------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 7, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
PLAN COLOMBIA: $2B TO BLOCK A PEOPLE'S VICTORY By Teresa Gutierrez In March a year ago, President George W. Bush not only endorsed former President Bill Clinton's $1.3 billion Plan Colombia, he took it a step further. The Bush administration immediately increased the fund, to be spent over two years, by $625 million. Congress has since approved the addition. The administration changed the name "Plan Colombia" to the now-official title: the "Andean Regional Initiative." At the time, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell asserted, "The new administration will try to regionalize the Colombian conflict, so that the countries in the area recognize that this is their problem as much as it is Colombia's." Plan Colombia was approved as a so-called anti-drug package. When Plan Colombia started in 2000, Colombia became the third-largest recipient of U.S. aid, following Israel and Egypt. But in Latin America and the Caribbean, Colombia ranks number one. What is the U.S. government really doing in Colombia? Is the money really to fight the scourge of drugs that ravage entire communities in the U.S.? Is the money being used to stop the terror carried out by the paramilitaries in Colombia, which has resulted in thousands of deaths? Or is Plan Colombia really designed to stop the struggle of the Colombian people for social change? Is Plan Colombia really all about fighting the rebels in Colombia? According to a Jan. 24 San Francisco Chronicle editorial, "In the next few weeks, the Bush administration is expected to announce a major shift in policy, discarding the fig leaf of merely fighting drugs and giving the U.S. military a direct role in helping the Colombian army fight the guerrillas. For example, U.S. military 'advisers' reportedly will help Colombian troops defend drilling rigs and pipelines used by U.S. oil companies such as Occidental Petroleum Corp. of Los Angeles." The Washington Post supports such a turn. It reported in a Jan. 14 editorial that if the Bush administration "would like to head off yet another Latin American crisis, it would do well to increase its effort in Colombia. The administration should abandon its attempt to distinguish counter-narcotics from counter-insurgency aid to Colombia." This change would signal a new page in U.S.-Colombia relations. It demands the immediate attention of the anti-war movement in this country. CONDITIONS CREATE RESISTANCE For the past 40 years, a devastating civil war has raged in Colombia. Massacres, repression, and intolerable social and economic conditions have resulted in horrific conditions for the people. More than 2.2 million people have been displaced by the civil war, half of them children. Unemployment is officially 20 percent and is in reality much higher. Last year alone, death squads assassinated 129 trade unionists. In the month of October 2001, 200 civilians--including two elected officials--were killed by the paramilitaries. All told, more than 35,000 Colombians have been killed over the last two decades. In addition, human rights organizations have documented that the paramilitaries operate with the full knowledge and complicity of the Colombian military. In fact, the U.S.-backed Colombian military is in cahoots with the death squads. Human Rights Watch and others have documented that often the Colombian military surrounds a town while the paramilitaries attack, preventing anyone from coming in or getting out. This collusion has meant more atrocities and deaths. Furthermore, SOA Watch has documented that more than 100 of the 214 Colombian military personnel who committed human rights violations in 1998 were trained at the U.S. School of the Americas in Georgia. Is it any wonder that these conditions have produced the oldest insurgency in Latin America, led by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Peoples Army (FARC-EP)? For 40 years, the FARC and the younger National Liberation Army (ELN) have not only been able to survive but to grow. They have withstood all attempts by both the U.S. and Colombian governments to exterminate them. ALERT TO NEW DANGER FROM WASHINGTON But with the passage of Plan Colombia in 2000, its strengthening via the Andean Initiative, and the ominous politics emanating from the White House since Sept. 11, a full-scale military intervention by the Bush administration poses a very real danger. The U.S. government has carried out an intensive propaganda campaign against the rebels, especially since the passage of Plan Colombia. It has organized a well-orchestrated demonization of the FARC, in particular, in order to make an intervention acceptable to the U.S. population, as well as to break the rebels' support. Washington is clearly preparing to strengthen its hand. The appointments of Otto Reich and John Negroponte by the Bush administration both signal escalated intervention in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America. Reich is now the State Department's top Latin American diplomat as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. Negroponte was appointed the U.S. government's representative to the United Nations. Both Reich and Negroponte have the blood of Latin Americans on their hands. Reich, a Cuban American, was U.S. ambassador to Venezuela. He has been accused--including by members of Congress--of illegal activities in Nicaragua during Ronald Reagan's administration. He directed a secret propaganda campaign for the Nicaraguan contras. (Agence France Presse, Jan. 11) Sister Laetitia Bordes, a nun who was in Honduras at the time, says that Negroponte, while U.S. ambassador there from 1981 to 1985, gave the CIA-backed Honduran death squads "open field" under his watch. Both were unpopular appointees. In fact, Bush had to resort to a special presidential power known as a recess appointment and bypass Congress in order to get Reich into the position. Since Sept. 11, U.S.-Colombian relations have grown ominous. Around the world, anyone who stands up to imperialist domination stands the risk of being labeled a terrorist and can earn the full wrath of the U.S. government. Bush's cry "you are either with us or against us" is a chilling threat against all those who struggle to free themselves from the yoke of imperialism. For Colombians, it has meant that the rebels, who were already on the U.S. government's "terrorist" list before 9/11, are being targeted even more. "Nowhere in Latin America does the 'war on terrorism' have more resonance than in Colombia," wrote The Economist in January. As a result of Bush's bullying, the European Union announced that it would no longer issue any visas to FARC representatives. Colombian President Andres Pastrana recently declared an end to talks between the Colombian government and the FARC. Thousands of Colombian soldiers circled the demilitarized zone controlled by the FARC in a dangerous threat of escalated war. Pastrana's bellicose attitude came only 24 hours after U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson and a team of U.S. military personnel had turned over 14 Black Hawk helicopters and other military hardware to the Pastrana government. A full-scale intervention was averted late January in Colombia. But it is no thanks to the Pastrana or Bush administrations. 'U.S., HANDS OFF COLOMBIA!' There are many signals that the U.S. government may carry out a full-scale military intervention in Colombia at any moment. By now, many people in this country know that Plan Colombia has nothing to do with fighting drugs. That lie may be raised again in the future, but it is so transparent that the U.S. government has dropped it for now. It is common sense that if the U.S. government were really serious about fighting drugs it would spend the money allocated in Plan Colombia for drug rehabilitation or research. It could also penalize the countless number of banks that launder drug money. The Pentagon aims to stop the struggle of the Colombian people and the rebels for fundamental change. But it is up against the Colombian people's righteous fight to free themselves from imperialist domination. A full-scale intervention in the demilitarized zones in January was averted not because Pastrana's bullying won out. It was averted because the U.S. government became fully aware that the rebels and the movement in Colombia are strong. Over the past three years, thousands and thousands of Colombians have traveled to the demilitarized zones in search of answers. They have risked their jobs and lives to meet with the FARC leaders and present their views of the difficult situation in Colombia. The Colombian people are yearning for change, that's for sure. It is this popular desire for change, and the widespread knowledge that U.S. imperialism and all those who do its bidding only bring more death and destruction, that stayed the hand of the Pentagon. But at any moment the U.S. may decide to carry out a full-scale, massive military intervention in Colombia, complete with Green Berets and deadly missiles. That's why the anti-war movement must be on full alert to organize like hell against the U.S. government. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. 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