Jungle tribesmen flee Marxist killers

[WhiteTara]

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=515252006

NAKED and armed only with blowpipes, members of Colombia's last nomadic indigenous tribe emerged from the Amazonian jungle and gathered in the central plaza of a remote town, saying that Marxist guerrillas had threatened to wipe them out.

"The guerrillas told us they did not want to see us ever again," said one of the few Indians that spoke any Spanish, as the members of the Nukak Maku tribe walked into the town of San Jose de Guaviare, situated deep in the southern jungles.
snip
The group had 14 monkeys with them carried by several of the children. The monkeys are not just companions but also help feed the tribe. The top halves of faces of the adult Indians are dyed red.

"With this arrival, almost half of the Nukak population has moved into civilisation," said Humberto Ruiz, an anthropologist who has studied the tribe for 14 years. "This is a problem of the utmost gravity which we must deal with immediately."
snip
For more than two hundred years the tribe has wandered the Amazonian jungles in an area known as Tomachipan. This is territory claimed by the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Marxist army that controls more than a third of the country. The tribe is believed to number at most 500, with family groups of up to 45.
more
the world lost some of its mystery today with the loss of the nomads of the jungle.

[K-W]

1. Marxist killers....the media is adorable.

Unfortunately for the people of Venezuala FARC has lost what populist credentials it once had, as this article aptly and depressingly demonstrates. Now its become a cycle of violence grinding the Colombian people down and the US seems intent on making sure it continues.

[northzax]

2. you aren't really defending FARC are you?

they really are a 'by any means neccesary' group, as long as those means involve violence. what may once have been a revolutionary movement dedicated to popular change is now a narco-terrorist group, with no semblance of the marxism they were founded on.

[K-W]

3. Which part of my post suggested I was defending them exactly?

The part where I pointed out that they have no populist credentials, the part where I call thier acts depressing, or the part where I place them as part of a cycle of violence griding down the Columbian people?

[northzax]

4. more the subject line

since FARC calls itself Marxist, and comes from Marxist roots, I think the term 'Marxist Killers' is perfectly appropriate in this circumstance.

[K-W]

6. Its very red-scare/cold-war esque.

I said it was cute. I undestand they use the term in Columbia. But come on, "Jungle tribesmen flee Marxist killers" regardless of its origins it reads like anti-communist propaganda out of a history book, which is all I was responding to. I wasnt drawing any deeper conclusions, and I most certainly wasn't defending FARC. I am, by the way, still not sure how you derived from my topic that I was defending FARC especially considering what I wrote in my post.

[Bacchus39]

19. the FARC adhere to a Marxist ideaology

now they have never actually been able to implement marxism because they have never been in power, thank God.

[rman]

53. Yeah, the RW hates Marxism and socialism,

and they've been very successful in shaping public opinion to oppose it.

[bemildred]

39. Nah.

He means that the press would not say "Iraqi peasants flee Capitalist killers" when talking about Iraq. It is the fatuous insertion of political ideology into the story that is the issue.

[Swamp Rat]

42. BINGO!

:)

[nodehopper]

7. FARC is like any other once-ideological group that have

turner into killers. Ever seen "Men With Guns"? It's always the people in the middle between guerilla factions and the corrupt gov't forces that get screwed.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Who Are the Real Terrorists in Colombia?

February 20, 2006

Who Are the Real Terrorists in Colombia?

by Garry Leech

Following 9/11, the justification for U.S. military intervention in Colombia quickly evolved from combating illicit drugs to fighting a war on terror. Despite the fact that all three of Colombia’s irregular armed groups were on the U.S. State Department’s list of international terrorist organizations, it soon became apparent that the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) would be the Bush administration’s principal target. Washington’s focus on the FARC in its war on terror is curious given that pro-government forces have committed significantly more acts of terrorism against the civilian population than have leftist guerrillas.

While the number of homicides in Colombia has dropped significantly in recent years, it is a decrease in criminal killings that accounts for the huge majority of this reduction. There has been little change in the number of civilian deaths related to the country’s civil conflict. Furthermore, according to the Bogotá-based Resource Center for Analysis of the Conflict (CERAC), the Colombian military and its right-wing paramilitary allies have been responsible for 58 percent of Colombia’s conflict-related civilian deaths over the past 16 years. And yet, Washington set its anti-terror sights firmly on the leftist FARC following 9/11.

The campaign to vilify the FARC proved successful when the U.S. Congress approved a $28 billion counterterrorism bill in July 2002 that included $35 million in supplemental aid for Colombia. The bill also lifted conditions restricting drug war aid to counternarcotics operations, instead allowing it to be used for counterinsurgency operations. The following year, the Bush administration provided Colombia with a further $93 million in counterterrorism aid and deployed U.S. Army Special Forces troops to the South American country.

Clearly, the Bush administration had singled out the FARC as the principal international terrorist threat in Colombia. However, two problems were immediately apparent with regards to the U.S. stance. The first being that the FARC’s military operations are confined to Colombia and, therefore, it is difficult to conceive of the group as an international terrorist organization given that it only poses a threat to U.S. political and economic interests in Colombia and not to the United States itself. The second problem rests in the fact that the Bush administration has virtually ignored the violence perpetrated by the Colombian state and its right-wing paramilitary allies, who are also far more deeply involved in drug trafficking than the FARC.
(snip)

While the guerrillas have perpetrated attacks against non-combatants, Colombia’s right-wing paramilitaries have historically killed more civilians than have the guerrillas. Furthermore, the difference in the number of paramilitary killings of civilians compared to the number committed by the guerrillas has increased since 1998, according to CERAC. The Colombian Commission of Jurists (CCJ) has also highlighted the fact that more civilians are killed by paramilitaries than by guerrillas. For example, 6,978 people were killed as a result of the conflict during Uribe’s first year in office, which amounted to 19 people a day. The CCJ determined that paramilitaries were responsible for at least 62 per cent of the killings, more than double the amount committed by the guerrillas.

Meanwhile, a February 2006 United Nations report noted that the number of civilians killed by government forces increased in 2005. Many of these killings were extra-judicial executions by soldiers and police who would often dress the corpses as guerrillas to present them as combat deaths. The UN report stated, “Cases were recorded in which commanders themselves had allegedly supported the act of dressing the victims in guerrilla garments to cover up facts and simulate combat.”
(snip/...)

http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia229.htm

[Ms. Clio]

8. Hmmm, I wonder if anything like this ever happens in Iraq?

"Many of these killings were extra-judicial executions by soldiers and police who would often dress the corpses as guerrillas to present them as combat deaths. The UN report stated, “Cases were recorded in which commanders themselves had allegedly supported the act of dressing the victims in guerrilla garments to cover up facts and simulate combat.”

[OKthatsIT]

9. thats just awful

[Judi Lynn]

10. I wouldn't doubt it, considering who got us there, and how. n/t

[Bacchus39]

22. isn't this genocide by the FARC?

the extermination of an entire culture of people. what do you think Judy?

[Xithras]

31. Yes it is.

If nothing else, it's the forced eviction of them from their own homeland...ethnic cleansing. It's a war crime.

[rman]

45. If you believe the story cited in the OP to be true

But it isn't very likely that it's true, given the interests and the origines of the forces on either side.

[rman]

34. That's the first thing i was wondering about.

Thanks

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

11. companions- help feed the tribe? don't tell me they eat their companions

they didn't really explain what they meant:
"The group had 14 monkeys with them carried by several of the children. The monkeys are not just companions but also help feed the tribe. The top halves of faces of the adult Indians are dyed red."

maybe the monkeys climb for bananas?
or are they monkey meat?
let's hope the moneys don't get wiped out as well.

[WhiteTara]

13. I think the monkeys climb the trees

and bring them food.

[0007]

28. Maybe we can talk junior into helping out, 'eh? He has a thing

for trees and helping poor folks out would be right up his alley. Then again the monkeys would up-stage him.

[sweetheart]

12. on behalf of karl marx, i object

Perhaps "mao'ist killers", or "guerillas".
To slander marx's beautiful work, attempting to
make liberation a sin, they betray their kapital intent.

[rinsd]

14. Ahhh yes., the old "they're not really Marxists, Communists, etc" canard

If a group spends several decades portrayiong themselves as Marxist, becoming a darling of the Left because they fought against US involvement in RW governments in Columbia, they don't suddenly lose that title because now the PR is bad.

Disciples of Marx get a bad rep because most permutations end up as bad as the what they are supposedly combatting. Animal Farm illustrates this perfectly.

[sweetheart]

15. as marxist as bush is a christian

Karl marx is surely turning in his grave.

Too bad about the actual state of affairs of FARC,
but it isn't marxism, this columbian world of state
and rebel death squads. Or perhaps the only marxism
at play is a perpetual class war with the poor on
the bottom.

[K-W]

16. Most everything on this planet ends up bad.

And that was true before Marx. I wonder why we dont blame liberty, equality, and fraternity for the violence and despotism that resulted from the French revolution? I wonder why we don't blame the ideology of democracy and rights for the failure of the American Revolution to enfranchise anyone who wasnt a white male landowner(not to mention slavery)? Was not the russian revolution and many other revolutions that followed based as much on the idea of democracy as ideas of economic equality?

There are despotic regimes throughout the world who claim to be democratic, does this not prove that democracy as an ideology is bound to fail and thus poses a threat to society?

If a group spends several decades portrayiong themselves as Marxist, becoming a darling of the Left because they fought against US involvement in RW governments in Columbia, they don't suddenly lose that title because now the PR is bad.


It is unfortunate that this is all just a petty rhetorical battle for you. I dont know what titles you are talking about. I am intersted merely in the truth, which is that FARC's marxism exists in rhetoric only and that marxism itself plays little to no role in the actual life and death events in Columbia.

Animal Farm doesnt demonstrate anything about the permutations of Marx. It gives you an interpretation of what happened during the Russian Revolution, which, contrary to cold war propaganda isnt the same thing that happened everywhere in the world revolutionaries read Marx. I also wonder how you could read Animal Farm and come out thinking that the problem was the animals hope for equality.

[rinsd]

17. Most Marxism exists only in rhetoric

Over and over history has shown this to be a siren's call, yet the Left still gravitates towards it hoping that yet again their hopes won't be dashed on the rocks.

[K-W]

20. History has shown nothing of the sort.

And as I explained, if we accept your logic, Democracy too is a siren's call.

I find it odd that you seem to be suggesting that the response to having our hopes dashed should be to give up our hopes. The lesson in Animal Farm is not that justice and equality are bad, its that justice and equality cannot be achieved through authoritarianism. And certainly this does to some extent clash with some of Marx's ideas and there are most certainly many things that Marx has written that one would be a fool to believe or follow, something true of most writers in history. But that doesnt mean there isnt value in his work and ideas nor does it mean that anyone who learns or appreciates those ideas is fated to follow his bad ideas and mistakes.

But, as you say, Marxism does exist mostly in rhetoric. Which makes me wonder why you think it has so much power over world events.

The picture you present, of weak minded leftists being brainwashed by Marx into becoming violent authoritarians is cartoonish.

[rinsd]

25. "Democracy too is a siren's call." Too often it has been of late

Despotic leaders have learned that value of the sham election.

" find it odd that you seem to be suggesting that the response to having our hopes dashed should be to give up our hopes."

When one's hopes are shackled to a failed ideology, one can either drop the ideology or the hope. I prefer the ideology.

"The lesson in Animal Farm is not that justice and equality are bad, its that justice and equality cannot be achieved through authoritarianism"

I would and with a couple of simple cliches add other lessons such as beware the pied piper and the enemy of your enemy is rarely your friend and of course power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely and mamas don't let your puppies grow up to be stormtroopers.

"The picture you present, of weak minded leftists being brainwashed by Marx into becoming violent authoritarians is cartoonish."

That is not the picture I presented. Mine was more dealing with segments in the left that are either willifully or deceptively naive when it comes to regimes and their brutality because they happen to espouse Marxism or a derivative of it(not necessarily in true reform but at least in rhetoric).

[sweetheart]

26. middle "C"

the communist mannifest describes a bellweather, an ideal,
and a brilliant critique of human history recast as class
struggles. With marx's gift, comes the inspiration to look
at any government in light of an impossible atlantis, and
as much as plato had his own atlantis, marx has one too,
and that hardly makes it a failed ideology. It is a way of
framing and understanding the foibles of human history.

Perhaps trotsky was more interested in armed revolutions,
or lenin and mao, in an authoritarian "failed ideology",
but marxism is not failed at all. His ideas are as relevant
today as they were when he wrote them, what is failed,
is some false church that was erected in his name by men
who sought to build a statue to marx that they coopt his authority.

Karl Marx himself wrote articles whilst living in poverty in london,
in forced exile from the continent, for preaching ideas that threatened
the orthodoxy of power. Were he alive today, i'd expect Karl Marx
to be a DU'er or something of the like, which would make *us* the
marxists, if living like karl marx, and writing lots of smart
little quips for free that don't ingratiate the writer with
any kapital agent... all for fear that "marxists" will revolt and
overthrow them, rather than realizing that marxists could
as well simply be complex agents of change, political artillery.

And all for a middle "c" of atlantis, marx has been plucked
out of his life and made in to some army-green dictator.

[bemildred]

27. Arguing about Marxism with people who have only a feeble grasp

of the subject tends to not be productive. You get buried in ideological cliches.

It was Stalin that transformed post-revolutionary Russia into an oriental despotism, Lenin was a much more interesting fellow.

[sweetheart]

37. Why is lenin interesting?

I visited the place where he started the october revolution in saint petersberg.
He seems like an empire maker, a revolution leader who stepped past his line of
competence towards being a national designer.

I don't know the history of that context well enough to see the place backwards
without the imprint of "leningrad" to 1918 and what lenin was up to after world
war 1... what was that interesting fellow actually up to that got so badly
maligned?

[bemildred]

38. He engineered the Russian Revolution?

He seems to have been a sort of pragmatic idealist. Pragmatic in the sense that he was the head of, he built, the Bolshevik organization that took control of the revolution, and - with Trotsky - fought and won the war to overthrow the Tsar and establish the Soviet state. That is a most singular political accomplishment. He was not the sort of fellow to get bogged down in theoretic disputes like many "leftists". I suppose some would call him a fanatic, but I think that is wrong, he was someone with an ambition to make big changes who succeeded, at least in part.

He didn't start the revolt though, it started some time before he was able to arrive on the scene. But he had the organization in place, and it was an organization that he built and directed, and he was able to immediately take control once he arrived, and carry out his purpose.

I don't think he was an empire maker, at least not in the classical sense, he really wanted to bring about a global political revolt, and seems to have been selfless in pursuing it. No harems, no big pots of money, no collections of sycophants to feed his ego. He does seem to have been naive in some senses, and Stalin came along - like Napoleon in the French case - and transformed his work into a more conventional autocratic empire; as I said: an oriental despotism. But Stalin was a far less competent leader, and far less interesting as a person (IMHO) than Lenin. Stalin could never have done what Lenin did, but he was a better bureaucrat and in the aftermath he outwitted Lenin, who does seem to have been naive about the pitfalls of what he was attempting.

We tend to get as distorted view of those events because they remain close, and colored by current political agendas. If you imagine they happened 500 years ago it is easier to see the scale of his personal achievement.

[sweetheart]

40. I see what you mean

It strikes me that STalin could never have truly come to power without hitler, and
vice versa... that karmically, both men aided each other's ascent to power and
future barbarity. Each gained the war externality they needed to totally corrupt the state,
one seeking room for colonialism eastwards, and another fixing down the hatches
on that oriental despotism.

The work of lenin then was corrupted by this tandem pair who between them, created
and put down the greatest barbarity of history yet. Flip side of the coin,
FDR's democratic socialism arose at well in the same war consensus.

Bush feeds this iranian opposite to give him the chance to similar power,
and if so, history might remember bush like stalin, and that iranian fellow, the new hitler,
and the europeans get to be FDR.

Considering wars, i wonder if lenin could ever have achieved his bid for power had
world war 1 not been.

So, in 1920, then the american forces were fighting against lenin's forces inside russia?
I don't fathom what was so personal that the army was deployed there. Did they, even then
fear the "global revolution"? I can't believe they cared at that point, to the point of
armed deployment, and i never understood why the army was in russia then.

You get me thinking, i'm gonna check around wikipedia, but i wonder if
DU shouldn't have a forum for history revision, where given our internet unfettered
truthtelling, if there is not a whole series of missing chapters that publishers,
have edited out of the world's progressive textbooks.

The corporate history of automobiles and how it has driven the world through 3 world wars.

/thanks for your insightful response

[bemildred]

43. It is always a pleasure to find someone to converse with.

I think you could say that they were like two peas in a pod, in some respects. I would argue that History is littered with the type, and neither of those two appear to be very interesting in themselves. Mao is another. He is like Lenin in the scale of his accomplishment, but power, once held, corrupted him thoroughly.

I think that the result in the USSR was a big setback for Communism, one not recovered from to this day.

Yes, they both are war lovers. I doubt that History, if there is a History, will pay much attention to either.

Yes, WWI was pivotal in Lenin's rise. One can only speculate about the course of events had it not occurred.

Communism and other "isms" were at that time a very real threat to the existing political order. Class warfare remains alive and well, today, but the global movement that once existed is gone, or at least in eclipse.

The US government has long been eager to meddle overseas, for much the same reasons as any other war loving government.

History is vast, and filled with the opinions and lies. For most of it, we are at the mercy of the literate few for much of what we know, no living witnesses remain. But it is a great story, and it deserves to be addressed seriously.

It is certainly true that US textbooks are as false and selective in their subject matter as those of most other nations.

[blindpig]

49. The Russian Revolution scared the willies out of the capitalist.

Though on the face of it the allied intervention in Russia started as an attempt to keep Russia in the war as an ally it quickly became an effort to stamp out the Reds. Brits and Americans in the north, Brits and French in the south and Japanese in the east. The direct troops support didn't last that long but supply and technical advice went to the Whites until near the end. The chapters in War in the Shadows by Robert B Asprey on the Russian Revolution are very illuminating.

[sweetheart]

52. danke

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=449042310&searchurl=sts%3Dt%26y%3D6%26tn%3DWAR%2BIN%2BTHE%2BSHADOWS%253A%2BTHE%2BGUERRILLA%2BIN%2BHISTORY%26x%3D51%26sortby%3D3

cool... i'll have a look. Much appreciated the pointer on that.
Seems every one of us must reconstruct our own tapestry of
human history to our private satisfaction, and i'm not satisfied
that i can speak honestly as an american about what my country has
really done. And until i can speak frankly, what kind of ass am i,
that does not even know the real history of ones own country.

[brentspeak]

47. Gee, I wonder why people would call Lenin a "fanatic"

I mean, he merely championed and instituted the system of secret police, labor camps, and execution of political enemies that Stalin later expanded. Lenin was directly and indirectly responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands before he croaked and went to Hell.

[bemildred]

48. That is called a tyrant, despot, or dictator, it's a different issue.

And Russia was despotism long before Lenin came along, and long after.
But I would not disagree that he had a streak of fanaticism, of being a true believer.

[K-W]

29. So democracy is a failed ideology as well?

Should we give up on economic, social, and political justice because persuing any actual change carries the risk of failure? Because we could, and probably will just end up creating a new kind of authoritarianism and because violence, corruption, greed, etc will still undermine everything?

The United States is the prime example here. The decleration of independance was (and still is to a lesser extent) a radical document which does seem to call for some level of economic equality, by the way. Regardless, behind a radical critique of empire and a call for freedom, liberty and democracy, the revolution was fought by people from all walks of life, a new government was founded and guess what. That government represented only white male landowners and had legally established slavery.

I suppose at this point one option would have been to call freedom, liberty, and democracy failed ideologies. I think the fact that those ideologies lived on and feuled activism is a good thing.

As far as marxism, what it really depends on is what that person means by marxist, in what context they view marxism, and how they act on thier marxism. We see the same thing with all ideologies, one person reads the bible and gives all thier money to the poor, another person reads the bible and wants to go to war.

This is why your statements are so absurd. The only thing Marxism's complicity in history attests to is that people find his ideas interesting, the fact that the history it has been involved in has been plagued by violence, greed, tyranny, and suffering is an indication, like the history of all ideologies, that human society is plauged by violence, greed, tyranny, and suffering.

Should we ignore Thomas Jefferson because Georege W. Bush claims to be a champion of democracy? Should we ignore him because he had slaves? Should we ignore him because his specific idea of democracy showed an astounding lack of forsight? Should we ignore him because he worked in a corrupt and violent government?

I have problems with any ideology based on a person and not a principal. But unless I know what marxism means to a person or group, or how and whether that influences thier actions I cant possibly draw conclusions about them based on them being marxist or about how that marxism will effect them and the events they are involved in.

[rinsd]

33. But is democracy an ideology?

Or is it a structure of government/participation?

I will grant that people do refer to democracy (intentionally or otherwise) as short hand for classic liberalism but I'm not sure you can call it an ideology persay. Your thoughts?

[K-W]

36. Democracy is a concept.

That concept and the ideas surrounding it make up the ideology. Rule by the people isnt in itself a structure of government, but even if it was it wouldnt mean there isnt an ideology surrounding int.

[Minstrel Boy]

18. 1999: chairman of NYSE meets FARC leaders for "investment opportunities"

Everybody sure they know the world they live in?


NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso Embracing A FARC Commander

Narco-Dollars For Dummies (Part 3):
How The Money Works In The Illicit Drug Trade
Part 3 in a 13 Part Series (originally published by Narconews Bulletin}

By Catherine Austin Fitts
Catherine Austin Fitts, author of Scoop's "The Real Deal" column, is a former managing director and member of the board of directors of Dillon Read & Co, Inc, a former Assistant Secretary of Housing-Federal Housing Commissioner in the first Bush Administration, and the former President of The Hamilton Securities Group, Inc.

In late June 1999, numerous news services, including Associated Press, reported that Richard Grasso, Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange flew to Colombia to meet with a spokesperson for Raul Reyes of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), the supposed "narco terrorists" with whom we are now at war. The purpose of the trip was "to bring a message of cooperation from U.S. financial services" and to discuss foreign investment and the future role of U.S. businesses in Colombia.

Some reading in between the lines said to me that Grasso's mission related to the continued circulation of cocaine capital through the US financial system. FARC, the Colombian rebels, were circulating their profits back into local development without the assistance of the American banking and investment system. Worse yet for the outlook for the US stock market's strength from $500 billion - $1 trillion in annual money laundering - FARC was calling for the decriminalization of cocaine.

...

It was only a few days after Grasso's trip that BBC News reported a General Accounting Office (GAO) report to Congress as saying: "Colombia's cocaine and heroin production is set to rise by as much as 50 percent as the U.S. backed drug war flounders, due largely to the growing strength of Marxist rebels"

I deduced from this incident that the liquidity of the NY Stock Exchange was sufficiently dependent on high margin cocaine profits (BIG PERCENT) that the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange was willing for Associated Press to acknowledge he is making "cold calls" in rebel controlled peace zones in Colombian villages. "Cold calls" is what we used to call new business visits we would pay to people we had not yet done business with when I was on Wall Street.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0202/S00069.htm

[0rganism]

21. I guess that's the difference between FARC and the RW paramilitaries

"Marxist guerrillas had threatened to wipe them out."

If it had been one of the rightwing paramilitary squads grabbing their territory, the Nukak Makus wouldn't be alive to complain right now.

[Bacchus39]

24. I don't believe that the paramilitaries actually control territory

the paramilitaries are as much to the blame as the FARC but your statement is pure conjecture. It was the FARC who told the people to get out or else, not the paramilitaries.

[0rganism]

30. The paramilitaries are the militia arm of those controlling the other 2/3

Don't kid yourself about the willingness of the Colombian government to fuck over it's own people.

> your statement is pure conjecture

Of course it's conjectural, hence the subjunctive-conditional sentence construction. That doesn't mean it is without basis or precedent.

[rman]

46. I'd go further than that

For me the question is if these are actual "Marxist guerrillas".

How hard would it be pretend to be "Marxist guerrillas" and make threats about wiping out indians - for the purpose of discrediting the real popular leftist movement in Columbia?

It fits perfectly with the typical CIA psy-ops/black-ops/disinfo tactics.

[devilgrrl]

23. Give me a FUCKING break puh-leeze!!!!

How many times are we going to hear this one?

[Judi Lynn]

32. Bush Should Start Over in Colombia

Published on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 in the New York Times
Bush Should Start Over in Colombia
by Paul Wellstone

WASHINGTON — Earlier this month I traveled to Colombia to learn more about this war-torn country, whose military is getting nearly $2 million per day from the United States as part of an aid package that passed last June after narrow approval in the Senate.

I paid a visit to Barrancabermeja, an oil-refining port city on Colombia's Magdalena River. "Barranca," a city of 210,000, is one of the most dangerous places in one of the world's most dangerous countries. This year so far, violence in Barranca has killed at least 410 people. According to local human rights groups, most of those killed were the victims of right-wing paramilitary death squads.
(snip)

The Senate's version included strong human rights conditions. It would have cut off military aid until the United States government could certify that Colombia's armed forces were disentangling from paramilitaries and punishing criminal conduct in their ranks. A House-Senate conference committee watered down this safeguard by giving the president the ability to waive it — essentially making the human rights conditions optional. The State Department recognized that Colombia's military did not meet these standards, but the administration took the easy way out and waived the conditions in August.

The waiver sent a terrible signal to Colombia's military and to its beleaguered defenders of human rights. The waiver eliminated what could have been an important source of leverage with the government for those working for human rights.

Next month, the United States government must once again certify that Colombia's military satisfies the conditions, so that delivery of antidrug aid can continue in 2001. This time, the Bush administration's State Department must take a tough stance: no waiver and no aid until all human rights conditions are met. Americans should not be supporting a partnership with a military that does not meet these very basic standards.
(snip/)

http://www.commondreams.org/views/122600-104.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tuesday, July 18th, 2000
Senator Paul Wellstone Demands Albright Investigate "Killing Frenzy" in Colombia

Last week, President Clinton signed a $1.6 billion military aid bill for Colombia, allegedly to be used in the so-called war on drugs. This aid package comes at a time when numerous massacres committed by forces linked to the U.S.-backed Colombian military, are being uncovered. It's interesting that The New York Times ran a front-page article on one of these massacres that took place in February. The piece ran a day after Clinton signed the aid package.
The article began like this:

The armed men, more than 300 of them marched into the tiny village of El Salado early on a Friday. They went straight to the basketball court that doubles as the main square, residents said, announced themselves as members of Colombia's most fear right-wing paramilitary group, and with a list of names began summoning residents for judgment.

A table and chairs were taken from a house and after the death squad leader made himself comfortable, the basketball court was turned into a court of execution, villagers said. The paramilitary troops ordered liquor and music, and then embarked on a calculated rampage of torture, rape and killing.
(snip)

That was from The New York Times. Well, this massacre and others have prompted Senator Paul Wellstone-- Democrat from Minnesota --to call on Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to investigate the reported murder and disappearance of 71 civilians in El Salado and the murder of six civilians last weekend in La Union, Colombia.
(snip)

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0235238

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Letter by Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minnesota), February 26, 2001
February 26, 2001
U.S. Policy Towards Colombia

Dear Colleague:

This week President Bush will meet with President Andres Pastrana of Colombia in Washington, D.C. I am writing you to sign a letter to President Bush regarding the deteriorating human rights situation in Colombia, and to urge him to review our government's current policy towards that country.

Since the passage of the $1.3 billion U.S. assistance package known as "Plan Colombia," political violence is dramatically up nationwide. While President Pastrana has worked to improve the country's overall human rights record, the military has yet to break longstanding ties to the paramilitary groups that are responsible for most human rights violations, including massacres. According to a police estimate, Colombia registered twenty-three massacres by paramilitaries in the first seventeen days of 2001. With 162 people registered as killed, the toll for those three weeks was ten people killed every day. Further, the two major guerilla groups continue to commit serious violations, including the practice of mass kidnapings.

To improve the human rights situation in Colombia, I am convinced that the United States should enforce strict conditions on assistance to

Colombia to ensure that the Colombian Government severs links, at all levels, between the Colombian military and paramilitary groups. While the Clinton Administration first chose to waive most of the human rights conditions last August and then not to certify at all in January, I ask you to join me in urging President Bush to enforce the conditions Congress placed in Plan Colombia. To do otherwise will signal the worst elements within Colombia's military that abuses will go unpunished.

If you would like to join me in sending this letter to President Bush, please have a member of your staff contact Charlotte Oldham-Moore in my office at 224-5641.

Sincerely,
Paul Wellstone
United States Senator

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ACTION ALERT:
New York Times Covering for Colombian Death Squads

February 9, 2001

The human rights situation in Colombia is in a state of "alarming degradation," according to United Nations human rights observers (Associated Press, 1/20/01), but you won't learn about it in the New York Times.

According to a joint report from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), "political violence has markedly increased" since the first installment of the U.S.'s $1.3 billion Plan Colombia aid package was dispersed in August, with the average number of deaths from combat and political violence rising to 14 per day ("Colombia Human Rights Certification II", 1/01).

There were at least 27 massacres in the month of January alone, claiming the lives of as many as 200 civilians. The killings are overwhelmingly the work of right-wing paramilitaries with close ties to the Colombian military, such as the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

Despite the dramatic nature of the attacks and the U.S.'s heavy financial involvement in the war, the New York Times did not report on a single massacre during the month of January. The findings of the human rights groups' "Certification" report, including its recommendation that the U.S. cease military funding to Colombia, also went unmentioned.

Far from documenting the recent wave of paramilitary terror, the Times has told precisely the opposite story. Juan Forero's January 22 dispatch from the city of Barrancabermeja, headlined "Paramilitaries Adjust Attack Strategies," gave a highly distorted version of events.

Forero claims that "the militia members are killing fewer people than the rebels, who have responded to the threat in neighborhoods they long controlled with a furious assault on those they accuse of supporting the paramilitaries," and that the New Granada battalion of the Colombian military "is sending specially trained urban commandos into the neighborhoods to restore order."

The notion that the rebels in Barrancabermeja have been responsible for more killings than the paramilitaries contradicts all available evidence. A recent dispatch from Inter Press Service (1/15/01) reported that "one of the top complaints of human rights groups in the area is that a leading cause of violence is the attitude of the armed forces, which have facilitated-- by inaction or omission-- the advance of the paramilitaries, who are responsible for 80 percent of the massacres perpetrated in and around the city, according to several reports."

In fact, less than a month before Forero's dispatch, an article (12/26/00) on the New York Times' own op-ed page by Senator Paul Wellstone, who had just returned from a visit to the town, reported that "this year so far, violence in Barranca has killed at least 410 people. According to local human rights groups, most of those killed were the victims of right-wing paramilitary death squads."

Nationwide, Human Rights Watch reported that "paramilitary groups are considered responsible for at least 78 percent of the human rights violations recorded in the six months from October 1999" (annual report, 2001).
(snip)

http://www.fair.org/activism/colombia-forero.html

[rman]

35. A set-up to discredit the popular left-wing movement

in Latin America.

Business as usual.

[brentspeak]

41. Chuckle

You have proof that this article is some propaganda plant? Is the anthropologist quoted in the article a right winger too?

:freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak: :freak:

[rman]

44. I didn't say the article is the set-up

[NorthernSun]

50. Right Wing drug dealers

The capitalist paramilitaries deal plenty of cocaine and kill union members for Coca Cola and peasants who side with FARC. The Pentagon has been caught sneaking them arms. As we push the Communists farther into the jungle with our weapons and herbacides, of course the natives will be forced out.

[confludemocrat]

51. NOT BUYIN' IT

"half of the Nukak population has moved into civilisation" so their own society is not "civilized"--what nonsense, and the bloodletting throughout Columbia is so "civilized"

this part is particularly odious:

"The Nukak have no concept of private property, something the people of San Jose are having a hard time coming to grips with.

It is believed that this may have been the reason that the guerrillas expelled them, as people in the Nukak heartland complained that the Indians were stealing.

The FARC administer their own law in the areas they control and a "revolutionary court" may have sentenced the tribe to exile for stealing."

"may have", "may have"

So Marxists who themselves have their very origin drawn from ideas that Marx drew from tribal life sentenced a whole tribe for violating private property rights?

WHO WRITES THIS SHIT!!?