And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
From: Martha
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To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: The Guatemalization of Colombia
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 16:53:51 EST
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FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
FOR RELEASE: WEEK OF MARCH 5, 1999
COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS by Patrisia Gonzales and Roberto Rodriguez
THE GUATEMALIZATION OF COLOMBIA
Last week's release of Guatemala's truth commission report confirmed what
much of the world already knew: Its military was involved in a genocidal
36-year
war, mostly against the indigenous Mayan population.
The findings flatly contradict the Cold War assessments by the U.S. State
Department, which essentially denied there were serious human rights problems
in
the region, permitting our government to support military regimes friendly to
our "interests." Other primary targets in the war in Guatemala were
campesinos,
labor, community and human rights organizers, teachers, students,
intellectuals
and religious workers. The war claimed upward of 200,000 people, most of them
killed in massacres, death-squad assassinations, kidnappings, rapes and
extrajudicial executions.
When this was happening, as a society we didn't listen to the pleas of
Rigoberta Menchu, nor to the horrific screams of tortured campesinos, raped
nuns, murdered priests or assassinated bishops. We didn't hear the sounds of
millions of feet, as displaced Indians and campesinos of the region fled the
scorched-earth policies of the military. Many wound up in the United States.
While here, most lived in fear, staying one step ahead of immigration and
State
Department officials who accused them of lying about the condition of their
homelands.
The commission recommended reparations for those traumatized by the war, for
the loss of homes and the systematic land theft. What is left to ponder is,
What
role should the United States play in all this, for having financed this war?
Now from a point south comes another plea: Cecilia Zarate of Colombia has
said, "What happened in Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua
in the 1970s and 1980s, is happening in my country today."
She unequivocally characterizes the war in Colombia as genocidal. "Anyone
who supports the poor is eliminated."
The difference between Guatemala and Colombia, noted Zarate, who heads the
Colombia Support Network in Madison, Wis., is that in Guatemala, the genocide
was in large part racially motivated. In Colombia, the genocide against the
poor
is indiscriminate and includes indigenous people, Afro-Colombians, campesinos
and anyone who expresses political dissent. In Colombia, the military and
paramilitary troops are primarily responsible for perhaps 85 percent of the
human rights violations, but even the opposition guerrillas are implicated,
particularly in kidnappings. (At press time, three American Indian activists
had
purportedly been kidnapped by the main guerrilla army, Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), on their way to visiting the U'wa
reservation).
The 1998 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, "War Without Quarter," estimates
that in the past 10 years, more than 30,000 people have lost their lives in
Colombia's armed conflict. And it estimates that the majority of the
casualties
have been not victims of a drug war, but rather, victims of the military and
paramilitary groups that jointly roam the country with abandon and impunity,
terrorizing their political opponents. HRW asserts that they do this while
protecting the multibillion-dollar enterprises of the nation's drug barons,
and
that the FARC also profits from the trade by levying taxes upon drug barons to
the tune of $350 million per year.
The effect of all the drug money is that combatants on all sides are better
armed with more destructive weaponry, said Kirk. Despite this, the U.S.
government's war on drugs generally chooses only to implicate and go after the
guerrillas. This war would exist, independent of drugs, but this conflagration
is different from other conflicts because it is U.S. citizens, both as
taxpayers
and as drug consumers, who are financing this war. Drugs go to the United
States
and what comes back are U.S. weapons, she said.
The losers in all this are not the combatants, but the civilians caught in
the middle, accused of supporting one side or the other, noted Zarate. Because
Colombia does not have an identifiable "bad-guy" dictator such as Anastasio
Somoza of Nicaragua, she said, Colombia faces the daunting task of having to
convince the world of the atrocities taking place in this "democratic"
country.
The only hope of ending the war there is by supporting and strengthening
Colombia's civil society, said Zarate. Her organization is sponsoring a
U.S.-Colombia sister-city program in hopes of raising worldwide consciousness
regarding the war. Additionally, it is hoped that the U.S. sister cities who
choose to participate will assist their South American counterparts
materially.
Admittedly, Zarate said it's an act of desperation. But that's precisely the
condition her country finds itself in.
COPYRIGHT 1999 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
* More information regarding the situation in Colombia, including the status
of the three kidnapped American Indians, can be obtained by writing to the
Colombia Support Network at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit their website at:
www.igc.apc.org/csn
* �War Without Quarter� -- the Human Rights Watch annual (1998) report on
Colombia is available by writing to them at: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
* Reccomended reading: �Colombia: The Genocidal Democracy,� Javier Giraldo,
S.J. (1996, Common Courage Press)
*** Late Flash It has been reported that the three American Indian activists,
including Ingrid Washinawatok, Lahe'ena'egay and Terence Freitas were found
dead (after our column was released) in Venezuela. All were apparently
executed. Please contact the CSN for more info and updates
* Both writers are authors of Gonzales/Rodriguez: Uncut & Uncensored (ISBN
0-918520-22-3 UC Berkeley, Ethnic Studies Library, Publications Unit.
Rodriguez is the author of Justice: A Question of Race (Cloth ISBN
0-927534-69-X paper ISBN 0-927534-68-1 Bilingual Review Press) and the
antibook, The X in La Raza II and Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human. They
can be reached at PO BOX 7905, Albq NM 87194-7904, 505-242-7282 or
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Gonzales's direct line is 505-248-0092 or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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