Colombia:
New Escalation of Yankee Imperialism

Isn't it interesting how, when it comes to U.S. intervention, the politicians and their media mouthpieces never seem to start at the beginning of the story? They never talk about the history of colonialism, how native peoples lived before imperialist governments and global corporations swooped down on them like vultures, annihilating their cultures and exploiting the people. There's no acknowledgment of the fact that, before invasion from the so-called civilized world, many people in Colombia lived in communities that were organized around feeding, clothing and providing shelter for each other. They were not compelled by increasing poverty and big guns to grow coca and other cash crops-crops that are exported and sold to make money for greedy empires, crops that give the U.S. rulers an excuse to turn things upside down and call peasants drug traffickers, crops that become the big lie to justify a bloody counterinsurgency war against a small country by the most powerful nation on Earth.

What's Goin' On

The U.S. is providing the Colombian government with a $1.3 billion military aid package. This amount is only part of a larger package called Plan Columbia, which includes $1 billion from Europe's top dogs and $5 billion from international banks and the IMF (International Monetary Fund). The U.S. portion is advertised as funds to aid a 'war on drugs' to eradicate coca fields. Plan Colombia is promoted as money for social programs but is, in reality, closely related to the counterinsurgency war. The big powers want to head off, or at least be able to respond to, economic and refugee problems that accompany war. Of course, the loans will also place the governance and economy of Colombia more firmly under the control of the imperialist nations to which they will be deeper in debt.

While Clinton denies that this is "Yankee imperialism," let's take a look at what the aid package is really paying for. The majority of the $1.3 billion is earmarked for 60 high-tech attack helicopters to be delivered to the Colombian military. Money will also go to the training and supervision of three counterinsurgency battalions by U.S. military 'advisors.' The battalions are preparing for a large-scale offensive in the southern region of Colombia, a stronghold area of FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the largest armed anti-government force in Colombia.

According to the Associated Press, the U.S. pointman in Colombia will be General Keith Huber, "a 25-year Army career officer with a background in special forces and experience in counter-insurgency, including a stint in El Salvador." In fact, the war planners say their operations in Colombia will follow the 'El Salvador model.' This means that the U.S. hopes to avoid direct intervention by U.S. ground troops, while at the same time leading local reactionary armed forces to kill and die for U.S. interests. In the 1980s, at the height of U.S. counterinsurgency in Central America, El Salvador's military received $1 million per day from Washington. The U.S. package will provide roughly $2.5 million per day for Colombia's armed forces and police.

Even without this new escalation, Colombia is already the largest recipient of U.S. military aid outside of the Middle East. Under Clinton, the numbers shot up from $65 million in 1996 to nearly $300 million in 1999. In addition, the U.S. trains Colombian military officers at the School of the Americas (SOA), widely known as the 'School of the Assassins' because so many of its graduates have gone on to carry out assassinations, torture, and massacres for U.S.-backed regimes throughout Latin America. In fact, Colombia's Army has more officers trained at the School than any other country.

What Are They Afraid Of?

A spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command (which oversees U.S. military operations across most of Latin America), Steve Lucas, recently said, "...the entire nation of Colombia and its border regions have become the most dangerous places in the Western Hemisphere, if not the world..."

Resistance!

In July 1999, FARC began an offensive that fought government troops to within 25 miles of the capitol city of Bogota. As part of negotiations with FARC, Colombia's Pastrana government conceded to FARC's authority in a zone in southern Colombia about the size of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. The ELN, the second largest armed opposition force, was also given a zone of its own in central Colombia.

FARC is active and influential in almost half the countryside of Colombia, including coca-growing areas. The official story from the U.S. government is that FARC is heavily involved in the drug trade, making them legitimate targets for a 'war on drugs.' Although FARC has at times colluded with the drug trade and gained funds as a result, the opposition forces are not the cause of drug trafficking or its main beneficiaries. The majority of these drugs are delivered to the streets of the U.S. with the complicity of American government and law enforcement officials. In a recent statement, representatives of FARC said, "The narco-traffickers have no military force. So what are the helicopters, ships and the anti-narcotics battalions for?"

Another Vietnam?

At the end of September, FARC released a statement via the Internet saying that U.S. soldiers who take part in front-line combat will be declared "military targets." Could this intervention turn into another Vietnam? Some people think so. Clinton has claimed that, "A condition of this aid is that we are not going to get into a shooting war...that won't happen." But even the New York Times is raising doubts: "It is unrealistic to imagine that the $1.3 billion aid package, most of it to supply 60 military helicopters and train a new army anti-narcotics brigade, will only be used against the drug traffickers and not also against the guerrillas...(NYT, 8/30/00)" In addition to calling out the aid package as counterinsurgency assistance thinly disguised as anti-drug aid, FARC has issued repeated warnings to Washington suggesting that they back off to avoid sliding into a military quagmire. The war against Vietnam also began with the dispatch of military advisors. It ended with the death of 3 million Southeast Asian people and 58,000 U.S. troops.

The imperialists want to remake Colombia into a country where exploitation of the people, resources and land is the only reality, and where the countryside and urban shantytowns no longer breed rebellion and resistance. Yet, as Ron Jacobs of the Instant Anti-War Action Group points out, "Over the course of the thirty-year war, support for the revolutionary forces has expanded into the cities. This is due to the ever-widening disparity between the wealthy and the rest of the Colombian population and the military's harsh repression of those who organize the workers and the unemployed. Literally hundreds of labor organizers, social justice workers (clerics and laypersons) and student activists have been murdered and disappeared since the late 1980s. In fact, in 1990, when the revolutionary groups put down their arms and formed political parties, they were murdered wholesale by the military and their paramilitary allies."

As anti-imperialists, we reject the position of 'condemning violence on both sides.' The Colombian people have a right to defend themselves and a right to survive! We must demand unconditionally, in the strong tradition of anti-war veterans before us, "Yankee, Go Home!"