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article details a massive scandal [1] that has erupted in Colombia about illegal spying on human rights organizations and opposition groups by the government. (See "Spying on Democracy" below in the News Briefs section.) FOR is one of the NGOs that has been the targets of illegal wiretaps and surveillance. Our work is critical and under threat, and we need your help now.
Please click here to contribute [2]to the Fellowship of Reconciliation Colombia Program.
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William Brownfield spoke [3] only of the bases' use to combat drug trafficking, while foreign minister Jaime Bermudez said [4] the bases would also address "terrorism and other international crimes." And an internal Colombian report stated that the agreement includes increased cooperation, including for military training. President Uribe said the defense ministers could see the agreement "as long as it goes hand in hand with the OAS," [5] in which Washington plays a more prominent role.
In a joint press conference with Bermudez [6], apparently convened for damage control on August 18, Hillary Clinton muddied the waters further, saying that U.S. and Colombian cooperation also must address issues from the "economic crisis to the climate crisis to public health concerns, such as H1N1 virus."
In addition, the outgoing commander of the 12th Air Force, Lt. Gen. Norman Seip, told Inside the Pentagon that he supports establishing a series of small U.S. airfields throughout the region to conduct intelligence operations. That arrangement would be consistent with the plan to set up lily pads," as the Pentagon is doing in Africa and the Pacific, as an alternative to large, expensive, and politically vulnerable fixed bases.
Essentially, the Pentagon and Colombia are saying to the region, "Trust our word, we'll only use these bases internally, within Colombia." But this message is not reassuring for those in Colombia who are tired of war, including the millions of people displaced from their lands by Army, paramilitary, or guerrilla violence.
The claim that operations will be limited to Colombia also is not credible. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez read aloud at the summit from the U.S. military report on the Southern Command's interest in establishing "strategic airlift" capability in South America, and using the Palanquero base in Colombia to "cover the entire continent." The report also indicated that U.S. officials have sought an agreement with French Guiana for military access. (FOR was the first to make public the Air Mobility Command's disclosure in May.)
Members of Congress in both the House and Senate were likewise not persuaded. In the House, a September 15 letter from 16 Representatives highlighted the failures of Plan Colombia, especially the drug war, while Senators Dodd and Leahy asked [7]
how the base agreement would impact the Colombian military's political will to address killings of civilians. They also sharply criticized the Obama administration's complete lack of consultation with Congress and Colombia's neighbors in negotiating the agreement.
Meanwhile, Wayu'u indigenous leaders, whose communities straddle the Colombian-Venezuelan border in the northern Guajira region, announced that they would close the border [8] if the military base deal goes ahead. Many trucking companies that move Venezuelan oil into Colombia are run by Wayu'u collectives. Venezuelan oil had been exported to Colombia at lower rates, to alleviate economic conditions in the northern area where Wayu'u communities are concentrated. But a Venezuelan legislator claimed that Colombia was dumping the subsidized fuel onto the black market for use as far from the border as Bogotá. Wayu'u communities also were angered by Israeli authories' claims [9] that the Palestinian Hezbollah are active in the Guajira.
September 15-19, a coalition that includes the National University International Economy Observatory, Colombian Action Network on Free Trade [10] and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, organized a series of public events in Bogotá, Barranquilla, and Medellín, in which the bases in Colombia are being debated.
Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano also commented [11] on the bases in Colombia, saying: "It not only offends Latin American collective dignity, but the intelligence of anyone, because they say
their function will be to combat drugs. Please, for how long! Almost all the heroin consumed in the world comes from Afghanistan... And Afghanistan is a country occupied by the United States. As we know, occupying countries have responsibility for what happens in the occupied countries."
To link to a wide variety of information and documents about the proposed military bases in Colombia, click here. [12]
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statements [13] in July [14] and August [15] documenting abusive army behavior, an increasingly visible paramilitary presence, and the unexplained deaths of several civilians. Peace Community territories in the further reaches of the district have fallen victim to aggression, in particular in La Resbalosa, a hamlet to which Peace Community members have been returning over the last 18 months. The Community has denounced unauthorized entries into private
dwellings, the theft of crops, damage to property and insulting behavior by soldiers. Soldiers beat and verbally abused Julio Guisao, the work coordinator of La Resbalosa, as he was making his way home on July 20.
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| Colombian soldiers on trial on August 25 for the February 2005 massacre in San José de Apartadó wore their uniforms, despite no longer being on active duty. |
In considering the context for army operations, two points stand out. First, the army has published and distributed a booklet to its field personnel detailing the behavior expected of soldiers towards Peace Community members. Given the recent aggression, we question the
effectiveness of the booklet.
Second, the area has witnessed the introduction of two or three mobile brigades whose mission, according to army officials, is to exert greater pressure on the area's remaining guerrilla insurgents. This is in addition to the standing brigade, which has a base in the village of
San José de Apartadó, in the foothills of the Serranía de Abibe. The different veredas (sub-divisions) of the corregimiento appear full of the military. Troops station themselves within ten minutes´ walk of the hamlet in La Unión (where the international accompaniers are based) roughly every other week, staying in one place for up to five or seven days. However, there has been no violation of the Peace Community space in La Unión since April of this year. We are led to speculate that international accompaniment in La Unión provides a modicum of protection to Peace Community members that is not enjoyed by those living further into the mountains.
A newly-confident paramilitary presence is exerting itself once again in the veredas
close to Nueva Antioquia, a traditional stronghold of paramilitarism. Although official State discourse maintains that paramilitary forces no longer exist following a demobilization process, the presence of up to 200 armed men presenting themselves as Autodefensas Gaitanistas ("Gaitán" Self-Defense Forces, named after the slain Colombian politician) ridicules this claim.
The Peace Community argues that the paramilitaries never demobilized, and that links with the security forces in Nueva Antioquia remain intact. The Autodefensas' activities in La Esperanza and surrounding settlements over recent months have included death threats to Community members and accusations of collaboration with the guerrilla insurgency.
While it has been possible to attribute these aggressions to military and paramilitary forces, the recent deaths of three people within a fortnight in the area remain unresolved. In one incident, a prominent figure was murdered in La Cristalina settlement, where Peace
Community families also reside. A second killing occurred in a vereda shared with Peace Community families. In the third instance, a decomposed body appeared ten minutes away from the hamlet of La Unión. A forensic team was called upon to remove the remains under the auspices of the office of the human rights ombudsman, given the proximity to protected Peace Community spaces. It is not yet clear who committed the murders, or whether they were acts of political or social violence, but as always there is reason to suspect the involvement of
at least one armed group. Furthermore, in the department of Córdoba, which now hosts three Peace Community hamlets, the murder on July 31 of a local civilian at the hands of paramilitaries provoked the displacement of nearby residents.
Instability in San José de Apartadó is compounded by sporadic outbreaks of combat between army or paramilitary forces and guerrillas, which pose a further danger to the lives of civilians. In the midst of this violence, the Peace Community seeks to build and expand its spaces
of life, free from the damaging effects of the armed conflict, as the Geneva Conventions envisage.
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CorpWatch [16]
A small path descends from the town of La Jagua, crossing a field and forest until it ends at a cliff overlooking the Magdalena River. Pairs of buff-necked ibis take flight announcing their local name, "cocli cocli." Above the beach where children swim, the rock is carved
by erosion and dotted with small holes occupied by birds. The landscape is dotted, too, every 100 meters, with concrete markers declaring the land, river, and everything else a "public utility" that Colombia has given to the energy company Emgesa as part of the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project.
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| The Magdalena River. (Photo: Jonathan Luna) |
Quimbo's developer, Bogotá-based Emgesa S.A. Empresa Generadora de Energía, projects costs at $700 million for the hydro component and $200 million for substations. The Ministry of Environment granted a construction permit in May, and the dam is scheduled for full operation by 2014.
"If completed, it would be the first of multiple Emgesa dams proposed for the river in the department of Huila, along the country's longest and most economically important river," said Miller Dussán, a leader of the grassroots coalition Plataforma Sur de Organizaciones
Sociales and professor of philosophy at the Universidad Sur Colombiana (USCO).
The Quimbo dam would inundate about 8,800 hectares (ha) (34 square miles), displace some 1,500 rural peasants and eight community-owned cottage industries, and flood 842 ha of riparian forests and 2,000 ha of cultivated land, warned Dussán. It would severely cut "Agrado's
agricultural potential, resulting in its gross domestic product decreasing by at least 30 percent."
Discussion has been heated on radio and in the Colombian legislature which, in November 2008, held a televised nine-hour debate. Endangered Huila communities have mounted opposition marches, camps, and local and regional social forums. Plataforma Sur is spearheading the effort,
which includes regional youth, USCO academics, the Regional Council of Indigenous Peoples of Huila, Colombia's largest labor union (CUT), various social and environmental NGOs, autonomous collectives, and politicians including a former governor of Huila.
Continue reading here. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15415 [17]
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News Briefs
decriminalized the small-scale use of marijuana [18] on 25 August, opening the way for a shift in the country's drug-fighting policies to focus on traffickers instead of users. The high court ruled it unconstitutional to prosecute cases involving the private use of marijuana.
Elsewhere in Latin America, Colombia and Mexico have already decriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs. Brazil and Ecuador are looking at an initiative to legalize some drug use.
"Each adult is free to make lifestyle decisions without the intervention of the state," the court's ruling said. It did not set a weight limit for what constitutes small-scale and the court said it was not decriminalizing all drug use. "Behavior in private is legal, as long as it doesn't constitute clear danger," Supreme Court President
Ricardo Lorenzetti said. "The state cannot establish morality."
Read about why here. [19]
We stand with those Congresspeople, and millions of Colombians who continue to publicly oppose the FTA, U.S. military aid, and military bases.
Washington Office on Latin America [20], US Office on Colombia [21], and Latin America Working Group [22]
A scandal far worse than Watergate is unfolding featuring Colombia's presidential intelligence agency, the Administrative Security Department (DAS). Exposed by the Colombian news weekly Semana and the subject of an Attorney General's office investigation, the DAS is revealed to have been illegally spying on many of the varied forces of Colombian democracy: opposition politicians, human rights groups, journalists, clergy, unions, and Supreme Court justices. The operation went deeper than surveillance [23], employing a variety of dirty tricks, seeking to "neutralize and restrict" the normal activities of human rights groups and any voices
critical of the Uribe administration.
And the scandal is far from over. Indeed, Semana magazine revealed on August 29 that the DAS, despite the media outcry and the Attorney General's investigation, is continuing and even
increasing its illegal espionage, focused against judges, human rights lawyers and, now, presidential candidates and members of Congress. According to a DAS agent interviewed by Semana [24], "What interests us now? Simple: the referendum [the legislation
allowing a referendum to permit President Uribe to be elected for a third term]. We have to know... what the politicians are thinking." A U.S. Department of Justice official's conversations with a Supreme Court judge were recorded. And even the prosecutors investigating the DAS were illegally wiretapped.
campaign [25] to change these conditions. The aim of the campaign is to bring sustained and coordinated pressure on the Colombian government to achieve a positive, lasting and significant change for the country's
human rights defenders.
Areas of focus
- Impunity in cases involving defenders.
- Misuse of state intelligence against defenders.
- Systematic stigmatization of defenders by government officials.
- Unfounded criminal proceedings brought against defenders.
- Problems with the protection program for defenders at risk.
Individuals can endorse the campaign [26]. Click here [27] to see what you can do.
announced on September 11 that it "certified" [28] improvements in Colombia's human rights record, triggering the release of $32.1 million in military equipment and training from the fiscal year about to end. As of June, Senate officials had place a hold $72 million in other military assistance because of human rights concerns.
The State Department 157-page "justification" for certifying contains curious combinations of statements. "The security situation in Colombia continues to improve," yet "homicides of labor unionists rose" and "reports of extrajudicial killings continued during the certification period", while "investigations into cases of extrajudicial killings are proceeding slowly," and the number of people displaced by the conflict increased (by disputed amounts). If this is improved security, what would worse security look like?
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Pacifists Without Borders [29], with support from the Bogotá mayor's office, will trail blaze the pathway towards the World Summit for Peace, which will occur in the city of Bogotá, October 1-4, 2009. This citizen-led and -promoted initiative is a collective effort towards global peace and against violence, militarization, and injustice. The objective is to
collectively construct a favorable setting for reflection, to exchange ideas and dialogue about peace as a social construction, derived from a system based on the principles of social justice and peaceful coexistence.
The World Summit for Peace will have two dimensions:
- The global dimension: It is crucial to lead a cultural process from Bogotá, Colombia and the Andean Region which is comprised of basic values such as nonviolence and pacifism. Bogotá will be converted into a stage from which a worldwide peace process will be constructed, promoted, and led within a global context. Moreover, the global dimension to the Summit will further permit the world community to be informed about the particular dimensions of the Colombian armed conflict.
- The local dimension: this proposed process looks to foster spaces for dialogue about the Colombian conflict and to develop strategies with the help from all international participants in order to search for a solution to the Colombian armed conflict. Furthermore, we look to provoke a collective reflection through an ample process of participation that will permit us to create the atmosphere for a solution and a post-conflict strategy.
During the summit, Bogotá will be the arena for artistic expressions. A host of such artistic expressions will permeate throughout the city, including concerts, dance presentations, theatrical performances,
painting exhibitions, and alternative films from all reaches of the world. You too are invited to inundate the city with art in the name of the Global Peace!
The summit will produce five strategic documents. Three of them will be elaborated by well-known internationally recognized figures. These documents will be presented in the summit by their authors and they will be discussed in three large public assemblies. The three documents will address the central themes: justice, culture, and democracy, and their relationship to peace. We will make the effort to establish these documents as the basis for dialogue in the preliminary stages of the summit.
The fourth document is what we call the Bogotá Manifesto 2009. This will be a proposition that will emerge from the summit and will be elaborated by the promoting group and the facilitators of the event. The first draft of the manifesto will be presented and discussed
through a permanent virtual online forum for a period of six months. Furthermore, the World Summit for Peace will project a strategy for the implementation of the Bogotá Manifesto as a post-summit strategy.
The fifth document will be the Pathway to Peace in Colombia: Conflict and Post-Conflict. This will be a collectively elaborated project with the wide
participation of international and national participants. It will be signed by all participants as the first stage of a work in progress in order to achieve a political solution to the Colombian conflict.
There is no charge for participation in the Summit in Bogotá. To register, send an e-mail to: cumbredepaz@cumbremundialdepaz2009.org [30]
The organizers want curiosity for the Summit to increase as the main event draws closer and likewise aspire to generate interest among the worldwide citizenry and institutions. Moreover, they hope to unite global support and commitment for this global cause. We hope to create
strong alliances with the international media in order to promote the city's image as a city committed to Peace in Colombia and in the World.
World Peace Conference • www.pacifistassinfronteras.org [31] • 011(571)368-1999