Colombia Solidarity Campaign
- Fighting for Peace with Justice -
| DIGGING IN FOR A LONG WAR |
 |
| Bulletin archive - Bulletin Issue2 July?September 2001 | |||
| Tuesday, 09 September 2008 13:46 | |||
|
Clinton inaugurated Plan Colombia last August. The fumigations began in earnest in December, and ran until March. The new US President added another $800 million to Clinton's $1.3 billion. Bush has broadened the scope of the plan, with interventions co-ordinated across the Andean region.
Has the plan worked so far? The principal victims of the aerial fumigation programme have been the peasants and indigenous people in the southern departments, suffering from the poisonous chemicals rained down on them. The AUC right-wing paramilitary death squads have been integral, they have been rapidly expanded, their leadership claims 5,000 recruits in just two months, and thrown into the area to massacre and clear a way for the crop spraying. Thirdly, and most worrying for the high command in Bogot· and Washington, Colombia's main guerrilla movement the FARC has not been seriously dented. On the contrary, the FARC has recently shown a capacity to resist the new tactics. The Washington/Bogot· military strategy rests on air superiority, the capacity to spot guerrilla movements from spy planes above and then to rapidly deploy and concentrate anti-guerilla forces in helicopter gunships. In recent engagements FARC guerillas have joined battle, and then laid in wait to pick off the airborne reinforcements as they arrive at the battleground. The stock military answer to this anticipated resistance is ever more devastating hardware and ruthless official forces prepared to fight very dirty. Hence Apache attack helicopters and new battalions are now arriving. Moreover politically as well as militarily Pastrana has been unable to defeat his main guerrilla opponent. The peace talks have gone nowhere, apart from facilitating the accord to exchange prisoners. Pastrana hoped to win politically from this, but it soon became clear that he was blocking the release of more than 15 guerrillas. So FARC broke out over a hundred prisoners from the state’s Picota jail. There was a terrible reprisal, the government allowed paramilitaries to massacre guerrilla prisoners of war held in Modelo prison. To date FARC has released 359 prisoners while still holding 42 officers. Once again it has won the propaganda battle. The USA is deeply worried. It commissioned the Rand Corporation to evaluate overall US strategy. Their report Colombian Labyrinth subtitle The Synergy of Drugs and Insurgency and Its Implications for Regional Stability came out in June. It examines the deep roots of Colombia's guerrilla movements, and posits various outcomes to the war. The report's principal recommendation is that the White House should stop pretending the war is about drugs, and to focus on the counterinsurgency effort. The stakes are very high. According to the report, an imminent FARC victory would raise in the neighbouring countries the call for multilateral military intervention (invasion), possibly under OAS auspices, as happened in the Dominican Republic in 1964. But this would probably unleash FARC attacks on strategic points outside Colombia's frontiers, such as the Panama Canal, and there would be the resurgence of a revolutionary wave in the region. To prevent this 'worst case' outcome, the advisers pose what they call the Central America scenario (remember the El Salvador death squads, the contras against Nicaragua). For the government to tilt the balance of power in its favour and so create the conditions for a future peace accord, as was the case in Guatemala, the army must retake the FARC's liberated zone and regain the operational and strategic initiative. The advisers conclude that it will require sustained US support for the Colombian armed forces to achieve this. There is a fundamental dimension which for all its scenario setting the US advisers simply cannot grasp. That is the depth and breadth of opposition across Colombian society to imperialist intervention. Pastrana's acolytes in Europe prefer to fix attention on what they call the social dimension of Plan Colombia. But just what is this social dimension? It is not the setting up of a few projects to be displayed to gullible visitors. The social dimension of Plan Colombia is privatisation, displacement and dispossession of the mass of people. The Colombian people are fighting a militarised structural adjustment programme. It will be a long war. But with international solidarity they can defeat US imperialism. Colombia has emerged as one of the first great causes of the 21st century. It is time for us to unite to defeat Plan Colombia.
|
Colombia Solidarity Campaign on Twitter
about 12 days ago
RT @londonmining : Web: London Stock Exchange – occupied by coal http://t.co/ZAB5mt74
about 12 days ago
RT @londonmining : Web: Occupy London tours Mayfair Hedge Funds, Saturday 28 January http://t.co/O6SKE6d2
about 12 days ago
RT @AmnestyUK : . @Number10gov Please help us get an international Arms Trade Treaty that will save lives: http://t.co/rw4rVREK #armstreaty
about 25 days ago
#FF @londonmining @LAWAS_UK @PBIColombia @PBIUK @Col_Caravana @HollmanMorris @JOTAKLAN @IvanCepedaCast @indigenous_news @LSHumanRights
about 25 days ago
RT @londonmining : Colombia - Serious harassment and threats against members of the MOVICE Tolima Branch http://t.co/B9DaX0Qw
8 Jan 2012
RT @Contravia : En minutos, un nuevo capítulo por Canal Uno, no se lo pierda!!!
22 Dec 2011
RT @londonmining : Web: Statement by communities affected by mining in La Guajira, Colombia http://t.co/EaSsDUIn
22 Dec 2011
RT @londonmining : Web: Colombia's mining boom overshadowed by human rights violations http://t.co/NDTkL25P
22 Dec 2011
RT @Gus5ilva : Trasteo de un río en La Guajira. A muchos guajiros y wayúus la idea no les cuadra. http://t.co/y5zXEB0B
6 Dec 2011
El Oro para Suarez: Mineros Afrocolombianos Defendiendo sus Raíces - dirigido por @HollmanMorris http://t.co/41xg4AKD
29 Nov 2011
Proyecto #MinaLaColosa preocupa a diputados británicos http://t.co/Pef612aP
14 Nov 2011
Please urge your MP to sign Early Day Motion 2396 on #Cerrejon Coal http://t.co/HzHjDQZV
14 Nov 2011
Free event, 15 November: Overconsumption – our use of the world’s resources http://t.co/bKhyXuEz
14 Nov 2011
Higher Education, Environment and Human Rights in #Colombia today: http://t.co/QnrkgMB9
14 Nov 2011
New driver, but same direction – heading for a train crash: Santos Leading #Colombia towards Prosperity for All? http://t.co/Apd5kf7O
21 Oct 2011
RT @londonmining : Web: BHP Billiton AGM protest, London, 20 October 2011 http://t.co/3o0P6OG0
21 Oct 2011
A photo story of group of @occupylsx protesters joining the LSX-listed BHP Billiton protest by @londonmining yesterday http://t.co/iBGGF4jc
19 Oct 2011
RT @londonmining : Very pleased to hear that people from @OccupyLSX will be joining BHP BIlliton AGM protest on Thurs AM http://t.co/syzBqYqj
Search the website
Latest branch meeting
London Mining Network
The London Mining Network (LMN) is an alliance of human rights, development and environmental groups. We pledge to expose the role of companies, funders and government in the promotion of unacceptable mining projects.
| London Mining NetworkColombia | London Mining Network |
| Holding the mining industry to account |
|
Copyright © Colombia Solidarity Campaign. All Rights Reserved. Joomla Templates by JoomlaWeb
Joomla Templates Sponsored by Best of Joomla!
Joomla Templates Sponsored by Best of Joomla!
Colombia Solidarity Campaign is affiliated to the European Network of Friendship and Solidarity with Colombia, which has eleven affiliates in Spain and ten from other countries.