STOP PLAN COLOMBIA/FTAA NEOCOLONIALISM
Militante | 15.03.2002 17:54
Colombia: The Hawks are Poised
He was elected on a platform of peace, but Colombian president Andres Pastrana is ending his term by placing his country on the brink of total war.
February 20th marked the collapse of Colombia’s peace talks - which Pastrana decided to terminate following the kidnapping of a high-profile cabinet minister by FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. His position was that he could not talk peace as long as FARC was engaged in guerilla activities such as kidnapping, hijacking, and attacking infrastructure.
Since the talks collapsed, the corporate media has accepted Pastrana’s rationale without the slightest hint of criticism.
No mention has been made of the fact that the peace talks were poisoned from the beginning by Plan Colombia, the US$1.3 billion ‘military-aid’ package from the US government. Nor is it mentioned that throughout the peace talks, the Colombian government was cooperating extensively with the AUC, Colombia’s paramilitary, responsible for 80% of all human rights abuses in the country. A recent report issued on February 5 2002 by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Washington Office on Latin America concluded that: “Certain military units and police detachments continue to promote, work with, support, profit from, and tolerate paramilitary groups, treating them as a force allied to and compatible with their own.” The report went on to say that “these are not isolated incidents, but rather widespread patterns of behavior and collusion.”
This being said, it is no wonder the talks collapsed. One cannot talk about peace while preparing for war. Nor can one talk about peace while outsourcing dirty work to paramilitary death squads.
But the peace talks were designed to fail. Pastrana manipulated the hunger for peace amongst Colombians to get into office, and once elected immediately began preparing for war. The talks were a strategic distraction to take international attention away from the US-Colombian war machine that was being developed in the name of the ‘war on drugs.’
Why should the US be so interested in the fate of Colombia? Because Colombia is a fantastically resource-rich country—and we are just around the corner from the FTAA (Free Trade of the America’s Agreement). That means the multinational corporations have but a few years to neutralize subversive elements so that when free trade comes, the country will be ripe for the picking. That is why there are currently 2 million internally displaced Colombians. That is also why not just guerillas, but indigenous peoples, peasants, social movements and labor unions are being systematically targeted by terror. Last year alone 169 labor leaders were assassinated in Colombia. The paramilitary strategy of terror is aimed at destroying all social movements so that multinational interests will be able to function unhindered. The principal is “terror now, investment later.” It is not complicated. Follow the money. It was Enron and the US-Colombian Business Partnership that led congressional lobbying for Plan Colombia. Oil is 25% of all Colombian exports, surpassing even coffee at just 15%.
But as long as our newspapers separate the front page from the business section, our ignorance will remain in tact. This ignorance is being cultivated by forces beyond the news media—Hollywood is also stepping up the propaganda campaign with films like “Collateral Damage.” For those of you unfamiliar with the film, it is about an American firefighter, played by Arnold Schwartzenegger, whose wife and child are accidentally killed when a bomb goes off at a Colombian embassy in L.A. (they are the 'collateral damage' alluded to in the film's title.) Arnie then begs the CIA to go to Colombia and catch the killer, but the CIA officer (played by Elias Koteas) says their hands are tied—apprehending the killer would disrupt the peace talks!!!
I wont spoil the ending for you but I will say that the basic ideological thrust of the film is that although it recognizes that Colombia is a messy conflict in which innocent civilians are being killed, it is ultimately worth it because the drug war is such a noble cause. The film takes a kind of “tough love” resolution.
Another recent piece of disinformation came to us during the Superbowl telecast. The White House Office on National Drug Policy released the following ad to an estimated 86.8 million viewers:
ON SCREEN: Montage of American teenagers, each of whom recites one of the following lines:
"I helped murder families in Colombia."
"I helped kidnap people's dads."
"I helped kids learn how to kill."
"I helped kill policemen."
"Drug money supports terror," the 30-second television ad concluded. "If you buy drugs, you might too."
Drug money does indeed support terror. But according to a UN report released February 26 2002, Klaus Nyhold, head of the U.N. Drug Control Program in Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, the growing role of the far-right forces in narcotics trafficking had been largely ignored as the government steps up its war against FARC. The report went on to state that FARC was more involved in the low-level production side (taxing peasant coca growers), while paramilitaries – many of whom had links to the former Medellin and Cali cartels –were directly involved in trafficking.
Despite all the talk about fighting drugs, Plan Colombia is in reality is backing the new Pablo Escobar—AUC commander Carlos Castano. The other irony is that this US military intervention in the name of 'fighting terror' is actually INCREASING terror, as military-aid given to the Colombian government is used by paramilitary death squads to terrorize the civilian populace. Reports have been coming out of Colombia stating that paramilitaries are using chainsaws to dismember their victims, raping men in front of their families, ‘disappear’ people, and in one case that the New Internationalist reported they played soccer with heads they had decapitated before putting them on stakes, facing the direction of the mining project that they had come to ‘announce’.
The contradictions pile up as quickly as the bodycount. As the hawks in Washington eye further increases in military aid to Colombia we must say YA BASTA! (Enough!). Right now in Ecuador people are taking to the streets to stop Plan Colombia/FTAA neo-colonialism. Take to the streets in Washington DC April 19-22 and let your voice be heard too!
www.colombiamobilization.org
He was elected on a platform of peace, but Colombian president Andres Pastrana is ending his term by placing his country on the brink of total war.
February 20th marked the collapse of Colombia’s peace talks - which Pastrana decided to terminate following the kidnapping of a high-profile cabinet minister by FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. His position was that he could not talk peace as long as FARC was engaged in guerilla activities such as kidnapping, hijacking, and attacking infrastructure.
Since the talks collapsed, the corporate media has accepted Pastrana’s rationale without the slightest hint of criticism.
No mention has been made of the fact that the peace talks were poisoned from the beginning by Plan Colombia, the US$1.3 billion ‘military-aid’ package from the US government. Nor is it mentioned that throughout the peace talks, the Colombian government was cooperating extensively with the AUC, Colombia’s paramilitary, responsible for 80% of all human rights abuses in the country. A recent report issued on February 5 2002 by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Washington Office on Latin America concluded that: “Certain military units and police detachments continue to promote, work with, support, profit from, and tolerate paramilitary groups, treating them as a force allied to and compatible with their own.” The report went on to say that “these are not isolated incidents, but rather widespread patterns of behavior and collusion.”
This being said, it is no wonder the talks collapsed. One cannot talk about peace while preparing for war. Nor can one talk about peace while outsourcing dirty work to paramilitary death squads.
But the peace talks were designed to fail. Pastrana manipulated the hunger for peace amongst Colombians to get into office, and once elected immediately began preparing for war. The talks were a strategic distraction to take international attention away from the US-Colombian war machine that was being developed in the name of the ‘war on drugs.’
Why should the US be so interested in the fate of Colombia? Because Colombia is a fantastically resource-rich country—and we are just around the corner from the FTAA (Free Trade of the America’s Agreement). That means the multinational corporations have but a few years to neutralize subversive elements so that when free trade comes, the country will be ripe for the picking. That is why there are currently 2 million internally displaced Colombians. That is also why not just guerillas, but indigenous peoples, peasants, social movements and labor unions are being systematically targeted by terror. Last year alone 169 labor leaders were assassinated in Colombia. The paramilitary strategy of terror is aimed at destroying all social movements so that multinational interests will be able to function unhindered. The principal is “terror now, investment later.” It is not complicated. Follow the money. It was Enron and the US-Colombian Business Partnership that led congressional lobbying for Plan Colombia. Oil is 25% of all Colombian exports, surpassing even coffee at just 15%.
But as long as our newspapers separate the front page from the business section, our ignorance will remain in tact. This ignorance is being cultivated by forces beyond the news media—Hollywood is also stepping up the propaganda campaign with films like “Collateral Damage.” For those of you unfamiliar with the film, it is about an American firefighter, played by Arnold Schwartzenegger, whose wife and child are accidentally killed when a bomb goes off at a Colombian embassy in L.A. (they are the 'collateral damage' alluded to in the film's title.) Arnie then begs the CIA to go to Colombia and catch the killer, but the CIA officer (played by Elias Koteas) says their hands are tied—apprehending the killer would disrupt the peace talks!!!
I wont spoil the ending for you but I will say that the basic ideological thrust of the film is that although it recognizes that Colombia is a messy conflict in which innocent civilians are being killed, it is ultimately worth it because the drug war is such a noble cause. The film takes a kind of “tough love” resolution.
Another recent piece of disinformation came to us during the Superbowl telecast. The White House Office on National Drug Policy released the following ad to an estimated 86.8 million viewers:
ON SCREEN: Montage of American teenagers, each of whom recites one of the following lines:
"I helped murder families in Colombia."
"I helped kidnap people's dads."
"I helped kids learn how to kill."
"I helped kill policemen."
"Drug money supports terror," the 30-second television ad concluded. "If you buy drugs, you might too."
Drug money does indeed support terror. But according to a UN report released February 26 2002, Klaus Nyhold, head of the U.N. Drug Control Program in Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, the growing role of the far-right forces in narcotics trafficking had been largely ignored as the government steps up its war against FARC. The report went on to state that FARC was more involved in the low-level production side (taxing peasant coca growers), while paramilitaries – many of whom had links to the former Medellin and Cali cartels –were directly involved in trafficking.
Despite all the talk about fighting drugs, Plan Colombia is in reality is backing the new Pablo Escobar—AUC commander Carlos Castano. The other irony is that this US military intervention in the name of 'fighting terror' is actually INCREASING terror, as military-aid given to the Colombian government is used by paramilitary death squads to terrorize the civilian populace. Reports have been coming out of Colombia stating that paramilitaries are using chainsaws to dismember their victims, raping men in front of their families, ‘disappear’ people, and in one case that the New Internationalist reported they played soccer with heads they had decapitated before putting them on stakes, facing the direction of the mining project that they had come to ‘announce’.
The contradictions pile up as quickly as the bodycount. As the hawks in Washington eye further increases in military aid to Colombia we must say YA BASTA! (Enough!). Right now in Ecuador people are taking to the streets to stop Plan Colombia/FTAA neo-colonialism. Take to the streets in Washington DC April 19-22 and let your voice be heard too!
www.colombiamobilization.org
Militante