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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">US Representatives Trying to Beat Colombia Into Submission</h1></div>
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<p><img src="https://orinocotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG-20230727-WA0009.webp" alt="'Tell Congress to Stop the US Assault on Colombia's Sovereignty,' among other slogans displayed across the compilation piece. Photo: Alliance for Global Justice." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="196"> </p>
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'Tell Congress to Stop the US Assault on
Colombia's Sovereignty,' among other slogans displayed across the
compilation piece. Photo: Alliance for Global Justice.
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<p>By James Patrick Jordan – Jul 27, 2023</p>
<p>For years the US government has given the wrong kind of aid to
Colombia – billions of dollars for war and repression, and to secure
profits for global capitalism. It has made Colombia both a dependent
state and a crucially strategic military colony for US imperialism. What
it has not done is give any kind of adequate support for Colombia’s
peace process or for the Total Peace Plan proposed by President Gustavo
Petro, despite US responsibility for six decades of war. The US owes
Colombia a debt of peace, and that debt is long overdue. (The Pentagon’s
Yarborough Commission recommended in 1962 that the Colombian government
organize paramilitaries and acts of terror, along with unilateral
assaults against autonomous peasant zones. On May 27, 1964, following
this advice, the Colombian Armed Forces launched an unprovoked and
massive assault on the Marquetalia zone, beginning 60 years of armed
conflict and civil war.)</p>
<p>In 2022, popular movements surged to elect Pres. Petro and his
running mate, Francia Márquez, Colombia’s first Center-Left
administration, and the first Afro-Colombian, woman, and grass roots
activist to hold the vice-presidency. <a href="https://orinocotribune.com/might-the-us-support-a-coup-in-colombia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Even before they were elected, US actors were interfering and trying to manipulate the process, and this continues today.</a></p>
<p>The US government and its Wall Street overlords do not like the steps
towards independence taken by Petro and Márquez. These include the
normalization of relations with Venezuela, a call to end the War on
Drugs, and efforts to advance the Total Peace Plan. The plan would
include honoring commitments from the 2016 peace accords for rural
development, illicit crop substitution programs, modest land reform, and
the return of the displaced to the land they were forcibly removed
from. These kinds of steps taken by a sovereign and legitimately elected
government are not tolerable to the masters of the US Empire. The
Empire’s aim is to either tame the Petro administration or get rid of it
altogether.</p>
<p>Getting rid of Pres. Petro and Vice-President Márquez is precisely
what is motivating efforts in the House to end all foreign aid to
Colombia. The Thursday, July 27 House Committee on Foreign Relations
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere held a hearing on “Colombia’s
Descent into Socialism” designed to defame the Petro administration and
justify the total cut in aid. The Republican led House is trying to
legislate Colombia’s affairs from Washington DC in disregard for the
nation’s sovereignty.</p>
<p>The Republican House leadership has been coordinating with the
Colombian far right. However, the participation of Biden administration
officials from the Department of State and USAID as featured witnesses
is a sign that their efforts are not unwelcome to the Democratic Party
establishment.</p>
<p>In fact, under Biden administration oversight, the DEA (Drug
Enforcement Agency) attempted to embarrass, entrap, and derail Petro’s
campaign with agents posing as Mexican narcotraffickers who wanted to be
photographed with the candidate and contribute to his campaign. Since
then, the Biden Administration has tried its best to tame Patro and
bring him fully in line with US policies and plans for Colombia and all
of Latin America. Biden administration participation in this hearing may
be a sign that patience is wearing thin.</p>
<p>Gustavo Petro is not a socialist and neither is Colombia. But he is
sufficiently independent and progressive and attuned to popular
movements to warrant the attention of all the oligarchs and their
servants in both Washington, DC and Bogotá. This has nothing to do
whatsoever with socialism. Rather, these efforts reflect the most savage
and brutal aspects of capitalism. Returning the dispossessed to to
their territories, advancing access of rural families to land, rural
development would all put some limited restrictions on transnational
corporate and land baron access to natural resources.</p>
<p>Ending the Drug War would expose the lie behind it: that it has
nothing to do with fighting drugs and everything to do with repressing
and subjugating popular movements and governments, and establishing US
military power over Colombia and the entire continent. In face, the very
agencies that enforce the so-called Drug War as often as not are
protecting major narcotraffickers. For instance, if one travels through
the Naya region of the Department of Cauca, one will see miles of coca
plantations punctuated by military checkpoints. Former Pres. Álvaro
Uribe has even been recognized by the<a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB131/index.htm"> US Defense Intelligence Agency</a> as
one of Colombia’s top 100 narcotraffickers. Yet, he is the leader of
Colombia’s Center-Right and is one of those with whom the Republican
leadership regularly meets and consults to collaborate to undermine and
topple Colombia’s duly elected government.</p>
<p>Cutting all aid to Colombia is not what they country needs. What it
needs is support for peace. The US spends billions supplying the
Colombian military, police, and jails, but little to nothing to help
advance peace and an end to political violence that claims one life per
day. The country’s National Protection Unit cannot even commit to
assuring that working vehicles and other measures of security are
available for the escorts who protect the most threatened social
leaders, human rights defenders, and ex-combatant signers of the peace
accords. The US has the resources to turn this situation around. Rather
than supply yet more helicopters to the ESMAD riot police to harass
popular movements and protesters, it should provide vehicles to help
ensure the safety of those who risk their lives every day for peace in
Colombia.</p>
<p>Instead, the leaders in the House want to punish the Petro
administration not for its alleged socialist tendencies, but because he
wants to achieve a Total Peace that would limit and inconvenience the
vultures of profit. They prefer endless war and constant repression.</p>
<p>As people of the US, we must not only act now to sop this latest
effort to isolate and neutralize Pres. Petro and the millions of voters
behind him. We must demand that aid to Colombia not be ended but that it
be changed. Not one dollar more for war in Colombia! Let’s fund peace
instead.</p>
<p>(<a href="https://afgj.org/us-representatives-trying-to-beat-colombia-into-submission" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alliance for Global Justice</a>)</p>
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<span>
James Patrick Jordan </span>
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<p>James Patrick Jordan is National Co-Coordinator for the Alliance for
Global Justice and is responsible for its Colombia, labor, and
ecological solidarity programs.</p>
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