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<h1 id="reader-title">The Wages of Plan Colombia Have Been Death</h1>
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<p itemprop="description alternativeHeadline"
class="subtitle">February 3, 2016 By Daniel Kovalik<br>
</p>
<pre style="position: absolute; left: -99999px;">By: Daniel Kovalik
This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address:
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<p itemprop="description alternativeHeadline"
class="subtitle">Plan Colombia’s 15th anniversary will be
celebrated in Washington Thursday. But the legacy of the
plan is marked by massacres, mass graves, and death
squads.</p>
<div itemprop="articleBody" class="txt_newworld">
<p>According to <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/7-Million-Victims-of-Colombias-Conflict-20141118-0008.html">Colombia's
Victims Unit</a>, the number of victims of Colombia's
civil war has surpassed 7 million. This number includes
those who have been killed, disappeared or displaced
since 1956. For a country of under 50 million citizens,
these numbers are staggering, and certainly newsworthy,
but apparently not for the mainstream media. </p>
<p>Of course, the violence and human rights abuses in
Colombia have constituted inconvenient truths for the
Western media as the U.S. has been a major sponsor of
the violence and abuses in that country. </p>
<p>Indeed, a notable fact in the Colombia Victims Unit
report is that "that the majority of victimization
occurred after 2000, peaking in 2002 at 744,799
victims." It is not coincidental that "Plan Colombia,"
or "Plan Washington" as many Colombians have called it,
was inaugurated by President Bill Clinton in 2000, thus
escalating the conflict to new heights and new levels of
barbarity. Plan Colombia is a plan pursuant to which the
U.S. has given Colombia billions in mostly military and
police assistance. </p>
<p>As <a
href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/americas/colombia/us-policy-in-colombia">Amnesty
International has explained</a>, these monies have
only fueled the human rights crisis in Colombia: </p>
<p>Amnesty International USA has been calling for a
complete cut off of US military aid to Colombia for over
a decade due to the continued collaboration between the
Colombian Armed Forces and their paramilitary allies as
well the failure of the Colombian government to improve
human rights conditions. </p>
<p>Colombia has been one of the largest recipients of US
military aid for well over a decade and the largest in
the western hemisphere. . . . Yet torture, massacres,
"disappearances" and killings of non-combatants are
widespread and collusion between the armed forces and
paramilitary groups continues to this day. . . . </p>
<p>"Plan Colombia" -- the name for the US aid package
since 2000, was created as a strategy to combat drugs
and contribute to peace, mainly through military
means.... </p>
<p>Despite overwhelming evidence of continued failure to
protect human rights the State Department has continued
to certify Colombia as fit to receive aid. The US has
continued a policy of throwing "fuel on the fire" of
already widespread human rights violations, collusion
with illegal paramilitary groups and near total
impunity. </p>
<p>Furthermore, after 10 years and over $8 billion dollars
of U.S. assistance to Colombia, U.S. policy has failed
to reduce availability or use of cocaine in the US, and
Colombia's human rights record remains deeply troubling.
Despite this, the State Department continues to certify
military aid to Colombia, even after reviewing the
country's human rights record. </p>
<p>However, what Amnesty International did not explain are
two salient facts. </p>
<p>First, the human rights group does not mention that
Plan Colombia was initiated in the midst of peace talks
between the Colombian government and FARC guerillas, and
actually <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Peace-Colombias-Conflict-Intervention/dp/097203840X">played
a key role in derailing these talks</a>, and with them
the prospects for peace – prospects which have only been
revived recently. </p>
<p>Second, Amnesty International does not mention that the
paramilitaries which continue to collaborate with the
U.S.-backed military in Colombia were actually a
creation of the U.S. Thus, these paramilitaries were the
brainchild of the Kennedy Administration back in 1962 -
that is, two years before the FARC guerillas were even
constituted. </p>
<p><a
href="http://www.bostonreview.net/noam-chomsky-responsibility-of-intellectuals-redux">As
Noam Chomsky has mentioned a number of times</a>,
Kennedy commenced the U.S.’s counterinsurgency program,
of which paramilitaries were a key component, in order
to combat the scourge of Liberation Theology unleashed
by Vatican II. And indeed, as Chomsky has also noted,
the U.S. School of the Americas has bragged about how it
helped “destroy liberation theology,” which emphasizes
the “preferential treatment of the poor.” </p>
<p>Colombia has been ground zero for this plan which has
targeted, among others, Catholic clergy for
assassination. Accordingly, as documented by the
Episcopal Conference of Colombia, <a
href="http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/global-issues/latin-america-caribbean/colombia/upload/translation-colombian-bishops-reject-priest-s-murder.pdf">over
80 Catholic clergy have been murdered in Colombia
since 1984</a> -- including 79 priests and 2 bishops
-- for the crime of advocating on behalf of the poor.
</p>
<p>One brave Colombian Liberation Priest, Father Javier
Giraldo <a
href="http://www.javiergiraldo.org/spip.php?article212">sent
a letter</a> in September of 2011 to the U.S.
Ambassador to Colombia, P. Michael McKinley, imploring
him to prevail upon President Barack Obama to reconsider
his decision to release millions of dollars in military
aid to Colombia in light its abysmal human rights
record. </p>
<p>In this letter, Father Giraldo informed the Ambassador
that Colombian military’s directive known as EJC 3-10 –
a directive based upon General Yarborough’s 1962
recommendation to organize paramilitary groups – is
still very much in effect today in the form of
paramilitary groups which both the U.S. and Colombian
governments attempt to dismiss as mere criminal bands
known as “BACRIM.” </p>
<p>According to Father Giraldo, these neo-paramilitary
groups, as before, continue to work “in close harmony
with the Army and Police” to carry out crimes against
humanity, including forced displacement, with <a
href="http://www.coha.org/colombias-invisible-crisis-internally-displaced-persons/">the
number of internally displaced people in Colombia now
at over 6 million</a>; extra-judicial killings which
have resulted in the proliferation of mass graves
throughout Colombia; and “the systematic crime of forced
disappearances, which according to national and
international agencies now affects more than 50,000
families.” </p>
<p>And, he also places the responsibility for these
continued abuses firmly at the feet of the U.S. Thus,
Father Giraldo informs the U.S. ambassador that “[t]he
current commanders take part in the same immunity, and
impunity and the assistance from your government only
reinforces their criminal activity.” </p>
<p>As Father Giraldo explains, the U.S.’s
military/paramilitary policy is part and parcel of an
unjust economic policy which allows for the
unconstrained penetration of Colombia by multinational
corporations at the expense of the Colombian people. He
states: </p>
<p>The permits issued for mining exploitation to numerous
transnational businesses have activated paramilitaries
and armed conflict tremendously. They are leaving huge
populations of poor people without any land or
resources. The destruction of the environment and the
destruction of indigenous, campesino and Afro-Colombian
communities by these projects are leading to every kind
of resistance. This means that the security of these
companies and of their destructive projects is only
effective with the protection of enormous contingents of
paramilitaries secretly co-opted by the armed forces and
by the government security agencies, which do not
hesitate to murder the leaders of the resistance. </p>
<p>Father Giraldo further describes: </p>
<p>“The permanent genocide that is being carried out in
Buenaventura, where the neighborhoods and the Community
Councils around the port are being invaded by
paramilitaries supported or tolerated by the armed
forces. They cut people in pieces with horrifying
cruelty throwing the body parts in to the sea, if any of
them dare to resist the megaproject for the new
port. This included the expulsion of people living in
the poorest areas and it includes the expropriation of
the plots of garbage dumps where these people, in the
midst of their misery, have over decades tried to
survive. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, Father Giraldo’s prophetic voice fell
on deaf ears, and Obama proceeded with the release of
the military aid to Colombia. And, it is the deathly
silence over the horrifying human rights situation in
Colombia which allows the U.S. to continue its
destructive military/economic policy in that country.
</p>
<p><em>Daniel Kovalik is labor and human rights lawyer. He
teaches International Human Rights at the University
of Pittsburgh School of Law.</em> </p>
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