<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<h1>U.S. and Colombia Relaunch Plan Colombia to
Sabotage Peace
Plan</h1>
<b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://cpcml.ca/Tmlw2016/W46006.HTM#10">http://cpcml.ca/Tmlw2016/W46006.HTM#10</a></small></small></b><br>
<br>
<p>Peace talks between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC)
and the government of Colombia are expected to culminate next
month
with
the signing of a final peace accord after more than three years of
talks in
Havana, Cuba. It is hoped by the Colombian people that the accord
will
bring
an end to more than 60 years of armed conflict in which more than
7
million
people have been killed, disappeared or displaced. However, in the
midst of
advances made to bring about a peaceful resolution to the
longest-running civil
war in the hemisphere, the U.S. and Colombian governments have
announced
a new security initiative which will see hundreds of millions of
U.S.
dollars
used to finance yet another round of the fraudulent and criminal
war on
drugs.</p>
<p>Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos met with U.S.
President Barack
Obama in Washington, D.C. on February 4 to celebrate the 15th
anniversary
of Plan Colombia, which was signed in 2000 between then-presidents
Bill
Clinton and Andrés Pastrana. What was presented as aid to combat
drugs
was
in fact a thinly-disguised counterinsurgency plan that provided
billions of
dollars in mainly police and military assistance the Colombian
state
used to
wage an all-out dirty war on its own people in the name of a "war
on
drugs."</p>
<p>The two leaders are calling the new plan -- which again
is focused on
"strengthening security and combatting drugs" and that will be
financed
to
the tune
of $450 million over the next 10 years -- "Paz Colombia" (Peace
Colombia).</p>
<p>Obama heralded the new Plan
Colombia as a "tribute" to Colombian
people and the challenges they have overcome. "We all know it is
easier
to
start wars than end them," Obama said, as if to say that
Colombia's
reward for
establishing peace is new militarized aid. This would be laughable
if
it was not
so criminal coming from the country which has financed and worked
hand
in
glove with the Colombian military and its closely-linked
paramilitary
death
squads, committing mass murders and brutally violating the human
rights
of
Colombian peasants and progressive forces.</p>
<p>For its part, Canada announced following a meeting of
the foreign
ministers for Canada, the United States and Mexico on January 29
that
one of
the countries' priorities would be working together to "promote
the
peace
process" in Colombia. Allying itself with the U.S. agenda, Canada
will
be
involving itself in what looks like an attempt to reignite the
conflict
in
Colombia at a time when demilitarization is on the agenda of the
peace
talks.</p>
<p>Canadians have never accepted the U.S. war on drugs.
They will rightfully
conclude that the Trudeau government has not abandoned its
predecessors'
desire to fuel conflict and war rather than contribute to the
peaceful
resolution
of conflicts. Canadians must hold the government to account for
the
crimes
and violations of human rights that such a program is sure to give
rise
to.</p>
<h2>Plan Colombia: 15 Years of National Tragedy</h2>
<p>While the
U.S. and Colombian governments present the 15th anniversary of
Plan
Colombia as an occasion for celebration, Pastor Alape, speaking on
behalf of the
FARC
Secretariat, gave a solemn assessment of the damage it has caused
to
the broad
masses of the Colombian people.</p>
<p>Plan Colombia represents "15 years of national tragedy,
during which the
number of victims of the armed conflict increased, displacements
increased up
to seven million people, as did the number of disappeared people
and
falsely
persecuted. The results are sad and painful," Alape said.</p>
<p>Alape explained that Plan Colombia has a public face
that hides a covert
component. Its public face is the "war on drugs," which scholars
and
analysts
all over the world confirm has failed, he noted. During the plan,
cultivation of
crops deemed illicit has only increased, while the aerial delivery
of
herbicides
has affected peasants' health, crops and the environment. Coca has
a
variety
of uses, including nutrition, medicine and cosmetics.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The covert component -- the true essence of Plan
Colombia -- is to
annihilate the insurgency. This objective was not achieved either,
but
instead
exacerbated the conflict in Colombia through the persecution and
killings of
innocents and non-combatants, as well as state repression and
state
terrorism.</p>
<p>This succinct condemnation of Plan Colombia is
corroborated by activists
in Colombia's social movements and others.</p>
<p>"What we see is that drug trafficking was strengthened
and there was a lot
of repression, a lot of contamination of the environment, and the
level
of
violation of human rights of Colombians increased," Nidia
Quintero,
General-Secretary of the campesino rights group Fensuagro, told
TeleSUR.</p>
<h2>Women a Particular Target of Plan Colombia</h2>
<p>Women were
amongst those who have suffered the most under Plan Colombia and
the
insecurity and impunity it created in Colombian society. A joint
survey
by
women's rights organizations, published in 2011, presents
harrowing
figures: </p>
<p>- six women were raped every hour in Colombia during the
first nine years
of Plan Colombia;<br>
- some 489,678 women were victims of some type of sexual violence;
and<br>
- 7,752 were forced into prostitution between 2000-2009.</p>
<p>This violence against women is far from coincidental; it
is but part of a
direct military strategy. Human rights lawyer Milena Montoya,
secretary
of the
executive board for the human rights group Lazos de Dignidad (Ties
of
Unity),
told TeleSUR, "Raping a woman is a spoil of war. To violate a
woman
creates
terror in other women. So, this has been one of those practices
that
military
groups, the Colombian army as well as the U.S. army, have
implemented
in
order to keep the population submissive and living in terror."</p>
<p>Montoya pointed out that forced prostitution also tended
to increase around
U.S. military bases. These bases were generally established around
poorer rural
communities where there are very few job opportunities for women
and
youth,
she said.</p>
<p>A report commissioned by the Colombian government and
the FARC
informs that U.S. soldiers and military contractors sexually
abused at
least 54
Colombian girls between 2003-2007. These crimes "occurred with
absolute
impunity because of the bilateral agreements and the diplomatic
immunity of
United States officials," said Renan Vega of the Pedagogic
University
in
Bogota, who co-authored the report.</p>
<p>Many women were also made the sole breadwinners for
their families due
to the mass killing of men in many communities, a situation
worsened by
the
destruction of the coca crops.</p>
<p>Reparations for all these crimes and hardships is on the
agenda of the
peace talks in Havana, but the new Plan Colombia indicates that
the
U.S.
imperialists and Colombian elite seek to deny the people the
long-overdue
justice they deserve.</p>
<p class="footnote">(With files from FARC, TeleSUR)</p>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>