[News] Colombia's Civil War and the US

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/deraymond05232007.html

May 23, 2007


Time to End Military Aid to Uribe Government


Colombia's Civil War and the US

By JOE DeRAYMOND

Colombia's civil war is the United States war in 
the Western Hemisphere. Each year the US provides 
over a half billion dollars to the Colombian 
police and military, and trains thousands of 
Colombian soldiers. Colombia is the largest 
recipient of US aid outside the Middle East, 
Afghanistan and Iraq. The US has nurtured the war 
in Colombia over many years, for the specific 
purpose of controlling the resources and politics of this rich nation.

Civil war has been the history of Colombia for 
over 40 years - poverty and/or dislocation 
remains the condition of the majority of its 
people. There are over 3 million internally 
displaced people in Colombia and many more have 
fled the country for the US, Canada, Europe and 
other nations in South America. Every day, 20 are 
killed for political reasons, and hundreds become 
refugees in a war that simmers and boils over 
periodically in massacre. When I was living in 
Colombia, I was fascinated by the weekly map of 
the war published in El Tiempo, with symbols 
showing the assassinations and massacres of the 
week, much like the weather maps in our daily papers.

Since 1964, the government has been fighting Las 
FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de 
Colombia, or The Revolutionary Armed Forces of 
Colombia), a guerrilla army that began with 
dozens of peasants in ragtag groups that barely 
survived the initial combat, but that today 
number 17,000 under arms. Las FARC has been 
labelled a terrorist group by the US, or, more 
recently, "narco-terrorist". It used to be 
"communist", but communism has lost its evil edge 
in terms of inflaming revulsion in the US masses 
and Congress. There have been other armed 
guerrilla groups over the years, some assimilated 
into legal society, such as M-19, and some that 
still fight, like the ELN (Ejercito de Liberación Nacional).

While there has been a guerrilla army since 1964, 
there has been a counter-insurgency effort, 
sponsored by the US Army, since 1962. In the 
years following World War II, Colombia was 
identified by US foreign policy makers as a key 
American element in the Cold War. Its keystone 
geostrategic location in South America, proximity 
to the Panama Canal, and natural resources made 
it a crucial area to control. In 1948, the 
popular Liberal leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was 
primed to become the next President of Colombia. 
During the Pan American Conference of that year, 
held in Bogotá, he was assassinated in the 
street. The United States press and leaders 
incorrectly labeled the subsequent spontaneous uprising "communist".

The social upheaval triggered by Gaitán's murder 
lasted for ten years, cost an estimated 200,000 
deaths, and is now known as La Violencia. During 
this period, the Liberals and Conservatives 
fought a dirty war, which saw the rise of death 
squads and massacres as political tools. In 1958, 
a power sharing agreement was reached by the 
elites of the Conservative and Liberal Parties. 
The social dynamic did not change, and many 
self-declared autonomous regions of the country 
did not cede power to the federal government. 
This has been a theme throughout the history of 
Colombia: the central government has never 
controlled this entire nation of a million square 
kilometers of rich mountain, plain and jungle. 
There was a great concern in the Eisenhower 
administration after the successful Cuban 
revolution in 1959. Would Colombia follow Cuba?

In 1959, a survey team was sent to Colombia by 
Eisenhower to investigate whether the US should 
start a counter-insurgency effort. The team 
concluded that the societal violence that 
remained was largely "banditry", and that 
military aid was necessary. The survey team also 
recommended a change in doctrine, from 
conventional warfare to counter-insurgency. In 
1961-1962, helicopters were being deployed with 
US instructors accompanying Colombian pilots during "Public Order" missions.

In February of 1962, General William Pelham 
Yarborough conducted a mission to Colombia. 
General Yarborough was the Commander of the US 
Army Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, North 
Carolina. He was responsible for obtaining 
approval from President Kennedy to grant special 
warfare units the right to wear a Green Beret. He 
introduced foreign troops into the training 
cycles at the school and unconventional warfare 
and anti-terrorist tactics into the curriculum. His report in 1962 stated:

"[A] concerted country team effort should be made 
now to select civilian and military personnel for 
clandestine training in resistance operations in 
case they are needed later. This should be done 
with a view toward development of a civil and 
military structure for exploitation in the event 
the Colombian internal security system 
deteriorates further. This structure should be 
used to pressure toward reforms known to be 
needed, perform counter-agent and 
counter-propaganda functions and as necessary 
execute paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist 
activities against known communist proponents. It 
should be backed by the United States." (Emphasis added.)

General Yarborough went on to advocate the use of 
sodium pentothol, polygraph tests, and 
"exhaustive" interrogation of suspected 
insurgents. The Colombian military adopted his 
doctrine, and codified it in six manuals of 
counterinsurgency published in 1962, 1963, 1969, 
1979, 1982, and 1987. These manuals focus on the 
civil population as both the source of conflict 
and the battlefield. For example, the 1963 manual 
states, "the citizen, inside this battlefield, is 
found in the center of the conflictwhether he/she 
wants it or not, they are obliged to participate 
in the battle, in some form to become a 
combatant". The 1979 manual gives advice to the 
soldier: "it has to be understood that, in an 
irregular war, the enemy is in all places at all 
times." The 1987 manual concludes: "the civil 
population, therefor, is one of the fundamental 
objectives of Army units", and. "the conquest of 
the mind of the person, of control of his 
activities, the improvement of the standard of 
living and of the ability to organize against 
threats are respectively the objectives of the 
psychological and control operations of civic 
action and organization that are developed 
through all phases of counter-insurgency". 
("Deuda con la Humanidad", published by Banco de Datos, CINEP, 2004).

Since 1962, the United States has trained and 
equipped this paramilitary effort, and given it 
cover to fight, in the name of anti-communism, 
any social reforms that have been proposed by 
Colombian civil society. Colombians form the 
single largest group trained at the School of the 
Americas, and the largest group trained 
in-country by US units. Military aid has been 
provided consistently through the decades and 
very vigorously since Plan Colombia began in 1999.

In the 1980's, the cocaine economy took hold, 
fuelled by the huge northamerican appetite for 
the drug. The drug trade is dominated by the 
paramilitary groups, who were mobilized, 
increased and eventually became the drug barons 
who required their own private armies for 
protection, and who very quickly became enemies 
of the guerrilla groups. Billions of dollars in 
fast cash mutated Colombian society and corrupted 
every level of the economy and government. 
Paramilitary units became institutions, called 
"Blocks", and ruled entire regions of the 
country. They formed alliances such as the AUC 
(Las Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia), led by 
multimillionaire drug dealers such as the Castaño 
brothers and Salvatore Mancuso. Soldiers pass 
between paramilitary and military service easily, 
and it is common for paramilitary and military 
units to act in concert, with the paramilitary 
units entering a region first with maximum 
brutality, leaving the land and the control to the military.

Las FARC also profitted from the drug dollars. It 
acts largely as a middle buyer between the 
campesino farmer and the drug refiner and 
exporter. It grew in power with the influx in 
cash, which enabled the purchase of arms, and the 
ability to pay for more soldiers. Las FARC began 
to challenge the Colombian Army militarily, and 
there were waves of negotiations through the 80's 
and 90's, none with serious intent or result.

There were also waves of repression. An entire 
political party, the Patriotic Union, a political 
offshoot of Las FARC much as Sinn Fein is of the 
IRA, was destroyed by the paramilitaries in what 
is now being investigated as a "political 
genocide". Paramilitary groups through the 
mid-1980 assassinated thousands of Patriotic 
Union members, who had been assured of their 
rights to participate in the political process. 
This massacre ended a real opportunity to end 
non-violently the civil war, and created 
increased scepticism in the leadership of the 
armed groups of any hope for a real negotiation.

Colombia is a very dangerous nation for union 
organizers, journalists, human rights workers, 
anyone trying to organize in civil society for 
social change or an end to the war. The 
assassinations continue daily and the United 
States support for this system has remained 
constant over the decades. The US/Colombia 
program of military action and violence as a 
solution to the civil war culminated in the 
Clinton Plan Colombia. Plan Colombia pumped over 
$4 billion in military aid in 5 years into the 
conflict, caused enormous environmental and human 
damage with a misguided fumigation policy, and 
failed miserably in controlling the civil war, 
the violence, or the drug trade. Cocaine in the 
US is actually cheaper today than in 1999, when 
Bill Clinton ushered his murderous policy through Congress.

Bush's friend, President Alvaro Uribe, leads 
Colombia in 2007. As Governor of the Department 
of Antioquia during the 90's, Uribe implemented a 
classic and sinsister paramilitary program known 
as Convivir that armed and equipped civilians to 
aid the Army in its fight against insurgents. He 
is in his second term as President, and is 
popular among elite voters who appreciate his 
"hard hand' policies. He is linked to Colombian 
legislators, military officers and bureacrats who 
have aided paramilitaries, as revealed in recent 
news from Colombia. While he has yet to be 
directly identified as a paramilitary, it is the 
difference in Colombia between a nod and a wink 
as to whether he has paramilitary support and 
connections or is just surrounded by others who do.

Much has been made of the recent paramilitary 
negotiations and demobilizations, sponsored by 
the Uribe administration. As Javier Giraldo 
points out in his book, Guerra o Democracia (War 
or Democracy), the phemonomon of governmental 
dialog or negotiation with the paramilitary 
institutions is not new. It has happened before, 
for example, in 1995, under the Samper 
government. The government and the system are 
based on the power of the extrajudicial ability 
of the paramilitaries to protect wealth and 
maintain themselves in power. Giraldo correctly 
points out this is a form of "state 
schizophrenia". A government claims to be 
negotiating with an outside party, believes it is 
negotiating with an outside party, when in 
reality it is making deals with itself.

As the United States continues its occupation in 
Iraq, can we recognize the similarities in policy 
and result? Very quickly, US policies in Iraq 
have created a huge internal and external refugee 
population and are creating a series of 
paramilitary solutions and institutions in Iraq, 
some intentionally organized, some in opposition 
to our brutal actions. As the resistance to the 
occupation deepens in Iraq and becomes more 
costly in troops' lives, the US seeks to deflect 
its responsibility for its actions, to deny its 
own brutality, to project the conflict onto 
unseen, unknown enemies. The citizenry allows our 
President to openly violate national and 
international law, to wiretap, to lie, to steal, 
to waste, without consequence. As Blackwater 
guards our military leaders, and war is 
privatized for the benefit of corporate profit 
centers, we can see the paramilitary influence in 
the United States, as the contradictions mount-- War or Democracy?

Certainly, US policies in the Americas have 
provided some measure of a template for the war 
in Iraq (see "Empire's Workshop, by Greg Grandin, 
or the various articles about the "Salvador 
Option", some published in these pages). A 
question for US peacemakers is: can we combine 
our activism against the war in Iraq to include 
policies in the Americas? There are efforts to do 
so. This year, the American Friends Service 
Committee nominated the Peace Community of San 
Jose de Apartadó and the Indigenous Communities 
of the Northern Cauca for the Nobel Peace Prize. 
These communities of nonviolent resistance to the 
civil war in Colombia stand out in the their 
courage and sacrifice to end the war and change 
the society. Support for this award is support 
for a strong and nonviolent solution to the conflict in Colombia.

In early May of this year, dozens of United 
States individuals and groups active in Colombia, 
including the Fellowship of Reconciliation, 
Angela Berryman of the American Friends Service 
Committee, the Lutheran Peace Fellowship, Kathy 
Hoyt of the Nicaragua Network, Global Exchange, 
School of the Americas Watch, and the US Office 
on Colombia (for a complete list, see 
www.forcolombia.org), made an appeal to Congress 
to end military aid to Colombia. Currently, 25% 
of aid to Colombia is contingent on State 
Department certification on human rights. The 
last $55 million certification was held up for 
ten months, till April 2007-- it should have been 
stopped. Congress should end all military aid. 
This idea is taking hold in the Congress, as 
Senators and Representatives recognize the toxic 
nature of the para-scandal in the Uribe 
administration, and the contradiction in our 
support for a paramilitary government, as our 
government rails against "terror".

Also, right now Congress is considering giving 
fast track authority to President Bush to sign 
trade agreements with Colombia, Peru, Panama and 
Korea without Congressional oversight. This is an 
outrage, to grant this President the right to 
further codify Free Trade Agreements that will 
penetrate markets and destroy local economies. 
There is a campaign ongoing in Colombia to defeat 
the Free Trade Agreement, and a concurrent 
campaign in the US to not allow Bush to fast 
track anything. The son of a Bush should be 
facing impeachment, not negotiating for the US to 
exploit more markets. Check it out at www.nofasttrack.org.

The United States has been the architect of much 
of the Colombian dynamic that we see today. 
Military historian Dennis M. Rempe states the 
matter clearly in "Small Wars and Insurgencies", 
as he acknowledges "the unique role played by the 
United States in facilitating the development of 
all aspects of Colombia's internal security 
infrastructure". This half-century of United 
States policy has failed. We can put it to rest 
by ending the misguided fumigation and military 
policies of Plan Colombia, by cutting off 
military aid to the Uribe government, by 
addressing drug addiction with treatment, and by 
defeating, with Colombian civil society, the Free 
Trade Agreement currently under consideration.

Joe DeRaymond can be reached at: <mailto:jderaymond at rcn.com>jderaymond at rcn.com




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