Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act (1998)

America's Dirty War in Colombia Aug. 1998 US anti-drug aid to Colombia was estimated to be $100 million in 1997, up from $28 million in 1996. According to the Government Accounting Office, only one-third of the counter-drug aid since 1990 has gone directly to anti-narcotics assistance, while the remaining two-thirds went for military-related expenditures. The U.S. support for the "war on drugs" in Colombia does not strengthen democracy or respect human rights, nor does it stem the flow of drugs into the United States. Our support of the Colombian military, with their drug-trafficking paramilitary allies, is a tragic mistake. United States and Colombia Form 'Invincible' Military Alliance Z Magazine Jan. 1999 Ronald Reagan first coined the term "narco-guerrilla" to justify U.S. support for the Contras in Nicaragua. Later, in what became known as the Iran-Contra Affair, we learned that the United States was supplying weapons to the Contras in exchange for cocaine. No Peace with Colombia's Paramilitary Strategy Washington Times April 4, 1999 Democracy and negotiation are key to relieving the pressure. Colombia must find a way to manage strikes, demonstrations, and even terrorist attacks without resorting to acts of terror itself. Until Colombia abandons its paramilitary strategy, there is no hope for peace. Drugs replace communism as the point of entry for U.S. policy on Latin America Council on Hemispheric Affairs 8/24/99 General McCaffrey seems to be the policymaker most obsessed with the notion of the guerrillas as ravenous drug barons, but Congressmen Dan Burton (R-IN) and Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) are not far behind. In an official statement, the representatives made no mention of the paramilitaries' intense involvement in drugs, while emphasizing that the FARC "narco-terrorists" reel in "an estimated $100 million per month in revenues from facilitating narco-trafficking." Boinas verdes en la Amazonía Ignacio Gómez G. Aug. 1999 Mucho antes de que el Pentágono comenzara a movilizar su más avanzada tecnología en inteligencia de guerra a la Amazonia colombiana y de los países vecinos, las Fuerzas Especiales de Estados Unidos habían desplazado entrenadores y técnicos especializados en la instalación de los equipos de tierra necesarios y el entrenamiento de las fuerzas locales que deberían actuar con base en la información capturada, especialmente a la guerrilla de las Farc. US Planes and Helicopters Said to Bomb Civilians in Puerto Lleras 7/10/99 Several blocks away from the scene of [a FARC attack on a police station], however, there is widespread physical evidence that the military's airborne assault was directed at civilian-occupied areas of Puerto Lleras. The evidence backs up consistent witness accounts provided by local government officials, residents and rescue workers that aircraft opened fire on residential areas. Farther down the street, aircraft strafed houses and stores. Inside one, baker Jose Alberto Moreno and three family members were hiding in a bathroom, taking advantage of a 5-inch-thick concrete ceiling to shield them from the bullets raining from the sky, family members said. The thin corrugated roofing that covered the rest of their bakery already had been riddled with bullets fired from passing aircraft, they said. As the Morenos huddled in the bathroom, an aircraft fired down again, hitting a gas canister near the bathroom. The gas ignited, burning the clothes off the occupants and sending the Morenos running naked into the street, screaming for help. Three of the four died a few days later. The survivor, Angelica Ladino, 19, is recuperating in Bogota. She declined to comment. The U.S. and its Responsibility for Counter-Insurgency Operations in Colombia Summer 1998 Latin American politicians helped to invent the specter of the drug-financed "narco-guerrilla," a myth discounted by careful and dispassionate researchers like Rensselaer Lee. U.S. military officers were equally cynical. Col. John D Waghelstein, writing in the Military Review, argued that the way to counter "those church and academic groups that have slavishly supported the insurgency in Latin America" was to put them "on the wrong side of the moral issue", by creating "a melding in the American public's mind and in congress" of the alleged narco-guerrilla connection.

Plan Colombia (2000)

Congresswoman McKinney's Statement on Colombia Sept. 2000 So now, the US is about to implement a plan to spray chemicals on third world subsistence farmers and attack them with helicopter gunships while the Colombian government allows paramilitary groups to massacre them. ... One thing is for sure in this plan, it isn't about drug abuse control and won't help my friends who are strung out on dope. Strategies for Peace in Colombia Community Church of Chapel Hill, Dec. 2000 One very basic agreement would be for the guerrillas to stop kidnapping, and for the government to dismantle the paramilitary groups. This proposal puts two of the most serious issues on the table for discussion. Human Rights Conditions in Plan Colombia Presidential Determination on Waiver of Certification August 22, 2000 NGO's review the human rights record of the Colombian military. August 28, 2000 Colombia Human Rights Certification II January 2001

Misc. FARC - drugs

50 Years of Violence by Garry M Leech

Many contemporary news accounts label the conflict a "thirty-five year-old civil war," basing its origin on the official formation of several guerrilla groups in the mid-1960's. However, the roots of Colombia's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), date back to the peasant armed self-defense movements formed between 1948 and 1958 during the period known as La Violencia.

The Evolution of the FARC by Alfredo Molano

In 1953, an anti-Communist military strongman, General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, came to power by force, backed by elements within both traditional parties and - significantly - by Washington. Once securely in power, the General decreed an amnesty which was welcomed by the armed peasants of the eastern plains and by many Liberals and Conservatives as well.

In 1955, a military operation was launched against rural regions that remained strongholds of agrarian guerrillas who had fought in the name of Gaitán,  and where Communist guerrillas were also concentrated. Backed by Washington's National Security Doctrine and a $170 million U.S. loan, Rojas Pinilla began bombing guerrilla and opposition peasant positions. The guerrilla movement tried to dig in and hold out in the highlands, but was ultimately forced to retreat to the jungles of the Andean foothills. In those regions, Marulanda, joined by Jacobo Arenas, a charismatic Marxist ideologue who described himself a "professional revolutionary," organized a community based on economic self-management and military self-defense. This was the first of the guerrilla bases that later came to be known as "Independent Republics." (map from Guerrilla Movements in Latin America, by Richard Gott)

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Illicit Drug Trade by Ricardo Vargas Meza

Since the 1990s, Colombian coca plantations have covered an expanse that, according to residents of the affected areas, could be as large as 150,000 hectares. An estimated 300,000 people are directly dependent on the coca economy. These zones are, at the same time, controlled by guerrillas who derive significant revenues by levying taxes on medium- and large-scale farmers, intermediate coca products (base, further refined into cocaine), merchants, and, most importantly, processing laboratories and clandestine air strips for cocaine shipments. These funds are employed to strengthen the guerrillas' logistical and communications capacity for the war effort.

The army, therefore, perceives the settler-coca farmer as a direct guerrilla collaborator. The army's decision to engage in counternarcotics operations targeting illicit crop cultivation, justified by the "narcoguerrilla" theory, has led to the repression of peasants in those areas.

This region was particularly affected by decrees 0900 and 0717 establishing Special Zones in which the civilian authorities were stripped of their constitutional powers and control was transferred to government security forces. This set the stage for massive protests, beginning in 1996, of over 200,000 settlers and peasant farmers. These protests were organized in response to the mistreatment of rural workers and the lack of economically viable alternatives to coca.

In 1997, the Amazon region where the protests took place witnessed increases in massacres, violent deaths of agrarian leaders, and the formation of private paramilitary groups. As armed groups struggled for control, conflict escalated at a tremendous cost in terms of human life and the basic rights of the population.

They Will Not Wipe Out the Seed * Both Sides at War Consider it a Job by Constanza Ardila Galvis

The conflict took on dimensions we could never have imagined. Not one newspaper told the truth - they wrote about the Patriotic Union finishing off the peace process. I thought, of course, how could the comrades in the mountains think these city types were going to understand and protect a movement of the poor? They don't know rich people's greed and arrogance. Even when they apologise they're disdainful and even when they're in an uncomfortable situation they're arrogant. One way or another, they get what they want. They blamed all the problems on the poor, but they never saw the magnitude of the genocide and the newspapers hid it. They said there were guerrillas in the Patriotic Union, the labour movement was infiltrated with subversives and the Communist Party obeyed the armed organisation's command, but while these discussions were going on, three thousand five hundred leaders were killed and they still ignored it. The paramilitary groups carried out the dirty work the army couldn't do and no one saw or heard anything. Only now, ten years later, are people beginning to ask themselves what happened then.