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January 14, 2002 U.S. Aid Aggravates Human Rights Abuses A December 20, 2001, article in the New York Times discussed the linking of U.S. aid to Colombia to human rights conditions. The three most interesting paragraphs got to the heart of the matter, one of which stated, "While some American diplomats complained that Congress was intruding into Mr. Bush's direction of foreign policy [by trying to apply human rights conditions], they said they did not believe the measures would disrupt the flow of aid or overall anti-drug strategy in Colombia." In other words, nothing will change. Furthermore, the Bush administration wants no restrictions on its ability to carry out human rights abuses in Colombia. For its part, the U.S. Congress, largely due to the work of activists, is attempting to impose conditions on U.S. military aid because of human rights abuses committed by Colombian security forces and the right-wing paramilitaries that work with them. But these conditions are allegedly "intruding into Bush's direction of foreign policy."
A more accurate paragraph would have read: "The United States has long been arming, training, funding and supporting Colombian security forces that have compiled the worst human rights record in the hemisphere (a correlation that goes back many years with many other recipients of U.S. arms, training, funding and support). The United States, in spite of public rhetoric, continues to do the same, currently training more Colombian soldiers at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, than military personnel from any other country. Concerning Colombia, as I discovered as part of a recent Witness
for Peace and School of the Americas Watch delegation, sadly, much
remains the same, and in many cases it is much worse. There is much
to say about terror and violence, a point we should not lose in
our desire to understand the complexities of U.S.-Colombia relations,
or any other international relationships. Terror, violence and war
traumatize, brutalize and destroy human lives. The repercussion
of the brutality, trauma and destruction filters down through society
in many ways, as we should recognize here in the United States as
a result of the September 11 tragedies. The carnage and viciousness
of the 20th century should have ingrained that basic lesson into
the heads of everyone. What is perhaps most frightening is that
the lesson is very obvious, and one suspects it is well understood
by our leaders--massive terror, the kind Washington seems to prefer,
brings results, and repercussions, what some call "blowback." Well, the United States has begun fumigating again in Putumayo. If we stand by and refuse to listen to the screams of those suffering from displacement, or those being brutally tortured, murdered and massacred, or the pleas of those being poisoned, then it will only get worse until all forms of resistance are crushed and repressed. Or, we can act to prevent the crimes and "intrude" on Bush's foreign policy prescriptions. If we refuse to act, then I think we must ask ourselves the question posed by Noam Chomsky, "Who are the real barbarians?" Actually, we should ask it anyway, because the answer is all too obvious. Colombia has the worst human rights record in the hemisphere, and still it is the region's largest recipient of U.S. military aid. Colombia is only the most recent illustration of a long standing and instructive correlation. Before Colombia, Turkey was killing tens of thousands of Kurds, flattening thousands of villages and displacing millions, with mostly U.S.-supplied weaponry. And before Turkey, El Salvador was killing tens of thousands, etc., etc., etc. While most eyes are now focused on Afghanistan, U.S. policies supporting terror in Colombia, and elsewhere, continue unabated. The United States is like a giant octopus, with its tentacles everywhere, literally. The United States exports more arms than the next 14 countries combined, controlling about 50 percent of global weapons sales. There were 426 massacres last year in Colombia, while 319,000 people were displaced--an average of almost 1,000 per day in 2001--constituting the largest displaced population in the hemisphere.
In Colombia we met with displaced people and the support and solidarity groups they have formed under often atrocious and foreboding conditions. Their stories are both horrific and inspiring. In one meeting in Bogotá we met with some 40 displaced people, most of who were women--many of the men these women knew were killed or disappeared by the paramilitary death squads. Many of us have heard the term "displaced," and it sounds bad, of course, but the depth of the horror doesn't sink in from a distance. One woman described to us what it means to be displaced. It doesn't simply mean you are moved from point A to point B. She explained, "They take away your land, your food, your house, often your family and friends through disappearance, murder or massacre, your support, your community, your culture, your history. They burned our farm animals in front of us, you flee with whatever you can carry on your back, you go to the city and become a beggar in the streets. The pain is unbearable, the shock is sometimes deadly, many have gone crazy. We can't even protest for basic human rights or they will disappear a family member, or kill us." She then began to weep with great agony and despair. There was one woman in the group that did not weep, or laugh, or share one word the entire time. We didn't know why until later. She, like many Colombians, had witnessed the brutal murder of family members a month earlier in her village. She was in the room, but she had been disappeared. But not like the 743 people who were physically disappeared in Colombia last year. In fact, the week prior to our arrival 40 people were disappeared. To "disappear" someone is to murder them, but there is no body, hence no closure for the victim's family and friends. It is another form of terror employed against the population. It is the terror of knowing, but not knowing for sure. It is the terror of psychological and emotional instability. The woman in the group had not been physically disappeared, she had been emotionally and psychologically disappeared. We witnessed much of that in Colombia. But we are told by the New York Times that U.S. policies are "benign." And though we met with many people in Bogotá who shared grim stories of suffering and misery, the situation was worse in Putumayo. Many images from the village of El Tigre, in the department of Putumayo, southern Colombia, the area receiving the brunt of the U.S. sponsored violence, are seared into our memories forever. For example, spray painted on the wall of a community bakery were the slogans, "We are here to stay" and "El Tigre will be erased from the map," both signed by the "AUC," the paramilitary death squads. The P's, as one calls the paramilitaries while in Colombia, control many of the towns, even some of those containing Colombian military bases. El Tigre is one of many villages that have suffered repression and massacre.
In El Tigre they also gathered people into a building, doused it with gasoline, set it aflame, and burned the people alive. But that was not a sufficient level of terror and intimidation. They then took people to the bridge over the Putumayo River, beheaded them and dumped their remains in the river. The bodies washed up a day or two later as a reminder that the paramilitaries can erase El Tigre from the map anytime they want to. It is a brutal lesson. There is a law in Colombia, unwritten, but everybody knows it. It is the "law of silence." In essence, "A closed mouth captures no bullets." Evidence of its power was witnessed everywhere we went in Putumayo. Rarely would anyone talk about human rights abuses other than the fumigation. The dumping of poisons by the United States displaces people, destroys food crops, causes respiratory problems and rashes, is suspected of causing brain damage in young children, poisons water supplies, and kills fish, farm animals, trees, bugs, etc. Many of us were worried about things like yellow fever, and ravenous mosquitoes in Colombia. But I did not see one mosquito, and received not one mosquito bite. Maybe they found Yankee blood unattractive, or perhaps the rivers of blood provide enough nourishment, or maybe the fumigation is controlling the mosquitoes? This article has been adapted from interviews
with Doug Morris of the Brattleboro Area Peace and Justice Group
conducted by Joshua Jackson on December 21, 23 and 28, 2001. This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).
Copyright © 2003 Colombia Journal. All rights reserved. |
What
some citizens are trying to do is "disrupt the flow" of
misery that Washington calls "aid." The Bush administration,
like the Clinton administration before it, is committed to a foreign
policy that contributes to massive human rights abuses, and anyone
who questions it is "intruding," or "aiding and abetting
the terrorists," as Attorney General John Ashcroft would put
it. The Times article also states, "The United States
has long been critical of the human rights record of the Colombian
security forces. In February, the State Department reported that
'the armed forces and the police committed serious violations of
human rights' throughout the previous year." And yet, Washington
is going to send the Colombian military hundreds of millions more
in "misery" so they can continue to commit human rights
violations. This demonstrates the always telling difference between
public rhetoric and private counsel. 
Are
we to believe the New York Times when it says, "The
United States has long been critical of the human rights record
in Colombia." Maybe it is referring to people like Senator
Bob Graham from Florida, who is calling for the "war against
terror" to be conducted in Colombia because of hundreds of
attacks against U.S. interests last year. What he was referring
to were attacks against oil pipelines. Of course, for him that is
a human rights abuse because it interferes with the prerogative
to maximize profits for the humans that matter. The killing of union
leaders, campesinos and indigenous leaders by paramilitaries allied
with Colombia's U.S.-supported military is not a human rights abuse.
In fact, from their perspective, it is a human benefit because it
makes for more propitious conditions of exploitation of land and
labor, and, coincidentally, of course, it just happens to benefit
the people who matter. 
What
often happens in Colombia, and it happened in El Tigre, is that
the Colombian military--armed, trained and supported by the United
States--blocks the roads going in to a village so that no one can
enter or leave. Then the paramilitaries arrive and order the people
to congregate in the village square. They call out names. These
people are brought forward and murdered in front of their fellow
villagers. Sometimes they are shot, sometimes they have their heads
bashed in with rocks, and sometimes the paramilitaries utilize hatchets
and chainsaws.