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from 10 march 2002 blue vol II, #24 |
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War For Latin America: The Andes On Fire by Marcel Idels, [Ecosolidarity Working Group] 
COLOMBIA IS 53 times bigger than El Salvador with seven times as many people. It is three times as big as California with one and a half times as many people as all of the Central American countries combined.
The USA is threatening the people and biodiversity of many countries in Latin America. This is a war of the rural masses and the urban poor against the elite who run the world from Wall Street and the White House. This is a war of guns, herbicides, torture, massacres, lies and economic blackmail. The US version of FTAA and WTO has the intentional effect of bankrupting small farmers and rural governments throughout the western hemisphere and beyond. The IMF–World Bank–US Corporate Program drives people into the polluted and congested urban nightmares of Sao Paulo, Rio, Mexico City, Bogota and Lima. These regions will be flooded by millions of rural refugees as neoliberal globalization progresses. Simultaneously, the "Drug War" and US backed death squads drive farmers into the ecologically sensitive rainforests of Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia and Peru – the Andes Mountains and the headwaters of the Amazon River basin. Urban explosions and environmental destruction are the "twin towers" of free trade that the corporate media works so hard to hide from the world. The US profits from both war and peace. It has been the largest exporter of arms for most of history. In 2000, the US exported $19 billion in weapons – about half the world's total. Seventy percent of these sales were to developing countries. [3]
"The battle against narco–trafficking, the defense of human rights, expansion of market democracies, and the war on terrorism serve as the smokescreens for advancing a world order that for the first time in the history of capitalism has the world's population by the scruff of its neck... From "containing" communism the US has moved to "expanding" capitalism in its most cruel and savage form: neoliberal globalization. The powerful have at last built a world in which only two slogans reign: "Everything for us, nothing for the rest," and "Enrich yourself and think only of yourself.""
In 1950 there were 78 cities with more than one million people. By 2025 there will be 650 cities with more than one million people, 21 cities will have more than 10 million people. Seventeen of these mega–cities will be in the Third World and 15 will be on the coast, many will be in South America. [5] To all of this many say, "Never! Nunca! Ya Basta!" Serious organizations must put their projects and differences aside to unify resistance to US and corporate domination. Hope rests with a unified demand for a tax on international trade and on rich countries to fund agrarian reform, public health and ecological rural development. A shift to sustainable rural development can avert the twin disasters of global warming and mega–city explosions. It can work for poor countries and for rich countries too. It slows down runaway globalization and the rush to the bottom for workers and wages. Sustainable rural development is the bridge between activists in the north and the south. It is the key to building a base from which to challenge the other threats from globalization such as corporate domination, genetic engineering and a lack of meaningful democracy.
Pieces of the Puzzle: Corruption, Commodity Price Collapse, and Negative–Land Reform
Decades of corruption and theft by the economic elite – supervised by the US and global capital – have crippled most of Latin America and impoverished 80 percent of the people in most regions. More than 220 million people live on less than two dollars per day. [6] Forty percent of Argentineans, Bolivians and Peruvians no longer believe in Democracy. Two thirds of Colombian and Brazilians have given up. In El Salvador, nearly eighty percent of the people no longer believe in Democracy. [7] People vote but they know it is meaningless. Wealth has always been concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority who take most of their money out of the country to Miami or to the US stock market. In 1986, three percent of the Colombian population owned 70 percent of the land – now it is closer to 90 percent. [8] From Mexico to Argentina small farmers are being driven off the land by low prices and government indifference. [9]
In response, we see the growth of the Zapatistas; the Landless Workers Movement in Brazil; the coalition of indigenous rebels, unions, leftists and progressive military in Ecuador; and the FARC–EP peasant guerrilla force in Colombia. Normal politics is nearly impossible in most of Latin America where being a radical politician, a union organizer or even a union member is to become an instant target for murder. This "social terrorism" – supported by the US – is hard to imagine. Since the last time the guerrillas laid down their arms [1989] almost 5000 members of the leftist political party, Patriotic Union, have been assassinated. [10] In El Salvador and Guatemala peace accords resulted in similar levels of repression. [11]
Globalization of Small Farm Bankruptcy: Coca or Corn?
The situation of farmers in Colombia is desperate. In 1990 Colombia imported 17,000 tons of corn, in 1997 corn imports reached 1.7 million tons. Increased agricultural imports eliminated 130,000 local jobs. Coffee exports fell from 16 million sacks of coffee in 2000 to only 9 million sacks in 2001. Declines in the coffee sector have imperiled the 350,000 families who depend on it. [12] The globalization of low prices for many commodities is driving Colombian farmers and farmworkers to abandon farming for the urban slums or else they clear new lands and turn to the growing of coca and opium poppies. Large export oriented farmers are thriving in parts of Colombia. If you buy cut roses or heroin or cocaine in the US, odds are that they came from Colombia along with the coal, oil, bananas, nickel and coffee that the poor and the oppressed workers of Colombia serve up to their masters in the US. Colombia is the largest exporter of flowers after the Netherlands. [13] Fifty percent of Colombian legal exports go to the US, 15 percent to Europe. Most of Colombian illegal exports go to the US.
“Drug use and the narcotics trade are a phenomenon of globalized capitalism and of the Yankees – not a problem caused by the FARC–EP! Since the US uses the existence of the drug trade as the pretext for its criminal activity against the Colombian people, we call upon the US to legalize the consumption of narcotics. In that way, the huge profits produced by the illegality of the drug business would be reduced, consumption could be controlled and those with drug dependence could receive treatment. The leaders of the northern imperialist power should abandon their two–faced morality and make a real contribution to humanity by addressing the drug problems in the developed countries. They should not forget that the Roman Empire perished because of its arrogance and immorality."
The rightwing death squads working alongside the Colombian army have driven farmers and peasants off the land in large areas of Colombia. Those who do not leave are killed. The large farmers and drug lords of the rightwing then take possession of the "abandoned" lands. US funded fumigation with herbicides has also driven thousands of farmers off the land.[15] Small farmers have abandoned more than two million acres since 1992. These lands that once produced hundreds of thousands of tons of corn for domestic consumption have been replaced by cattle ranching enterprises.[16] In August 2001, the National Association for Farm Salvation held national protests that blocked roads in half of Colombia's Departments. The army killed two protesters when 11,000 peasants occupied roads in Huila. Farmers complain that the government has over and over failed to deliver on promises to the rural areas for technical assistance, road improvements and other rural programs.[17]
Alliance for progress? Ecology, Neoliberalism, and Alternatives.
The Colombian War endangers regional security and economics; it endangers the small farmers and the indigenous people; and the war and the herbicide spraying by the US is endangering the most biologically diverse region on Earth.
Fifty percent of all species live in tropical rainforests. Five to ten percent of all tropical species disappear each decade: 100 species a day. [18] There are more species of fish in the Amazon Basin than in the entire Atlantic Ocean. [19] Half of all the land based species on Earth live in the Amazon basin, according to the Audubon website [www.audubon.org]. The only country in the world with more species than Colombia is Brazil, which is seven times larger.
Ten percent of all the species on the planet live only in Colombia. This wildly diverse country, with coasts on both oceans and several mountain ranges, ranks second in the world in the number of plant species and amphibians, third in reptiles. Amid the battle zones grow half the world's orchids and a dazzling variety of jaguars, giant otters, primates, spectacled bears, agoutis, kinkajus and dolphins. There are more species of birds in Colombia [1780] than any other country and 75 percent are endangered. Manatees, tapirs and macaws are only a fraction of the species that are on the verge of extinction in Colombia.
And now there is war in paradise. [20] Drug use by US citizens is the fuel that fires the nightmares in Colombia. But no one wants to emphasize this enough so people talk about the plight of the farmers and how fair trade could help. Shade–grown fair trade coffeeee! and support for local craftspeople is a fine idea, but these efforts will remain only symbolic education until there are major structural changes in global economics. Many groups don't want to sound like they are against the whole structure of international trade and finance so they promote fair trade and modest reforms. The real problem in Latin America is land ownership, income distribution and the continuous interventions of the US against progressive governments and new ideas.
The US Demands War: Target Colombia
After showing faked videos on national television [22], outgoing Colombian president Pastrana Arango responded to the FARC–EP proposals by declaring war. He terminated the peace talks, invaded the guerrilla safe haven and launched hundreds of bombing sorties, which killed many guerrillas and civilians. [23] The war in Colombia intensifies as President Bush requests more military aid and broader US involvement. Human rights groups counter that the $500 million dollars about to be sent to Colombia must be halted because the Colombian government is in serious and systemic violation of the conditions stipulated in last year's foreign aid law. [24] Colombia continues to ignore human rights abuses by the military, it has not severed the ties between the military and right wing paramilitary death squads and officers dismissed from the military often move right into positions with the paramilitaries. [25]
According to Jim Lobe, the new Attorney General of Colombia is not prosecuting corrupt officers, but he has dismissed officers who want to cooperate with paramilitary investigations. [26] In November, 2001, the Bogota daily El Tiempo reported that documents were found in a safehouse of the dominant paramilitary group the AUC. The documents captured in Colima [in the south–central department of Valle de Cauca] revealed a list of 30 members of the Colombian police and army who are on the payroll of the AUC. Companies who are actively doing business with the paramilitaries were also mentioned. [27] Presidential elections culminate May 26 and by that time the war may have spread to neighboring countries. In March, tensions on the Ecuadorian border resulted in the imposition of military rule by the Ecuadorian government. The government claimed the military was sent in to guard the border, but later admitted it was also due to large protests by campesinos and indigenous groups against general government neglect and the environmental impacts of a new oil pipeline, the OCP, which cuts through Succumbios in northeast Ecuador. [28]
An international camp and tree–sit are also opposing the OCP pipeline and attracting world media. [29] The pipeline could easily become a target when the Colombian war spills across the border. The Colombian war and the hardline stance of the frontrunner, Alvaro Uribe Velez, will only increase investment jitters throughout the region. Coupled with the deepening collapse of Argentina and the weakness of many countries in South America the economic outlook under the WTO looks bleak for years to come. The US is pushing many countries to the brink just as concerns over neoliberalism and globalization have mobilized millions of workers, peasants and indigenous peoples to rise up in selfdefense and demands for power. Political parties are vanishing as quickly as many endangered species. [30]
Is a continent in chaos just around the corner?
"Political independence without economic independence is not really liberation. Economic power wields powerful and effective weapons. In Chile, Allende made it clear that the socialism he envisaged was adapted to the needs and aspirations of the Chilean people. But multinational corporations like ITT were there provoking quarrels... The economic forces that need poor countries to stay poor are skillful at exploiting the weaknesses of people who are ill–prepared for the freedom [and expectations] which follows a popular victory."
The bombing of Colombia began in early 2001 with a few drops of black ink. Only now are the bombs striking their targets. The reason that the peace talks have failed has nothing to do with the guerrillas or a few kidnappings. The bombing of "The Peace" began when US President Clinton, with the stroke of a pen, released 100's of millions of dollars in military aid to Colombia despite his acknowledgment that the Colombian government had failed to improve its human rights record . Drug dealers and war criminals run the Colombian government and its armed forces. Just ask the kidnapped Colombian Senator and fringe presidential candidate of the Oxygen Green Party, Ingrid Betancourt. Her book "Until Death Do Us Part" [a best seller in France] states that half the Colombian legislatures are on the drug money payroll. [32] When the Archbishop of Cali, Isais Duarte, spoke out about drug money in Congressional elections he was gunned down in public. [33]
Few people inside or outside of the US have backed the "Plan [for war in] Colombia" and even fewer think it will work to stop the drug trade. Henry Kissinger rejected the plan and the European Parliament voted 474 to 1 to condemn US policies in Latin America. EU countries have stated that land reform is necessary for peace in Colombia and many have worked hard to keep the peace talks alive. [34] US–made dumb bombs are blasting the rainforest hideouts of the FARC–EP, but it was the US–backed death squad "smart" bombs that doomed the chance for peace. These death squad smart bombs are the product of the greed of the Colombian wealthy and the US School of the Americas – the greatest terrorist training camp around. [35] The paramilitary death squads of the AUC are the secret weapons in this dirty war that has lasted nearly 40 years. Carlos Castano's AUC, Alvaro Uribe's civilian militias [36] and the Colombian military have killed around 30,000 people in the last decade and millions have been displaced from their homes or fled the country.[37] This death squad coalition supported by the wealthy, large landowners and the narco–bourgeoisie control most of the drug trade in Colombia. Accusations have been made that when Uribe was head of civilian aviation he gave pilot's licenses to drug trade pilots. [38] He is also reported to have been close to drug lord Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel. Uribe was formerly the mayor of Medellin and the governor of Antioquia.Some of his closest associates are under investigation for drug dealing and he has always been friendly toward the AUC.
The US listed the AUC as a terrorist organization this year. Few steps towards arresting or restraining the right wing death squads have been taken. They still control large areas of Colombia through terror and intimidation. [39]
How can the US give billions of dollars to a government with known and persistent links to death squads that the US lists as a terrorist organization? The UN and human rights groups repeatedly decry the terror killings of the death squads of the AUC who together with the Colombian army are responsible for 80% of civilian casualties. People are killed by the guerrillas but rarely in the indiscriminate or terror inspired way that the death squads use – even chainsaw massacres. [40] More union activists are killed in Colombia than in the whole world combined. They are killed by the Colombian Military and their death squad allies. [41] The western media totally ignore the plight of the ELN, unionists, teachers and the vast majority of the innocent victims who die at the hand of US allies in Colombia. This terror has a purpose: "Given the speed with which paramilitaries are extending their terror and gaining control of densely populated territories, Carlos Castano – the head of the AUC – may see his political ambition to elect the ultra–right leader of his choice become a distinct possibility. The first democratically elected Fascist Dictatorship in Latin American backed up by mafia funding and support,” said Ana Carrigan. [42]
"When we talk about Liberation whether through violence or non–violence, we are groping in the dark. How can we expect young people to renounce armed struggle unless we offer them something strong and effective in exchange – something that can achieve concrete results?"
FARC–EP react to the ending of the Colombian Peace Process
"When we lay down our weapons they kill us. When we get close to discussing the issues of fundamental importance to true peace they bomb us. And always they aid the paramilitaries in their atrocities. Look at us we are here. We will defend this place, those are our instructions, this is our home, but this struggle is not about claiming or defending territory, it is about defending principles."
"The rupture of the peace talks in Colombia was due to pressure from the armed forces, the economic elite, the mass media, certain extremist presidential candidates and the US Embassy. The US government is eager to prevent any of the changes that our country needs. Once again the Colombian oligarchy has prevented a negotiated solution to the severe structural problems of Colombian society. The government and the economic elite have abandoned and forgotten the 30 million Colombians who are suffering. We say to all those people who believe in a political solution and the common agenda for change towards the new Colombia that we are ready and willing to meet and talk with any future government that shows an interest in returning to the search for a political solution to the social and armed conflict. We call on the international community and in particular the group of friendly countries to continue assisting in the search for a political solution to the social and armed conflict in our country. And we call on these countries to keep their distance from those warmongering sectors that at this time are trying to impose a war on Colombia using the pretext of fighting terrorism. Our voice is that of the Colombian people and this gives us the strength to say that we will continue the struggle and the mobilization in an organized way to find solutions to the problems of unemployment, lack of education, health, land for the farmers and lack of housing and for political freedom, democracy and national sovereignty and for a new government of national reconstruction and reconciliation. For more than 37 years the FARC–EP have fought for the interests of the people and we will continue to do so, holding our political and ideological beliefs high. It is for this reason that our class enemies continue to oppose us."
A Broader Peace for the Hemisphere
Localization [45] is what the farmers of Colombia need: a new global economic structure paid for by the wealthy and from taxes on fossil fuels and trade. Under localization programs the price of food would rise significantly to reflect the true cost of production and the value of the important resources of the farmland soils and of healthy ecosystems. Corporations and the chemicals of the not–so Green Revolution would be restricted. Roses and other flowers would be plowed under and Colombians, Mexicans and other could once again grow corn and food crops at a profit. To compliment policies of localization there needs to be a new kind of direct economic democracy like the examples being derived in Puerto Allegre [46] and in sustainable rural development programs. How can people form a dual–power to the state and organize along lines of direct participatory democracy, social equality and mutual aid? The burgeoning Argentinean Soviets or Asambleas Populares are shaping an answer. It began in January 2002, with the people of Almagro, Buenos Aires who declared a State of Assembly and mobilization. This is the only way to guarantee our rights as workers, neighbors and Argentineans. We call all neighborhoods to create Popular Assemblies and organizations. And we call to create Connection Commissions [Comisiones de Enlace] to help the Assemblies coordinate. Hopefully, these earthquakes of Neighborhood Assemblies and dual–power will shake all of Latin America. [47]
The FARC–EP and the ELN have also endorsed these concepts and they support local power, free expression and participatory decision–making for the new Colombia . With the examples of Puerto Allegre, the Argentine Asambleas, and the social and agrarian reforms in Venezuela a new path to sustainable development presents itself to the world. The economics of localization based on the principles enshrined in the Earth Charter uses self–organizing and practical self–sufficiency to create a credible alternative to the brutality of the FTAA–WTO–Free Trade disaster.
Although it seems paradoxical, war, with all its cruelties and pain, is the only possible balm that can rupture the reign of terror held by the powerful over the weak. However, war, revolutionary war that is, has a political, humane dimension which seeks to rebuild the dreams and hopes of millions of men and women who have been disfavored, excluded, and downtrodden by a sociopolitical network imposed by those who hold the political and economic power. Thus, a paradoxical relationship between war and peace rises from the ashes; they are complements, they are derivatives one of the other, they are both part of a historic course that, instead of opposing them, ties them together, joins them, links them. The interrelationship between the two is well illustrated by our philosophy, because we make war to conquer peace with social justice.
– Marcel Idels
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Attack of the Gringo Military Apparatus: Billions of Dollars for Weapons, Blackhawk Helicopters, Spare Parts, Grants, Advisors, Trainers, CIA Intelligence and Satellite Information Sharing–A War by Proxy
February 7, 2002: Los Pozos, Colombia. FARC renewed their calls for an end to Plan Colombia; the removal of US advisers; trials for rightwing paramilitary leaders; respect for human, civil and political rights for all Colombians; modifications to the neoliberal economic policies of the government; prisoner releases; an end to herbicide spraying; and one year of financial aid for the unemployed. Funding for aid to the unemployed would come from Plan Colombia, taxes on the wealthy and international aid. FARC suggested that the national group negotiating the peace accords should administer the fund, and the country's unions, peasant and indigenous organizations should meet to work out the details.[21]