Sunday, August 09, 2009
I'm going to hold you to this Obama, Part II
Well, I wanted a strong stance from Obama on Colombia but I didn’t expect him to send the military in. Oh…
Change you can believe in? As usual, it seems easier to stick to one’s principles out of office. While battling John McCain for his country‘s soul, Obama told Americans that he was opposed to a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia [FTA] that had been hovering around waiting approval since 2006 because the Colombian government, the third largest recipient of US aid after Israel and Egypt, was still not keeping the murders of trade unionists in check. Earlier that year, in March, he stated that "the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labour protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements." Heartening stuff, and a sharp contrast with the “virtually unconditional support” that Human Rights Watch saw during the Bush era. The response to Obama's brave stance was a tiresome and formulaic barrage of lies and distortions. [Checking out the comments for this one is an uplifting use of time].
The majority of these murders are carried out by paramilitary groups, sponsored by wealthy landowners, businessmen and drug traffickers. In theory their role is to kill off terrorist groups like the FARC-EP and ELN, but in practice their job consists of taking out 'collaborators', better known to the rest of us as unionists and members of civil society. Furthermore, these mass murderers frequently work in tandem with brigades of the Colombian armed forces and are even connected with politicians at the very top of Colombian politics. Punishment for the criminals and reparations for the victims are all too rare. This week the Inter-American Court of Human Rights demanded explanation from the Colombian government for still not responding adequately to the 1997 Mapiripan massacre, in which at least 49 members of a farming community were hacked to death by paramilitaries who had breezed to the scene of the crime via a military landing strip and several military checkpoints.
Obama’s stance towards the FTA is muddier now after he made conciliatory statements in a recent joint press conference with Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, noteworthy also for some somewhat patronising words from an American president on how many terms a democratically elected leader of another nation should be entitled to. Both leaders made totally unsubstantiated claims that things are getting better for unionists. Interesting. Murders may have been at triple figures at the start of the decade, but they are still at a level where Colombia remains the most dangerous place around to belong to a union or try to form one, with last year being one of many when assassinations of unionists in Colombian represented more than half the global total. Last year the number of unionist murders increased, from 39 to 49, and already this year we have reached the twenties. If 39 murders were too many for Obama in March 2008, how on earth does a total of 49 by the end of that year constitute an improvement? Those that aren't killed require bodyguards and regularly receive death threats. Uribe and his clique have been helpful, slandering them as "a bunch of criminals dressed up as trade unionists" and putting journalists and human rights activists at risk too with similar provocative smears, pronouncements that break Colombian laws designed to protect such individuals. Meanwhile the FTA is, as ever, up in the air, with significant pressure to get it moving from politicians and business elites from both nations and limited discussion about how much Colombian and American workers will be affected.
Much clearer is the issue of access to military bases, one thing the American empire has always depended on. After Ecuador’s Rafael Correa told “dimwit” Bush to clear out of his nation’s Manta base in hilariously bolshy fashion last year, US military presence in Latin America diminished. During his reign of terror Bush had alienated much of Latin America, prompting Obama to accuse him of “negligence” for allowing independently minded leaders to get elected that were unwilling lay down for the White House like they used to. Now Obama and Uribe have found the ideal solution, with Uribe leasing out air force and naval bases to the American military in order to facilitate Plan Colombia, the heavily militarised counter narcotics programme that the two nations have been working on for a decade that has seen military aid to Colombia skyrocket. Colombia’s neighbours are unhappy, knowing all about US intervention in a region that has long been to the White House what Eastern Europe was to the Kremlin. They are fearing the worst, and anyone concerned about Colombia’s most downtrodden should be too.
The main criticism of Plan Colombia, which even discourages Europe’s governments from getting too involved, is the undue emphasis on military support in relation to economic and social programmes. According to Colombia-based journalist Garry Leech, Obama’s request for aid in 2010 reduces the overall total figure but nevertheless increases the percentage of military aid, most notably military aid for counter insurgency. Military aid generally has negative connotations, but in Colombia today it could be the difference between life and death. Does Obama care for the well-being of Colombian civilians as much he seems to care about its unionists?
In recent years the Colombian military has been embroiled in a series of scandals that make it a cause for concern to rank alongside the paramilitaries and violent Leninists. The story is ‘false positives’, killings of civilians carried out by a military fixated with body counts. The victims are civilians in rural areas, lured by job prospects by strangers, who hand them over to bent soldiers. They are stripped of their IDs, murdered with military weapons and dressed up like guerrillas. Prosecutors are investigating some 1600 military personnel linked with over 800 extra-judicial executions, the most famous of which was the murders linked to the town of Soacha, near Bogota. These came to light when the morgue was found to be overflowing in Ocaña, a town where they were disappeared off to, 700 kilometres away from Soacha. It transpired that the enticement, transport and murder of these men was carried out by soldiers who initially tried to pass the victims off as combatants. In the aftermath 25 officials, including three generals were fired for the murders of 11 men, and heads continue to roll
Soldiers and commanders involved claim that they were pressured from above to show results, indicating that despite a military directive encouraging soldiers to capture guerrillas alive rather than rack up high body counts, a culture of piling up dead bodies for rewards such as pay rises and holidays still exists. This June the UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial executions, Philip Alston, confirmed that such killings were “systematic” and spread around the country.
Colombia needs assistance to deal with its internal strife, but not astronomical levels of military aid. Social problems need to be acknowledged, such as the massive numbers of internally displaced Colombians, as many as 4 million people, who are either driven into the wild or congregate in slums and rubbish tips around Bogota and other big cities like Cali, where young street kids are either picked off or primed as the next generation of thugs. One of the leading contributors to this displacement crisis has been the aggressive counter insurgency tactics employed, particularly under Uribe, in rolling back the FARC-EP. Again, only limited discussion about how Colombians are affected in all of this. So long as the voices of these victims continue unheeded there is no reason to expect a change in the attitudes of world leaders.
Change you can believe in? As usual, it seems easier to stick to one’s principles out of office. While battling John McCain for his country‘s soul, Obama told Americans that he was opposed to a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia [FTA] that had been hovering around waiting approval since 2006 because the Colombian government, the third largest recipient of US aid after Israel and Egypt, was still not keeping the murders of trade unionists in check. Earlier that year, in March, he stated that "the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labour protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements." Heartening stuff, and a sharp contrast with the “virtually unconditional support” that Human Rights Watch saw during the Bush era. The response to Obama's brave stance was a tiresome and formulaic barrage of lies and distortions. [Checking out the comments for this one is an uplifting use of time].
The majority of these murders are carried out by paramilitary groups, sponsored by wealthy landowners, businessmen and drug traffickers. In theory their role is to kill off terrorist groups like the FARC-EP and ELN, but in practice their job consists of taking out 'collaborators', better known to the rest of us as unionists and members of civil society. Furthermore, these mass murderers frequently work in tandem with brigades of the Colombian armed forces and are even connected with politicians at the very top of Colombian politics. Punishment for the criminals and reparations for the victims are all too rare. This week the Inter-American Court of Human Rights demanded explanation from the Colombian government for still not responding adequately to the 1997 Mapiripan massacre, in which at least 49 members of a farming community were hacked to death by paramilitaries who had breezed to the scene of the crime via a military landing strip and several military checkpoints.
Obama’s stance towards the FTA is muddier now after he made conciliatory statements in a recent joint press conference with Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, noteworthy also for some somewhat patronising words from an American president on how many terms a democratically elected leader of another nation should be entitled to. Both leaders made totally unsubstantiated claims that things are getting better for unionists. Interesting. Murders may have been at triple figures at the start of the decade, but they are still at a level where Colombia remains the most dangerous place around to belong to a union or try to form one, with last year being one of many when assassinations of unionists in Colombian represented more than half the global total. Last year the number of unionist murders increased, from 39 to 49, and already this year we have reached the twenties. If 39 murders were too many for Obama in March 2008, how on earth does a total of 49 by the end of that year constitute an improvement? Those that aren't killed require bodyguards and regularly receive death threats. Uribe and his clique have been helpful, slandering them as "a bunch of criminals dressed up as trade unionists" and putting journalists and human rights activists at risk too with similar provocative smears, pronouncements that break Colombian laws designed to protect such individuals. Meanwhile the FTA is, as ever, up in the air, with significant pressure to get it moving from politicians and business elites from both nations and limited discussion about how much Colombian and American workers will be affected.
Much clearer is the issue of access to military bases, one thing the American empire has always depended on. After Ecuador’s Rafael Correa told “dimwit” Bush to clear out of his nation’s Manta base in hilariously bolshy fashion last year, US military presence in Latin America diminished. During his reign of terror Bush had alienated much of Latin America, prompting Obama to accuse him of “negligence” for allowing independently minded leaders to get elected that were unwilling lay down for the White House like they used to. Now Obama and Uribe have found the ideal solution, with Uribe leasing out air force and naval bases to the American military in order to facilitate Plan Colombia, the heavily militarised counter narcotics programme that the two nations have been working on for a decade that has seen military aid to Colombia skyrocket. Colombia’s neighbours are unhappy, knowing all about US intervention in a region that has long been to the White House what Eastern Europe was to the Kremlin. They are fearing the worst, and anyone concerned about Colombia’s most downtrodden should be too.
The main criticism of Plan Colombia, which even discourages Europe’s governments from getting too involved, is the undue emphasis on military support in relation to economic and social programmes. According to Colombia-based journalist Garry Leech, Obama’s request for aid in 2010 reduces the overall total figure but nevertheless increases the percentage of military aid, most notably military aid for counter insurgency. Military aid generally has negative connotations, but in Colombia today it could be the difference between life and death. Does Obama care for the well-being of Colombian civilians as much he seems to care about its unionists?
In recent years the Colombian military has been embroiled in a series of scandals that make it a cause for concern to rank alongside the paramilitaries and violent Leninists. The story is ‘false positives’, killings of civilians carried out by a military fixated with body counts. The victims are civilians in rural areas, lured by job prospects by strangers, who hand them over to bent soldiers. They are stripped of their IDs, murdered with military weapons and dressed up like guerrillas. Prosecutors are investigating some 1600 military personnel linked with over 800 extra-judicial executions, the most famous of which was the murders linked to the town of Soacha, near Bogota. These came to light when the morgue was found to be overflowing in Ocaña, a town where they were disappeared off to, 700 kilometres away from Soacha. It transpired that the enticement, transport and murder of these men was carried out by soldiers who initially tried to pass the victims off as combatants. In the aftermath 25 officials, including three generals were fired for the murders of 11 men, and heads continue to roll
Soldiers and commanders involved claim that they were pressured from above to show results, indicating that despite a military directive encouraging soldiers to capture guerrillas alive rather than rack up high body counts, a culture of piling up dead bodies for rewards such as pay rises and holidays still exists. This June the UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial executions, Philip Alston, confirmed that such killings were “systematic” and spread around the country.
Colombia needs assistance to deal with its internal strife, but not astronomical levels of military aid. Social problems need to be acknowledged, such as the massive numbers of internally displaced Colombians, as many as 4 million people, who are either driven into the wild or congregate in slums and rubbish tips around Bogota and other big cities like Cali, where young street kids are either picked off or primed as the next generation of thugs. One of the leading contributors to this displacement crisis has been the aggressive counter insurgency tactics employed, particularly under Uribe, in rolling back the FARC-EP. Again, only limited discussion about how Colombians are affected in all of this. So long as the voices of these victims continue unheeded there is no reason to expect a change in the attitudes of world leaders.
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