December 18, 2000

Colombia: Another U.S.-Sponsored Killing Field

An interview with Doug Morris, Co-director of the David Anderson Center for Peace and Justice.

On December 5, Doug Morris, Co-director of the David Anderson Center for Peace and Justice, was interviewed by the Progressive Student Alliance, University of Hartford. In the interview, Morris discusses U.S. foreign policy, Plan Colombia, the Drug War, neoliberalism, the U.S. media, human rights, and the socio-economic causes of the conflict. He also puts the "Drug War" in historical and global perspective.

Q: If there was one thing you could say to people about Colombia and the so-called "Drug War," what would that be?

A: Perhaps the most important point to keep in mind is that the U.S. fumigation programs, the U.S.-backed military and paramilitary operations, and the U.S.-supported new IMF/World Bank structural adjustment and austerity programs result in real and horrifying human suffering in Colombia: poverty, destitution, unemployment, inequality, the crisis in agriculture, etc.; torture, violence, murder and massacres result from the military and paramilitary operations; and serious environmental destruction results from the fumigation programs.

With some effort, with some commitment to educate people here in the U.S., with efforts to organize and to act in solidarity with the victims of U.S. policies, and it is not only Colombia, we can act to help ameliorate the suffering. Drugs are not the problem in Colombia. The problem is poverty, inequality, insufficient land reform, corruption and violence, much of it rooted in longstanding U.S. economic, political and military policies.

Q: Does the U.S. have an overall plan for Colombia?

A: One cannot predict the future, but the past has many indicators. For example, U.S. State Department Planner George Kennan, in 1948, in a "Top Secret," since declassified and oft-quoted document, said, and I am paraphrasing, but it is pretty much a direct quote, "We have about 50% of the world's wealth, and about 6.5% of the population (now it is more like 65% of the wealth and 4% of the population). We have to devise policies that will allow us to maintain this position of disparity. We must dismiss with sentimental daydreams such as international altruism and world benefaction. The time is not far off when we will have to deal in straight power concepts, and the less we are hampered by idealistic slogans about the raising of living standards, human rights and democratization, the better."

All of that requires some decoding, but to look at only one part, when he says "we have 50% of the world's wealth," one must remember that the top 1% of elites in the U.S. control about 90% of the wealth. So the real statement should be something like "1% of the U.S. population controls about 65% of the world's wealth."

Human rights, the raising of living standards and democratization are not, as implied by Kennan, irrelevant to U.S. policy. They are highly relevant. The U.S. has acted regularly to abuse human rights, for example there is a positive correlation between a country's human rights record and U.S. military aid, so that the more a country abuses, disappears, tortures, murders, and massacres its population, the more U.S. military aid they receive. In Colombia, the atrocities and massacres are carried out overwhelmingly by paramilitary "death squads," armed and trained by the United States.

U.S. policies and U.S.-backed World Bank/IMF policies have degraded living standards around the world. For example in Colombia, as a result of the neo-liberal induced agricultural and economic crisis ravaging Latin America, about 40% of the population lives under conditions of absolute poverty, and another 40% live under conditions of near absolute poverty, 80% of indigenous people and Afro-Colombians live in absolute poverty, there is a huge unemployed, underemployed and underpaid population, etc., and sadly, the closer you look the worse it gets.

And part of the Colombia Plan, again part of a systematic pattern of U.S. policy, is an attack on democracy. The attack is primarily against the FARC, and to a lesser extent the ELN, guerrillas. Why? They are calling for internal social reforms along social democratic lines and that would interfere with the integration of Colombia into the global economic system along terms demanded by the United States.

Put simply the U.S. wants a system dominated by elites who support U.S. wealth and power interests, so that U.S. businesses will be given free access to Colombian resources -- material and human -- particularly oil resources, but not limited to oil. Apparently Colombia has the largest oil reserves in the hemisphere.

There is a systematic history of the U.S. destroying independent alternative social movements when those movements represent the interests of the "wrong" people, namely, the poor, the peasants, indigenous people, working people, etc. It is the threat of "people taking matters into their own hands," as Kennedy officials put it in discussing the real threat in Cuba. The point is the U.S. will not allow a successful alternative to develop and that is a real crime against all of humanity. This "monotheistic" approach, where "Profits over people" is the state religion which allows no alternative, is making conditions increasingly worse for people and the environment.

Given our enormous wealth and resources we should be funding experiments in alternative social, economic and political organization, not destroying them. This "monotheistic" approach, for most of the people of the world, is a grotesque catastrophe. Corporate rights should not come before human rights.

So, to sum up in answer to your question, the U.S. goal is to create conditions of "stability" in Colombia. Conditions are "stable" after people are forced, often through brutal repression and murder, to passively accept whatever the United States is imposing on them, in this case neo-liberal structural adjustment programs and austerity programs, often called the "Washington Consensus," i.e. "good for corporations, bad for people," which put corporate rights and profits above all else. Conditions are "unstable" when people are actively resisting U.S.-imposed programs. The FARC resistance movement are not angels, they kidnap, they "tax" businesses, including coca growers, they murder, though nowhere near the rate of the paramilitaries and military, but all of that must be seen in the context of Colombia's real problems.

As stated by Alfredo Carrizosa, head of the Colombian Commission on Human Rights, again paraphrasing, "It is poverty and insufficient land reform that have made Colombia one of the most tragic countries in Latin America, and as elsewhere, these problems are exacerbated by the violence caused by external factors." The external factor, of course, is the United States, and that is why it is important for people here to know about Colombia, and to act. Human suffering is no less brutal, no less horrifying, no less an abomination, because it happens thousands of miles away. We pay for the Colombia Plan in dollars, the Colombians pay for it in blood.

Q: Can you give us a brief overview of the Colombia Plan?

A: The Colombia Plan is often justified through reference to the "drug war," but the drug war has little to do with the Colombia Plan, despite U.S. proclamations to the contrary. The $1.3 billion dollar emergency military assistance program directs 80% of the funding to the military end of the program, in other words to violence, 1% to the peace process.

There is a two-fold approach to the plan: one, increased military and paramilitary attacks in the regions under FARC control; and two, rather massive chemical and biological warfare campaigns, for example, fumigation with a Monsanto herbicide glyphosate product, "Roundup," and possibly the introduction of a highly mutating fungus. None of these attacks are directed against areas under narco-trafficker and paramilitary control, though Carlos Castaño, leader of the paramilitaries, admits that up to 80% of the funds for the paramilitary units, i.e. U.S.-backed death squads, come from drug money.

Notice the probable effect of the two pronged approach: Increased military operations against FARC will force FARC to seek more funding to defend themselves and fight back, which means they will increase kidnappings and increase their reliance on coca money since coca is the crop with the most stable market and highest profit margin. So the amount of coca growing will increase and increased fumigation campaigns, i.e. chemical and biological warfare attacks, will displace more and more people. It will drive them further into the jungles and will increase the recruits for the FARC and ELN guerrillas, and for the paramilitaries, which will raise the level of violence further, which will raise the need for funds to fight "fire with fire" as the Financial Times described it, in a spiraling escalation of violence and drug production.

Q: A number of environmental groups have written to Presidents Pastrana of Colombia, and Clinton about the potentially catastrophic effects of the fumigation programs linked to the Colombia Plan.

A: Yes, a number of environmental groups and other NGO's (non-governmental organizations) are writing Clinton, Pastrana, etc., to point out the potentially devastating effects of U.S. chemical and biological warfare programs on the environment, and they are severe effects, killing off microorganisms in the soil, insects, reptiles, ground dwelling mammals, birds, aquatic life, plant life, human life, particularly those with weakened immune systems, meaning most of the rural population, displacing people, social unrest, health problems, but one has to think that the Pentagon knows very well what the effects are, and those effects are likely intended.

Harvard Professor of Government, Samuel Huntington, one of the real "voices" in the foreign policy establishment, said something along the lines of, "we have to destroy the rural revolution by undermining the social base, by creating a massive migration from the rural areas through the use of mechanical and conventional power," decoded, "through mass murder and environmental destruction." He was writing in 1968 about Vietnam, but it would not be outlandish to believe that similar policies are being followed in Colombia. It is an old U.S. strategy: "If you want to catch the fish -- the FARC guerrillas -- empty the sea -- the population. Translate that to reality and the picture is not very pleasant.

Q: The White House and the media in the U.S. will say, whatever the U.S. is doing in another country, Colombia or elsewhere, that we are there to protect democracy. How much truth is there in that statement?

A: Regarding the Colombia Plan, and Colombia itself, one would have to conclude that U.S. policy has very little to do with protecting democracy, unless one means a very undemocratic form of elite democracy. An independent political party was able to form back in 1985 as part of an agreement between the government and the FARC guerrillas, it was the "Patriotic Union." In a fairly short time about 3,500 of its members were assassinated including party activists, presidential candidates, mayors, etc. That demonstrates the Colombian commitment to democracy, and the U.S. commitment to democracy, as the U.S. was supporting the government that was carrying out the assassinations. The large-scale murder of trade unionists also demonstrates how serious is the commitment to democracy. Colombia leads the world in murdering and disappearing trade unionists.

There is much to be said about this subject, but put briefly, the U.S. is attached to formal political democracy emptied of most meaningful content, and strongly opposed to economic democracy. And political democracy, especially of the elite sort supported by the U.S., without economic democracy, is rather meaningless in the big picture.

Q: What about presentations of Colombia and the war on drugs in the U.S. media versus the reality of what goes on in Colombia?

A: There is an assumption in the question that the U.S. media is purposefully deceitful, and I think that is true, and it is not only on Colombia. For example, while massacres where increasing by 68% in the early months of 1999 in Colombia, with 80% of the atrocities being carried out by U.S.-backed paramilitaries, atrocities were also being carried out in East Timor, including massacres where hundreds of people were slaughtered, and these were being committed by Indonesian Commandos armed, trained and supported by the U.S.

Just prior to these massacres, Turkey was the champion human rights abuser and Turkey was the leading recipient of U.S. military aid, including napalm, jet fighters, tanks, helicopter gunships, etc., all used to massacre and ethnically cleanse tens of thousands of Kurds, many in the no-fly zones of Northern Iraq where the U.S. Air Force protects Kurds from Saddam, but strangely not from the Turkish attacks. In all three of these cases the U.S. acted to support the killers. If the media had reported honestly and fully on these cases, and a host of others, people might have raised a few more questions when the U.S. responded, with massive bombing ten weeks after the event, to the one reported massacre in Kosovo, the Racak massacre with 41 killed I think. Horrible, but small in comparison to Colombia, Turkey, and Timor.

The media very often report Colombian massacres in the context of "civilians caught in the crossfire." The same is true in Middle-East reporting. In both cases it is highly misleading. One of the latest massacres in Colombia, and they are proceeding at more than one a day, has so far claimed 70 lives, with more victims being discovered each day. Paramilitary units, under the protection of a Colombian military armed and trained by the U.S., marched into a village, called all of the villagers into the village square, read off a list of names, and commanded those people to step forward. They were tortured and murdered in the presence of the rest of the villagers, following a standard procedure. That was reported with the phrase "civilians caught in the crossfire."

Q: The Colombia Plan is referred to as an "aid to Colombia plan." How accurate is that description?

A: That the Colombia Plan is referred to as "aid to Colombia," is not a total lie, the term "aid" is very misleading given the violence and misery which will follow in the wake of the plan. But a more accurate description would be "aid to U.S. corporations" or "a gift from U.S. taxpayers to U.S. corporations engaged in creating weapons of human and environmental destruction," but it never gets reported that way in the mainstream.

Very little of the money goes to Colombia. United Tech gets a big chunk for Blackhawk helicopters, Sikorsky gets a substantial chunk for Hueys, Rockwell gets a significant chunk for surveillance installations, Dyncorp receives a huge piece of the pie to carry out fumigation operations, MRPI, sometimes called a Pentagon contracted mercenary corporation, gets a chunk. MRPI has been accused of training war criminals in Croatia. Not surprising given that the leading war criminals in the world live and work in the U.S., at the Pentagon and the White House, for example. The media probably won't be investigating that claim any time soon either.

Q: Why doesn't the media report accurately. We are taught in school that we have a free press?

A: The mainstream press is free in that they freely choose what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. Orwell said that anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy, in the relatively free societies, will find themselves silenced with great effectiveness. He also said that what is most impressive in the relatively free societies is that censorship is largely voluntary. People learn, through the education system, which includes much more than school, that certain facts and ideas are simply not appropriate, generally those that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy. Bias is a given, the question is will you side with the victims or the victimizers. The victimizers are generally the powerful, and it is not in one's interest to challenge the powerful. In the U.S., one will face vilification, marginalization, perhaps loss of job, etc. In Colombia the challenge might very likely result in torture and death.

The media are corporations, and they are part of a consensus of ideology and interests which creates a tightly limited set of parameters of action and thinking among elites, so that decision-makers and those who influence and inform decision-makers, whether it is in the political, military, economic or doctrinal arenas, operate within a fairly narrow framework of perceptions and prescriptions. A framework which allows for very little meaningful disagreement that might work to weaken, challenge or undermine the sacred biases of the system.

In fairness, and to give us hope, things have opened up considerably over the years due to much work to raise consciousness, to organize around issues, and to act in solidarity with people at home and abroad, as seen especially, and tellingly, in the Seattle, Washington and Prague protests, and surely at the coming Quebec demonstrations. All calling for a new global economic order that would take as its primary task meeting the needs, concerns and aspirations of the majority of the world's population, perhaps with an eye toward realizing the socio-economic provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, essentially rejected by the United States.

I think a significant shift in consciousness has occurred over the past few years, and it is important to recognize. Many people now understand that government, though often evil and vicious, is not the real source of our problems. Rather it is the "profits over people" economic system dominated by unaccountable corporate tyrannies served by their government and media lapdogs. That is an important shift in consciousness.

Q: Someone might ask the question "who benefits from the Colombia Plan?"

A: If people want to understand the real purpose of the Colombia Plan, I think it is multi-faceted and complex, relating to the U.S. commitment to the Rule of Force in the world, to the Pentagon System, to the maintaining of "stability," to what Noam Chomsky calls "the Fifth Freedom." In other words, the freedom of the United States to rob and exploit Third World people and resources.... which requires extensive discussion, but for a basic understanding they should look and see who accompanied Clinton on his recent trip to Colombia.

Any guesses? Answer: Pentagon officials and corporate executives. That alone explains much about the real purpose of U.S. foreign policy, and draws links to domestic policies linked to the Pentagon System which is such a substantial component of the U.S. economic system. Next year the Pentagon budget will be $310 billion dollars. If you make $30,000 next year, and I hope my math is correct, you would have to work for a million years to make that much money. Colombia is not only a foreign policy concern it is a domestic policy concern, and the more people understand the links between the two, in terms of economic, political, military, ideological and social power, the better armed they will be in the struggle to create a system of greater peace, justice, equality, cooperation and solidarity.

Q: It is often said that when people know they care. Now that we know a bit more about the Colombia Plan, what can we do about it?

A: It is true that "when people know they care," and that is why it is important for those carrying out murderous policies to keep their infamy either secret or clouded in deceit, propaganda and misinformation. In any case, whether it is homelessness, health care, East Timor, Colombia, prisons, poverty, IMF/World Bank, FTAA, WTO, Iraq, etc., the first step is raising awareness and raising consciousness, followed by or in conjunction with organization, then action, and increased solidarity, all having a reciprocal and expanding effect.

Finding out informataion is not all that difficult. There are a number of journals, for example, the latest issue of NACLA (www.nacla.org) is dedicated to Colombia. Reading anything by Noam Chomsky on any subject is always enlightening. The Colombia Support Network (www.colombiasupport.net) and Colombia Report (www.colombiareport.org) are excellent sources specific to Colombia and U.S. policy. Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org) is excellent, and some useful information can be garnered from the UN Commission on Human Rights. The book, Colombia: The Genocidal Democracy, by Father Javier Giraldo, director of the Colombian human rights group, Justice and Peace, is excellent, though gut-wrenching reading.

As to organizing about Colombia, writing letters to Congress people can be useful, especially right now as Clinton must review the human rights situation in Colombia in the coming weeks. He could, with enough pressure, cancel the "aid." Phone calls, emails, letters to Congress people, or to the White House (president@whitehouse.gov) can all be useful. Contact the Colombia Support Network for actions.

The question is not difficult at one level. If we do nothing to stop the fumigation campaigns, the military and paramilitary violence, and the IMF/World Bank policies, it is guaranteed that the situation for the vast majority of people in Colombia, and elsewhere, will only get worse, not to mention people in the U.S. If we do something, write a letter, make a phone call, inform friends, classmates, family members, strangers on the street, organize actions, etc., then maybe we can change U.S. policy, and more important for the victims, save lives. Again, we pay for the Colombia Plan in dollars, the Colombians pay for it in blood. I think it was Camus who said "to remain silent is to side with the executioners."

Doug Morris is Co-director of the David Anderson Center for Peace and Justice in Wilton, New Hampshire. The Center emphasizes youth empowerment, consciousness raising, organization, action and solidarity in the struggle for justice, equality and peace. For more information, contact Doug Morris at: dmorrisscott@yahoo.com

This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).

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