US wages war in Colombia

Paramilitaries massacre civilians

Bogota, Colombia, Aug. 28— Following on the heels of last week’s massacre of children by the US-funded Colombian army, suspected members of Colombia’s feared right-wing paramilitary forces killed 22 people in two separate massacres over the weekend, police and local media reported on Sunday.

Some 150 heavily armed men killed 10 people in the town of Cienega near Colombia’s Caribbean coast in a predawn raid on Sunday after pulling their victims from their beds and from a dance hall, a police spokesman said.

“This was the work of the so-called self-defense groups,’’ a regional police spokesman told Reuters by telephone, referring to the paramilitary groups.

Separately, another paramilitary death squad killed 12 people overnight on Saturday in three towns near the Pacific port of Buenaventura after announcing they would act against suspected leftist rebel collaborators, RCN television reported.

Ultra-right paramilitary gangs are loosely organized under the umbrella group known as the United Self-defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) that battles leftist rebels and often selectively kills guerrilla sympathizers. The paramilitaries are officially considered outlaws, but they are directly connected to the Colombian army, which was recently granted $1.3 billion by US President Clinton.

Colombia has suffered three decades of fighting between the Marxist guerrillas, state security forces and paramilitary groups. More than 35,000 people, mostly civilians, have died in the past ten years alone.

Source: Reuters

Clinton waives human rights conditions for US military aid

Statement of Human Rights Watch

New York, Aug. 23— President Clinton’s decision to waive human rights conditions on the $1.3 billion military aid package to Colombia will encourage violent abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. On August 23, Clinton signed a waiver allowing the United States to ignore human rights conditions included in the military aid package. In granting the waiver, Clinton not only makes America complicit in ongoing abuses but risks converting a failed drug war into a disastrous human rights policy.

“This is the wrong policy and the wrong time,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Executive Director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch. “The message is that the bad apples with the armed forces shouldn’t be worried. Ultimately, the waiver defeats the purpose of any policy meant to improve human rights.”

Human Rights Watch was among several leading human rights groups who took part in a two-day consultation with the State Department required by law before any certification. During those meetings, all of the human rights groups present, including Human Rights Watch, unanimously opposed Colombia’s certification to receive military aid and called on President Clinton not to issue a waiver.

Democratic senators like Patrick Leahy from Vermont, who spearheaded the effort to include human rights conditions on the aid package, blasted Clinton’s decision to waive them. “There is no need or justification for waiving the conditions,” Leahy said in a statement. “These conditions are nothing more than what the Colombian government and our administration said they would do and this is not too much to ask, considering the risks and the amount of money involved.”

In a July 18 letter to Clinton urging him not to waive the conditions, Leahy and Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy said the conditions underscore the importance of human rights as a fundamental principle of US foreign policy. They cited a 1999 State Department report that concluded that the Colombian government’s rights record “remained poor” and said the armed forces and police committed “numerous, serious violations of human rights throughout the year.”

Source: Human Rights Watch: www.hrw.org

Cleaning up for Clinton

By Ana Arana

Cartagena, Columbia, Aug. 28— On his visit to Colombia, President Clinton will travel directly to the resort of Cartagena, an ancient, walled fortress town on the north coast.

Cartagena is often the site for international gatherings because of the walls that surround it, which were erected by the Spaniards to protect the gold they gathered from their colonies. Even at the height of the 1990 drug war, when drug lord Pablo Escobar was placing bombs all around Colombia, Cartagena was spared. Both guerrilla and paramilitary units have staged attacks just two hours south of the city, but never within city limits. The White House chose Cartagena after determining that the capital city of Bogotá was too dangerous for the president following the explosion of a car bomb there three weeks ago, as well as reports that at least 2,000 guerrillas have direct access to the capital.

Preparations for the one-day trip have been meticulous. One thousand aides were dispatched to Colombia as an advance team, and they’ve combed every inch of the colonial city, according to local reports. The cleanup resulted in the removal of several dozen street children, who usually transit the tourist areas of the Old Center, the historic part of the city. The move was criticized by several social agencies, but the government defended it.

Marches and demonstrations have been outlawed during the presidential visit and no one will be able to park cars in the Old Center. Still, members of trade unions opposed to the US anti-drug military aid package will congregate near where the ceremonies will take place, challenging the government ban.

A top-heavy entourage will travel with the president via Air Force One. Seventy government officials, including nine congressmen, will accompany Clinton. The list of top officials includes Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Attorney General Janet Reno, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey, Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering, the head of the US Agency for International Development and the State Department’s top Latin America officials.

Source: salon.com

Colombian rebels slam US military aid

“What is clear: There will be peace, but first there will be war”
—Colombia’s armed forces chief

“If they implement the Plan Colombia in practice, they will have the worst conflict this country has ever seen. And we will be ready for it”
—FARC chief negotiator

By Cesar Garcia

San Vicente Del Caguan, Colombia, Aug. 28— Leftist rebels who oppose growing US ties to Colombia’s military have promised not to stage attacks to disrupt President Clinton’s upcoming visit to the South American country.

“We will not impede [the Aug. 30 visit] with guerrilla actions,” Andres Paris, a commander and spokesman of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, told the Associated Press in an interview Monday in this southern ranching town.

But the insurgents known as FARC are “calling on the Colombian people --the labor unions, student groups, organizations of the unemployed and others-- to protest Clinton’s visit,” Mr. Paris added.

Paris said a $1.3 billion US anti-narcotics aid package for Colombia recently approved in Washington is “just a smoke screen to promote imperialist interests,” and that the US government aims to exert control over the Andean region’s oil and mineral wealth.

Clinton’s planned one-day visit is intended as a show of support for President Andres Pastrana and his “Plan Colombia” - a strategy the leader claims will revive Colombia’s economy and stem the country’s booming cocaine and heroin trade to the United States and Europe.

Security is expected to be extremely tight for Clinton’s brief visit and meeting with Pastrana in Cartagena, a Caribbean port. The president is only scheduled to stay a few hours and will not spend the night in Colombia, one of the world’s most violent countries.

Paris said FARC rejects Mr. Clinton’s visit “because he is coming as the head of an empire to shore up Plan Colombia, which is only going to intensify the armed confrontation.”

The US aid package will provide battle helicopters and Green Beret training to support a military push into southern jungles where FARC rebels and the militias take payoffs to protect peasant drug plots and traffickers’ airstrips and laboratories.

Increased bloodshed is widely expected in the conflict that already claims thousands of lives a year. FARC, which the State Department considers a terrorist organization, has claimed repeatedly that they are the real target of the US aid plan.

But US officials insist that Washington is not becoming involved in Colombia’s 36-year civil conflict. They concede, however, that US-trained troops and equipment will be used against any guerrilla units who try to block stepped up efforts to eradicate drug crops and destroy labs.

Source: Associated Press