17 July 1997 Edition
No arms sanctions in drug blacklist
US sends massive arms shipment to Colombia
By Dara MacNeil
In February of this year, the United States formally announced its decision to subject Colombia to punitive sanctions for an alleged failure to prosecute the `war on drugs.'
In official US parlance Colombia (along with a number of other countries) was officially `decertified'. As a result, the country lost access to various US aid programmes and was also to be subjected to trade sanctions.
The decertification process - the subject of enormous resentment throughout Latin America in particular - casts Uncle Sam in the guise of an innocent victim in the ongoing war on drugs. It does so by focusing responsibility on drug-producing countries, rather than the consumers. The US market consumes the bulk of all illegal drugs produced in the world today.
Strangely, however, Colombia's presence on the official blacklist does not appear to have hampered or impeded military links between the two countries, even less the receipt of military aid.
On 13 July, just four months after Colombia had been officially designated an `undesirable', 500 tonnes of arms, munitions and military vehicles arrived at El Dorado airport, in the Colombian capital of Bogota. The war materiel had been dispatched by the United States. According to local press reports, a senior representative of Colombia's notorious National Police met the arms shipment and thanked the US profusely.
Apparently, the arms are to be used in the ``control and combating of drug-trafficking.'' How that equates with the US decision to `decertify' Colombia last February remains a mystery.
It would also appear to be a remarkable coincidence that the arms supplies should arrive following a period of intense rebel activity in Colombia, during which time guerrilla opponents of the regime have scored some notable successes.
In this context it is also worth noting that a variety of human rights bodies, from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch, have condemned Colombia's war on drugs as a farce. Amnesty International has, in the past, labelled Colombia's war on drugs ``a myth.'' US military aid, they claim, is delivered under the pretext of the drugs war, but used instead to arm pro-government paramilitary groupings. In this manner Colombia has acquired what is perhaps the single worst human rights record in the entire region, a fact which has never impeded the flow of US military aid.
Between 1986-1994 there were more than 20,000 political murders in Colombia, the bulk carried out by the Colombian military or its proxies. In the early 1980s, an official US investigation revealed over one third of the membership of Colombia's pro-government paramilitary groupings were active-duty army officers.
In recent times, perhaps in response to criticism, Colombia's National Police have taken over the role of the army, as the regime's chief official killer of political opponents.
In tandem with this transfer of responsibility was a shift in US military aid, from the army to the National Police, as evidenced in the 13 July arms shipment.
An investigation carried out four years ago by church groups concluded that state policy amounted to the ``systematic elimination of opposition, criminalisation of large sectors of the population, massive resort to political assassination and disappearance, general use of torture (and) extreme powers for the security forces.''
Among those who can expect to bear the brunt of this latest US arms shipment are: community leaders, human rights and health workers, union activists, students, members of religious youth organisations, young people in shanty towns, and peasant farmers. The security forces also indulge a passion for ``social cleansing'' - the murder of the homeless, the unemployed, street children, prostitutes and homosexuals.
In response to a compensation claim lodged with the government after one such murder, Colombia's Ministry of Defence issued the following, chilling reply: ``There is no case for the payment of any compensation by the nation, particularly for an individual who was neither useful nor productive, either to society or to his family.''
The basis of Washington's justification for this aid - Colombia's chief source or arms and training according to Americas Watch - was made public in 1989, by the US State Department. ``Colombia,'' it said, ``has a democratic form of government and does not exhibit a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognised human rights.''
The case of Major Luis Felipe Becerra does not appear to have changed their mind. Charged in the early 1990s with responsibility for an army massacre, Major Becerra's defence was aided by the decision of the judge who issued the warrant to flee Colombia, following numerous death threats. Shortly after, the judge's father was murdered.
Even then, the warrants remained unserved as Major Becerra was in the United States at the time, undergoing training for his elevation up the ranks to Lieutenant-Colonel. Duly promoted, Becerra returned to Colombia where he was made head of the army's press and public relations unit. In 1993, the charges were dropped.
In October of the same year Becerra was again implicated in a massacre of unarmed civilians. Troops under his command, under the pretext of a battle with guerrillas, executed 13 civilians. All were unarmed and the women victims were raped, tortured and then murdered. Becerra remained at his post. It is for Becerra and his ilk that the 500 tonnes of arms that arrived in Colombia on 13 July were intended.
Their function is to maintain a system wherein the top three percent of Colombia's landed elite own over 70% of all arable land, while 57% of the poorest farmers subsist on less than three percent of the land. An estimated 40% of Colombians exist in conditions of absolute poverty, while economists have praised the country as one of the ``most flourishing economies in Latin America.''
And while the US (and Colombia) insists that the country operates an open, democratic system it is, as one critic tellingly remarked, a ``democracy without the people.''
By Dara MacNeil
In February of this year, the United States formally announced its decision to subject Colombia to punitive sanctions for an alleged failure to prosecute the `war on drugs.'
In official US parlance Colombia (along with a number of other countries) was officially `decertified'. As a result, the country lost access to various US aid programmes and was also to be subjected to trade sanctions.
The decertification process - the subject of enormous resentment throughout Latin America in particular - casts Uncle Sam in the guise of an innocent victim in the ongoing war on drugs. It does so by focusing responsibility on drug-producing countries, rather than the consumers. The US market consumes the bulk of all illegal drugs produced in the world today.
Strangely, however, Colombia's presence on the official blacklist does not appear to have hampered or impeded military links between the two countries, even less the receipt of military aid.
On 13 July, just four months after Colombia had been officially designated an `undesirable', 500 tonnes of arms, munitions and military vehicles arrived at El Dorado airport, in the Colombian capital of Bogota. The war materiel had been dispatched by the United States. According to local press reports, a senior representative of Colombia's notorious National Police met the arms shipment and thanked the US profusely.
Apparently, the arms are to be used in the ``control and combating of drug-trafficking.'' How that equates with the US decision to `decertify' Colombia last February remains a mystery.
It would also appear to be a remarkable coincidence that the arms supplies should arrive following a period of intense rebel activity in Colombia, during which time guerrilla opponents of the regime have scored some notable successes.
In this context it is also worth noting that a variety of human rights bodies, from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch, have condemned Colombia's war on drugs as a farce. Amnesty International has, in the past, labelled Colombia's war on drugs ``a myth.'' US military aid, they claim, is delivered under the pretext of the drugs war, but used instead to arm pro-government paramilitary groupings. In this manner Colombia has acquired what is perhaps the single worst human rights record in the entire region, a fact which has never impeded the flow of US military aid.
Between 1986-1994 there were more than 20,000 political murders in Colombia, the bulk carried out by the Colombian military or its proxies. In the early 1980s, an official US investigation revealed over one third of the membership of Colombia's pro-government paramilitary groupings were active-duty army officers.
In recent times, perhaps in response to criticism, Colombia's National Police have taken over the role of the army, as the regime's chief official killer of political opponents.
In tandem with this transfer of responsibility was a shift in US military aid, from the army to the National Police, as evidenced in the 13 July arms shipment.
An investigation carried out four years ago by church groups concluded that state policy amounted to the ``systematic elimination of opposition, criminalisation of large sectors of the population, massive resort to political assassination and disappearance, general use of torture (and) extreme powers for the security forces.''
Among those who can expect to bear the brunt of this latest US arms shipment are: community leaders, human rights and health workers, union activists, students, members of religious youth organisations, young people in shanty towns, and peasant farmers. The security forces also indulge a passion for ``social cleansing'' - the murder of the homeless, the unemployed, street children, prostitutes and homosexuals.
In response to a compensation claim lodged with the government after one such murder, Colombia's Ministry of Defence issued the following, chilling reply: ``There is no case for the payment of any compensation by the nation, particularly for an individual who was neither useful nor productive, either to society or to his family.''
The basis of Washington's justification for this aid - Colombia's chief source or arms and training according to Americas Watch - was made public in 1989, by the US State Department. ``Colombia,'' it said, ``has a democratic form of government and does not exhibit a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognised human rights.''
The case of Major Luis Felipe Becerra does not appear to have changed their mind. Charged in the early 1990s with responsibility for an army massacre, Major Becerra's defence was aided by the decision of the judge who issued the warrant to flee Colombia, following numerous death threats. Shortly after, the judge's father was murdered.
Even then, the warrants remained unserved as Major Becerra was in the United States at the time, undergoing training for his elevation up the ranks to Lieutenant-Colonel. Duly promoted, Becerra returned to Colombia where he was made head of the army's press and public relations unit. In 1993, the charges were dropped.
In October of the same year Becerra was again implicated in a massacre of unarmed civilians. Troops under his command, under the pretext of a battle with guerrillas, executed 13 civilians. All were unarmed and the women victims were raped, tortured and then murdered. Becerra remained at his post. It is for Becerra and his ilk that the 500 tonnes of arms that arrived in Colombia on 13 July were intended.
Their function is to maintain a system wherein the top three percent of Colombia's landed elite own over 70% of all arable land, while 57% of the poorest farmers subsist on less than three percent of the land. An estimated 40% of Colombians exist in conditions of absolute poverty, while economists have praised the country as one of the ``most flourishing economies in Latin America.''
And while the US (and Colombia) insists that the country operates an open, democratic system it is, as one critic tellingly remarked, a ``democracy without the people.''