>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rick Rozoff) >Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2000 09:14:02 -0500 (CDT) > > >STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.COM > >The Independent (UK) >The President of hypocrites >Clinton's intervention in Colombia's drugs war is high risk. It won't >help the chaotic country and it could backfire on the US >By Joan Smith >3 September 2000 >I suppose there are bigger hypocrites than Bill Clinton, but their names >escape me for the moment. The US President made a flying visit to >Colombia last week, after assuring the population in a video broadcast >that the US has no military objective in their country. I'm sorry? >Wasn't he about to hand over $1.3bn � some �900m � in mostly >military aid to Colombia's President Andres Pastrana? Well, yes, but you >would barely know it from Mr Clinton's trademark blend of personal >anecdote and stomach-churning sentimentality. He insisted he was merely >providing assist- ance in a campaign against drugs led by the Colombian >government, before going on to salute ordinary people who are marching >for peace, for justice, for the quiet miracle of a normal life. >The compliment was not whole-heartedly returned. Bomb-making equipment >was found in Cartagena, the Caribbean port where Mr Clinton spent >precisely eight hours, well away from the capital, Bogota, and the >southern provinces which the government has ceded to drug traffickers >and left-wing guerrillas. Even so, Mr Clinton's brief presence required >protection from no fewer than 5,000 soldiers and police, 350 US Secret >Service agents, helicopter gunships and several navy patrol boats. Six >people, including three children, died in guerrilla attacks apparently >prompted by the visit, and eight soldiers were injured. Protesters >marched in Bogota, signalling that Mr Clinton's assurance that he wanted >to make life better for people had not been universally believed. With >very good reason. The Colombian military, whose involvement with >paramilitary death squads is admitted even by its own government, is >about to receive 60 helicopters and training for two special army >battalions. At present, they do not have enough helicopter pilots or >hangars, but their job will be to protect police as they attempt to >destroy coca plantations. This is not a task for which Colombians have >shown much aptitude; in the decade since fumigation of coca crops began, >according to one recent calculation, annual production has risen by more >than 750 per cent. >Since there is no meaningful distinction between members of drugs >cartels and the two main guerrilla groups [sic], the US military is >taking sides in a long-running civil war which is set to become, Mr >Clinton's harshest critics say, another Vietnam. The comparison is >fuelled by the fact that the chief architect of Plan Colombia, as it is >called, is the US's drugs tsar Barry McCaffrey, a decorated Vietnam >veteran whose own record in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War has >come under hostile scrutiny. (In March 1991, General McCaffrey ordered >an attack on retreating Iraqi soldiers which turned, in his words, into >"one of the most astounding scenes of destruction I have ever >participated in". Eye-witnesses have questioned whether the Iraqis began >shooting first, as McCaffrey claimed.) >* Another close parallel is the Reagan administration's military aid to >the government of El Salvador and the opposition Contras in Nicaragua. >Mr Clinton may be a Democrat but, like Mr Reagan, he has invoked >national security in waiving human-rights conditions attached to >military aid by Congress � an admission that the war on drugs is more >important than anything else, including murder. According to Human >Rights Watch, there is "detailed, compelling and abundant evidence" of >the Colombian army's connections with paramilitary death squads; half of >its 18 brigades have been linked to these groups, including those >operating in areas which are about to get US assistance. >Mr Clinton visited a law centre in Cartagena last week and posed in a >silly hat for photographers before scuttling back to Washington. The US >intervention leaves ordinary Colombians, who face a human-rights crisis >of "alarming proportions" according to Amnesty International, acutely >vulnerable in a civil war which is almost certainly about to intensify. >The Colombian military is as incompetent as it is brutal; two weeks ago, >an army patrol mistook a party of schoolchildren for rebels, opened fire >and killed six. Mr Clinton has not said what the US government will do >if its military advisers are attacked in rebel-controlled areas. But the >spectre of US involvement in a protracted jungle war in South America is >belatedly setting off alarm bells in Washington. >Why should Mr Clinton take any notice? This most shameless of US >presidents will be out of office in four months, leaving someone else to >sort out the mess. Opinion polls have suggested that the electorate is >worried about drugs, and that the Democrats are seen as soft on the >issue. Mr Clinton is doing Al Gore a favour, at no political cost to >himself, while also delighting US arms manufacturers with substantial >orders, not least the companies whose helicopters will be part of the >aid package. You do not have to be a cynic to guess, correctly, that >they also happen to be important donors of funds to the Democratic >Party. >* In effect, Colombia has become the setting for an exercise which is >really about US domestic politics, in which the anxieties of voters and >the interests of arms manufacturers happen neatly to coincide. The war >on drugs is unwinnable � as President Pastrana remarked in a candid >interview last week � as long as there is a continuing demand in >wealthy nations such as the US. Mr Clinton mouthed a few platitudes >about this in his broadcast, but the truth is that the victims at home >are largely expendable: young black men who kill each other in >drug-related shootings or end up serving long sentences. One in 20 black >men over 18 is in jail in the US, the vast majority for crimes involving >drugs. >The question of why the US is so determined to prosecute a drugs "war" >it has demonstrably failed to win, at such cost in human suffering, is >something I do not have space to address here. But it is clear that Mr >Clinton is stepping up US military involvement in another country's >civil war, one which has lasted for 36 years without either side nearing >victory. Can this be the same President who flew to Guatemala only last >year to apologise for US interference in that country's very similar >conflict, thereby contributing to the deaths of 200,000 people? >Politicians are notorious for memory lapses, but this one is spectacular >even by Mr Clinton's Olympic standards. >Yet the British Government supports this insane adventure, as do its EU >partners. It remains to be seen whether they will feel so happy about >Plan Colombia now that Mr Clinton has released the Colombian military >from its obligation to clean up human-rights abuses. This weekend, Lotte >Leicht, Brussels director of Human Rights Watch, is writing to EU >foreign ministers asking them to suspend European aid in the light of Mr >Clinton's decision. I know Robin Cook is touchy about ethical dimensions >and all that, but this is one occasion when he really does have a case >to answer. > > >______________________________________________________________________ >To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >BEST PRICES ON THE NET AT IMANDI.COM >Cheapest prices on new cars, insurance, airfare, maids, custom pc's, >mortgages, moving and more! Tell us what you want. We locate it for >free -- across town & across the country. >http://on.linkexchange.com/?ATID'&AID53 > _______________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi _______________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________
