Colombia -- Here comes the storm!

COLOMBIA

¡Aquí viene la tormenta!
"Here comes the storm!"

by Fire FPF

What's happening in Colombia? How in the hell can a person find out? Sure as hell not from the American papers. I mean, a person could, as I just did, spend about three months researching it on the internet and in libraries. What's going on is that the United States has just laid out two billion dollars to stymie a negotiated peace.
Colombia has been through this cycle of war and peace several times since the Republic was founded just after ours, the present war has been simmering for thirty years and almost everybody is sick of it. Now, generally in a war, people tend to fight until they get exhausted, then they make peace. Last October there was a giant outpouring of ten million Colombians into the streets, one of the most massive demonstrations for peace the world has ever seen. There aren't much more than thirty million persons in the whole country. The banners read, "No More!" and "Let's Stop Killing Ourselves!" President Pastrana was democratically elected two years ago on the basis of his promise to negotiate a peace between the Colombian army and the sort-of-leftist rebel armies in the jungle, the ELN (Ejercito de Liberación Nacional) and the much larger FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia.) Enter the Yanquis, handing out two billion dollars mostly to a few army generals, on condition of course that they make war. As they say in Spanish !Aquí viene la tormenta! Here comes the storm! Our government says over and over that this won't lead to another Vietnam. So, the Colombian generals are supposed to suddenly win this war with the 60 helos that the aid bill gives them, plus two "Puff the Magic Dragon" Gatling gun-C47 planes, and a few A37's (like the South Vietnamese Air Force was given.) And we're fixing the Colombians up with a couple of "Apocalypse Now" river gunboats. This is supposed to be enough to defeat two rebel armies that together field about 20,000 troops, that solidly control about half the country, and that have been fighting for thirty years.
How many Americans are involved? We're told there are only a few hundred Green Beret trainers in the country. On the other hand, the SouthCom commander admits that right now we are "cycling" almost 60,000 troops a year through Latin America. We have three air bases in the country, others just outside the border, and a whole constellation of electronic spy bases up and down Colombia, for which U.S. grunts handle "local security." And like in the semi-clandestine war in Central America, everything is called "training." Tell me this two billion dollars isn't just a first installment. At first I suspected that a counterinsurgency LIC (low intensity conflict) was being sold to the Congress and to the people of the United States as a "counterdrug" war. Even the stupidest privates in our army seem to have this figured out, and we non-leftists might not find too much objectionable here. But even the street druggies of hometown America, who pay for Colombia's five billion dollar drug industry, understand also that somehow, some way, this war is not only about drugs - it involves big corporate money. Many feel that our own government is so corrupt that it is dangerous to ask too many questions even here. It took quite some research to find a few facts behind these common and natural suspicions. For the past year, several corporations have been lobbying hard for a better "legal environment" in a "more stable" Colombia. Colombia already enthusiastically solicits foreign capital and development, but like most free countries Colombia wants to retain ownership of its own natural resources, demanding, for example, strong participation in any oil development by the national company, Ecopetrol. I recall that the Mexicans fought a revolution for 31 years before their natural resources belonged to the state. What the foreign companies demand in Colombia, therefore, would be like rolling back the gains made by the entirety of the Mexican Revolution, returning to the 19th century days of total foreign ownership of lands and resources and virtual enslavement of the "peons." Colombia and other parts of South America are in an economic depression twice as bad as anything we saw here in the U.S. during the 1930's, so it indeed may be possible for foreign (U.S.) firms to pick up Colombia's national resources at fire sale prices. It has been happening. In 1990-91 it was the port facilities, in 1998 it was the utility companies, and now BP, Exxon, and Occidental Petroleum want the oil. And there is a lot of oil, in vast reserves that are an extension of the famous Venezuelan fields. In Colombia these are still about 80% undeveloped, however.

Start with the mission of Mack McCready, of Whitewater fame. (What was Whitewater? Clinton took a payoff. The Republicans never pried into what for, perhaps because they are involved in similar hanky panky all the time. It was probably for giving Arkansas Power and Light the green light to ride roughshod over the ecosystem of Arkansas.) Then Mack moved into Washington with the Clintons as White House Chief of Staff. In the past couple of years he was sent around Latin America as Ambassador to the Americas (outranking everybody in our embassies; he cannot even be questioned) pushing "privatization." Soon you have three Colombian generals showing up in Washington, ready to deal. A few senators on board, couple of be-medaled generals up front to look good. After the campaign the players who stick it out will get the good job, in the tradition of John Negroponte of Nicaragua fame.

The possibility of Colombia's tens of thousands of murdered and disappeared escalating to the hundreds of thousands of such victims of our little war in Central America is sobering. The regular Colombian army supports a parallel "paramilitary" army, sharing bases and logistics, and handling the dirty work of killing suspected "com-symps" and subversives. This is happening on a scale many times grander than anything Pinochet did in Chile. Targeted for extermination are progressive teachers, union organizers, peasant spokesmen, and anybody who stands up against massive expropriation of the peasants homes and land. A million and a half people have become displaced in the current campaign, survivors flooding into the cities. About three fourths of the KIA's in this Colombian so-called "civil war," at least thus far, are civilian victims mainly of the paramilitaries. There is a new land-owning oligarchy of newly-rich narco-trafficants, (a whole bunch of replacement Pablo Escobars,) that fund the paramilitaries, who themselves make no bones about being major drug producers. No paramilitary or regular army "death squad" has ever successfully been prosecuted in Colombia for human rights atrocities, or massacres of suspected subversives, beggars, homosexuals, or anybody else they think should be killed. This is not surprising as the army two years ago shot all the Supreme Court. Yet the American aid bill washes its hands of responsibility for a continuing dirty war by saying that the Colombian Attorney General will deal with it, after we "reform the judiciary" with a 30 million handout. Reforming the judiciary will more likely mean that the FARC shall cease to have the legal status of combatants, and rebel POWs should be sentenced to long prison terms for "terrorism." After all, this is how we "reformed the judiciary" in Peru. So much for whitewashing a very dirty war.
Whatever will happen, the so-called aid bill will mean a lot of death and destruction in Colombia. The paramilitaries, which some suggest the CIA covertly created in the 1960's, will kill a lot more "subversives" (but not likely FARC rebels.) We may seriously annoy the FARC rebels, but not without a lot more involvement and a lot more than this first two billion installment. We will spray a lot of herbicide on a lot of fields, but to fund the partners of the narco-trafficant oligarchy is a poor way to conduct a war on drugs. To hand most of the money to the army instead of to the civilian government and the police is a poor way to support democracy. Perhaps fire sale "privatizing" of the natural resources of Colombia, driving the masses of the peasantry from their lands, and smashing with Vietnam style firepower those desperate enough for armed rebellion will solve the problem of Colombia's mounting, pressure-cooker economic crisis.
Whatever does happen, one thing is sure, !Aquí viene la tormenta!


	*COLOMBIA*
¡Aquí viene la tormenta! "Here comes the storm!"
		by Fire FPF
What's happening in Colombia? How in the hell can a person find out? Sure as hell not from the American papers. I mean, a person could, as I just did, spend about three months researching it on the internet and in libraries. What's going on is that the United States has just laid out two billion dollars to stymie a negotiated peace. Colombia has been through this cycle of war and peace several times since the Republic was founded just after ours, the present war has been simmering for thirty years and almost everybody is sick of it. Now, generally in a war, people tend to fight until they get exhausted, then they make peace. Last October there was a giant outpouring of ten million Colombians into the streets, one of the most massive demonstrations for peace the world has ever seen. There aren't much more than thirty million persons in the whole country. The banners read, "No More!" and "Let's Stop Killing Ourselves!" President Pastrana was democratically elected two years ago on the basis of his promise to negotiate a peace between the Colombian army and the sort-of-leftist rebel armies in the jungle, the ELN (Ejercito de Liberación Nacional) and the much larger FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia.) Enter the Yanquis, handing out two billion dollars mostly to a few army generals, on condition of course that they make war. As they say in Spanish !Aquí viene la tormenta! Here comes the storm! Our government says over and over that this won't lead to another Vietnam. So, the Colombian generals are supposed to suddenly win this war with the 60 helos that the aid bill gives them, plus two "Puff the Magic Dragon" Gatling gun-C47 planes, and a few A37's (like the South Vietnamese Air Force was given.) And we're fixing the Colombians up with a couple of "Apocalypse Now" river gunboats. This is supposed to be enough to defeat two rebel armies that together field about 20,000 troops, that solidly control about half the country, and that have been fighting for thirty years. How many Americans are involved? We're told there are only a few hundred Green Beret trainers in the country. On the other hand, the SouthCom commander admits that right now we are "cycling" almost 60,000 troops a year through Latin America. We have three air bases in the country, others just outside the border, and a whole constellation of electronic spy bases up and down Colombia, for which U.S. grunts handle "local security." And like in the semi-clandestine war in Central America, everything is called "training." Tell me this two billion dollars isn't just a first installment. At first I suspected that a counterinsurgency LIC (low intensity conflict) was being sold to the Congress and to the people of the United States as a "counterdrug" war. Even the stupidest privates in our army seem to have this figured out, and we non-leftists might not find too much objectionable here. But even the street druggies of hometown America, who pay for Colombia's five billion dollar drug industry, understand also that somehow, some way, this war is not only about drugs - it involves big corporate money. Many feel that our own government is so corrupt that it is dangerous to ask too many questions even here. It took quite some research to find a few facts behind these common and natural suspicions. For the past year, several corporations have been lobbying hard for a better "legal environment" in a "more stable" Colombia. Colombia already enthusiastically solicits foreign capital and development, but like most free countries Colombia wants to retain ownership of its own natural resources, demanding, for example, strong participation in any oil development by the national company, Ecopetrol. I recall that the Mexicans fought a revolution for 31 years before their natural resources belonged to the state. What the foreign companies demand in Colombia, therefore, would be like rolling back the gains made by the entirety of the Mexican Revolution, returning to the 19th century days of total foreign ownership of lands and resources and virtual enslavement of the "peons." Colombia and other parts of South America are in an economic depression twice as bad as anything we saw here in the U.S. during the 1930's, so it indeed may be possible for foreign (U.S.) firms to pick up Colombia's national resources at fire sale prices. It has been happening. In 1990-91 it was the port facilities, in 1998 it was the utility companies, and now BP, Exxon, and Occidental Petroleum want the oil. And there is a lot of oil, in vast reserves that are an extension of the famous Venezuelan fields. In Colombia these are still about 80% undeveloped, however.
		Start with the mission of Mack McCready, of Whitewater fame. (What was Whitewater? Clinton took a payoff. The Republicans never pried into what for, perhaps because they are involved in similar hanky panky all the time. It was probably for giving Arkansas Power and Light the green light to ride roughshod over the ecosystem of Arkansas.) Then Mack moved into Washington with the Clintons as White House Chief of Staff. In the past couple of years he was sent around Latin America as Ambassador to the Americas (outranking everybody in our embassies; he cannot even be questioned) pushing "privatization." Soon you have three Colombian generals showing up in Washington, ready to deal. A few senators on board, couple of be-medaled generals up front to look good. After the campaign the players who stick it out will get the good job, in the tradition of John Negroponte of Nicaragua fame.
The possibility of Colombia's tens of thousands of murdered and disappeared escalating to the hundreds of thousands of such victims of our little war in Central America is sobering. The regular Colombian army supports a parallel "paramilitary" army, sharing bases and logistics, and handling the dirty work of killing suspected "com-symps" and subversives. This is happening on a scale many times grander than anything Pinochet did in Chile. Targeted for extermination are progressive teachers, union organizers, peasant spokesmen, and anybody who stands up against massive expropriation of the peasants homes and land. A million and a half people have become displaced in the current campaign, survivors flooding into the cities. About three fourths of the KIA's in this Colombian so-called "civil war," at least thus far, are civilian victims mainly of the paramilitaries. There is a new land-owning oligarchy of newly-rich narco-trafficants, (a whole bunch of replacement Pablo Escobars,) that fund the paramilitaries, who themselves make no bones about being major drug producers. No paramilitary or regular army "death squad" has ever successfully been prosecuted in Colombia for human rights atrocities, or massacres of suspected subversives, beggars, homosexuals, or anybody else they think should be killed. This is not surprising as the army two years ago shot all the Supreme Court. Yet the American aid bill washes its hands of responsibility for a continuing dirty war by saying that the Colombian Attorney General will deal with it, after we "reform the judiciary" with a 30 million handout. Reforming the judiciary will more likely mean that the FARC shall cease to have the legal status of combatants, and rebel POWs should be sentenced to long prison terms for "terrorism." After all, this is how we "reformed the judiciary" in Peru. So much for whitewashing a very dirty war. Whatever will happen, the so-called aid bill will mean a lot of death and destruction in Colombia. The paramilitaries, which some suggest the CIA covertly created in the 1960's, will kill a lot more "subversives" (but not likely FARC rebels.) We may seriously annoy the FARC rebels, but not without a lot more involvement and a lot more than this first two billion installment. We will spray a lot of herbicide on a lot of fields, but to fund the partners of the narco-trafficant oligarchy is a poor way to conduct a war on drugs. To hand most of the money to the army instead of to the civilian government and the police is a poor way to support democracy. Perhaps fire sale "privatizing" of the natural resources of Colombia, driving the masses of the peasantry from their lands, and smashing with Vietnam style firepower those desperate enough for armed rebellion will solve the problem of Colombia's mounting, pressure-cooker economic crisis. Whatever does happen, one thing is sure, !Aquí viene la tormenta!

COLOMBIA

¡Aquí viene la tormenta! "Here comes the storm!"

by Fire FPF

¡Aquí viene la tormenta!
"Here comes the storm!"