Oil and US Policy Toward Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

January 7, 2008

Oil and US Policy Toward Colombia

by Michael Walker

The Bush administration has come up with numerous justifications for its annual handout of around $700 million in mostly military aid to Colombia. Of these, the war on drugs and the urgency of combating “narco-terrorists,” which is code for battling guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP), are the most common. Another oft-cited, and far more unlikely, reason for beefing up Colombia’s military is the administration’s ostensible desire to “defend democracy” in Colombia. There is, however, another factor driving US involvement in Colombia that receives rather less public attention: oil.
(snip)

While Bush administration officials make no secret of the fact that oil plays a significant role in US policy towards Colombia they are less keen on advertising the fact that one of Washington’s main concerns vis-à-vis Colombian oil is keeping US petroleum corporations sweet. In February 2002, the Bush administration, as part of its aid request for fiscal year 2003, asked Congress to provide $98 million to establish and train a brigade of elite Colombian troops to protect an oil pipeline running from the Caño Limón oilfield in the eastern province of Arauca to the Caribbean port of Coveñas. The pipeline was a favorite target of guerrillas from the Army of National Liberation (ELN) and the FARC-EP, who bombed it 170 times in 2001.

This decision dovetailed very neatly with the priorities of US oil giant Occidental Petroleum Corporation, which owned over forty percent of the oil flowing through the pipeline. Occidental had long sought to draw the US government deeper into the Colombian imbroglio, disbursing some $350,000 in a successful effort to convince Congress to pass Plan Colombia, the Clinton aid package that drastically increased the US role in Colombia.

Anne Patterson, who was US ambassador to Colombia at the time, acknowledged the part played by big oil in the decision to launch the Caño Limón-Coveñas pipeline protection program when she stated that it was “important for…our petroleum supplies and for the confidence of our investors.” Training Colombian forces to defend the pipeline was also aimed at providing Colombia with much needed revenue to fund its war against the guerrillas. Sabotage of the pipeline was costing Colombia about $500 million a year, so it made sense to guard this source of funds.

More:
http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia269.htm

[Bacchus39]

1. blowing up power lines is another favorite tactic

again, it is inconceivable that the FARC has even a pretense of trying to get public support. kidnappings, murder, extortion, land mines, destruction of infrastructure, protection payments, and drug trafficking are not activities that are going to enamor one to the populace. not to mention public relations fiascos like Emmanuel. and they in fact have little support in Colombia.

it would seem that they are merely seeking to protect their power and wealth garnered through these activities.

[Peace Patriot]

3. The Vietnamese did much the same. These are classic guerrilla tactics--that is,

the tactics of an INDIGENOUS group against a big, well-funded, well-armed military machine backed by a foreign power with financial interests and war profiteer interests that the foreign government is pursuing, while they use a puppet local government, who represents a small, rich elite, to legitimize their activities. They are an ARMY, Bacchus39. They are not Quakers. So to accuse them of BEING an army is a non-sequitur. The real question, which I get to below, is their right to be where they are, and to oppose the brutal Colombian government and its military and paramilitaries, which are serving a foreign power. Donald Rumsfeld would drag us further into this civil war, just as Robert McNamara and Co. dragged us into Vietnam. WE DON'T BELONG THERE. We have NO BUSINESS there. The interests of global corporate predators like Occidental Petroleum, Exxon-Mobile and Chiquita are NOT our interests. And you can demonize FARC all you want...to what point? To get me to hate them? To get others to hate them? Why? They are poorer and more insecure than any other significant entity involved in the conflict, and they are fighting with what tools they possess for self-determination. Why should I hate them? My own government has committed a thousands times worse crimes against South America's poor, and against Iraqis and others, than FARC has committed. They are a leftist fighting force that has held its own against very great odds. I don't think I would ever choose their path, but I have no reason to hate them--and I have quite a lot of reason to hate those who hunt and kill them--people like Rumsfeld and Uribe's paramilitaries, who are the real "terrorists" of this earth.

[Bacchus39]

6. yet another reference to the Rumsfeld article. Its safe to say it has become an obsession for you,

Rumsfeld did not influence voters in the Ven referendum. Rumsfeld did not make a bogus claim about releasing hostages.

Note to the FARC: don't offer to release hostages you don't have.

what's interesting is that the FARC could in fact have humiliated Uribe by giving up the hostages to Chavez. yet in the end, they made Chavez look stupid, Oliver Stone look stupid, and further damaged any credibility they had, which they had none. the Colombian government was right all along.

if you focus on one group of people, trade unionists, then yes the paramilitaries are largely responsible for the deaths. there is no question that Colombia will be better off without the paras and the FARC.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Focusing on one group, eh? One group of millions? One group of people of all ages?

All these people have in common in their "one group" is probably poverty, and living in terror of your hero's fascist gangsters.

We don't need to be reminded of all the other "groups" who ALSO get slaughtered by your inestimable forces: teachers, journalists, human rights workers, clergy, etc., etc., etc.

Journalists in Colombia were intimidated by their awareness of their collegues being slaughtered after death threats, and they actually admit now to self-censoring just to keep safe. They write about CRAP so they won't be tortured and slaughtered, maybe cut to bits with chain saws or machetes, along with their families.

Obviously the rebels took the child to a place where he would be safe since he would not be capable of living on the run like the rest of them. It has already been published that the rebels looked in on him periodically to keep track of him. Without a doubt they had intended to pick him up and deliver him with his mother at the appropriate time, but your slimy, nasty, little vicious weasel President had minions out who got wind of this arrangement first, and bagged the kid before they could get him for the trade.

Even a drooling idiot could gather that much.

So who lost face here? Only the right-wing a-holes who are pretending they've pulled off a smooth operation. Someone IS going to get the last laugh one day, and it won't be these control-freak, rigid, socially lost right-wingers. People who spend so much time scheming about how to gain even more control over their fellow men are simple criminals, and nothing else.

[Bacchus39]

11. you cannot release someone who you don't hold captive

although the FARC did apparently try to recapture him so then they could release him to show their "good will". the "safe place" the child was residing was in Bogota. who lost face here?, sure, I'll repeat, the FARC who promised to let the hostages go but did NOT. they didn't even have the child. Hugo who was only too eager for some positive publicity after his humiliating defeat in the referendum. then you have Oliver Stone, a host of international observers and, yes, even some of the hostages families were criticizing the government. Ahh, but events changed quickly didn't they??

yes, posting the relative murder rate of only trade unionists is disingenuous when attempting to describe the situation in Colombia. a resilient nation, despite 40 + years of violence.

[Judi Lynn]

13. As we know, the paramilitaries slaughter all kinds of poor people,

and everyone knows it, including surviving journalists.

The murder rate of union workers is pertinent in current discussion of plans to extend the Free TRADE Agreement, now in the spotlight in the U.S. Congress, and being studied with extreme seriousness by U.S. Democratic Congressmen. THAT'S why people are discussing "trade unionists" right now. Wake the bleep up.

As has been written, rebels on the run don't take children along with them. The child was put in a safe place for his good, and for the good of the rebels, who knew where he was at all times.

It was their intention to get him and deliver him with his mother when the agreement was finalized, but Uribe's minions had already learned his whereabouts and barged in there and took him specifically to undo the agreement to trade hostages.

There's no chance whatsoever they are going to give up their one and only war, and chance to fleece the American taxpayers for an unholy amount of foreign aid year after long year, pretending they are "at war" with dangerous characters. They ARE the monsters in this ugly story.

[Judi Lynn]

10. You know, Bacchus39, no one has ever explained how it is that when Hugo Chavez indicated he'd like

to run for office again, the entire clavern, or cluster of right-wingers started bouncing off the walls in their feverish excitement, so desperate to post every chance they could on how that was the missing proof that Hugo Chavez intends to become Emperor of Venezuela.

Yet, when we learned that goofy, nasty little Alvaro Uribe bagged a second term, which was not the custom in Colombia, he IMMEDIATELY started his campaign to acquire a third term, and his little peanut gallery took up the chant that the nation's security was at stake, and they NEEDED the little fella to guide them through these perilous times.

WHERE ARE ALL THE LOUDMOUTHS who should have come forward to make asses of themselves about this terrifying developement? No one can have it both ways: either it's acceptable for both the Venezuelan President and the Colombian President who has grown accustomed to living on the third largest foreign aid package IN THE WORLD, or its not.



Right-winger Congressman David Dreier giving the Colombian Assembly a treat by letting them gaze
upon his giant butt,as he parks it in the space where normal folks rest their notes when speaking.
He was all the rage.

[Bacchus39]

12. third term???

well lets see if I can help you differentiate. Hugo was elected in 1998, 2000, and 2006. well, into his second full term and he wanted to rule permanently until the Veneuzuelan people shot him down.

Uribe was just elected to a second term. I have never heard of aspirations for third term like Chavez. link maybe???? I have never heard you express any hysteria over Chavez's current third term and his plans to rule permanently like you have over Uribe's second term.

Colombia will continue to receive US aid when a Democrat is elected this year. unfortunately for you, Hugo and Fidel cannot run for US president.

[Judi Lynn]

15. You bet I've got links. I posted them months ago:

Oct 16
A third term for Uribe?

Last week the largest party in the coalition backing Colombian President Álvaro Uribe approved a resolution calling on Uribe to run for an unprecedented third consecutive term in 2010. The “Party of the ‘U’” promised to gather the 1.3 millionsignatures necessary for a petition to amend Colombia’s constitution to allow Uribe to run again.

If Uribe’s popularity rating continues to hover at around 60-70 percent, as it has for five years, he very well could win again and serve until 2014. Though he hinted in September that he might not seek re-election in 2010, Uribe has been curiously silent about the “U” Party’s latest move.

There are many in Washington, CIP included, who believe that the United States has pursued an unbalanced, reckless, exceedingly militarized and ineffective strategy in Colombia. Most of us believe that as part of that strategy, the U.S. government has been too warm, unquestioning and uncritical in its public embrace of Álvaro Uribe.

If President Uribe wants to do us a great favor, if he wants to make our work in Washington far easier, he should absolutely run for a third term.

• If he stays for a third term, Álvaro Uribe’s stock would drop dramatically in U.S. public opinion. By laying bare Uribe’s inability to loosen his grip on power, by highlighting his refusal to let Colombia’s institutions develop and do their jobs, a new re-election effort would leave a terrible taste here. Even if Uribe continued to position himself as a close U.S. ally, those in Washington who have been concerned about his authoritarian tendencies would have their suspicions confirmed.
  
  
• Members of Colombia’s political class who have been waiting for Uribe to step aside and give them a turn would drop out of the president’s coalition - and become vocal critics with access to Washington opinionmakers.
  
  
• Surely, some in Washington would continue to back Uribe, if only because he isn’t Hugo Chávez. But Uribe’s remaining U.S. backers would no longer be able to argue that the United States must support “Colombia’s Winston Churchill.” The more accurate analogy would become, perhaps, “Colombia’s Alberto Fujimori” - or in words attributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt, “an S.O.B., but our S.O.B.”
  
  
• Should a third term become a serious possibility, continued U.S. assistance to Colombia - even economic aid - would become a much tougher sell. By 2010, the United States will probably have given Colombia $7 billion since Plan Colombia’s inception a decade earlier. After so much investment in “South America’s oldest democracy,” such strong evidence of that democracy’s degradation would place the entire policy in doubt. Future aid near today’s generous levels would be unlikely.
  
  
• And of course, if Washington is still considering a free-trade agreement at the same time Colombia is debating a constitutional re-election amendment, Uribe’s ambitions would only foster doubts about Colombia’s democratic credentials, working to the advantage of the agreement’s opponents here. http://www.cipcol.org/?p=483
  
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  MAY 28, 2007
  
  Alvaro Uribe: The Change Agent
  Colombia's no-nonsense President is winning over investors. But critics charge that he's linked to paramilitaries, and that threatens a new trade agreement with Washington
  
  But Uribe's tough tactics are becoming a major problem as he seeks to expand Colombia's trading partnership with the U.S. Critics have charged that the President and his political allies are linked to right-wing paramilitaries responsible for the deaths of labor unionists and others. With accusations swirling, congressional Democrats in the U.S., prodded by the AFL-CIO, are cooling to the idea of ratifying Colombia's free-trade agreement with the U.S. Last month, Congress froze $55.2 million of aid earmarked for the Colombian military, while former Vice-President Al Gore snubbed Uribe at an April environmental summit in Miami.
  (snip)
  
  Despite the paramilitary allegations, Uribe still enjoys better than a 60% public approval rating. Assuming he survives the turmoil, will he tweak the constitution again to seek a third term? "Come on," he says, rolling his eyes, "that is not the subject of this interview."

  http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_22/b4036008.htm
  
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Colombia's Uribe Seen as Solidifying Power
  Opponents Say Widely Popular President Is Toughening Stance Against Critics
  
  By Juan Forero
  Washington Post Foreign Service
  Saturday, November 17, 2007; A13
  
  ~snip~
  Supporters in the president's governing coalition have proposed a referendum to permit Uribe to run for a third term, which would repeat a 2004 constitutional change that allowed him to run for a second term. Though the president deftly avoids questions about his political future, he frequently casts himself as the only man who can govern a complex country and hold back guerrillas.
  (snip)

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/16/AR2007111602056_pf.html
  
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Backers of Colombia's Uribe promote unprecedented third term
  The Associated Press
  Published: October 10, 2007
  
  BOGOTA, Colombia: Close supporters of President Alvaro Uribe in congress announced Wednesday that they would seek a constitutional amendment to allow the Colombian president to seek a third term in office.
  
  The pro-government "U" party, the largest bloc in Congress, said later this month they would begin collecting the 1.3 million signatures needed to force a referendum on allowing the popular conservative leader to run for a third consecutive term.
  
  If a referendum is held and voters approve the amendment, it would still need to be approved by congress and then be greenlighted by the constitutional court.
  
  "No army switches generals when it's winning the battle," said Luis Guillermo Giraldo, secretary general of the "U" party, which approved the proposal Wednesday at a party congress.
  (snip/...)

  http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/11/america/LA-GEN-Colombia-Uribe-Reelection.php
  
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Colombia's Uribe opens door to third term 01 Nov 2007 18:11:36 GMT
  Source: Reuters
  
  By Hugh Bronstein
  
  BOGOTA, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has said he may run for a third term if his coalition fails to unite around a strong candidate, prompting debate on Thursday about the future of democracy in the conflict-weary country.
  
  Uribe, an important U.S. ally in the left-tilting Andean region, won a second four-year term last year after the constitution was changed to allow one re-election.
  
  Many want him to run again in 2010 while others fear such a move would put Colombia on an authoritarian path.
  
  The bespectacled Wall Street favorite shocked supporters and opponents alike by telling members of Congress in a private meeting late on Wednesday that he would be open to a third campaign if there was a "catastrophe."
  
  "The coalition has to find another candidate. Re-election only if there is a catastrophe," lawmaker Nancy Gutierrez, an Uribe ally at the meeting, quoted the president as saying.
  
  Presidential adviser Jose Obdulio Gaviria told local radio that the "catastrophe" would come if Uribe's supporters cannot rally around one candidate to carry on his legacy.
  
  "Without unity there will be a catastrophe," he said.
  (snip/...)

  http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N01280394.htm
  
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Colombians rock roads against Uribe’s third term
  vinod | Oct 11 2007
  
  
  
  Colombian political crises are invigorating with the nod that supporters of President Alvaro Uribe gave to him for third term. Supporters yarn amendment in constitution for making it possible for Uribe to run for the third consecutive term.
  
  With the very approval for the widely popular leader, opposition staged protests and warned against Uribe’s seeking third term. Thousands participated in the demonstrations that followed and police clashed with the protesters who blocked roads and burned trucks in Colombia.
  (snip/...)

  http://www.onlypolitics.org/entry/colombians-rock-roads-against-uribes-third-term/
  
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  As for being shot down, the _Bush administration has been working furiously to destabilize him, pouring millions into his opposition. Standard practise with American right-wing scum Presidents hell-bent on crazed meddling where they don't belong.
  
  Trying to defend American right-wing meddling in democratically elected governments in other countries, at a Democratic message board seems a little ill-advised, doesn't it?
  
  

[Bacchus39]

16. oh, so there is some talk about a third term

and you know what Judi, I would NOT support a third term. the last thing latin america needs is yet another "Commandante". My position is quite consistent, no permanet Chavez or permanent Uribe. You on the one hand are horrified by even someone raising the spectre of a third term for Uribe yet gleeful at the prospect of a permanent Chavez presidency.

I have no idea what you meant by the last statement. who is defending right wing meddling in democratically elected governments?? I will remind you that this is in fact Democratic Underground, not Communist Underground. Democrats as in the US political party not psycho antagonists from other countries in Latin America

[Judi Lynn]

17. Communist Underground?

You talkin' to me?

As for Democrats, it's really GOOD Democrats in Congress who don't believe in how your Uribe is running things in Colombia.

[Bacchus39]

18. do you even have a candidate?

besides Chavez or Castro who cannot run?? Mine is Obama but something tells me he is too right wing for you.

care to explain your support for a permanet Chavez presidency while being horrified by even the mention of third term for Uribe, which again I would oppose, or can I expect another picture of some right winger from your vast collection, or yet another reference to an op/ed piece written by Rummy???

[Peace Patriot]

14. Yup, Donald Rumsfeld made a big mistake publishing his op-ed in the WaPo,

cuz now we know what the plan is, for Oil War II, in South America, and who's behind it. And, yes, I'm "obsessed" with it--the way others became "obsessed" with the "Project for a New American Century" (PNAC), the NeoCon plan for turning a "new Pearl Harbor" into a war for U.S. military domination of Mideast oil fields and other resources. It was a dead giveaway, in other words, of NeoCon intentions, and it meant that the invasion of Iraq was not a mistake, was no "intelligence failure," but was planned long ago--a war waiting for an excuse (9/11). And those who became "obsessed" with PNAC have wanted desperately for the American people to understand what our war profiteering corporate news monopolies would never tell them: that this was a CONTRIVED war, a corporate resource war that DIDN'T HAVE TO BE.

Yes, I feel the same way about Rumsfeld's op-ed. It slipped by without raising eyebrows, just as PNAC did. It is a declaration of war on the good people in South America--the peaceful, democratic Bolivarians. And I'm going to bring it up, as often as I can, wherever you post comments, Bacchus39, in support of the fascist torturers, murderers and thieves in Colombia--Rumsfeld's "friends and allies"--and against good governments such as those in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, and wherever you revile FARC without telling the truth about why FARC exists. The American people need to know what Donald Rumsfeld is planning in his "retirement." Because we're going to pay for it, and our children are going to die for it--slaughtered in another oil war.

Call me Cassandra. I am "obsessed" with stopping yet another ruinous, unjust, insane war. Yup, that's me. I accept the epithet "obsessed" when it comes to Donald Rumsfeld's plans.

And what about you, Bacchus39? What are you doing? Covering for Donald Rumsfeld? Minimizing his involvement? Trying to draw attention away from his mistake of publishing his plans? Trying to put blinders on people, and focus on ME, as "obsessed," and not on this alarming Rumsfeld revelation of "PNAC II: South America"? What's your role, hm? Why are YOU so obsessed with aiding the fascist/Rumsfeld cause in South America?

Rumsfeld's op-ed in WaPo, 12/1/07, is one of the most alarming developments in national and world events since Bush Jr.'s declaration at West Point, in 2002, that the U.S. was abandoning its policy of war as a last resort, and heretofore would be pursuing a policy of pre-emptive war. That event, too, slipped by with hardly a raised eyebrow. Rumsfeld not only identifies Colombia as the launching pad for aggressive war in South America, and oil rich Venezuela as the first target, he suggests dismantling any remaining "checks and balances"(--such as they are) in our own government, in order to pursue this NEW aggressive war, and he further suggests that the government create a propaganda machine on the internet to counter the spread of real information about South America among free thinking citizens. In other words--much like PNAC--Rumsfeld lays out plans for FURTHER Nazification of our own country in pursuit of the goals of global corporate predators, this time in South America.

How can you sleep at night, Bacchus39, while you try to marginalize--downplay, throw attention away from--this fucking war criminal's plans to further destroy OUR democracy, as well as targeting democratic countries in South America with large oil deposits that he wants to control? How can you not oppose his intention to further weaken controls on pre-emptive military strikes? Do you even believe in democracy? I'm wondering. I really am.

Rumsfeld's op-ed reveals what's behind all this demonization of Hugo Chavez, and the Bushites pouring billions of our tax dollars into the Colombian military, and why a "free trade" deal with Colombia is so important to them (economic warfare against Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador); and it reveals what's behind all the lies and disinformation we see about South America from our war profiteering corporate news monopolies. All of this has in fact been prep for Oil War II. And that has you worried, I think, because you cannot come here, and post in support of the fascists in South America with impunity any more. Your posts now further Donald Rumsfeld's war plans in South America.

You think that by saying that *I* am obsessed with this, you can somehow stop me from bringing up Rumsfeld's op-ed every time you post support for the fascist cause.

Nice try.

Now I know what's got you worried, and you are going to have Rumsfeld's op-ed tagging you everywhere I can manage it. Bacchus39, Assistant Secretary of War in Exile. And tagging other fascist posters. And mentioned in every relevant news item and discussion on South America. Donald Rumsfeld's "retirement" activities are now the CONTEXT for every fascist destabilization effort in South America, for every exposed coup plot among rightwing paramilitaries, for every attempted or successful assassination of leftist leaders, for every murder or 'disappearance' of journalists, leftists, peasant farmers or union leaders in Colombia, or in border areas with Venezuela and Ecuador, or in the rightwing rural areas of Bolivia, for every strange and suspicious political shooting or bombing anywhere on the continent, for every suspected fascist dirty trick (such as the suitcase full of money caper, and Uribe's abduction of Emmanuel), for every "divide and conquer" spat that arises between friendly leftist countries (instigated by Bushites), for every AP hit piece on Chavez, Morales, Correa or the Kirchners (or other good guys like Lulu), for every hostile move by first world financial institutions, and for everything important that happens that harms good leftist governments and promotes the fascist cause, and for all the billions of our taxpayer dollars that the Bush Junta is flooding into fascist weapons and rightwing political groups in South America through USAID/NED, "war on drugs," Pentagon, and other budgets, Donald Rumsfeld's war is now the explanation, the plan and the context. Theater II of the Oil War: South America.

You're stuck with it. Thank Donald Rumsfeld.

It is extremely dangerous to presume that Donald Rumsfeld is "out of power" and is living in fantasyland. Some of the good people who read PNAC back when it was first written, more than a decade ago, must have thought that what they were reading was nuts, and could never come true in the U.S. of A. Then it came true--all of it, from the "new Pearl Harbor" to the invasion of Iraq and the oil war.

And here we are again. Same players. Same goal. Similar plan. And half the Democratic Party leadership is already on board for this--and that half is likely to be Diebolded into the White House this year.

Don't say it can't happen again. It can. Rumsfeld must be mighty frustrated by the world's repulsion of his plan to bomb Iran and grab its oil fields. Plan B: Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.

You heard it hear first--from Cassandra, the "obsessed one." She was the sane one. It was the Trojans and the Greeks who were nuts.

[Judi Lynn]

19. We were all naive to imagine, when we heard Donald Rumsfeld was FINALLY leaving,

that he would go quietly, after having been feeding on power in and around the White House for decades.

Now he can apply himself full time to destroying even far more lives than he could have, originally, had he been forced to divide his attention between the MidEast and Latin America.

We all have watched carefully as he was used to threaten various countries about what would happen to them should they actually elect their leftist candidates for President. We watched in shock as we learned he got to some high-ranking officers in Bolivia, before the Presidential election, and got them to destroy Bolivia's MISSILES, for chrissakes, leaving Bolivia far more vulnerable. He knew, of course, his chances of getting that accomplished during Evo Morales' Presidency were less than zero, and had to move before anyone would stop him. What a damnable shame.

We watched as Rafael Correa said he's not going to renew the lease on the air base at Manta. Then, we were not surprised when we heard the Defense Department was shopping both Colombia and Peru for new installations, and that Uribe has been considering building THREE on the Venezuela border.

Sounds as if Rumsfeld intends to be around a long time, just like Uribe. It's either plot against the vast poor majority of Latin America, or go home and ride his unicycle.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Whatever mayhem the FARC and related groups might have perpetrated, it all can scarcely compare to

the absolute evil which is stock in trade for the paramilitaries every single day of their existance. What you claim about the rebels groups barely holds a candle to what Amnesty International and other groups have found repeatedly over years and years:

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

PRESS RELEASE

AI Index: AMR 23/017/2007 (Public)

News Service No: 122

3 July 2007

Embargo Date: 3 July 2007 05:00GMT

Colombia: One of world’s most dangerous places for trade unionists

A sham paramilitary demobilization process, combined with thousands of cases of threats and killings and a chronic lack of investigations and prosecutions, makes Colombia one of the most dangerous places in the world for trade unionists, according to a new report released today.

Amnesty International’s report, Killings, arbitrary detentions, and death threats -- the reality of trade unionism in Colombia, highlights a pattern of systematic attacks against trade unionists involved in labour disputes and in campaigns against privatization and in favour of workers’ rights in some areas where extractive industries operate.

Colombia’s National Trade Union School documented 2,245 killings, 3,400 threats and 138 forced disappearances of trade unionists between January 1991 and December 2006. Despite their supposed demobilization, army-backed paramilitaries and the security forces are thought to be behind most attacks. Guerrilla groups have also been responsible for such killings.

“Trade unionists across Colombia are being sent a clear message: Don’t complain about your labour conditions or campaign to protect your rights because you will be silenced, at any cost,” said Susan Lee, Amnesty International’s Americas Programme Director.

“By failing to adequately protect trade unionists, the Colombian authorities are sending a message that abuses against them can continue, while companies operating in Colombia risk being held accountable for human rights abuses for which, through their conduct, they may bear responsibility.”

The report includes the cases of human rights abuses against trade unionists -- and their relatives -- working in Colombia’s health, education, public services, agricultural, mining, oil, gas, energy and food sectors.

Amnesty International is calling on companies working in Colombia to use their influence with the Colombian government to end and prevent human rights abuses against trade unionists.

“This report is a wake-up call for any multinational company operating in an environment in which human rights are systematically violated. Inaction is no longer an option,” said Susan Lee.

Successive Colombian governments have implemented policies to improve the safety of trade unionists, including a programme that allocates armed escorts, bullet-proof vehicles and telephones to some threatened trade unionists.

“While such measures are welcome, attacks against trade unionists will continue unless effective measures are taken to end the impunity enjoyed by those killing and threatening them.”

Amnesty International’s report also highlights the Tripartite Agreement signed by the Colombian government, Colombian business representatives and Colombia’s trade union confederations in June 2006, under the auspices of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

The agreement provides for the establishment of a permanent presence of the ILO in Colombia to monitor the application of freedom of association rights in the country and progress in efforts to advance investigations into the killing of trade unionists.

“The International Labour Organization (ILO) agreement is a key opportunity to tackle the human rights crisis facing trade unionists. It is now imperative that the Colombian authorities, multinational and Colombian companies, and the international labour movement work together with the office of the ILO in Bogotá to ensure investigations into all cases of threats and attacks against trade unionists and their relatives.”
(snip/...)

http://www.amnesty.org/en/alfresco_asset/19dbdfca-a2c1-11dc-8d74-6f45f39984e5/amr230172007en.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Can hardly imagine that you attempt to continue your feeble railing against the citizens as they struggle to fight against these monsters. News of their actions started getting out of Colombia YEARS ago when Colombians started seeking refuge from their absolutely evil, predictably sadistic growing mountain of crimes against humanity.

More from Amnesty International addresses the subject:

Colombia

Killings, arbitrary detentions, and death threats --

the reality of trade unionism in Colombia

Introduction: the human rights crisis and trade unionists

Over the last four decades, Colombia has faced an armed conflict which has pitted the security forces and paramilitaries against guerrilla forces, the largest of which are the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC), and the much smaller National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional,ELN). The conflict has been marked by the widespread and systematic violation of human rights and breaches of international humanitarian law by all the parties.

During the armed conflict, the armed forces and their paramilitary allies have pursued a counter-insurgency strategy which has sought to deny guerrilla forces any imagined or real support from the civilian population. Terror is integral to this strategy: enforced disappearances, torture, sexual and other forms of violence against women, death threats, and killings of civilians are designed to break any real or perceived links between civilians and the guerrilla.

Terror tactics are also used to enable powerful economic elites to protect, expand and consolidate their interests. Over 60 per cent of the more than 3 million internally displaced people in Colombia have been forced from their homes and lands in areas of mineral, agricultural or other economic importance. The conflict provides a useful cover for those seeking to expand and protect economic interests. It is in this context that trade unionists are the target of numerous human rights violations. Trade unionists are repeatedly labelled as subversive by the security forces and paramilitaries. Such criticisms are often followed by human rights violations which also frequently coincide with periods of labour unrest or negotiations over working conditions.

Impunity is a key component of this counter-insurgency strategy – the knowledge that the perpetrators of human rights violations will not be brought to justice sends a clear and powerful message to individuals and organizations not to seek justice. It also sends a clear message to such groups that their members and leaders could suffer further human rights violations if they do not put an end to their activities. Impunity ensures that the perpetrators of human rights violations are still at large and more than willing to repeat their actions.

The impunity enjoyed by security force personnel responsible for human rights violations has been guaranteed through a variety of techniques designed to ensure that crimes are not fully investigated. The security forces have covered up their involvement by using paramilitary groups to carry out their "dirty war" tactics and have sought to improve their human rights image by denying that paramilitaries operate with their acquiescence, support or, as is often the case, under their coordination.

The use of paramilitaries provides another dimension of terror to the Colombian conflict. At the national and international level the armed forces and Colombian government deny links between the armed forces and the paramilitaries, at most admitting to individual cases of collusion involving a few "rotten apples". However, at local level these links are often not denied and are sometimes even deliberately made evident in order to increase fear among the civilian population. In essence, the message is "who are you going to turn to for help?"
(snip)

Wilson Borja

Among the few cases in which criminal investigations have advanced is that of the attempt on the life of former trade union leader and member of Congress Wilson Borja Díaz. On 15 December 2000, gunmen opened fire on the then trade union leader seriously wounding him. Criminal investigations established that the attempt on his life was part of a military-paramilitary operation and resulted in sentences of between 42 months and 28 years’ imprisonment being passed against several paramilitaries, including paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño Gil, who was sentenced in absentia, and several members of the security forces, including army Major César Alonso Maldonado Vidales. Information on these sentences was submitted by the government to the Committee on Freedom of Association and included in the Committee’s 340th Report.

However, the government appears to have omitted to inform the Committee that on 3 November 2004, one of the main perpetrators, Major César Alonso Maldonado Vidales, was able to escape from the military base where he was being held. It is not clear what efforts, if any, the authorities have undertaken to secure his re-capture. Before his conviction, it was alleged that Major Maldonado had undertaken intelligence work from the Bogotá military police barracks where he was being held, and had been free to come and go at will.
(snip)

Security force-paramilitary operations to target trade unionists

In recent years, AI has received information of a number of security force and paramilitary plans to target trade unionists. Many of these plans appear to indicate the existence of operations coordinated at national or regional level by the security forces operating in collusion with paramilitary forces to target trade unionists. Many of these operations involve human rights violations such as extrajudicial executions. These operations often coincide with arbitrary legal proceedings against trade unionists which are coordinated by the armed forces and often rely on the evidence of paid military informers rather than on full and impartial criminal investigations by civilian investigating authorities.
(snip)

Other alleged operations to kill trade unionists

There were further reports of alleged plans to kill trade unionists in 2005 and 2006. On 11 March 2005, the CUT issued a press release in which it stated that paramilitary leaders concentrated in Santa Fé de Ralito, Córdoba Department, as part of the negotiations with the government on their supposed demobilization,(28) had drawn up a list of trade unionists to be killed reportedly because of their critical stance towards the negotiation process. The CUT stated that the XVII and XIII Brigades of the Colombian army would be involved in the execution of these plans. According to the CUT statement, the Director of the CUT’s human rights department, Domingo Tovar, was a key target. According to the statement, his family had received repeated death threats, while Domingo Tovar had been subject to surveillance by unidentified individuals. These death threats continued in 2006 (see Appendix 2).

On 2 March 2006, the Vanguardia Liberal newspaper reported that a paramilitary group calling itself the Magdalena Medio Regional Command (Comando Regional del Magdalena Medio), had issued a statement in which it threatened to kill trade unionists and other social activists running for Congress in the March 2006 elections. Among those listed as targets were: members of the Oil Workers’ Union (Unión Sindical Obrera de la Industria del Petróleo, USO), the CUT, the Association of Departmental Workers (Asociación de Trabajadores Departamentales, ASTDEMP), the Santander Workers’ Trade Union (Unión Sindical de Trabajadores de Santander, USITRAS), and the Coordinación Metropolitana de Desplazados,an organization that assists forcibly displaced people. The group stated it was committed to the "demobilization" process, but that"otwithstanding, we will continue with this fight until we have eliminated the last guerrilla terrorist and their infiltrated auxiliaries." That same day USO leader Héctor Díaz Serrano was shot dead in Barrancabermeja, Santander Department (see section on trade unionists in strategic mining, oil, gas and energy sectors).
(snip)

Samuel Morales, Raquel Castro and Alonso Campiño Bedoya

On 5 August 2004, on the same day that three other trade unionists were killed in Arauca Department by members of the army (see section above on impunity), Samuel Morales, president of the CUT in Arauca, and Raquel Castro, a leader of the Arauca Teachers’ Association (Asociación de Educadores de Arauca, ASEDAR), were arrested. Raquel Castro was arrested by the army in the same house in which the three trade unionists had been staying before they were killed.

On 3 January 2005, Samuel Morales and Raquel Castro were charged with rebellion. In November 2006 they were found guilty and sentenced to six years in prison. AI understands that defence lawyers initiated appeal proceedings in early 2007. Samuel Morales was released in April 2007 and Raquel Castro will be released from prison later this year given that they have or will have effectively completed their sentences.

There is concern that the evidence against these activists was provided by informers in the pay or at least under the tutelage of the security forces. Among the key prosecution witnesses against Samuel Morales and Raquel Castro were several military informers whose statements also reportedly led to arrest warrants being issued against at least two of the trade unionists killed in August 2004, Héctor Alirio Martínez and Leonel Goyeneche. At least some of these informers were reportedly presented to the court as former guerrillas who had surrendered to the authorities in June 2003, when they allegedly presented their testimonies. However, in their statements they made clear that they had surrendered to the authorities in January 2003. In court proceedings on 9 September 2004, one of the informers was asked why the long period of time between his surrender in January 2003 and his testimony. He told the court that he had given his testimony over June and July 2003. This statement appears to confirm reports indicating that the informers spent several months in the XVIII Brigade installations in Arauca preparing the evidence they were going to give when they made their statements. The informer indicated that he prepared a list with the names of 90 people against whom he was going to give evidence implicating them in subversive activities. He stated that while he was in the XVIII Brigade installations "my job was to remember names and remember dates". When he finally made his statement, he reportedly was allowed to do so with a written list of names in front of him, even though the court proceedings revealed no official record was made by the investigating authorities that he had produced a list. According to information received, some of the witnesses were even able to provide the identity card numbers of numerous people against whom they were testifying. It is an unfortunate coincidence that the civilian under investigation for his part in the killings of the three trade unionists is one of the prosecution witnesses against Samuel Morales and Raquel Castro, particularly in light of the fact that the latter was a witness to the killings.
(snip)

There is serious concern for the safety of Samuel Morales and his family. The fact that Raquel Castro is a witness to the August 2003 killings could have implications for her security. On 29 July 2005, while Samuel Morales was in custody at a police station in Saravena before he was transferred to the La Modelo prison in Bogotá, the station commander reportedly told him that he knew where his sisters worked, and where to find his wife. In previous weeks, his sisters had reportedly been held up repeatedly at military checkpoints, for many hours. Police officers had also reportedly pressured the director of a local hospital to dismiss Samuel Morales’ wife simply because she is married to him.

Paramilitaries reportedly threatened to kill Samuel Morales’ sisters. Omayra and Gladys Morales worked as schoolteachers in Arauquita, Arauca Department. On 21 September 2005, the secretary at the school where Gladys and Omayra Morales were working received a telephone call from a man who said he was from the AUC. He told her: "Tell the teachers Gladys and Omayra Morales that they have 72 hours to leave the department, that members of Mr Samuel Morales’ family are our military target and they must disappear from Arauca; further that Samuel Morales still has outstanding scores to settle with us, the AUC." The secretary at the school where Matilde Morales, another of Samuel Morales’ sisters,was working received a similar telephoned threat between 10.30 and 11am on the same day. A further threatening call was made to Omayra Morales’ house at 6.30pm.

More:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/alfresco_asset/26e626d7-a2c0-11dc-8d74-6f45f39984e5/amr230012007en.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Your claims against the rebels in Colombia simply pale by comparison to the outright evil perpetrated consistantly by the Colombian death squads. Charges of "kidnapping" seem so weak compared to the harsh, and vile reality of chainsaw massacres of entire villages, mass graves, and constant threat to anyone who dares to challenge them.

News of the death squads started coming out of Colombia so long ago when citizens couldn't take it any longer and started bailing out, not because they were afraid of losing their savings, but because they were terrified they would be slaughtered in the filthiest way possible if they stayed. When I first heard of chain-saw murders years ago, from a Colombian citizen, I was horrified. Since that time, I have learned to understand EXACTLY what he was discussing all that time ago.

Bad Public Relations? Surely you jest.

[Peace Patriot]

5. AI: who's committing the violence? Gov't/security 92%. FARC 2%.

"...cases in which clear evidence of responsibility is available indicates that in 2005 around 49 per cent of human rights abuses against trade unionists were committed by paramilitaries and some 43 per cent directly by the security forces. Just over 2 per cent were attributable to guerrilla forces (primarily the FARC and ELN) and just over 4 per cent to criminally-motivated actions." - Amnesty International

http://www.amnesty.org/en/alfresco_asset/26e626d7-a2c0-11dc-8d74-6f45f39984e5/amr230012007en.html

I would even wonder about that 2%, given the incentive for Colombian military/security and paramilitary entities (billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in military aid) to fake crime scenes, and also given their control over crime scenes and information. (I've read accounts of murdered peasants' bodies being dressed up like FARC guerrillas to cover up a massacre of innocents--why wouldn't they also plant evidence to make sure that AI reports SOME violence/atrocity by FARC, even if only 2%? The sentence that says "both sides" are committing human rights violations is extremely valuable to the Bushites and Colombian fascists.)

In any case, this report puts the matter of Colombian official violence vs. FARC in sharp perspective. The government of Colombia and its military and paramilitary forces--supported by vast amounts of U.S. tax dollars filtered through Bushite fingers--are responsible for over 90% of the violence and horrors of the Colombian civil war, and are no doubt responsible also for prolonging that war in order to keep the U.S. booty coming in--AND to feed Donald Rumsfeld's "Dr. Strangelove" plans for Oil War II--South America (WaPo op-ed, 12/1/07).

The discussion of the impunity for rightwing paramilitary death squads, in this AI report on Colombia, is hauntingly reminiscent of how Blackwater and other Pentagon mercenaries were operating in Iraq. Same M.O. Unofficial armed death squads, immune from the law, but working closely with, coordinating with and taking orders from the U.S. military under the command of Donald Rumsfeld. God only knows what these immunized death squads did to people in Iraq--but torture, murder and every manner of brutality and intimidation against thousands of innocent people, for purposes of political repression, is quite likely, just as in Colombia. That's what "rogue" forces are FOR. And isn't it interesting that Rumsfeld, the chief war criminal of the Iraq War, is now creating policy for South America, on the pages of the Washington Post, with special focus on the country with the most oil--Venezuela. Rumsfeld wants "free trade" for Colombia--to reward them for slaughtering all those union organizers--and he wants any remaining "checks and balances" in our own government (f.i., Congress) removed, so the U.S. can "act swiftly" in support of "friends and allies" in South America. And who he is talking about are the rightwing paramilitaries in Colombia, among whom plots to assassinate Hugo Chavez have been hatched, and who are working with fascist forces in Venezuela, Bolivia and other resource rich democracies, to topple leftist (majorityist) governments, re-install rightwing dictatorships and put Exxon-Mobile and Occidental Petroleum and the World Bank/IMF back in charge of looting the region.

It is no accident that Colombia is virtually the Bush Junta's only "friend" in South America. The vast majority of South American leaders, and South Americans in general, loathe the Bush Junta, and are moving swiftly toward freedom from U.S. domination with all sorts of new projects and political/economic developments (--for instance, creation of the Bank of the South, which is freeing them from World Bank loan sharks). Leftist (majorityist) governments have swept the elections in South America over the last half decade--with socialist/progressive governments elected in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Chile; also Nicaragua, and, in addition a progressive government was just elected in Guatemala, of all places. Paraguay may get a leftist president this year as well. And Mexico's left lost the last election by a hairsbreadth (0.05%)--probably a stolen election. In this context, FARC's armed rebellion seems rather dinosauric (like the Bush and Uribe regimes), but it is nevertheless understandable, given the horrors of Colombia's fascist regime, and also the lies, hypocrisy, failure and utter corruption of the U.S. "war on drugs," which is closely linked to the injustice and brutality that FARC members armed themselves against. 92% of the violence is the Colombian government's doing, vs. 2% FARC. That's the upshot. (Note: AI states that it is not clear that the FARC incidents were aimed at innocent parties such as union leaders, but may well have been against people colluding with the Colombian death squads. I'm not condoning this frontier justice, but AI's comment is interesting, and explains why FARC, which must depend on the goodwill of local people for its own safety, would be involved at all in such aggravating incidents.)

Bacchus39 above, who reviles FARC, and who always defends fascists, and reviles leftists--even peaceful, democratically elected leftists (the vast majority)--leaves out all of this context. What motivates FARC. Who commits the most violence. What Donald Rumsfeld's interest is--and Occidental Petroleum's, et al. Why the Bushites love the Uribe government. The story of vast U.S. injustice in Latin America. And the deviousness, lying, black ops, dirty tricks, torture, murder, blackmail, bullying and egregiously anti-democratic policy of the Bushites and of anyone who allies with them. Blowing up pipelines that profit heinous murderers does not seem like such a great crime to me. I would prefer an orderly, lawful society in which redress of grievances is possible, and in which every citizen, rich and poor, has a say in the government, a fair chance and protected rights. But that is so far from the case in Colombia that it is unreasonable to expect ONLY the leftists to be lawful and peaceful. That is Bacchus39's position. He/she never mentions the Colombian government's vast unlawfulness, brutality and corruption--the REASON for the armed guerrilla resistance of such long standing (30 years!). I would never aver that leftist violence is the answer. It merely feeds the fascists (as it has done in Colombia and Washington DC), and it creates a cycle of violence that is very hard to stop. But failing to acknowledge that this is a civil war, in Colombia--much like the one that Donald Rumsfeld instigated in Iraq, and that Robert McNamara instigated in Vietnam--will lead to an even more immense tragedy: U.S. participation in Oil War II, in South America. We have NO BUSINESS in Colombia--none! We have NO BUSINESS arming one side. Occidental Petroleum's interests are NOT our interests. We should pull out now--all military aid, all support--and let the Colombians and South Americans sort it out. There are sufficient good, peaceful, democratic governments in neighboring countries to broker a peace. I'm sure they want to. Let them do it!

Propaganda against FARC, such as Bacchus39 is spreading, is very similar to the propaganda against the "Vietcong," and the propaganda against the Iraqis who are fighting back against invasion, mass slaughter, torture and occupation. This lopsided view is helping turn our country into an aggressive Nazi state operating on behalf of global corporate predators. We need to learn to evaluate things in a more balanced and wiser way, and we need to re-empower OURSELVES as to controlling our own government. As with Cuba, we have got to consider WHY people take up arms and rebel. How long would WE put up with the atrocities of a Batista regime? How long would WE put up with Blackwater mercenaries kicking in OUR doors in the middle of the night, and dragging people out into the street, and shooting people with impunity? What pushed the members of FARC into the jungle? Colombia's rich elite had sold their country out to the likes of Occidental Petroleum and Chiquita, and solicited billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to enforce these and other corporations' ungodly profits from Colombian resources and slave labor. Even if you would not choose to take up arms in that situation, you can understand why others might--especially given the long bloody record of atrocities by Colombia's fascist elite, run out of the U.S. White House. There are two sides to this story, and the U.S. belongs on NEITHER.

Don't. Let. Them. Stoke. Up. Another. Oil. War!

[Judi Lynn]

8. It really DOES make one wonder how it is we're supposed to believe Rumsfeld when he said he was

leaving, and he turns right around and proves he has no intention of leaving!

Really appreciate your points in this post, just read through it, and have to run off again, but wanted to thank you for looking over that material. There's no doubt whatsoever what's going on there.

Thanks for the reference to Paraguay's upcoming election: I had forgotten about it altogether, and it's a big, BIG one. I believe it's in April, and will check.

[Judi Lynn]

20. Thanks for point it out, Peace Patriot. A really good reading of A-I's comments

is just what the doctor ordered!

[Peace Patriot]

2. The conclusion is chilling, esp. in the context of Donald Rumsfeld's recent WaPo op-ed

in which he basically declares war on Venezuela.

The conclusion of this article:

"Then there is the problem of Colombian refugees fleeing to surrounding countries. There has been an explosion in Colombians seeking asylum in Ecuador. The BBC reported in November 2006 that whereas 475 Colombians applied for asylum there in 2000, by 2003 the figure had risen to “more than 11,000 and those high figures have remained constant ever since.” The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that in total there may be around 250,000 Colombian refugees in Ecuador. Assimilating refugees is an arduous task for any state, let alone nations like Venezuela and Ecuador, many of whose citizens live in dire poverty.

"To put it bluntly, the United States simply cannot afford to let the war in Colombia further destabilize its neighbors and threaten the flow of oil northward. Roughly 16 percent of the oil imported by the United States comes from Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. Defeating or at least containing the FARC-EP is therefore of critical significance for US energy security. We can therefore expect that Washington will remain heavily involved in Colombia’s affairs for a long time to come." --Michael Walker

--------

"The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez," by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/1/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html

Rumsfeld talks about economic and (somewhat veiled, but unmistakable) military warfare launched from Colombia against Venezuela and other unnamed target countries (--no doubt the ones with gas and oil, and leftist governments, who, like the Venezuelan government, believe that local resources should be used to help the poor--that is, Bolivia and Ecuador, and possibly also against their ally Argentina). Rumsfeld wants to get rid of any remaining "checks and balances" in our own government (f.i., Congress) so the U.S. can "act swiftly" in support of "friends and allies" in South America (i.e., fascist thugs planning coups). Michael Walker lays out why Rumsfeld is interested: It's the oil, stupid.

And what right does the U.S. military have to be intervening in Colombia's civil war? None. Colombia has the worst, most corrupt, most repressive government on the continent. It is a government with very close ties to rightwing paramilitaries who chainsaw union leaders and throw their body parts into mass graves, in the name of "anti-terror" warfare, who have slaughtered many hundreds of innocent people--peasant farmers, political leftists--and who engage in big drugs/weapons trafficking--very close ties as in the head of the Colombian military, the former head of intelligence, and many Uribe office holders. It is unconscionable that the Bush Junta has been pouring billions of our taxpayer dollars into this filthy, corrupt, fascist government--but it makes sense, since they are no different from Bushites, who have tortured thousands and slaughtered hundreds of thousands in Iraq, to get their oil.

Rumfeld's lying and disinformation are notorious. Just figure virtually everything he asserts in the article, about Chavez, Venezuela, and the situation in South America, is a lie.

Michael Walker's lies are subtler:

For instance: "...the United States simply cannot afford to let the war in Colombia further destabilize its neighbors and threaten the flow of oil northward." The truth is that the war in Colombia on union leaders, small peasant farmers and political leftists is INTENDED TO destabilize "neighboring countries." Colombian rightwing paramilitary death squads are already operating in Venezuelan border areas--as is the official U.S./Bush "war on drugs"--trying to stir up trouble. Assassination plots against Chavez and other democratic leaders have been hatched in these Colombian fascist cabals. There are operatives in-country in Venezuela (where caches of weapons have been found) and in Bolivia (in support of rich rural landowners who want to split their oil/gas rich provinces off from the central government, in a strategy that was no doubt designed in our White House--or in Donald Rumsfeld's "retirement" office in the Pentagon). So, for Walker to say that the "United States simply cannot afford to let the war in Colombia" spill over into neighboring countries is turning things on its head. The Bush Junta has no other purpose in South America but to make trouble--to empower death squads, to destabilize leftist (majorityist) governments, to topple good democratic leaders, to kill, to torture, and to impose fascist rule, on behalf of Occidental Petroleum and Exxon-Mobile, et al.

Walker admits that only 1.5% of U.S. oil is imported from Colombia, yet states that the U.S. "simply cannot afford" not to fight a war for it. That is ridiculous. We certainly CAN afford NOT to fight such a war. But what he really means (the sneaky part) is that Venezuela's oil is the sought-after prize in this civil war in Colombia--the excuse for U.S. military presence in Colombia on Venezuela's border, and the excuse for endless Bushite-instigated mischief and grief inflicted on the people of the region, in order to topple their democracies and grab their oil, leaving them none of the profit. The Chavez government is not denying the U.S. its 12% of oil; it's just extracting a fairer share of taxes from cooperating oil companies, and evicted Exxon-Mobile (nationalized the oil infrastructure, paying them a fair price for it).

I think I hate the sneakier lie the more--the lie that emerges from the cushioned chairs of academia. Rumsfeld is dancing as fast as he can, for his war/oil profiteer sponsors, probably in a bargain to avoid war crimes prosecution. ('Regain some ground for fascist/corporate rule in South America, and we may continue to immunize you from Congressional investigation and a trip to the Hague."--that's what I think the bargain is.) Rumsfeld's lies are naked. The man is guilty of some of the most heinous crimes of this era. Walker's lies are...I don't know, nauseating in their smugness. Petty, venal, "bought and paid for" lies of a corrupt intellect. But he is right about one thing: It's about the oil. Rumsfeld has South America staked out as Theater II of the Corporate Oil War, and, as with Iraq, we are already paying for it.

And I just had an emotional hit on who FARC is: They are the Vietnamese--people who are sick unto death of being "colonized" and are fighting back--unpeacefully, yes, bloodily, yes--but no differently than any other indigenous group including our own American revolutionaries, who have had it with injustice and take up arms. And, frankly, I'm not sure I wouldn't do the same if I saw union leaders chainsawed to death and their body parts thrown into mass graves--on behalf of Chiquita, and Monsanto, and Occidental Petroleum. People can take only so much before they take up arms in their defense. These people--FARC--are well-organized, well-trained, they control a vast territory in Colombia (a third of the country?), they've been fighting for a long time (30 years!), and they obviously have some local support, or they would long ago have been obliterated by the Colombian army with its U.S firepower. I don't endorse their actions. They are as dinosauric as the Colombian government--and the Bushite government--in many ways. I'm just saying I suddenly understand who they are in relation to US. They are people who BELONG THERE--while we DO NOT. We have no business there. If the Colombian government cannot sustain itself without billions of dollars in U.S. aid, then it should fall. It is not a righteous government. It is brutal and corrupt, and has obviously failed to represent the interests of the vast poor population, and has, indeed, viciously disempowered and harmed the poor majority. We should be trading only with good, democratic countries, like Colombia's neighbors.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Colombia's oil pipeline is paid for in blood and dollars

Colombia's oil pipeline is paid for in blood and dollars

Trade unionists are the prime target of the US-funded 18th Brigade

Isabel Hilton
Friday August 20, 2004
The Guardian

If peace ever comes to Colombia after decades of civil war, it will come too late for three citizens of the oil-rich north-east region of Arauca, on the border with Venezuela. They were murdered by the army on August 5. The men were all trade unionists, and their killings bring to 30 the number of unionists killed in Arauca so far this year.

I met the men on a recent visit to Saravena, a town in Arauca at the epicentre of the government's security policies. Armed soldiers stood on every street corner. At a packed meeting, they and other trade unionists described the conditions they had struggled with after the President Alvaro Uribe designated their area a special security zone. Armoured cars cruised past the building, as though warning those inside that we were all being watched.

The stories they told were of mass arrests, kidnappings, intimidation and murder. On one occasion, in November 2002, more than 2,000 people were rounded up at gunpoint and taken to the sports stadium where they were interrogated, photographed and marked with indelible ink. Hooded informers pointed out individuals, who were then arrested. The codename for this mass abuse of civil rights was Heroic Operation.

Heroic Operation was an army undertaking, but civilian authorities cooperated: officials from the attorney general's office issued arrest warrants on the spot, on the word of the informers rather than any judicial investigation. Of the 2,000 rounded up, 85 were arrested. They were taken into detention, during which some were told they would be released if they agreed to become informers. Months later, 35 had been released for lack of evidence. When they finally returned home, many faced death threats from paramilitary groups. About 40 of the 50 who remained in detention were trade unionists.

The returnees talked of the harassment they endured and the alarming death rate among civilians in Arauca who assumed any position of leadership. Teachers, health workers and union activists were being killed in appalling numbers. The latest three victims were prominent local union officials. The government claims they were guerrillas, but two had been under the special protection of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1287054,00.html