US frees 55 million dollars in military aid to Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Raw Story/ Agence France-Presse

US frees 55 million dollars in military aid to Colombia
Published: Tuesday April 10, 2007

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has concluded that Colombia is fulfilling US requirements on human rights and can receive 55 million dollars in military aid, her spokesman said Tuesday.

Rice certified to Congress on April 4 that Colombia's government and armed forces "are meeting statutory criteria related to human rights and severing ties to paramilitary groups," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
(snip)

Colombian military and government officials have faced allegations of ties with right-wing paramilitary groups accused of committing atrocities in their fight against left-wing guerrillas.

Colombia is Washington's top ally in South America, receiving four billion dollars in US aid since 2000 through Plan Colombia to combat drug trafficking and left-wing rebels that have battled the government for four decades.


Read more: http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_frees_55_million_dollars_in_mili_04102007.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Coal exec denies link to paramilitaries (Drummond Co., B'ham, Alabama)

April 10, 2007, 5:44PM EST
Coal exec denies link to paramilitaries
By JAY REEVES

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.

The head of an Alabama coal producer that was sued over the murders of three union leaders in Colombia denied links to paramilitary forces that a union claims were hired by the company to kill the men.
(snip)

Meanwhile, the Colombian government last month announced a formal criminal investigation into Drummond for alleged ties with paramilitary groups.

The Colombian union Sintramienergetica filed suit in Birmingham in 2002 claiming Drummond paid paramilitary gunmen to murder three labor leaders that represented Drummond employees at its mine in Colombia. Two of the men were pulled off a company bus and shot.

Such violence is all too common in the South American country, where more than 800 trade unionists have been killed over the past six years.

More:
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8OE0B1G1.htm

[Judi Lynn]

2. Chiquita case puts big firms on notice (money to terrorists)

from the April 11, 2007 edition

Chiquita case puts big firms on notice

The company's admission that it paid Colombian paramilitaries $1.7 million has sparked outrage in Colombia.

By Sibylla Brodzinsky | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Sibylla Brodzinsky

APARTADó, Colombia - Rows of stout trees hang heavy with bright green bananas on plantations near Colombia's border with Panama. Workers slice off each bunch and package the fruit in boxes with a label recognized worldwide for its fresh bananas: Chiquita.

In Colombia, however, the Chiquita name has recently come to symbolize the confirmation of a long-suspected relationship between multinational firms and illegal armies fighting in the nation's four-decade-old war.

Chiquita Brands International admitted in US court last month that it paid $1.7 million to Colombia's brutal right-wing militias over the course of eight years. The company said it did so to protect its employees and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. The case is sparking outrage in the capital, Bogotá, where officials want to see company executives on trial.
(snip)

"It's one of the first – if not the first – times that a company is indicted and pleads guilty to providing material support to an organization known to commit widespread human rights abuses," says Arvind Ganesan, director of the Business and Human Rights program at the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

More:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0411/p01s03-woam.html

[Judi Lynn]

13. Chiquita in Colombia: Terrorism Gone Bananas?

Chiquita in Colombia: Terrorism Gone Bananas?
Written by April Howard
Wednesday, 11 April 2007

What happens when "Business as Usual" clashes with the vocabulary of the "War on Terror"? We got a glimpse of one case this March when the Cincinnati-based Chiquita Brands International, Inc., paid a $25 million settlement to the United States Justice Department for paying off right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia, groups which Washington classifies as "terrorist organizations."

Chiquita is one biggest and most powerful food marketing and distributing companies in the world, and one of the world’s largest banana producers. The company shows annual revenues of approximately $4.5 billion and about 25,000 employees operating in more than 70 countries.<1> The banana market, worth about $5 billion a year in 2001, is the most important global fruit export. The majority of the 14 million tons of bananas exported every year come from Latin America.<2>

The charges state that from 1997 to 2004 several unnamed, high-ranking corporate officers from Chiquita and its Colombian Banadex subsidiary made monthly payments, totaling $1.7 million, to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).<3> Even though Chiquita's outside lawyers insisted that payments stop in 2001, Banadex continued write checks to the AUC, though Chiquita executives later decided that cash was a better idea.<4>

The AUC, often described as a "death squad," was incorporated as one of 28 "Foreign Terrorist Organizations" on the U.S. Department of State website in September, 2001.<5> Not without reason; even Forbes Magazine describes the AUC as "responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia's civil conflict and for a sizable percentage of the country's cocaine exports." With approximately 15,000 to 20,000 armed troops, the AUC uses "kidnapping, torture, disappearance, rape, murder, beatings, extortion and drug trafficking" among its standard techniques.<6> One of many massacres committed by the AUC took place in 2001, while the AUC was receiving funds from Chiquita. In the early morning on January 17, 80 AUC paramilitaries entered the rural town of Chengue and killed 24 men by smashing "their skulls with stones and a sledgehammer." Only one 19-year-old paramilitary member has been punished, though he named police and navy officials who organized the mass murder.<7[br />
More:
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1015/1/

There's excellent background on Chiquita's bloody Latin American history in this article.

[bemildred]

3. Thanks for the good work, death squads. nt

[Robbien]

4. This is so wrong.

Of course Condi was going to give Uribe his bribe money, but did she have to slap every Columbian in the face while doing it?

Colombia is fulfilling US requirements on human rights

how far we have tumbled if our requirements are so low Uribe passes muster.

[Bacchus39]

5. how is this slapping Colombians in the face??

n/t

[Robbien]

6. Ordinary Colombians are standing up and trying to fight for their rights

while their government is hiring death squads to kill them all off.

The US is giving the Colombian government more money saying the Colombian death squad treatment of their people meets US human rights standards.

How is using death squads not an outrage to human rights. How is it okay if Colombia uses them against their people? How is it not a slap in the face of the ordinary Colombian if we award Uribe by giving him more money to pay for the death squads?

[Bacchus39]

7. the paramilitaries have disbanded

rather, many of them have including the largest group, the AUC. I believe ordinary Colombians approve of that.

[Robbien]

8. The only paramilitaries disbanded are the ones replaced by death squads

Why kill just for fun when you can do it and have pockets full of US dollars given to you by Uribe. Not only are they being given dollars to kill protesting Colombians, the US is now giving them a pat on the back saying "Good job. Killing off all those protesting Colombians for us is exactly what is meant by a good Human Rights policy."

[Bacchus39]

9. sorry, I'm not following

Colombia is a violent country with a multitude of problems. Confronting the civil war has been difficult and remains so. The dissolution of the paramilitaries was an important step. the guerrillas, however, are not interesting in cooperating in the government. The "ordinary" Colombians want no part of the violence.

[SayWhatYo]

10. What's in Colombia that the US is so interested in?

Is it simply because of the drug cartels?

[Bacchus39]

11. I would say mostly

although I would also say that Colombian administrations have decided to ally themselves with the US rather than say Castro or Chavez. so if the US is willing to give them hundreds of millions of dollars a year, they are just as willing to accept it.

[Peace Patriot]

14. Ah, the old "friendofFidelCastro" talking point. Who writes your stuff, Bacchus 39?

Condi Rice?

[Bacchus39]

16. ummm no

Colombia has made that decision, or rather its government. Colombia has made the decision to ally with the US. AND, Colombia has friendly relations with Cuba and Venezuela too. In fact, your hero Chavez and Uribe will be meeting in Isla Margarita soon.

but Colombia has decided not to alienate themselves from the US. Comprendes??

[cliss]

12. I'm involved in exporting,

and our trade officers have told us not to ship to Colombia. "It's too dangerous, too unstable", they say.

It makes you wonder, how much money will it take? ($55,000,000 isn't that enough?)

[Larry Ogg]

15. As if I am going to believe, some one in the Bush administration is concerned about human rights.

I speculate that it’s more likely that the Columbian government has fulfilled it’s obligations to the BFEE in covering up atrocities against its own people, while putting the blame on someone else, and making the corporate masters rich…