Foreign pilots hired to boost US drug war

By T. Christian N. Miller

Bogota, Colombia, Aug. 18— The State Department has directed its largest private contractor in Colombia to hire foreign pilots to fight the drug war, an order that helps get around Congress’ attempt to keep the US from slipping further into this country’s messy civil war.

Last year, Congress limited to 300 the number of civilian contract workers participating in US-financed drug-eradication efforts in Colombia. But in a little-noticed decision, the State Department only counts US citizens toward that limit.

As a result, more than 400 civilians already are working for private contractors under the US anti-drug program. The largest employer is DynCorp, which has 335 civilians on the payroll. Fewer than a third are US citizens, the contractor’s chief of operations here said Friday. An estimated 60 to 80 US citizens work for other contractors, including Bell Helicopter Textron, Sikorsky Aircraft, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin.

A senior aide to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who has been at the forefront of the battle over US assistance to Colombia, acknowledged that the language passed by Congress specified that the cap applied to “United States individual civilians” and that the State Department is not obliged to include foreigners in its reports to Congress.

“Legally, they may be within the law,” said the aide, Tim Reiser. “But in terms of congressional interest in being informed on what US money is being used for, that is of interest to Congress and it’s something that the Congress should be informed about.”

State Department officials say they are not required to inform Congress that they have ordered DynCorp to hire as many as 50 pilots from Guatemala, Peru, Colombia and other countries to transport Colombian army forces into cocaine-growing zones.

The pilots, most of them former Central and South American air force members who fly the most dangerous anti-drug missions here, also are hired to reduce the risk that an American would be shot down and killed in the drug war, according to US Embassy officials.

“I’m under no illusion what it would mean to have an American shot down here, and no one in the US is,” Ambassador Anne W. Patterson said in a recent interview with reporters.

US lawmakers have long worried that the effort to eradicate cocaine will draw the US deeper into Colombia’s four-decade-old civil war. Both leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary groups (backed by the Colombian military) fight to protect the coca crops that are their primary source of revenue.

Lawmakers contacted Friday accused the State Department of circumventing congressional intent to limit American involvement in the conflict.

The issue goes to the heart of congressional critics’ fears about Plan Colombia, which was launched last year with a $1.3-billion American contribution: that US involvement will slowly escalate, as happened in Vietnam.

The situation also has historical echoes, touching on controversies surrounding congressional limits on the number of US military advisors in El Salvador during the 1980s and Reagan administration efforts to evade them.

“This seems to be a loophole around the cap, a way to get around them,” said Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who has sought to eliminate the use of private contractors in the region since a US firm was involved in the accidental downing of a private airplane by the Peruvian military in April. That incident resulted in the deaths of an American missionary and her infant daughter.

“Every time we find out more about what goes on in Colombia, a dozen more questions are raised,” Schakowsky said. “Most members of Congress interpreted the cap to mean we will limit to a total of 300 personnel, no matter what their nationality is.”

Private contract workers, who do everything from flying crop dusters to transporting troops to staffing radar stations, long have been controversial. Some lawmakers fear that the US is conducting foreign policy through private companies without adequate public accountability.

Even some of those who have closely followed the debate over Plan Colombia were surprised to learn of the State Department’s practice.

“Nobody knows about this in Washington,” said Adam Isacson, an expert on Colombia at the Center for International Policy, a left-leaning Washington think tank. “If anybody is still concerned about mission creep, this will make them all the more worried.”

The State Department’s International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Bureau, which is overseeing the bulk of the US effort in the region, early on debated whether to count the foreign employees.

At one point, according to an embassy official who was present at the discussion, the State Department acknowledged the sensitivity of the issue and initially discussed being “totally virtuous” and counting the foreign employees in its reporting to Congress. The official and several others interviewed requested that their names not be used, in keeping with State Department policies. The department subsequently decided to not count foreign employees after what the official called a “hotly debated” discussion. It became apparent by the middle of this year that there would be nearly 300 US citizens working on the program in Colombia by December.

The official added that the State Department discussed the issue with members of Congress before reaching a final decision, but did not specify which lawmakers were consulted.

The issue came up again recently when the Bush administration, responding to State Department fears about reaching the cap by December, tried to remove all limits on US personnel as part of the aid package for the Andean region for the coming fiscal year.

House lawmakers compromised, instead allowing a total of 800 US military and civilian personnel in Colombia. The Senate has so far insisted on maintaining the civilian cap at 300, with a separate cap of 500 US military personnel.

State Department officials defended the move to not count foreign employees, especially since many are Colombians working as secretaries and drivers and in other low-level jobs traditionally given to host country citizens.

These officials noted that if the Colombians were not tallied, the US program would not reach the 300-worker cap even including the Peruvians, Guatemalans and other Latin Americans recruited to transport troops into conflict zones where leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, and narco-traffickers are defending cocaine fields.

DynCorp officials interviewed Friday acknowledged that the State Department had specifically directed them to hire the foreign pilots as part of a five-year, $200-million contract to fumigate drug crops in Colombia.

“That was customer-directed,” said the DynCorp director in Colombia, who declined to be identified for safety reasons.

But the director also said that part of the reason for hiring foreign nationals is the lack of qualified personnel in the US. Another factor is that the Latin American pilots speak fluent Spanish.

It is claimed that the lack of fluency among contract workers contributed to the April incident in Peru that killed Veronica Bowers of the Assn. of Baptists for World Evangelism and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity.

Some Central American pilots who interviewed for jobs with DynCorp told The Times that they were asked whether they had combat experience. DynCorp officials said military experience played no special role in their hiring decisions.

“They were looking for pilots with 3,000 hours of flying experience and war combat,” said an ex-member of the Salvadoran air force who interviewed with DynCorp nearly a year ago. “When we were flying for El Salvador during the war, we did it for patriotic values, to defeat communism. Now, it’s for money.”

Correspondent Alex Renderos contributed to this report. Source: LA Times

Pinochet trial may be reopened

Santiago, Chile, Aug. 22— In a surprise move, Chile’s top court reopened the possibility of a trial of former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet on charges of human rights abuses.

Pinochet’s opponents had all but abandoned hope of bringing the general to trial after the Santiago Court of Appeals ruled last month that he cannot be tried because of his deteriorating health and mental condition.

While the contents of that ruling could not be appealed, prosecutors went to the Supreme Court arguing that the ruling was illegal on technical grounds.

They said the lower tribunal based its decision at least in part on a reform of Chile’s penal code that is not yet in effect in Santiago. The reform is being gradually implemented throughout the country.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court voted 5-0 to study the request. The court panel set no date for the hearings to make a final ruling.

“After this, we have the possibility to prove that the ruling that favored Pinochet is illegal,” said prosecution lawyer Hugo Gutierrez.

Pinochet’s chief attorney, Pablo Rodriguez, said he was not worried.

“I am totally convinced that we are right, we have the reason,” he said.

Pinochet, 85, who earlier this year was diagnosed with “moderate dementia,” also suffers from diabetes and arthritis, has a pacemaker and has had at least three mild strokes since 1998.

He is accused of 18 kidnappings and 57 homicides in the “Caravan of Death,” a military squad that executed 75 political prisoners shortly after he seized power in 1973.

Source: Associated Press

US challenges EU’s biotech food standards

By Alan Sipress and Marc Kaufman

Aug. 26— Senior Bush administration officials are pressuring the European Union to abandon new restrictions on genetically modified foods that they say could cost US companies $4 billion a year and disrupt efforts to launch a new round of global trade talks.

US officials have told their European counterparts that the regulations, which received preliminary approval last month, discriminate against US products in violation of World Trade Organization (WTO) requirements.

The European Commission’s decision to require the labeling of genetically engineered products reflects a European anxiety about food safety that is far more profound than in the United States, the world leader in agricultural biotechnology. This is a divide that threatens to further aggravate US-Europe relations, already roiled by differences over global warming, arms control and other trade issues.

Undersecretary of State Alan P. Larson, the State Department’s senior diplomat assigned to economic issues, called the new restrictions “trade disruptive and discriminatory.” He said, “It’s obviously a very serious problem that affects a very important trade and one that’s of vital interest to a very important constituency in the United States, which supports free trade.”

US officials have left open the possibility of bringing a legal case before the WTO, which, after lengthy litigation, could eventually impose stiff economic penalties on Europe. But Larson said the administration’s immediate focus is on lobbying European governments to amend the regulations before they take effect.

Officials said that economic losses in the United States — where 75 percent of soybeans and more than 25 percent of corn comes from genetically modified seeds — could far exceed other transatlantic trade battles, such as those over bananas and growth hormones in beef.

The European Commission’s new standards, among the most far-reaching in the world, call for all products made from engineered material to bear a label saying they contain “genetically modified organisms.” They also require producers to document the source of all their ingredients. The US crop-handling system generally does not separate modified and conventional crops at present.

European limitations on biotech crops already ban most US corn for food products, estimated by US officials as a $300 million annual loss. The new requirements, which must be approved by the European Parliament and Council of Ministers before taking effect by 2003, could also make it difficult to export corn for animal feed and soybeans.

Larson said that he has raised US concerns with “everyone that comes through this door, every trade minister, agriculture minister, economy minister from Europe,” including those representing about eight European countries. He said a similar message has been delivered by Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman and US Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick.

European officials chafe at the pressure, saying the administration is trying to impose US acceptance of biotech food on a European public that does not believe these products are safe. The spread of mad cow disease and other health crises have fueled public concern about food safety, and prominent officials, including Britain’s Prince Charles, have been highly critical about biotechnology in crops.

“We are seeing an illustration of American unilateralism,” said Tony Van der haegen, a European Commission representative in Washington. “There are basic psychological differences between American consumers and those in Europe, where [genetically modified products] are not accepted.”

Requiring food labels is a way of offering choice to consumers and restoring their confidence in food, Van der haegen said. He added that the United States has exaggerated the potential loss to US companies, putting the figure instead at $2.8 billion a year.

On a policy level, US regulators have embraced the position that engineered and traditional crops are essentially equivalent, and so should be treated the same. Despite public — and congressional — pressure to require labeling of modified foods in the United States, promoters of biotechnology have fought tenaciously, and successfully, to resist the efforts.

As the regulations now move to the European Parliament, legislators may tighten the restrictions further. Environmental groups are urging them to remove a provision that waives the labeling requirement if the percentage of genetically modified material in a food item is less than 1 percent of the overall product. “The US is trying to force-feed modified foods to the rest of the world, and it just isn’t going to work,” said Charles Margulis of Greenpeace, which has led the anti-biotech campaign in Europe.

US troubles over biotechnology and international trade are not limited to the European Union. The governments of Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka have proposed bans on importing genetically modified foods, and Mexican legislators are also discussing tough labeling laws.

Advocates of biotechnology say it can be especially helpful to poor farmers by increasing their yields, protecting against pests and viruses, and allowing them to grow crops in depleted soil. But critics say poor farmers will never see those potential benefits because the technology is owned by private, multinational companies interested primarily in selling seeds for a profit to commercial growers, and that genetically altered organisms cannot be guaranteed as safe for the environment or for human or animal consumption.

Source: Washington Post

Argentine unemployed block more roads

Demonstrators have blocked roads throughout Argentina during recent weeks to protest IMF structural adjustment programs.

Aug. 27— The unemployed protesters known as piqueteros (picketers) blocked roads throughout Argentina August 14–16 in their third national protest in three weeks against an austerity program mandated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The series of escalating protests, which the activists decided on at a special congress on July 24, began with a one-day action on July 31, followed by two days of protests on August 7–8, culminating in this week’s three-day protest.

Contrary to the expectations of some analysts, the latest action gave no signs that the movement was losing strength. One of the organizers, Luis D’Elía, of the Federation of Argentine Workers (CTA), claimed that there were a total of 300 road blockages and other actions on August 14, significantly more than the 200 the piqueteros claimed for the first week. While setting the number of blockages at 101–103, with 14,000 participants, the government in effect acknowledged that the movement had grown; it had claimed that only 10,000 took part in the July 31 protests.

The largest concentrations were in La Matanza in Buenos Aires province; the town is becoming known as the “piquetero capital.” Doctors and hospital workers organized their own roadblock in San Martín, west of the capital, to protest cutbacks in credits and bonuses. On August 13 workers in a Buenos Aires province public hospital held a protest that was met with tear gas and rubber bullets from the police. Five workers suffered minor injuries.

Participation in the road blockages fell off on August 15, in part because of rain in the capital and in coastal regions. On August 16 the piqueteros concentrated on marches and rallies backed by other groups. In Buenos Aires thousands of piqueteros, doctors, students, teachers, public employees and members of leftist parties marched in a light rain from the nation’s congress to the Plaza de Mayo; the organizers claimed that 20,000 participated. There were also large marches in Bahía Blanca and Mar del Plata, and a demonstration in Bariloche. The police were called out when fruit growers from Río Negro and Neuquén provinces blocked the Cinco Saltos bridge at the border of the two provinces, while local tobacco growers formed a caravan with their vehicles.

On balance, the left-leaning Buenos Aires daily Clarín wrote, the protests failed to move the government’s policies “a millimeter, but they showed that piqueteros, teachers, students, unemployed, and public employees have boiled over because of the economic adjustments and crisis.” Organizers said that as of August 16 a total of 1,500 activists faced legal actions for the national protests and that 108 remained in jail. The piqueteros are holding a second national congress on September 4 to plan further actions.

According to Beverly Keene, Coordinator of Dialogue 2000, a coalition representing human-rights and other groups in Argentina, “This new agreement with the IMF brings no resolution to growing unemployment and poverty. In fact, it will only make things worse since these loans are conditional on implementing more of the policies that have impaired the economy and taken an enormous human toll due to the cuts in health and social services.... Argentina will pay some $30 billion in interest and foreign debt service this year, more than half the national budget and many times over what it will spend on education and healthcare,” said Keene.

This debt itself is fundamentally illegitimate, in part because it largely originated in loans taken out by a military junta responsible for the torture and disappearance of more than 30,000 Argentinians during the so-called ‘dirty war’ during the 1970s and ’80s. The governments, bankers and corporations of the rich north are continuing to oppress us by forcing us to pay them back for their loaning money to the murderous junta,” said Keene.

Sources: www.americas.org, www.dialogo2000.org.ar,

India outraged as US company wins patents on rice

New Delhi, India, Aug. 23— The decision to give American company RiceTec patents on three strains of basmati rice has provoked an uproar in India, where angry Members of Parliament have disrupted parliament and accused the coalition government of selling out to foreign interests.

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted three patents to RiceTec of Texas. Four years ago RiceTec made sweeping attempts to register basmati as a trademark, but later it withdrew several of ts patent applications in the face of overwhelming opposition.

But last week the patent office allowed it to register three hybrid versions of basmati -- Texmati, Jasmati and Kasmati. It produced the varieties by crossbreeding basmati seed with American long-grain rice. RiceTec was also given permission to claim that its brands are “superior to basmati."

New Delhi-based food security expert Devinder Sharma says that in reality, the order amounts to granting a patent on basmati rice through the back door. Said Sharma: “The USPTO has very cleverly manipulated the patent claim to uphold RiceTec’s assertion that the company had produced a basmati rice, with qualities that were equal or better than the traditional basmati varieties being grown in north-western India and Pakistan.’’

Also, the company can now sell its product as “Bas 867” and label it a “superior basmati rice’’ on its packets and get away with blatant bio-piracy, Sharma said.

The ruling has caused consternation in India, where basmati rice has been growing for centuries in the foothills of the Himalayas. Basmati, which is long grained, soft textured and has an aromatic flavor, is exported in huge quantities to Britain from India and Pakistan.

The Indian government insisted yesterday that the ruling would not affect India’s lucrative basmati exports to America. But other campaigners say the case shows how western corporations are using the World Trade Organization’s oppressive patent laws to exploit poor farmers in the developing world.

The British charity ActionAid said: “There is growing concern that corporations are taking advantage of traditional Indian crops developed over thousands of years by farmers, without any recompense for the poor people who do all the work.

“We still remain concerned that there could be a threat to [India’s] export markets. The fact is that this company is intent on marketing its basmati and is trying to get it into British supermarkets.”

ActionAid has launched a campaign against “bio-piracy” -- multinationals taking out patents on crops that grow in poor countries.

But other campaigners said last night that the ruling amounted to a victory for India, since RiceTec had been prevented from passing off its own products as basmati.

“The farmers have won,” said Vandana Shiva, of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in New Delhi.

“The right of the third world not to have its biodiversity taken away and sold back to it has been upheld.”

But India’s upper and lower houses have been rocked by the affair. Opposition MPs surged into parliament shouting slogans, forcing an adjournment.

They accused the government, led by Hindu nationalists, of caving in to foreign pressure.

Balbir Punj MP said: “The government has claimed that our losing the basmati case will have no bearing on exports. If it has no bearing on exports why should we fight the case?”

The prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has warned that there should be “no misappropriation” of the developing world’s “biological and genetic resources”.

Yesterday the US patents office confirmed that RiceTec’s attempts to patent basmati had been thrown out. RiceTec had argued that basmati was merely a generic term, even though India exports more than 6 million tons a year.

Nearly 48 percent of the 4,000-odd plant patents granted by the USPTO in the recent past pertain to traditional knowledge taken from countries like India by international biotech companies.

“If India is reluctant to take the basmati case to its logical end, how can we expect justice or protection of national interests on the remaining plant-based patents in America,’’ Sharma asked.

Sources: The Guardian, IPS

French activists destroy more GM crops

Montelimar, France, Aug. 27— Protesters led by the Peasants Confederation of radical farming leader Jose Bove’s destroyed two cornfields in southeastern France on Sunday as part of a long-running battle against genetically-modified crops.

“I ask you not to use violence against the security forces but to be violent to the crops,” an organizer told the 150-strong crowd gathered at the fields near Montelimar.

“If you’re detained by police, you have nothing to say. I’m counting on you to leave the fields clean and in good shape,” he told the throng, equipped with pruning hooks, sickles, secateurs and other farm tools.

Jose Bove, head of the farmers’ union, called in July for a campaign of “civil disobedience” unless the government ordered the destruction of all genetically-modified crops being grown for testing by August 12.

Demonstrators compared the farmers who are growing the crops for biotech giant Monsanto to the French who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.

“We had collaborators in 1940 and we have them today,” an activist shouted.

Within a few minutes, the assembled men, women and children had moved into the 1,250-square-yard field and cut the corn before the police, who had been warned by the owners, had time to reach the scene.

Protesters from the Peasants Confederation, the Green movement and the anti-globalization association ATTAC also erected placards reading “No to GMs,” “GMs = Danger” and “Contaminated Zone."

Regional Green Party official Jean-Marie Chausson said the tests, conducted in part to study the plants’ resistance to weed-killer, “should at least be carried out in confined spaces,” rather than in open fields.

The protest was immediately condemned by Monsanto, which said in a statement the action was “illegal and an act of public delinquency,” adding that its research had been hindered by the crop destruction.

French seed companies have asked local authorities to stop the destruction of the test crops in order to protect their research.

Bove was sentenced in March to a 10-month suspended prison term and fined for destroying a field of genetically-modified rice plants in 1999.

The sheep farmer turned activist has justified his action as “a battle for the future.”

Source: Agence France Presse

US secret agents work at Microsoft, says French intelligence

Paris, France, Aug. 21— A French intelligence report today accused US secret agents of working with computer giant Microsoft to develop software allowing Washington to spy on communications around the world.

The report, drawn up by the Strategic Affairs Delegation (DAS), the intelligence arm of the French Defense Ministry, was quoted in today’s edition of the newsletter Le Monde du Renseignement (Intelligence World).

Written by a senior officer at the DAS, the report claims agents from the National Security Agency (NSA) helped install secret programs on Microsoft software, currently in use in 90 percent of computers.

According to the report there was a “strong suspicion” of a lack of security fed by insistent rumors about the existence of spy programs on Microsoft, and by the presence of NSA personnel in Bill Gates’ development teams.

The NSA protects communications for the US government, and also intercepts electronic messages for the Defense Department and other US intelligence agencies, the newsletter said.

According to the report, “it would seem that the creation of Microsoft was largely supported, not least financially, by the NSA, and that IBM was made to accept the (Microsoft) MS-DOS operating system by the same administration.” The report claimed the Pentagon was Microsoft’s biggest client in the world.

Source: CounterPunch: www.counterpunch.org