian conflict is a hemispheric problem for Washington; that
direct military intervention by Washington is already comparable to
that in El Salvador and Nicaragua in 1983 and 1984; and that the war
Washington is planing will be type waged in Kosovo.
The Washington Post reported the first news of direct
military intervention by Washington in Colombia on May 25, 1998. The
prestigious daily announced that US soldiers were participating not
only in training and intelligence efforts, but also on the tactical
and strategic level of war efforts against the guerrillas of the Army
of National Liberation (Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional - ELN) and
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC).
The training, carried out by US Army Special Forces - most of
them originating in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina - and Navy SEALS,
involves hundreds of counterinsurgency (dirty war) specialists
against popular movements each year.
At any given moment, the Washington Post reported, there are some
200 of Washington's soldiers in Colombia, 60 of whom are stationed at
three radar observation posts inside Colombia while the remainder
participate directly or indirectly in the repression against FARC and
the ELN.
-- Washington organizes Colombian armed forces --
A week after the Washington Post story, the New York Times
amplified it, reporting on June 2 that the Clinton administration was
considering, among other measures increased military training for
Colombian forces, as well as sending more sophisticated weapons and a
high-tech intelligence center operated by US troops.
The Southern Command, headquartered in Miami and with Gen. Charles
E. Wilhelm in charge, is a key force in this chess game of
Central American-style "pacification" that they intend to recreate in
the northern part of South America.
For Wilhelm, military intervention in Colombia isn't a short-term
project, but a marriage for life." According to the general, "the
threat is intensifying" for Colombia's government and "we are seeing,
basically, an undermining of governance at the grassroots level."
To exorcise the "threat", the US general is turning himself de
facto into the commander-in-chief of the Colombian armed forces
(Fuerzas Armadas Colombianas - FAC). In January, when the nominal
commander of FAC, Gen. Manuel J. Bonett, presented his strategic plan
for attacking the guerrilla forces, Wilhelm and his officers reviewed
it and "began picking it apart", in the words of the New York Times.
>From that point forward, Wilhelm has been reorganizing the FAC and
its training to get rid of the guerrilla forces.
As in Central America, the reorganization and technical improvement
of the Colombian military on the strategic level goes hand in hand
with increased planning and tactical direction of the war on the
battlefield by the United States. After finishing a training course,
the US instructors graduate their "students" via an attack plan that
they carry out.
Increasing sales of military equipment and flagrant violations of
human rights complement the customary picture of the dirty war, From
1995 to 1997, Washington's "drug eradication" aid increased from 28.8
million dollars to about 96 million, more than a 300% increase in two
years. In the same period, sales of military equipment rose from
21.9 to 75 million.
-- Gen. McCaffrey asks for 1 billion --
Together with the head of the Southern Command, the chief of the
Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Gen. Barry McCaffrey,
is the second architect of the intervention in the region. McCaffrey
has a double mission: to build, alongside Wilhelm, the logistics of
intervention and to create, with the State Department, the rhetoric
to justify intervention.
On July 26 in Bogota, McCaffrey - previously the chief of the US
armed forces in Latin America - articulated Washington's official
excuse for intervention. There are 240,000 police and soldiers and 37
million people facing the savage at tacks of 25,000 internal enemies
financed by hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money. This
speech complemented his argument the previous day that the guerrillas
are a threat to the citizens of Panama as well as the border
populations of Venezuela. Ecuador, and Brazil. This declaration by
McCaffrey was made a day after Pres. Pastrana said Colombia isn't and
will never be a threat to regional security.
Meanwhile, the State Department joined the fray with another
virulent verbal attack on the guerrilla forces. The cynical
manipulations that FARC is carrying out in the peace process must end
immediately, said James Rubin, Madeleine Albright's spokesman, in
Washington.
In relation to the war of weapons beyond the war of propaganda, on
July 16 McCaffrey requested 1 billion in "emergency drug
supplemental" assistance for the Pastrana government and other "drug-
producing" countries, arguing that it finds itself in a "near crisis"
situation. The money would go toward the purchase of helicopters,
intercept aircraft, and radar equipment; 30 million would be set
aside to improve the gathering and analysis of information obtained
by satellite, radar, and electronic intercepts; 200 million would be
for improving the US air and sea "interdiction efforts". Colombian
defense minister Luis Fernando Ramirez and Gen. Fernando Tapias, the
chief of the Colombian military, who accompanied McCaffrey
in Washington, also asked for the loan of equipment used by the
Southern Command at Howard Air Force Base in the Panama Canal Zone.
-- The true dimension of intervention --
The crash of a US Havilland RC-7 military spy plane in the Putumayo
area of southern Colombia on July 23 supplied new facts about the
intervention. A month earlier a study by the Government Accounting
Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the US Congress, revealed that
the United States had started to supply military intelligence on
guerrilla activities to the Colombian armed forces beginning in March
1999.
On July 15, Gen. Charles Wilhelm admitted in a speech at the infamous
School of the Americas in Benning, Georgia, that during the last
guerrilla offensive in mid-July, the military forces of the United
States and Colombia were in "constant communication", confirming
indirectly that the guerrilla advance on Bogota was stopped by the
Colombian air force, directed by US officials and military
intelligence.
The facts revealed as a result of the crash of the military aircraft
also help us to understand the hemispheric character of the
intervention. According to a source in Washington, speaking to the
Colombian newspaper El Espectador, "massive espionage" against the
Colombian guerrillas began two months earlier with the involvement of
the US Army Special Operations Air Regiment and about 250 US
technicians working in Colombia.
Using high-tech electronic and infrared equipment, the RC-7 aircraft
- also used in Kosovo - can detect images of the guerrillas in the
jungle, on the one hand, and all of FARC's radio communications, on
the other: those made by their commanders, those made over the
Internet, and the radio programs aimed at the Colombian population.
The plane - manned by five US soldiers based at Ft. Bliss in El
Paso, Texas, and two Colombians - must be accompanied by another
military reconnaissance aircraft like the EP-3 in order to be able to
localize the source of the signal that has been intercepted. And, in
fact, the moment the RC-7 disappeared, an EP-3 turned up at the
Ecuadorian air base at Coca, near the site of the crash.
Significantly rescue operations were coordinated from the Pentagon
and from Ecuador's Francisco Orellana army base.
-- Three-pronged regional strategy --
The policy of intervention against Colombia can't be understood
outside a regional framework. US military withdrawal from the Panama
Canal at the end of the yea,, the policy of national sovereignty of
the Hugo Chavez government in Venezuela, and the popular advance in
Colombia endanger - from Washington's point of view - its entire
system of domination in this world strategic and oil-producing
region.
Washington's answer is three-fold control Panama through an open
threat of military occupation; create the logistics for neutralizing
or, in this case, destroying the FARC and ELN in Colombia, and, after
having achieved "pacification" in Colombia, turn Venezuela back into
a traditionally submissive Latin America state.
With regard to Panama, the military threat has already been
demonstrated. A month ago, the head of the US Southern Command, Gen.
Charles Wilhelm, publicly declared that Panama lacked the military
capacity to defend itself against the Colombian guerrilla forces.
For this reason, he said, the government of Pres. Bill Clinton
reserves the right to intervene unilaterally in the country if it
sees a threat to the security of the canal.
-- Network of military bases in Ecuador with logistical facilities --
On April 1, 1999, the Ecuadorian government of President Mahuad
turned over logistical facilities at the Manta air base to the US air
force, Ecuador's motives for accepting this arrangement were
explained in the confidential "Report on the concession of logistical
facilities in Manta to the US air force for combating illegal
international narcotics traffic", issued in May 1999. The report
gave the following reasons: the need for the United States to replace
the air operations that it had conducted up until May 1, 1999, from
Howard air base in Panama; the financial benefits that Ecuador would
receive from Washington for fighting drug traffic; refusal might have
been interpreted by the United States and other developed countries
as a lack of political will on the part of the Ecuadorian government
to support the international war on narco-trafficking.
The report also established that Washington chose Ecuador because
of its " strategic location and the security that it offers."
The agreement between the two governments, in effect beginning
April 1, 1999, stipulates that the United States will assign a
restricted number of military and civilian personnel to the air base,
who will be charged with coordinating and facilitating the operation
of the aircraft. The number of people assigned to man the aircraft
will "be on the order of 200 people" who will rotate between the
United States and Ecuador for limited periods.
The US air force will use eight aircraft in Manta with a maximum of
140 sorties per month in order to carry out missions relating to
reconnaissance, tracking, marine patrol, communications intelligence,
imaging signals, aerial detection, early alert, vigilance and re-
supply. The security of these planes will be the responsibility of
North American personnel. An air traffic controller from the US
government will be authorized, in coordination with Ecuadorian
personnel, to give instructions from the control tower to the US
planes.
The agreement will extend through September 30, 1999, but the
United States hopes that it will be given logistical facilities at
the same base for a period of eight to ten years, possibly investing
on the order of 30-40 million.
Gen. Charles Wilhelm - who threatened Panama with direct
military intervention - is a frequent guest at this military base,
which will be the US center of operations against Colombia. On July
5, the high-ranking officer arrived for an inspection tour that he
repeated on July 15. Given the recent events in Colombia, his hurry
is understandable.
-- Aruba and Curacao, new alternatives with immunity --
A similar agreement was reached between the foreign relation's
minister of the Netherlands, J.J. Van Aartsen, and the US ambassador
in La Hague, Cynthia P Schneider, on April 13, 1999, with a duration
of one year but projecting a "more definitive accord". The objective
is to guarantee an ongoing US presence and cooperation in the Dutch
Antilles and Aruba.
The Kingdom of the Netherlands, through this accord, grants both land
and aerial access and the use of certain airfields by US armed forces
and civilian government personnel in order to carry out missions to
detect and monitor drug trafficking and, when appropriate, missions
of interdiction.
US personnel will, during their service, enjoy immunity from penal,
civil, and administrative justice in the Netherlands. In addition,
they are exempt from visa requirements and will be able to carry
weapons in specified areas. Vehicles owned by the US armed forces
will not need to be registered in the host country.
-- Venezuela refuses to permit overflights --
In contrast to Ecuador and Holland, the Venezuelan government has
refused to authorize foreign bases in its country. In May 1999 it
denied a joint petition by Washington and La Hague requesting
permission to enter Venezuelan air space during anti-drug operations
carried out by planes based on Aruba and Curacao.
The Venezuelan president seemed completely certain that the United
States and Holland would understand that Venezuela is a capable
sovereign country and has its own mechanisms for defense. All that
is left is for the United States to say "thank you" and go elsewhere
to try and solve the problem. Nevertheless, during a US mission last
July 16 led by Peter Romero, Assistant Secretary for Western
Hemisphere Affairs for the US Department of State, Caracas had to
agree to the installation of a third US radar in San Fernando de
Atabapo, located on the border with Colombia. about 700 kilometers
south of Caracas.
Another two active radar stations are located in the north of the
country on the Paraguana peninsula and Margarita Island. During the
negotiations on those radar facilities it was agreed, according to a
member of the negotiating commission, that any intelligence sent to
Howard air base in Panama would be shared in a timely way wit ' h the
Venezuelan air force. With regard to the new station in Atabapo,
there is no information.
-- Peru deploys troops to the border --
The government of President Fujimori obviously has no problems
joining a military ring around Colombia. In February of this year he
instructed Pres. Pastrana that it was a mistake to negotiate with the
guerrilla forces and characterized these forces as a danger to the
region. In addition, the recent truce between Peru and Ecuador over
the border problem between the countries in the Amazon certainly
takes on a different color in light of the Colombian conflict.
According to Ecuadorian political sources, large numbers of troops
deployed on the Peruvian border were re-deployed, after the peace
treaty, to the border with Colombia, as were Peruvian troops.
Likewise, the report affirms that Peru is considering granting the
United States a military base in Iquitos or Chiclayo. According to
Lima analyst Oscar Ugarteche, the scales are leaning toward Iquitos,
where the US military base in the Huallaga valley would be moved.
-- Other countries as a possible inter-American force --
In Guyana, the United States was able to lease a "special base" and
one can assume that Washington is also negotiating with the Costa
Rican government for a military base. If the air bases mentioned are
linked together, it is clear there is a growing network of aerial
intelligence that complements satellite intelligence and creates the
military infrastructure for aerial intervention and, eventually, for
an inter-American land force.
McCaffrey has already talked about the need for an international
force to observe the drug traffic in Putumayo. Two important
Argentine news media reported last week that the United States
intends to investigate Argentine sentiments about a possible military
intervention in Colombia. The Peronist presidential candidate,
Eduardo Duhalde, said from Rome that what happens in Colombia is tied
to the narco-guerrillas and that, given the very tense present
situation, he would "have to analyze" the theme of intervention
3 This position is very close to the intentions of President Menem to
make Argentina an associate member of NATO.
-- The future of the region --
The preceding facts show that US military intervention in Colombia
is already comparable to the level of its intervention against the
Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador
between 1983 and 1984, the Sandinista government in Nicaragua during
the same years, and in Vietnam in 1963.
The logic of intervention also follows the same historic pattern:
training of native troops on site by military advisors; delivery of
tactical and strategic intelligence to these troops; tactical conduct
of belligerent operations; modernization and strategic reorganization
of the native armed forces, particularly the air force; and financing
and propaganda coverage on a world scale.
Finally, the US policy of "pacification" in the region will have
a predictable evolution. Just as in the Rambouillet negotiations
over Kosovo, Washington will present conditions for peace that are
acceptable to its interests. It FARC and the ELN refuse to ratify
them, they will be bombarded until they conform to the "Pax
Americana", just as happened to Milosevic in Serbia and the FMLN in
El Salvador.
The depth of cooperation between the US government and the
Colombian military under the JCET Joint Combined Exchange Training)
program is demonstrated by the following Pentagon statistics: During
the 1996 fiscal year, 10 training exercises involving 114 US soldiers
and 651 Colombians took place. During 1997, there were three
exercises involving 143 US soldiers.
US Southern Command statistics indicate, however, that
Washington's intervention was even greater than the Pentagon admits.
During 1996 there were 28 Special Forces operations. In 1997, 28
exercises took place involving 319 US soldiers and, in 1998, 24
exercises involving 274 Special Forces troops were planned." JC
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