When the Soviet Union collapsed and US support for Latin American death squads could no longer be "explained" by the fight against communism a new pretext was needed. The "war on drugs" was born together with the $1.2 billion Plan Colombia which provides weapons and training for the Colombian government, whose human rights abuses are the worst in the hemisphere. Legal requirements that such abuses be considered when approving US aid were sidestepped by the Clinton administration. Following the attacks on the US the pretext for what has always been a war on the left in support of US strategic and corporate interests is now rebranded as, yes, you've guessed, the "war on terrorism".

US ambassador to Colombia, Anne Patterson, stated Friday "there's no question we are now focusing more on terrorism in Colombia". Supported by the corporate media there is now a concerted effort to conceal the intimate links between the Colombian armed forces and the main paramilitary group, the AUC, who are on the US list of terrrorist organisations, together with the main guerilla groups, FARC and the ELN.

A quick scan of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch annual reports and country profiles illustrates how claims that the government are fighting both the left and the right are completely false. The AUC operate on behalf of state/corporate interests in precisely the way the death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala did in the 1980's. This should come as no surprise as they have all learnt their methods from the same US terror manuals. Indeed, the appointment of Otto Reich and John Negroponte to key posts by President Bush, despite strong evidence of their involvement in organising death squads in Central America in the 80's, suggests that the conflict in Colombia is about to enter a new phase of US backed brutality.