Enough! Accounting and Remembering the Long War in Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Published on Monday, July 29, 2013 by Common Dreams

Enough! Accounting and Remembering the Long War in Colombia

by John Lindsay-Poland

US military interventions differ greatly from each other. Some, like the one currently contemplated in Syria or the invasions of Kosovo and Haiti, are publicly rationalized as humanitarian in purpose, while others, such as the long occupation of Afghanistan, are purportedly in self-defense, and still others supposedly fight drug trafficking, as in Colombia and Mexico. Some involve enormous commitments of US troops and treasure, as in Iraq and Vietnam, while others involve a relatively small number of US personnel, as in El Salvador or the Philippines.

But a constant among all such interventions is the stated belief of those propagating them that they will have a positive impact in the invaded nation. This may be a cynical ploy for US and international support, but the most effective prevaricators are those who have convinced themselves of the lie they tell or the myths they perpetuate. An antidote to such myths is the historical memory of the victims of wars where the United States has played a part.

That is the starting point of Basta Ya! Colombia: Memories of War and Dignity, released last week, and compiled over five years by the Group for Historical Memory. The 420-page report is the culmination of 24 volumes that focused on emblematic atrocities and cross-cutting issues of the war in Colombia since 1958. Basta Ya! overwhelms with statistics: 220,000 killed in the conflict, 81.5% of them civilians; 25,007 people forcibly disappeared; at least 4.7 million people displaced from their homes by the violence – one in every ten Colombians; more than 27,023 people kidnapped; 10,189 injured or killed by landmines; as well as people victimized by military recruitment of children, and sexual violence as a weapon of war.

Of nearly two thousand massacres documented in Colombia since 1980, 59% of them were committed by right-wing paramilitaries (often in alliance with the military and/or local political elites), 17% by guerrillas, 8% by the armed forces, and 15% couldn’t be determined.
But the experiences of victims and survivors are never far from these cold numbers: the absolute impotence of those who couldn’t stop the bloodletting, the silencing caused by the violence – which was one of its objectives, the collective fear after a massacre and the ways that selective killings took even more lives, the high levels of impunity for these crimes.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/07/29-5

[Judi Lynn]

1. More, from the same article:

Last month, I sat with family members of a dozen people killed by army soldiers and police in Arauca, the oil-producing department near the Venezuelan border. Most of the killings had occurred eight to ten years ago, but their cases are languishing in the criminal justice, with no movement at all. A reform to the military justice system this year increases the chances that these mothers and fathers will never see justice, and their dead children will continue to be stigmatized.

The United States has influenced the doctrine, weapons and operations of the Colombian military for decades, especially since Colombia fought alongside the U.S. in Korea. Washington dramatically escalated its involvement in the war between 1998 and 2002, just as it was generating its worst toll. The terrible synergy produced by the Bush administration’s brutal and cynical use of 9/11 with Colombia’s fatal reaction against failed peace talks created an alliance bent on war and militarization without end, while hypocritically certifying improvements in human rights. As paramilitary groups partially demobilized between 2003 and 2006, some of their perverse practices transferred back to the US-client Colombian Army, which adopted a “body count” strategy that became so mercenary that recruiters were paid to supply hundreds of men who were executed and counted as guerrillas killed in combat.

The authors of Basta Ya! clearly intended it for a Colombian audience. There is only a Spanish version, and comparisons made to show the scale of damage from the war are made to Colombian cities that most non-Colombians are unlikely to know. This could explain, at least in part, why the authors also give little attention to the role of the more than $8 billion in US assistance to the Colombian military and police, multinational corporations that have assisted paramilitary groups, or the international narcotics trade that also has financed much of the armed conflict. The focus is on national actors and relationships, many of them hidden and under-reported.

An accounting of what impact the United States has had on Colombia’s terrible suffering has yet to be made. Washington trumpets the success of its military assistance in Colombia, and is financing the exporting of Colombian military expertise to other nations in Latin America and around the world.

But the Pentagon and State Department are increasingly secretive about just what that assistance consists of. After the Fellowship of Reconciliation published a published a report in 2010 indicating that increased civilian killings were committed by US-aided Colombian Army units, the State Department pointedly classified its list of supported units. Similarly, after School of the Americas Watch began to more effectively use lists of Latin American graduates of the U.S. Army school to show how many had committed atrocities, the Pentagon began to systematically refuse disclosure of those names. With the United States spending $25 billion a year on foreign military and police aid, transparency about what units receive assistance is increasingly important for fiscal reasons, as well as a political and ethical imperative.

As human rights, peace, and solidarity activists work against reflexive US military adventures, the victims of wars where the United States takes part deserve the truth about how the U.S. impacted the conflict. This task of constructing and reconstructing memory will require work not just by projects in the affected countries, like Colombia’s Group for Historical Memory, but by researchers, activists, advocates, legislators, whistleblowers, and ordinary people in the United States as well. It is a necessary prerequisite to the United States’ own transformation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/07/29-5

[leveymg]

2. Can someone please explain what Plan Colombia was(is), and why?

It seems the US has committed more military, law enforcement, and intelligence resources, openly and covertly, in Colombia than any other Latin American country. The question is, why Colombia? Is there some ancient, half-forgotten foreign policy or corporate tie to the place that started this that never really went away, or is it something as the story suggests rooted in the Cold War, with Colombia as the lynch-pin of the US anti-communist strategy for the region?

Where did the Bush Administration's Plan Colombia come from, what was Henry Kissinger's role, and why is there a question about whether it's still in place.

Thanks for some guidance.

[Judi Lynn]

3. It was initiated by Bill Clinton. I haven't learned anything re: Kissinger,

regarding Plan Colombia, but it stands to reason he's on call to any President ruthless enough to consult him, and Plan Colombia is still ongoing, from all I've seen, no public calls of any strength to end it, yet.

Amnesty International:

U.S. Policy in Colombia


Amnesty International USA has been calling for a complete cut off of US military aid to Colombia for over a decade due to the continued collaboration between the Colombian Armed Forces and their paramilitary allies as well the failure of the Colombian government to improve human rights conditions.

Colombia has been one of the largest recipients of US military aid for well over a decade and the largest in the western hemisphere. Since 1994, AIUSA has called for a complete cut off of all US military aid until human rights conditions improve and impunity is tackled. Yet torture, massacres, "disappearances" and killings of non-combatants are widespread and collusion between the armed forces and paramilitary groups continues to this day. In 2006, US assistance to Colombia amounted to an estimated $728 million, approximately 80% of which was military and police assistance.

"Plan Colombia" -- the name for the US aid package since 2000, was created as a strategy to combat drugs and contribute to peace, mainly through military means. The US government began granting large amounts of aid to Colombia in 2000 under the Clinton administration. Since the beginning of Plan Colombia, the US has given Colombia over $5 billion with the vast majority going to Colombia's military and police. These amounts are significantly higher than what is being given in economic and social assistance.

In addition to its call for a cut off of aid, AIUSA has supported the inclusion of a human rights "certification" provision in US aid packages for Colombia that require the Secretary of State to certify Colombia's progress on human rights criteria before aid can be distributed. The criterion includes suspension of military personnel who have aided or abetted paramilitary organizations, apprehension of leaders of paramilitary organizations, as well as others. While these provisions originally applied to 100% of U.S. security assistance to Colombia, Congress has changed the provision so it now only applies to the last 25% of U.S. assistance.

Despite overwhelming evidence of continued failure to protect human rights the State Department has continued to certify Colombia as fit to receive aid. The US has continued a policy of throwing "fuel on the fire" of already widespread human rights violations, collusion with illegal paramilitary groups and near total impunity.

Furthermore, after 10 years and over $8 billion dollars of US assistance to Colombia, US policy has failed to reduce availability or use of cocaine in the US, and Colombia's human rights record remains deeply troubling. Despite this, the State Department continues to certify military aid to Colombia, even after reviewing the country?s human rights record.

More:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/americas/colombia/us-policy-in-colombia

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
There's a great deal of information available on Plan Colombia, and none of it seems good, from anything I've read, yet. There's a huge wall of links to study, going into unbelievable human rights violations, the murders of innocents, children, old people, women, innocents of all ages who are completely unaffiliated with the drug war, helpless, frightened people with no where to hide, and it all gets ignored, whitewashed, and untouched by corporate media since the formal position is to continue it.

Hope there will be someone who sees your post who has personal experience regarding Plan Colombia. I do know there are Colombian people who moved to the U.S. years ago to escape the violence for their families' sake, and are completely unlikely to return.

[leveymg]

6. Here's an interesting article about US corporate holdings in Colombia.

PBS Frontline background story. It's a decade-old, but gives some useful context and doesn't seems to pull many punches: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/colombia/corporate.html

[Bacchus4.0]

8. the prediction of increased violence has proved false

Colombia has seen a rather dramatic decrease in violence since that period. But while more corporate entities operate in Colombia now than in 2002, I wouldn't contribute either a decrease or increase in violence to more or less corporate investment.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Just scanned your article, will read it upon return, late this P.M.

I'm not sure I saw "Chiquita," (earlier, "United Fruit&quot there, but they have been powerful in Colombia, also, just as they are all over Central America.

Drummond, you may recall, is currently involved in a lawsuit brought by the wife of one of the union workers murdered by Drummond Coal, home-based in Birmingham, Alabama, through one of its "security," paramilitaries (death squad) who do custom torture, terrorism, assassination to discourage union building. That story is hideous.

Businesses use the paras to terrorize the people living on land where their ancestors lived, in many cases, into running away, (displaced people of Colombia constitute the world's LARGEST displaced people population in the entire world, now) then, after factories or agricultural operations are established, they hire the death squads to terrorize the workers in hopes of keeping them too frightened to dare to build unions to gain safe work conditions, humane hours, and above slavery wages.

Looking forward to seeing your article later. Thanks, a lot, for the post.

[Bacchus4.0]

4. started by Pres. Pastrana of Colombia and Clinton

It focused on drugs production and combating the left wing guerrillas. Colombia was the main drug producer and during this time Colombia had current Mexico, or perhaps even Caracas, level violence by the drug cartels or something close to that. Maybe not as bad as Mexico and Caracas are today.

Add to that the 50+ year civil war and Colombia became of prime national security interest to the US. While Colombia has somewhat overcome the violence and the near failing of the state since the 90s, drug production is on going and those that control the actual trade have moved to other areas like Mexico.


I don't think Colombia is the lynch pin of anti-communist (cold war) policy by the US. its more a key ally for the failed war on drugs policy, and perhaps even more important, a US ally in general in the region. Colombia enjoys cordial relations with just about every country in the region, better than the US has certainly. The possible exception is with Venezuela as their leadership periodically throws tantrums and accuses Colombia of trying to assassinate their leaders.

[leveymg]

5. Does Colombia act as a regional proxy for U.S. policy vis-a-vis Venezuela, others?

[Bacchus4.0]

7. for Venezuela it can. They typically blame Colombia and the US

for their problems when they need a convenient scape goat.

Despite predictions to the contrary right here in this forum by existing members, Colombia hasn't invaded Venezuela on behalf of the US. I believe Colombia is Venezuela's second largest trading partner although it could be number one or three. Colombia provides Venezuela with gas, food, and a variety of other products.

[leveymg]

9. Do you think the US has a double-standard re: human rights standards applied to the two countries?

[Bacchus4.0]

10. of course, I think the US has one standard for allies and one for those countries that are not

That doesn't excuse the human rights abuses by non-friendly countries though. Not to mention the third standard of our own abuses like in Iraq. Frankly, the US should get out of the human rights preaching and reporting business and leave that to NGOs and non-aligned entities.

[leveymg]

12. Relatively speaking, which do you think is the worse human-rights abuser: Colombia or Venez?

and, on what basis?

[Bacchus4.0]

13. do you mean where more human rights abuses occur, or do you mean by which government?

As far as the respective governments go I'd say Venezuela is currently worse. Much of Colombia's violence is perpetrated by paras and the rebels. and not necessarily afiliated with the government. Although the army and paras certainly have their ties but its not necessarily always the case that the government is behind para violence.

Venezuela has a nearly non-existent judicial system, police commit more than 20% of crimes as admitted by their own interior minister. Look at their prisons, the level of corruption, arrest rate, conviction rate, murder rate and compare to Colombia. Colombia has a functioning justice system and actually investigates and prosecutes human rights abusers as Judi Lynn posts just about every week.

Colombia probably has more political violence, but not necessarily more violence commited by government officials like the police.

Its often stated here that Colombia is the most dangerous place in the Americas for union activitists, what you don't hear is that Venezuela is second.

I think Colombia is improving and progressing while Ven is regressing.

Also, for non-violent abuses like restricting press, free speech, political opposition, Ven is certainly worse.

[leveymg]

14. Given what you just said, why do you post (almost) exclusively about abuses in Venez?

I don't recall seeing you report anything about violence, corruption, and human rights problems in Colombia, or anywhere other than Venezuela. Why is that?

[Bacchus4.0]

15. I just like to rub it in their faces. I never try to hide the abuses and problems in Colombia

either which the chavistas always do in Venezuela. I don't consider big brother states progressive, I don't care if they are "leftist". North Korea, China, Cuba, Venezuela aren't countries I consider progressive. Progressive and leftist aren't the same thing.


Thats enough Q&A for today. later.

[leveymg]

16. Thank you for your candor.

Till then.

[joshcryer]

17. Indeed, the whole point is to be level.

Not hide abuses in countries that we would normally support. Ignoring those abuses is what causes them to begin with.