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War: The Same Old Solution in Colombia?By Alynne Romo
Maybe it's the changing role of the state in the era of globalization that explains the inconsistencies and incoherencies in the fiasco widely referred to as the "war on drugs". In over a decade, the policy has not worked. The U.S. has poured millions into counternarcotics in Colombia with no change in the amount of cocaine arriving in the States. The main differences are that now we get better coke, and we get 60% of our heroin from Colombia too. The fact that our aid is really being used for counterinsurgency is finally coming out in the open. As though to justify that revelation, the U.S. media has been reporting that 40-50% of Colombia's national territory is under guerrilla control, and U.S. defense intelligence reports a possible guerrilla victory within five years. While guerrillas do exist throughout Colombia, by no means do they control the countryside. Guerrilla forces number no greater than they did decades ago, and, while the military has not eliminated the guerrilla threat, paramilitary death squads have dislodged the guerrillas from their traditional strongholds in Uraba and at the southern front. In fact, the entire zone south of Panama from the Pacific to the Caribbean is now depopulated and is under the control of paramilitary units. Death squads have begun incursions down the Magdelena river corridor, which slices north through the middle of Colombia. Some elements in our government try to tie guerrillas to the "narcotics threat," and, while it is true that some guerrillas work with drugs, so do the military and the paramilitary. The U.S. has simply chosen to back the forces of reaction in the internal war. Over 100 paramilitary groups operate in Colombia, including some using helicopter gunships. Eighty-four percent of the 185 politically motivated massacres in 1997 were committed by paramilitary squads. In 1988, a trend toward pre-announced massacres emerged in which a death squad arrives in a village, makes its presence known through graffiti, threats and "black lists," and then a massacre ensues. Some 65 towns are currently under pre-announced massacre watches. Paramilitary allies include traffickers, military and business interests. Coca-Cola workers have been killed by Colombian death squads. Goodyear workers were attacked by the self-named "Death to Trade Unionists" death squad. And British Petroleum is still under investigation for its murky links to sinister events. Of about 300 trade unionists killed worldwide last year for organizing for their rights, over half were Colombian. This has been a decade-long trend. The 61 teachers assassinated in 1997 brought their total to 400 murdered in five years. CUT, the largest labor federation, has had 2,300 members assassinated since it was founded in 1986. Chaos reigns in this war-torn land. Drug traffickers own over 40% of arable land. Over one million people are internally displaced. The war-weary Colombians voted overwhelmingly for a non-binding peace referendum, but the U.S. has opposed the peace plan. Is U.S. policy accidentally inept? We know it's racist, brutal and ineffective. Our so-called "drug policy" has destabilized communities here and in Colombia. For what reasons? Because of plans for the new canal with accompanying roads, pipelines and train tracks that will connect everything from the never-complete Pan-American Highway to the Caribbean to the Pacific Ocean? Since Colombia is now second to Venezuela in South American oil production? Is it a militarily strategic site because of its access to the interior of the continent and proximity to vital shipping lanes? Some in our government say, off the record, that our policy toward Colombia resembles that toward El Salvador: the U.S. wants to strengthen the military in order for it to be strong enough to negotiate peace. The head of the Southern Command, General Wilhelm, complains that the Colombian military is deficient in direct attack capabilities, night operations, communications systems, intelligence systems, the ability to operate on rivers and coasts, and the ability to sustain their forces once committed. We would assert that the Colombian military's problem is its proximity to paramilitary death squads, its own impunity, and its terrible human rights record. Colombia has had 10,000 graduates from the School of the Americas - a larger number than that of any other country. Drug czar General McCafferty says the guerrillas are no longer motivated by ideology - that they have just become common criminals. Interestingly, Marxist guerrillas weren't connected to Colombia's drugs until U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts in Peru fueled peasant growers to set up shop in Colombia. Guerrillas began taxing crops to sponsor their side of the war effort. If McCafferty's propaganda is true, the U.S. is fighting a foe that exists solely due to U.S. drug policy. If McCafferty is lost as to the location of the criminal elements - and there is no reason he should be, as drug links to Colombian business and government institutions were well documented long ago - the recent bust in Florida should give him a clue. U.S. customs agents found 1,600 pounds of cocaine on a Colombian Air Force cargo plane that had arrived to pick up "logistical" material. Air Force chief General Manuel Sandoval resigned, admitting that "there are people dedicated to drug trafficking within the [military] institution." Just a week earlier, three Colombian officials were sentenced for smuggling heroin into the U.S. on then-President Samper's plane when the president traveled here to deliver an anti-drug speech to the United Nations. Whatever the excuse, the U.S. is already on the slippery slope of increased involvement in Colombia. In 1997, we provided $272 million for development assistance to the whole of Latin America and sent $100 million to Colombian security forces. Colombia's new president has received $280 million in new aid from the U.S. - most of it for "anti-drug" efforts. On any given day, there are 130-250 U.S. personnel in Colombia (who have been declared a military target by the guerrillas) apart from those permanently stationed in the country. A hundred U.S. civilians are employed by Dancorp and East Inc., which conduct aerial defoliant spraying. According to the Dallas Morning News, the Clinton administration has launched a multimillion-dollar covert program employing mercenaries, private contractors and active-duty personnel to support the armed forces. The Clinton administration hired retired Green Berets, Gulf War veterans, and even a few figures from Central American covert operations backed by the CIA in the 1980s. There is little indication that anyone in the Clinton administration is able to recognize the destruction in the lives of the people of Colombia wrought by U.S. policy. And while some - even in the business community - have questioned our policies, the dominant voices in our government sadly continue to rely on the same old solution: war. Alynne Romo works with the Colombia Support Network and helps run the New World Resource Center in Chicago.
Sources: Colombia Bulletin; "Waging War: U.S. Policy Toward Colombia," presented by Colletta Youngers to the Latin America Studies Association; "U.S. Turns to Covert Action in Colombia" by the Resource Center of The Americas.
For more information: Colombia Support Network: http://www.igc.apc.org/csn/ Colombia Bulletin : Colombia Labor Monitor: clm@prairienet.org U.S. Committee on Refugees: 1-800-307-4712 Colombia Human Rights Network: colhrc@igc.apc.org
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