United Nations slams Colombia's anti-terror law

[Say_What]

This *new* power to the military is not new. This was actually put in place by former president Cesar Gaviria in the early 1990s (see second article). Despite the worst human rights record in the Western Hemisphere, Colombia is the US's 3rd largest recipient of military aid behind Egypt and Israel.

For those familiar with what happened in RayGun's Central America, the same thing is being carried out in Colombia--complete with paramilitary death squads who are closely tied to the Colombian military.

<clips>

BOGOTA, Colombia, Dec 12 (Reuters) - The United Nations on Friday criticized new anti-terror powers given to Colombia's military, calling them incompatible with international law.

The measures -- including the right to make arrests without warrants, tap phones and collect evidence in war zones -- were approved by congress on Wednesday to give U.S.-backed security forces more teeth to hunt down rebels fighting a four-decade guerrilla war.

"The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Office in Colombia notes again that any measure taken to counteract violence and terrorism must respect human rights and hopes that the Colombian authorities will honor their international commitments regarding the protection and guarantee of those rights," the office said in a news release.

Among the most controversial measures is one granting the armed forces authority to conduct investigations and collect evidence in war zones -- a task reserved until now for civilian prosecutors.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N12214001.htm

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Violence in Colombia

...Throughout the last eight years, as the crisis of political violence has progressively deepened, every new legal and administrative measure has been geared to increasing the army's ability to protect the killers in their ranks, while simultaneously opening new and legal avenues of military repression. The most serious concern is the so-called judicial "reforms" of 1991, which resulted in the creation of a parallel, "secret justice" system that eliminates the right of due process and is in gross violation of all universally recognized legal procedural norms. In 1993, President Gaviria decreed modifications to the Code of Criminal Procedure which turned over critical police functions--including detention and the gathering of evidence--to the military. For the first time in Colombian history, the army was thus granted a permanent role in the prosecution of civilian cases. Ostensibly designed to combat drug trafficking and guerrilla terrorism, in practice, these measures are used to arbitrarily treat legitimate social protest and ordinary criminal offenses as crimes of terrorism. Financed to the tune of $36 million by U.S. aid, the Colombian criminal justice system has been converted into an instrument of repression against the civilian opposition against which there is no appeal. In circumstances in which the use of torture by the military in the process of "gathering of evidence" is routine, the evisceration of judicial review over military--and presidential--actions has removed all independent controls over arbitrary acts. By the end of President Gaviria's term of office, over 5,000 political prisoners were held in Colombia's jails.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/42/001.html

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<clips>

Background on Colombia

A central element of the Colombian conflict is the widespread and systematic violation of human rights; indeed, Colombia has the worst record in the Western Hemisphere. Agents of the State, most notably the Colombian police, military and the paramilitary death squads grouped under the AUC umbrella, routinely target large sectors of the civilian population for assassination, 'disappearance', torture and forced displacement. Those most affected by this State-sponsored terror include trade unionists, human rights workers, land-reform advocates, community leaders, students, academics, journalists and entire rural communities, including a disproportionately high number of indigenous and Afro-Colombian people.

Despite this appalling state of affairs, Colombia remains the third largest recipient of United States military aid in the world, with the now infamous 'Plan Colombia' alone having supplied $2 billion in military training and hardware in recent years.Although this aid was given using the pretext of the 'War on Drugs', even Washington now admits that their real target are the growing insurgencies of the FARC-EP and ELN (National Liberation Army).

http://www.colombiapeace.org/

[AliceWonderland]

1. Thanks for posting this

Interesting read. The situation in Colombia doesn't get a lot of play in the United States, but it should. This is the pattern everywhere: increased power to the military to fight "terror."

3. I second that

I really think that Latin America is the next place Bush will focus his gaze, given the opportunity. It's been longer than usual, given the history of things, since the United States has monkeyed around with things south of here. That Venezualan oil has got to be fairly tempting.

[Say_What]

6. Last's years Rand Corp report suggested using RayGun's El Salvador

as a *model* for Colombia despite the fact that 70,000 people died in El Salvador and more than one million were displaced.

Currently in Colombia there are more than two million refugees from the poison spraying of their fields or from military violence.

<clips>

...A counter-insurgency campaign against terrorist groups in Colombia would be disastrous for three reasons. The first is the sheer size of the effort that would be needed. The case for a such a policy is clearly spelled out in a June 2001 study by the Rand Corporation, funded by the U.S. Air Force. Recommending that Washington build up Colombia's anti-guerrilla efforts, the report argues, "The U.S. program of military assistance to El Salvador during the Reagan administration could be a relevant model." Never mind that twelve years of civil war and nearly two billion dollars of military aid achieved only a stalemate in El Salvador, after fighting killed 70,000 people and displaced over a million civilians. The Rand study's recommendations fail to estimate the financial expense to the United States or the potential human cost to Colombia, which is fifty-three times the size of El Salvador.

The second reason to pause before plunging into a counter-insurgency campaign is that there are few guarantees that our aid -- whether weapons, intelligence or military training -- would not be misused against innocent civilians. Of the 3,500 people Colombia's war kills each year, 75 percent are men, women and children killed in their homes, their places of work, or on the street. It is not unreasonable to imagine, given the Colombian military's past cooperation with right-wing death squads, that if we give the army intelligence about guerrilla movements in a certain village, it could be passed on to the paramilitaries to commit atrocities against its inhabitants.

http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=12361

[reknewcomer]

2. FARC and ELN need to be reeled in

As long as FARC and not innocent people are not targeted I don't see any problem with increased security in a war zone against the FARC terrorists.

[Say_What]

4. None of the groups (FARC, ELN, AUC (paramilitaries) or Colombia military

are without blame and all have narco connections. As the articles all point out the paramilitaries, supported by the Colombian army, are responsible for 70% of the atrocities commited against the CIVILIAN population.

From today's AlterNet article:

...Rights groups, including the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, say they have documented several cases of military officers tampering with evidence about battles or mass killings by death squads.

The military, which has received billions of dollars in military aid from the United States in recent years, maintains tougher laws are needed to win a war that claims the lives of thousands of people every year.

But the United Nations said in its statement that Colombia "already has constitutional and legal provisions" to fight the war.

[Aidoneus]

7. and who do you suggesting do the "reeling"?

The Colombian state and military? Perhaps their "paramilitary" allies (aka "terrorists" that play for the right team)? That sort of hypocrisy is unfortunate.

[Say_What]

10. Good point

I forgot to mention that all three groups are on the US terrorist list:

FARC
ELN
AUC (paramilitaries)

but only the paras (AUC) benefit directly from the millions of US tax payer dollars that end up in the Colombian military hands each year.

Ironically, Uribe now wants the paras to put down their arms and get reintigrated back into society--without having to answer for the atrocities they've commited. Now that's hypocrisy!! Human rights orgs are outraged about that but it's rarely reported in the US corporate press.

This isn't about terrorists anyway, it's about OIL and getting rid of anyone who might oppose US business interests in Colombia including and most of all the indigenous who live on the land where the richest resources are found--and that's just where the majority of atocities are being committed--on OIL-rich land.

[Say_What]

5. Background on the Colombian paramilitaries (AUC)

From the North American Congress of Latin America (NACLA)

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STORM OVER COLOMBIA

In July 1997, the paramilitary group known as the United Self-Defense Units of Colombia (AUC) went on a grisly killing spree in Mapiripán, a small coca-growing town in southeastern Colombia. According to eyewitness accounts, the paramilitaries hacked their victims to death with machetes, decapitated many with chainsaws and dumped the bodies—some still alive—into the Guaviare River. At least 30 people were killed, though the true number of dead may never be known. Carlos Castaño, the self-anointed leader of the AUC, immediately and unabashedly took credit for the massacre.

But Castaño did not act alone. Human rights observers immediately noted the complicity of the Colombian armed forces in the Mapiripán massacre. The paramilitaries used an army-guarded air strip to land from their stronghold in northern Colombia and from which to launch their attack. Nor did the authorities respond to repeated calls by a local judge to stop the attack, which lasted six consecutive days.

Evidence later emerged suggesting that the role of the Colombian military in the massacre was in fact much deeper, and in March 1999 Colombian prosecutors indicted Colonel Lino Sánchez, operations chief of the Colombian Army's 12th Brigade, for planning, with Castaño, the Mapiripán massacre. This is not surprising, given that the links between paramilitaries and the Colombian army have been well established. According to a February Human Rights Watch report, half of the Colombian Army's 18 brigades have undeniable links to paramilitary groups.

In recent weeks, evidence has emerged suggesting that weeks, if not days, before the Mapiripán massacre, Colonel Sánchez received "special training" by U.S. Army Green Berets on Barrancón Island, on the Guaviare River. While it cannot be said that U.S. forces were directly involved in the massacre, or even knew that it was being planned, the events offer compelling evidence that U.S. equipment, training and money can be easily turned to vile purposes in what Human Rights Watch has called a "war without quarter."

http://www.nacla.org/art_display.php?art=296

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U.S. Military Aid and Oil Interests in Colombia

...The real costs of pipeline protection
According to a report from Witness for Peace, the potential outcomes of the Bush administration’s proposal to spend $98 million on protecting the pipeline are alarming:

1. The $98 million aid allocation represents the first step down a slippery slope toward major U.S. military investment in infrastructure protection in Colombia.

U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson said the Caño-Limón pipeline is just one of more than 300 Colombian infrastructure points of strategic interest for the United States. How many of these will Congress and U.S. taxpayers be asked to protect?

2. Fully protecting even just the Caño Limón-Coveñas pipeline is an impossible task.

The Colombian Brigadier General in charge of protecting this pipeline said he would need a soldier for every three feet of pipeline to provide adequate protection. To prevent bombings would require a massive increase in funding beyond anything being discussed in Congress.

3. Funding a military with a history of gross human rights violations may implicate the United States in further abuses against civilians and could discourage much needed professionalism.

Units and aircraft charged with protecting Caño-Limón operations participated in a massacre of eighteen innocent civilians and have yet to be held accountable. Witness for Peace documents several allegations of ties between the 18th Brigade, the police, and the right-wing paramilitaries (AUC) in Arauca—in line with the trend of paramilitary-military ties described by the U.S. State Department in their annual Report on Human Rights Practices.


http://www.afsc.org/latinamerica/peace/military-aid-oil.htm

[AliceWonderland]

9. More good points

The situation in Colombia is a nexus of oil, drugs, military spending, and many different "terrorist" actors. I hadn't known about that repulsive Rand Corp statement on Colombia as El Salvador; that's an eye-opener.

[Say_What]

11. The film "Plan Colombia: Cashing in on the Drug War Failure"

If you haven't seen this award winning film, it explains exactly what is happening there. You can check out the website at www.plancolombia.org and another film is Hidden in Plain Sight www.hiddeninplainsight.org about the School of the Americas, which trained a lot of the Colombian military. When I saw them they played together. Two award winning documentaries for the price of one.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

8. "Despite"? Maybe "In recognition of" would be more apropos. (nt)

[Say_What]

12. Founder-member of Colombia's FARC reported dead

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BOGOTA, Colombia, Dec. 12 — One of the founders of Colombia's Marxist FARC rebel army, Latin America's largest and oldest guerrilla insurgency, has died, apparently of a heart attack, El Tiempo newspaper reported on Friday.

Efrain Guzman, nicknamed ''The Old Man,'' was one of the seven senior commanders of the ''secretariat,'' the ruling political and military organ of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a rebel army created in 1964 by a band of landless peasants.

El Tiempo quoted a FARC communique for its report. Along with the septuagenarian FARC supreme commander Manuel ''Sureshot'' Marulanda, Guzman was among the survivors of a 1964 U.S.-backed government attack on Marquetalia, a communist rural cooperative in south Colombia.

He was the least well-known of the FARC's senior commanders, some of whom have $1 million prices on their heads, dead or alive.

more...

[Judi Lynn]

13. Backlash to menacing "anti-terrorism" law

Colombian activists refuse to recognize justice system

Associated Press


Bogota — Activists in several rural Colombian communities have declared they will refuse to recognize the South American country's judicial system in light of mass detentions of suspected guerrilla collaborators.

Calling themselves "conscientious objectors," the collection of farmers, teachers and human-rights advocates said they will not co-operate with authorities conducting investigations of such suspects and, if arrested, will refuse legal counsel.

"We refuse to contribute to false justice," the ad-hoc group said in a statement this week.

Further upsetting the opponents of the mass-arrests, Colombia's Senate approved an anti-terrorism bill Thursday giving the military sweeping powers to search homes, detain suspects without warrants and wiretap phones.

On Friday, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed its displeasure with the new anti-terrorism law, saying it could pave the way for arbitrary arrests. (snip/...)

http://www.globeandmail.ca/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031212.wbogo12/BNStory/International/