Colombia: documents reveal US complicity in atrocities

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia: documents reveal US complicity in atrocities

Submitted by WW4 Report on Thu, 07/29/2010 - 18:21. A report released July 29 by the interfaith peace group Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) details how US aid to the Colombian military has been supporting army units whose members have killed hundreds of civilians. Drawing on extensive data from the offices of Colombia's Prosecutor General (Fiscalía), Inspector General (Procuraduría) and armed forces, as well as the US State Department and 20 human rights organizations, the report shows that billions of dollars provided under the rubric of Plan Colombia have abrogated US human rights law and contributed to the killing of thousands of civilians by the Colombian army.

"The US has provided more than $6 billion in support to Colombia since 2000," said John Lindsay-Poland, FOR's research and advocacy director. "This money is used to fund military units that have been proven to murder innocent civilians. That is outrageous and needs to stop."

US law prohibits support to any foreign military unit for which there is credible evidence of gross human rights violations, such as extrajudicial killings. The report's analysis strongly suggests that implementation of the so-called Leahy Law—named for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)—in Colombia requires suspension of US assistance to nearly all army fixed brigades.

Susana Pimiento Chamorro, FOR’s action director, said, "The State Department must be held accountable to human rights laws, and Colombia is an example of where this mandate has failed." State Department officials have said that the Leahy Law is implemented better in Colombia than almost anywhere else in the world.

The study, entitled "Military Assistance and Human Rights: Colombia, U.S. Accountability, and Global Implications," also has implications for other areas of US foreign policy. In Pakistan, the United States has spent more than $12 billion in military assistance—including for training and equipping units operating in tribal areas, where human rights groups have credibly reported hundreds of extrajudicial killings. Some aid to the Pakistani military has been legislated through coalition funds not considered "assistance," thereby circumventing Leahy Law.

More:
http://ww4report.com/node/8898

[Peace Patriot]

1. Thanks for this report. It confirms my suspicions that what $7 BILLION of our tax dollars

are going for, in Colombia, and what the Pentagon will be doing with its SEVEN new military bases in Colombia, and all its other war assets being assembled in the region, is more state terror against Colombia's poor, in preparation for the proxy war that the Pentagon is planning against Venezuela. First, they had to terrorize and subdue the vast poor majority in Colombia; then they had to blame Colombia's 40+ year civil war on Venezuela (which Uribe has just done). Next, one or more of the (at least) 1500 U.S. soldiers and U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia gets killed in a border incident with Venezuela--or the incident is entirely faked (as with the "Gulf of Tonkin)--and we're on to Oil War II.

U.S. complicity in the mass murder in Colombia is not just a human rights issue. We must ask WHY this is occurring. What is the plan? Merely to subdue this country for enforced "free trade for the rich," or something even worse, to subdue the entire region and its leftist democracy revolution?

The evidence is piling up that the latter is the answer. These are war preparations.

[Bacchus39]

2. within a week according to Venezuela

they are coming

[Peace Patriot]

5. The Venezuelan government certainly knows more than I do, or than any US taxpayer does,

about what the US government is up to, with its $7 BILLION in military aid to the narco-thugs running Colombia, U.S. military occupation of at least seven bases in Colombia, U.S. military use of all civilian infrastructure in Colombia, total diplomatic immunity for all U.S. soldiers and U.S. military 'contractors,' no matter what they do in Colombia, U.S. military bases on the Dutch islands right off Venezuela's oil coast, U.S. reconstitution of the 4th Fleet in the Caribbean (mothballed since WW II), U.S. military bases in Honduras secured with a fascist coup assisted by the Pentagon, beefed up U.S. military bases in Panama, U.S. military maneuvers pending in demilitarized Costa Rica, and other evidence of Pentagon war plans.

We who pay are not privy to our war planners' secretly designed and secretly negotiated war plans. Neither are the leaders of Venezuela, but they have a duty to gather reliable intelligence and to protect Venezuela, and they are certainly aware that Venezuela is a U.S. target.

On other hand, like any country that sees the U.S. war machine assembling on its borders, I would understand their getting a bit edgy. Have they misinterpreted their intelligence? Are they jumpy because the U.S. traditionally perpetrates coups at election time (upcoming National Assembly elections in Venezuela), or because transitions of power in Colombia would make any reasonable person edgy?

These two things, in combination with the US military buildup, make ME worried: Uribe's crap about the FARC in Venezuela, and the identity of the incoming leader in Colombia--former Defense Minister Santos, who has said that he would not hesitate to invade Venezuela in pursuit of the FARC. Venezuelan authorities surely know quite a bit more about the situation than I do, including more about Uribe-Santos and about U.S. political/military activities. That doesn't mean they are infallible.

Since you are so sure that a U.S./Colombia attack on Venezuela is NOT going to occur, perhaps you would answer these questions:

Why would Colombia suddenly blame their 40+ year civil war with the FARC guerrillas on Venezuela?

As many knowledgeable people (including the head of the OAS) have pointed out, everybody knows that the Venezuela/Colombia border is porous, that both right and left paramilitary groups, and just plain drug traffickers (as well as traffickers in ordinary contraband--such as gasoline and food)--are constantly crisscrossing the border, that neither Colombian nor Venezuelan authorities have good control of their borders, and that, in addition, thousands of peasant refugees from Colombia's military have been pouring over the border into Venezuela, adding to the disorder. If there WERE FARC guerillas on Venezuela's side of the border, it would be no surprise to anybody. So why is it suddenly Venezuela's fault?

And why would anybody believe that Venezuela would welcome any part of this chaos and disorder, or would invite an attack by the U.S./Colombia, by permitting leftist paramilitaries to gather on Venezuelan territory? Also, IF Venezuela is doing that, how stupid would FARC soldiers have to be, to camp out in the open on beaches and in meadows, to be photographed by Colombia? Don't they KNOW what happened to Raul Reyes (and 24 other sleeping people)? Really, this is not a rhetorical question. How stupid would FARC guerrillas have to be, to do that? And how stupid would the Venezuelan government and military have to be, to let them do it? If Venezuela were really "harboring" FARC guerrillas, wouldn't they HIDE them? You don't think that Venezuela is AWARE that their territory is under constant high tech surveillance?

The U.S./Colombia dropped ten 500 lb U.S. "smart bombs" on Raul Reyes' camp, just inside Ecuador's border, AT NIGHT, with pinpoint accuracy. They are tracking the FARC with high tech surveillance equipment. The FARC know this. Venezuela knows this. Everybody knows this. And we are supposed to believe that Venezuela is compromising its own security in this way? They have shown no indications of this kind of stupidity before. Why would it suddenly arise now?

Finally, what do YOU think the U.S. military occupation of seven bases in Colombia, this $7 BILLION in U.S. military aid to Colombia, and other big U.S. military expenditures in Latin America, are FOR? What has Colombia's civil war to do with us? What use has militarism been in stopping drug traffic (if you are going to mention that laughable excuse)? What business is it of the U.S. military to be planning "full spectrum" military activities in South America? What is the "threat"? To whom?

And if it is NOT for aggressive re-taking of South America's oil reserves, on behalf of Exxon Mobil & brethren, and other aggressive purposes--re-conquest of other resources (forests, gas, water, lithium), control of the labor force and re-installation of U.S. puppet leaders--then why all this huge expense? Is it mere war profiteering? Again, this is not a rhetorical question. What is this huge expense FOR? Mere bully power? Or what? Is it just habit? The U.S. can't get out of the habit of spending billions on militarism?

To me it appears that the U.S./Colombia bombing of the FARC camp just inside Ecuador's border, back in 2008, was intended to end all hope for a peaceful settlement of Colombia's decades-long civil war, and perhaps to start a war with Venezuela/Ecuador, then and there. There are two many powers involved that are addicted to U.S. taxpayer money--including war profiteers here and in Colombia. In Colombia, this long civil war is the military's gravy train. The same is true here--of this and other conflicts. And now we have numerous private military 'contractors' sucking on the U.S. taxpayer tit as well. It is in the Colombian military's interest to prolong, AND to expand, this conflict--to turn it into a regional war. As for the U.S., its motives for current interference in Latin America are the same as they have ever been--economic exploitation--over a century of such interference, some of it very bloody-handed, indeed. Add to this the blatant war profiteering, encouraged by the Bushwhacks, with virtually no opposition here, and you have an extremely corrupt situation, for one thing, and a potentially explosive situation, for another, FED BY U.S. militarist policies and lust for oil, in particular. This great war machine is a great sucker of oil. The Bushwhacks' "Project For A New American Century" was all about oil.

What do YOU think this is all about--if not war profiteering, oil profiteering and use of the U.S. war machine for corporate purposes? You think our mighty empire gives a goddamn about a few FARC guerrillas camped over the border in Venezuela? Why would Uribe suddenly level this charge? Personal reasons? (I'm sure he has much to fear if CIA protection is removed.) Is he doing U.S. bidding? The Colombian military's bidding? Is he doing it FOR Santos? In spite of Santos? Does he have a personal financial interest in sabotaging Colombia/Venezuela economic agreements that he himself negotiated?

Please don't bother replying if you're going to take the Washington Post's disinformationist line that Uribe is just this honest guy who wants to exterminate FARC guerrillas and "keep Colombia safe." That is utterly absurd considering that Colombian prosecutors and judges are on his tail, and have long been investigating him and his cohorts (some of whom have already been prosecuted and put in jail) for their ties to rightwing death squads, drug trafficking and other crimes. It's like saying that all Bush Jr. wanted to do was "to keep us safe." Extreme absurdity.

But if you have something less absurd to say, please say it. The rightwing view of this matter seems no less jingoistic and self-serving to me than Bush Jr's "WMDs in Iraq." 'Chavez is a dictator,' ergo 'it's all Chavez's fault.' Chavez is facing National Assembly elections, ergo 'it's just electioneering.' 'Chavez is the aggressor' (--though it is Colombia with $7 BILLION in U.S. military aid and the U.S. military occupying its bases, Venezuela is down the list at about No. 6 on regional military spending). This view seems to suspend reality--to build one rightwing "talking point" upon another. It seems STUPID and propagandistic. So prove to me that it isn't.

[Bacchus39]

6. gotta run but to answer your two questions

1. Colombia is not blaming Ven for the civil war. they are saying that FARC leaders are in Ven and they are not cooperating

2. I've already posted pics with Chavez and FARC guys. a few months back Chavez admitted to meeting with the former rebel leader who is dead. your question should be posed to Venezuela, not me.

[Peace Patriot]

7. The Colombian government ASKED Chavez to negotiate with the FARC for hostage releases!

Now you are blaming him for contacts with the FARC?

This is one of the worst treacheries of the Colombian government--asking him to negotiate, then blaming him for negotiating!

On top of this, ANY president of a country that has a rebel force on his border--and a 40+ year civil war in the neighboring country--has a DUTY to establish some kind of contact with the rebel forces! What is he supposed to do, blitz his own countryside, the way they do in Colombia, chasing the FARC and "collaterally" killing off union leaders, human rights workers, teachers, community activists, political leftists, journalists, peasant farmers and other innocent citizens, and driving 5 million peasant farmers from their lands, like they do in Colombia? Join with the USAF is making war on his own country?

That's not the way to solve problems. And, frankly, there is no good reason to side with the Colombian government and military, which have one of the worst human rights records on earth, and are bought and paid for pawns of the war profiteers in Washington--and there are lots of reasons to keep them at arm's length. They mean no good to their own people, let alone the people of Venezuela. It was within the Colombian military that the plot to assassinate Chavez was hatched, back in 2006. And it was the Colombian military that tried to sabotage the first hostage releases that Chavez negotiated (at Uribe's request!)--by sending rocket fire at the hostages' location, while they were in route to their freedom--and they ultimately did completely sabotage that effort, and the general Latin American/European peace effort for Colombia's long civil war, by dropping ten 500 lb U.S. "smart bombs" on Raul Reyes. And it's interesting who was Defense Minister during those events--also during the bulk of the Colombian military's carnage against civilians--the incoming president of Colombia, Manual Santos.

And, yes, Colombia damn well is trying to blame their civil war on Venezuela--one of the victims of their bloody-handed, murderous methods, on the receiving end of a quarter of a million poor Colombian refugees, fleeing from the Colombian military and its death squads, over the border, into Venezuela! The chaos on the Colombia/Venezuela border is not Venezuela's doing! It is the deliberate creation of the Colombian government. The Colombian leadership doesn't want peace. They want war. War is their gravy train. War is their ATM card to $7 BILLION U.S. taxpayer dollars. They have every reason and every incentive to expand their war. And Venezuela has no reason whatsoever to engage in a war, and has pulled back from that brink, on several occasions, despite serious provocations, including this recent one--this bullshit about Venezuela "harboring" FARC guerrillas.

This is pure war profiteer propaganda--more than likely concocted by the biggest war profiteers on earth--in our own Pentagon!*


---------------------------------

*(As a matter of fact, I think there is reason to suspect that the "miracle laptop" was a product of Rumsfeld and his "Office of Special Plans." There is some interesting evidence of Rumsfeld involvement in those events, circa 2007-2008. The laptop (later, laptopS) that survived ten 500 lb U.S. "smart bombs" on Raul Reyes' camp, and which has been used to promote absurd allegations--quite on a par with the WMDs that weren't in Iraq--for instance, that Chavez--and Correa in Ecuador--were helping the FARC to obtain a "dirty bomb"--has now been resurrected to fling more "terrorist lover" crap at Chavez.)

[Judi Lynn]

3. They're standing on the growing numbers of graves to secure a foothold in the continent.

They have to keep slaughtering so many people in order to take their land from them to be sold to corporations to exploit, along with the desperate poor, they also use the murdered victims to "prove" there are a lot of "enemy" to justify U.S. military presence there, and the U.S. needs ANY pretext in order to permanently stake out a territory from which to move whenever "needed" in order to suppress opposition from leftists in other countries.

It is literally the very powerful few, and a HELL of a lot of weapons, and money provided by the American masses through their tax dollars, against the poor and helpless of the Southern Countries, aided by the utterly malicious, sadistic political whores of Colombia and Peru and wherever they find them, or coerce them into complying with the subjugation of the powerless.

[naaman fletcher]

4. Where..

Where in these "dcouments" is proof of U.S. complicity? Or is the headline just sensationalist?