In this newsletter, you will find:
- Letter from the Field: Anti-Military Concert [0]
- Victory in Congress for Disclosure on Military Training [0]
- Extradition of Paramilitary Leaders: Sending Away Hope for Justice and Truth [0]
- Our Dreams Will Not Be Recruited: Oakland Youth Launch Manifesto and Make Global/Local Connections [0]
- AMOR Burglarized: Women's Organization in Eastern Antioquia [0]
- Santa Cruz Calling to End Military Aid to Colombia, More Funds for Drug Treatment [0]
announced that Ecuador will not seek military training for its soldiers in the United States [0]. “I am absolutely against continuing that kind of training,” he said. WHINSEC, especially, “has been a fundamental means to control the military policies of the region’s countries,” he added. Instead, Ecuador will seek military training through the newly-created South American Defense Council promoted by Brazil – without US participation.
The amendment requiring the release of WHINSEC graduate names now must be approved by the Senate to become law. School of the Americas Watch has set up a Post-Vote Action page [1] for tips, on-line letters and contact information to contact Senate offices about the amendment.
In recent years, WHINSEC has denied information that in the past has been vital in identifying the perpetrators of massacres, assassinations, and other human rights abuses committed in Latin America. But WHINSEC is not the only institution that refuses to release the names of soldiers receiving military training from the United States. Randolph AFB in Texas, Naval Postgraduate Academy in California, Fort Rucker in Alabama train hundreds of Colombian soldiers and officers each year, but denied Freedom of Information Act requests by the Fellowship of Reconciliation for the names of Colombian officers and soldiers who received military training there. Other schools stated they had no records for the foreign soldiers trained at their institutions.
The access to information regarding students and instructors attending US military courses will allow human rights organizations to continue to monitor training programs and identify those graduates and instructors who have violated human rights or taken part in criminal activities in their home countries. For example, recent disclosures [2] indicate that 200 Mexican security forces trained at Fort Benning in Georgia later joined drug trafficking syndicates that have committed killings on both sides of the US-Mexico border – using their training against the same forces the United States is supporting. Information is power, and the more information we have, the better tools we have for stopping US militarism in Latin America and the illegal and destructive abuses committed by unaccountable armed forces.
The approval of this amendment will now lead us to face a new challenge to insure that WHINSEC also be held accountable by the U.S. Senate. In the coming weeks we will continue to keep you updated so we can work together towards another victory.
El Tiempo [3], Gordillo told human rights prosecutors that the military operation had been “planned long ago from above, with ranking commanders”.
The hearing was adjourned. The next day, May 14, Don Berna and 13 other paramilitary leaders who had demobilized in the framework of the so-called Justice and Peace Law were sent to the United States to face drug-related charges. With the extradition of paramilitary bosses went Gordillo’s willingness to confess: on May 15, Gordillo’s attorney requested that the hearing be suspended indefinitely, a move suggesting that his client’s willingness to cooperate with prosecutors had come to an end.
What is at stake
Gordillo’s confession to the brutal killing of Peace Community members brings the “para-politics” scandal to a new dimension. It reveals strong ties between the high-ranking officers of the Colombian armed forces and the paramilitary death squads. The ties go beyond the army’s passive tolerance of paramilitary activity – or its refusal to go after them--, and includes planning and carrying out brutal atrocities.
Such explosive revelations do not bode well for US and Colombian interests in approval of the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement by the Democrat-controlled Congress. The paramilitary leaders are also key witnesses in the probes of politicians in the para-politics scandal that continue to get closer to President Alvaro Uribe. So the US and Colombian sudden apparent interest in punishing the paramilitary leaders for exporting cocaine into the United States doesn’t come as a surprise. In practice, the move makes drug charges trump justice and truth for thousands of victims.
Suspicious loss of information
Since the paramilitary leaders were shipped to the United States, it has been revealed [4] that several hard drives, memory cards and cell phone SIM cards went missing inside the maximum security prison where the rightwing bosses were being held. Such gross negligence in the handling of potentially relevant information is ironic, in view of the laptop computers seized by the Colombian army at the FARC compound after it was bombed from the air in March.
Victims demand truth and reparation
The victims of paramilitary violence have not responded idly to this move. Relatives of the victims appealed to the courts to prevent paramilitary leader Carlos Mario Jimenez, alias Macaco, from being sent to the US to respond to drug charges. A political storm erupted April 11 when they were granted an injunction, though it a high tribunal later overturned it and the militia leader was promptly shipped to the US on May 6.
Human rights groups have also sharply criticized the extradition of paramilitary leaders. The Inter American Human Rights Commission [5] warned that the extradition “interferes with efforts to determine links between agents of the State and these paramilitary leaders” and “impedes the investigation and prosecution of … grave crimes through the avenues established by the Justice and Peace Law.”
Fate of 2005 massacre investigation
Despite Gordillo’s change of heart in his cooperation with prosecutors, there seems to be ample evidence linking higher military officials in the massacre. For a start, a cover-up operation took place immediately after the massacre, which included reportedly coerced testimonies accusing the victims of being guerrilla members, as well as the Defense Minister’s assertions that no army troops were in the area in the days when the massacre occurred. There is also the testimony, according to a Reuters press report [6], of paramilitary soldier alias Pirulo indicating that the order to kill Alejandro Bolivar’s children, Natalia (6) and Santiago (1), had been issued by Capitan Gordillo, under the pretext that those children would grow up to become guerrillas. The same testimony indicated that Natalia walked to her death carrying a doll and a plastic bag with clothes for her brother, thinking that she was about to go into a journey. Let’s hope that full justice will be done.
Not Your Soldier [7] campaign explained the context of what is going on in Colombia, the militarization of life that young people face there and how they are non-violently resisting.
They shared photos of the young Colombian conscientious objectors, workshops and food: a beautiful plate of Colombian food served to the delegates in juxtaposition with a huge pot of gloppy “American” food (what’s American food, we asked??). In this case it was good ole’ mac and cheese, which the Colombians insisted was delicious! “We weren’t convinced!” said Sharon. They showed a video of the creative action that members of the Red Juvenil did in front of a military base where a young man named Diego, who had been illegally recruited and declared himself a conscientious objector, was being held. (He was freed [8] shortly afterward.) The video ended with Colombian youth jumping up and down and yelling, “La juventud no va, no va a la guerra!” (the youth won’t go, won’t go to war!).
Part of the evening was dedicated to launching the Youth Manifesto (see below), a declaration written by BAY-Peace’s youth action team that clearly explains what these youth Believe, Want and Demand. Supporters in the audience committed to gathering more than 2,000 signatures on the manifesto that will be brought to school board members. Hopefully this will create enough pressure to change practices in the Oakland school district, like limiting military recruiters’ access to students’ personal information and time. Those present also made commitments to find organizational endorsements.
Take Action! If you live in the Bay Area (or know someone who does), please sign a copy of the manifesto [9] and send it to the BAY-Peace office. Also, if you know of any Bay Area organizations that would endorse this campaign, please download the organizational endorsement form and ask them to sign on.
BAY-Peace Youth Manifesto
36 US Congressional Representatives wrote [10] expressing their concerns for the vulnerability of social organizations that have become targets for the theft of information. Nevertheless, the collective of information theft victims continues to await results from the investigations. With these cases still in their initial states of investigation and far from resolution, all appears to indicate that these cases are likely to continue in impunity.
Santa Cruz Calling to End Military Aid to Colombia, More Funds for Drug Treatment
On June 10, the Santa Cruz City Council will consider (and likely pass) a resolution requesting that all US military aid to Colombia be re-directed to domestic drug prevention and rehabilitation programs. This is the second of its kind to be passed in California this year – the Berkeley City Council approved a similar resolution on January 29. The resolution urges the mayor and Santa Cruz residents alike to mobilize around the issue: “BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Santa Cruz mayor publicize the City Council’s action and send a letter to mayors elsewhere in California encouraging them to take a similar stand on this issue…. and [that] local residents contact friends and family in other congressional districts to ask them to communicate on the above issues with their own Congressional representatives.”
The resolution also recognizes the leadership that Representative Sam Farr has taken to support human rights in Colombia, and urges him to support an end to all US military aid to Colombia. It notes that, “human rights violations and impunity enjoyed by the Colombian armed forces are comparable to those of Guatemalan and Indonesian forces in recent years and the United States suspended assistance to the Guatemalan and the Indonesian militaries because of human rights violations.”
While only the second resolution of its kind, it is exciting that the initiative be repeated in other city councils and that local politicians are willing to tackle US drug policy, which has remained largely unchallenged at the national level. While budgets for drug treatment programs in Santa Cruz were cut by 10% just last week, US taxpayers continue to fund the training of Colombian military officials who kill civilians, while presenting them as guerrillas killed in combat. It is no secret that the 25-year-old, $25 billion drug war is a complete failure. Yet members of Congress are still trying to appear “tough on drugs” by supporting strict sentencing measures for nonviolent drug offenders, funding for eradication and interdiction programs in Colombia and Mexico, while cutting prevention and rehabilitation programs, the only proven method to reduce drug demand.
For information and a tool kit on how to pass a resolution in your city, please contact FOR Colombia Program national organizer Liza Smith: liza[at]igc.org, 510-763-1403.