The American Fingerprints on Colombia’s Dead

[Judi Lynn]

February 24, 2015

A Historian Instructs Peace Negotiators on U.S. Role in Colombian Civil War

The American Fingerprints on Colombia’s Dead

by W.T. WHITNEY Jr.


Colombia is seemingly a “no-go” zone for most U. S. media and even for many critics of U.S. overseas misadventures. Yet the United States was in the thick of things in Colombia while hundreds of thousands were being killed, millions were forced off land, and political repression was the rule.

Bogota university professor and historian Renán Vega Cantor has authored a study of U.S. involvement in Colombia. He records words and deeds delineating U.S. intervention there over the past century. The impact of Vega’s historical report, released on February 11, stems from a detailing of facts. Communicating them to English-language readers will perhaps stir some to learn more and to act.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government have been at war for half a century. Vega’s study appears within the context of negotiations in Cuba to end that conflict. Negotiators on both sides agreed in August, 2014 to form a “Historical Commission on Conflict and its Victims” to enhance discussions on victims of conflict. The Commission explored “multiple causes” of the conflict, “the principal factors and conditions facilitating or contributing to its persistence,” and consequences. Commission members sought “clarification of the truth” and establishment of responsibilities. On February 11 the Commission released an 809 – page report offering a diversity of wide-ranging conclusions. Vega was one of 12 analysts contributing individual studies to the report.

Having looked into “links between imperialist meddling and both counterinsurgency and state terrorism,” he claims the United States “is no mere outside influence, but is a direct actor in the conflict owing to prolonged involvement.” And, “U. S. actions exist in a framework of a relationship of subordination. … The block in power had an active role in reproducing subordination, because, (Vega quotes Colombia Internacional, vol 65), ‘there existed for more than 100 years a pact among the national elites for whom subordination led to economic and political gains.’” As a result, “Not only in the international sphere, but in the domestic one too, the United States, generally, has the last word.”

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/24/why-is-colombia-a-no-go-zone-for-american-reporters/

[Judi Lynn]

1. This article contains historical information which should be noted.

This portion is especially helpful, as it refers to the horrendous beginning of the worst violence in Colombia's history. If you're interested enough to read it, please remember these facts, like all of them can be verified through any number of other resources you can find, they are accurate, and can't be dismissed by someone's attack on my source like the attacks you've already seen made here. There are no "commie cesspool" facts in this material. It's always accurate, can be located in other sources, clearly. I'm stating this now to beat the troll. This time I want MY statement made first. This material is true, I've read it over and over before seeing this article.

This part is very helpful:

Vega highlights Colombia’s “native” brand of counterinsurgency. Under the flag of anti-communism, the Colombian Army violently suppressed striking oil, dock and railroad workers. On December 6, 1929 at the behest of the U.S. United Fruit Company, that Army murdered well over 1000 striking banana workers near Santa Marta. According to Minister of War Ignacio Rengifo, whom Vega quotes, Colombia faced a “new and terrible danger … The ominous seed of communism is being sprinkled on Colombian beaches [which] now begin to germinate in our soil and produce fruits of decomposition and revolt.” Having investigated those events, Representative Jorge Eliécer Gaitán told Colombia’s Congress in 1929 that, “It was a question of resolving a problem of wages by means of bullets from government machine gunners, because the workers were Colombian and the Company was American. (After all,) the government has murderous shrapnel for Colombians and a trembling knee on the ground before American gold.”

From the late 1930’s on, Gaitán and the left wing of the Liberal Party were leading mobilizations for agrarian and labor rights. With the advent of Conservative Party rule in 1946, repression with anti-communist overtones led to thousands of killings. By then U.S. military missions and instructors were operating in Colombia. U.S. military units no longer needed specific permission to enter Colombia. Colombia and other Latin American nations in 1947 signed the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, a military security agreement. Then on April 9, 1948, Gaitán was assassinated.

Colombian cities erupted in destruction and chaos. Within two weeks, 3000 died. Prompted by U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the Colombian government blamed communists for Gaitán’s killing. Marshall was in Bogota that day presiding over a hemisphere-wide meeting at which, for cold war purposes, the Pan-American Union became the Organization of American States. Over the next ten years, war between the Colombian Army and peasant insurgents took nearly 200,000 lives. Most insurgents were affiliated with the Liberal Party but were labelled as communists.

The two nations signed a military assistance agreement in 1952 in response to an alleged “communist conspiracy.” Colombia was the only Latin American nation to send troops to the Korean War. Returning home, “Korea Battalion” veterans attacked insurgents and strikers. Colombia established its “School of Lancers” in 1955, modeled on and facilitated by the U.S. Army Ranger School. That year, with U.S. advisers on hand, Colombian troops used napalm in an unsuccessful effort to eradicate peasant insurgents in Tolima department. In 1959 U.S. military advisers secured President Alberto Lleras Camargo’s approval for a helicopter-equipped, 1500 – person counter-insurgency unit. A “secret CIA team” visited military detachments and inspected security archives to expand counterinsurgency and psychological warfare capabilities.

Yet rural uprisings continued, and, increasingly, insurgents were identifying themselves as communist. In response U.S. General William Yarborough and a U.S. Special Forces team visited four Colombian army brigades in 1962. They were there “to evaluate the ‘effectiveness of counterinsurgency operations’” and plan U.S. assistance. The U.S. army soon stepped up training and technical assistance, and provided new equipment, especially helicopters. Significantly, the Yarborough report, in a “Secret Supplement,” proposed that the “Colombian state organize paramilitary groups in order to ‘execute paramilitary activities like sabotage and/or terrorism against known partisans of communism. (The report emphasized that,) The United States must support this.’” It recommended new “interrogation techniques for ‘softening up’ prisoners.”

[newfie11]

2. +++++++++++++++

Thanks for posting this. Some people just can't handle the truth!

[DeSwiss]

3. K&R

- Influence?, indeed. And yet the Columbians get to do what many RWs and other varieties of conservative-psychopath in the US can only dream of. At least for the time being:

[COLGATE4]

4. First of all, it's "ColOmbia", not "Columbia"

If you're going to slam a country, at least get its name right. Secondly, what objection to you have to the Colombian military bombing a camp of armed insurgents who are at declared war with the national government?

[Judi Lynn]

5. They get to use weapons purchased by the hard-earned tax dollars of US citizens, too,

whether those citizens support the US/Colombian war upon the poor or not.

Nine billion U.S. dollars poured into the government since 2000. So many poor people murdered. The right-wing is happy to keep killing until everyone, who isn't a member of the European-descended small elite of wealthy Colombians, is dead other than those who agree to work in dangerous, dirty, hazardous positions for almost no salaries at all, and no health insurance, or safety programs, or retirement.

It's the holy vision for the way the right-wing wants things, just the way it is trying to force upon the current US citizens who aren't financially "bullet-proof."

Destroy all the progress made to help the exploited, disdained working class, then you got yerself a country, if you're a fascist!

Here's a right-spun article which reflects how heavily the US gov't has armed the Colombian government in its war on the poor classes:

Over a Decade of US Covert Action in Colombia
Wednesday, January 15, 2014

~ snip ~

Beginning in 2000, the National Security Agency began a surveillance program of the FARC in Colombia. A program named “Plan Colombia” was already in place and was public knowledge; it sent $9 billion to Colombia in military aid. This new program that was enacted in secret, along with a large undisclosed budget, was approved by George W. Bush and continues today. Various military, intelligence and diplomatic officials have anonymously confirmed this program’s existence. In 2000, it was estimated that the FARC had grown to 18,000 members, and were quickly making their presence known. Local officials were being assassinated, a presidential candidate was kidnapped, and presidential front-runner, Alvaro Uribe, survived numerous FARC assassination plots. Uribe, who would later become president of Colombia, has a solid stance against the FARC who assassinated his father in 1983. With the FARC’s actions becoming bolder and more consistent, US fears that Colombia would collapse and drug trafficking would grow exponentially caused the Bush administration to increase the amount of military aid being sent to Colombia. By 2003, US involvement in Colombia included 40 US agencies and involved around 4,500 people, many of which whom operated out of the US embassy in Bogota. At the time, this embassy housed more US officials than any other embassy around the world and would remain the largest until 2004 when Afghanistan’s embassy would surpass it. The US ambassador to Colombia from 2003 to 2007, William Wood said, “There is no country, including Afghanistan, where we had more going on.”

Following September 11, 2001, many programs similar to this arose in drug-heavy countries. Currently, Mexico is second only to Afghanistan when it comes to US intelligence assistance. While aid and intelligence, both public and secret, was increasing in Colombia, two services were being provided; intelligence that fueled Colombian forces to find and kill FARC leaders and the weapons to kill them. During this time in the Bush administration, there were two presidential findings that allowed this type of action. The first allows CIA operations against international terrorist organizations and the second, approved by president Ronald Reagan, allows actions against international narcotics traffickers. Findings require notification and approval from Congressional Intelligence Committees and, if approved, can allow for providing of spy equipment, support of foreign political parties, planting of propaganda, and lethal training. With regard to Colombia, the CIA was not approved to participate directly because of past secret roles in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama that ended poorly. As FARC actions escalated, the US prepared to increase their actions in response.

A new, stronger covert push began following February 13, 2003. On this date a single engine plane crashed in FARC occupied jungle and the guerillas in the area executed the Colombian officer on board as well as one of the four US citizens. The remaining three, who were working on cocoa eradication, were taken hostage. Since the FARC was already considered a terrorist group the CIA quickly began organizing to find the hostages. In Bogota, the US embassy Inter Fusion Cell formed and was nicknamed “The Bunker.” Eight people worked using satellite images to try and find rebel camps, track the movement of tagged vehicles, and collect radio and cell phone communications that were sent to the NSA to be decrypted and translated. This technology as well as informants were used to track the flow of drugs, money, and weapons of the FARC. Within months a nationwide computer intelligence system was in place, including various local centers throughout Colombia. The US also paid for encrypted communications gear and taught Colombian forces how to recruit informants. Also during this time the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) arrived from Afghanistan and began training Colombian forces while simultaneously looking for the hostages. The hostages proved hard to find so the CIA and JSOC began targeting FARC leaders using collected intelligence regarding their locations. However, this task also proved to be very difficult. The intelligence gathered made it easy to locate the FARC leaders, however, they were challenging to capture and kill. US Black Hawk helicopters would drop Colombian troops approximately six kilometers from the FARC camp but by the time the troops would reach the camps they would be empty. Fortunately for the FARC, their rings of security surrounding the camps allowed them to warn others to escape before the arrival of Colombian forces. Frustrated with these many failed efforts the new Mission Chief of the US Air Force pushed forward with a new proposal.

As a solution to the failed ambushes, the Mission Chief pushed forward with a proposal to use inexpensive guidance kits to strap to 500lb bombs. In 2006, three years after the hostages were taken, a proposal to use a $30,000 GPS guidance kit was proposed. These precision-guided munitions (PGMs) make bombs incredible accurate if the exact coordinates of a target are known. The proposal went to Donald Rumsfeld who met with then president Alvaro Uribe who both approved the new measure. The US sent engineers to Colombia to figure out how to fit the bombs and guidance technology to Colombian planes. After many tries, the bombs were ready to test. Their target was a 2x4 stuck vertically into the ground. The first test by the pilots and engineers resulted in the bomb landing within a foot of the 2x4. Knowledge that these bombs had been made accurate caused a bit of conflict among those who knew of the operation. Tensions were high over the use of US bombs by the Colombian government to kill the FARC leaders they sought, however the operation eventually proceeded because the government was covered under the two findings and also there was strong belief that the FARC posed and ongoing threat to the United States. The final concern was over the misuse of the PGMs to kill Colombia’s political enemies or other enemies. To prevent this the CIA was in control of the encryption key, which allowed the bombs to function. As a result, Colombians had to seek approval for each target. The first 20 smart bombs came directly from the CIA and overall cost about $1 million, the following bombs were purchased by Colombia through the Foreign Military Sales Program.

More:
http://www.panoramas.pitt.edu/content/over-decade-us-covert-action-colombia

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Thank you for posting the video. Very strange, isn't it? Who would want to do that?