Old Wars, New Guns
"This is not Vietnam, neither is it Yankee Imperialism." President Clinton spoke these words while in Colombia recently to deliver "$862 million in aid to that country, most of which will be used to...
...Colombia's guerrilla groups, meanwhile, will continue to be targets of the military and paramilitaries, and as the aid package takes effect, U.S...
...But that rationale is belied by several facts...
...She wasn't overstating things...
...As this NACLA Report makes clear, the United States is treating Colombia like Vietnam, in ways that risk deepening the country's 40-year civil war, and aggravating its reputation as one of the world's most violent nations and worst human rights violators...
...taxpayers can expect steady Washington descriptions of the rebels as profit-driven narcotraffickers...
...This issue of NACLA Report ends with a list of organizations and resources useful for anyone interested in Sworking for peace and justice in Colombia...
...U.S...
...The real reasons for the intervention, Tate argues, are political, economic and electoral...
...Weapons firms such as Sikorsky, maker of the Blackhawk helicopter, need new markets...
...Among them: The area where most narcotraffickers are located, northern Colombia, will hardly be touched by the U.S...
...aid" will thus make things worse in Colombia even as it diverts resources from this country's social needs...
...aid package will only exacerbate...
...But the vast majority of political murders are committed by right-wing paramilitary groups against hapless peasants and other civilians who often did nothing more than support labor rights or feed guerrillas who entered a village demanding a meal...
...flags...
...Yet that understanding will be undermined as the "aid package" pumps up the military and paramilitaries, and boxes the guerrillas into a reactive position...
...In the wake of the Cold War, the military-industrial complex still seeks power and business...
...Marc Chernick notes that the guerrillas have turned from older, Soviet- and Cuban-influenced ideology to reformism as they negotiate for peace...
...As Nazih Richani notes, paramilitary groups have a long history in Colombia...
...umans are already being grotesquely harmed by violence that the U.S...
...eradication effort...
...Hopefully, that work will spread, both here and abroad...
...Some of the costs are still speculative, as described by Ricardo Vargas Meza, who discusses plans to introduce an herbicidal fungus into Colombia...
...And throughout the United States-from New York City to Helena, Montana-hundreds protested the aid package...
...President Clinton spoke these words while in Colombia recently to deliver "$862 million in aid to that country, most of which will be used to train, advise and supply its military forces...
...Colombia fits the bill for all these interests-but at a terrible price for that country's people...
...Maria Carri6n introduces us to some of the 1.8 million Colombians who are refugees in their own country as a result of the carnage...
...Guerrillas are responsible for some of it...
...One organizer called the demonstrations "the first step toward building a national anti-war movement against U.S...
...But Alfredo Molano traces the history of the biggest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and reveals that its roots are sunk deep in generations-old peasant struggles against latifuindistas and other elites who for long have monopolized Colombia's wealth and political power...
...He and Daniel Garcia-Pefia describe the ongoing peace process as tedious and delicate, but as something that all parties-the government, military, guerrillas and paramilitaries-must come to see as the sole alternative to endless war...
...The biowarfare agent is supposed to attack drug crops...
...intervention in Colombia...
...But it is banned in parts of the United States because of fears that it may also damage other organisms-including humans...
...The United States seems less interested in dealing with its drug problem than in attacking leftist insurgents thousands of miles away...
...The Defense Department wants to maintain ties to Latin American militaries...
...They are intimately tied to narcotraffickers, exploitative mining mafias and landowners-and to the Colombian military, which will be getting the Washington money and no doubt sharing it with its paramilitary cronies...
...As Winifred Tate notes in these pages, Washington justifies the intervention as a "drug war" tactic to destroy the Colombian coca and poppy fields that supply cocaine and heroin to the United States...
...And in this election year, voters are concerned about drug abuse, so Democrats and Republicans compete with "drug war" talk...
...The region that will be hit, the south, is governed largely by guerrillas...
...In response, students and trade unionists there torched U.S...
Vol. 34 • September 2000 • No. 2
