The Political Economy of A Narco-Terror State
Colombia and Corporate Profits
by Marcel Idels / Ecosolidaridad-Andes
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Social and political upheavals - unlike any before - grip many
nations in Latin America. The failure of neoliberalism to deliver
prosperity is turning against many of the political parties there.
The entire concept of liberal democracy is discredited and crumbling
- serious change is in the air. Large US corporations and the IMF
have perpetuated this economic war against the people and the
environment with help from the Latin American upper class, who
steadfastly - and brutally - resist sharing any of their land or
wealth. This region has the greatest disparity of incomes of anywhere
on Earth. [footnote 1]
By this November the "Face of Latin America" will have changed
forever. Lula and the Workers Party will have captured the Presidency
of Brazil with the left-of-center parties controlling 60 percent of
the Brazilian legislature. A new model of liberation,
decentralization and participatory economics will be loosed to inspire
and insight 100s of millions of people in Brazil and throughout Latin
America. With broad support this model of participatory budgeting,
agrarian reform, South American integration and alternative policies
(renewable energy, organic farming and a ban on GMOs) will flourish.
This time the US will be blocked from intervention. [footnote 2]
Big changes are coming soon, but the US will not roll over and some
regions will bear the brunt of US frustration and violence.
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Will Peace Ever Come to Colombia?
The country which has received the full spectrum of neoliberal
attacks is also one of the most biologically important places on
earth: Colombia. This country of 44 million people is an extreme
example of the local oligarchy colluding with multi-national
corporations and US militarism to make grotesque profits while the
people and environment are devastated. The headwaters of the Amazon,
Orinoco and Magdalena rivers are being poisoned by oil spills and the
chemicals used to manufacture cocaine and heroin. Billions of dollars
from the US and the drug cartels are keeping the people from
overthrowing the oligarchy which kills 5000 to 10,000 people every
year. [footnote 3]
More than half of all legal Colombian exports travel to the US - if
you add the value of cocaine and heroin the percentage goes to 80.
Colombia has become a lucrative profit center for the US, one based
on violence and ecological destruction. The Colombian oligarchy is
the business partner for many US corporations and it is the ally of
the US and its foreign policy. Like the Colombian Government and its
military, they are corrupted at all levels by the narcotics trade.
Some of the worst Colombian corporations - in terms of human rights
and ecological abuse - are listed here:
- CZN and Exxon-Mobil Corporation
Exxon-Mobil Chairman and CEO:
Mr. Lee R. Raymond
5959 Las Colinas Blvd.
Irving
TX 75039
Phone: (972) 444-1000; Fax: (972) 444-1350;
ExxonMobil
The CZN Consortium:
- BHP-Billiton
(Australia and UK-based)
CEO Brian Gilbertsom
Senior Minerals Executive Mike Salmon
1-3 Strand
London WC2N 5HA
(020) 7747-3804 or
Mathew Taylor, Manager Sustainable Development (email).
Australian Office:
Bourke Place
600 Bourle Street
Melbourne
Victoria 3000
(03) 9609-3333
US Office:
1360 Post Oak Blvd.
Suite 150
Houston, TX
77056, (713) 961-8500. BHP-Billiton
- Anglo-American
(South Africa and UK-based)
CEO Tony Trahar
UK office:
20 Carlton House Terrace
London SW1Y 5AN
(020) 7698-8888
Edward Bickham
AngloAmerican
- Glencore International
(A private company with sales of $44 billion)
Baarermattstrasse 3
CH-6341
Baar
Switzerland
(41) 41-709-2000; Glencore
In 2000, ExxonMobil had the largest corporate profit that has ever
been reported - $17.7 billion. In terms of revenue it is the largest
corporation on Earth. It is the largest oil company and the largest
polluter in the world. This Texas-based mega-corporation is also
known as Exxon Mobil Coal and Minerals, Imperial Oil, ESSO and
Monterrey Coal Company, Compania Minera Disputada de Las Condes
Limitada (Chile), Intercor (Colombia) and dozens of other companies
that produce a wide range of chemicals, plastics and consumer
products. With $1.4 billion in revenues from its Colombian operations
in 2000, Exxon Mobil was the second largest corporation in Colombia
after the state-owned Ecopetrol. It no longer holds that title since
it sold the massive Cerrejon Coal mine to CZN and its copper mining
operations to Anglo American this year.
Colombia is the fourth largest exporter of coal. For the last 15
years an average of 15 million tons per year has been extracted from
the opencast El Cerrejon Coal Mine under its subsidiary Intercor. It
is one of the largest open-pit mines in the world (30 miles long).
The CZN Consortium purchased Intercor and Exxon's share in April.
The area of the mine is inhabited by the Wayuu Indians who have
opposed the mine since 1980. At the start 5000 Indians were employed
but most of them were dismissed when the mine began operations two
years later. In 1988 the last Indians were fired for union
activities. Intercor evicted all residents of the Indigenous
community of Tabaco, to make way for the expansion of the mine.
Residents are resisting and claim that the relocation arrangements
made would break up communities and not give people sufficient funds
to buy land to live on. The Colombian army guards the mine and has
assisted strikebreaking in the past.
To extract the coal, Exxon sucked up the groundwater, dried up the
rivers and, in the process, denuded the grasslands on which the Wayuu
depend for subsistence. (source). Indians have also suffered from respiratory diseases
caused by coal dust and heavy noise pollution.
An international campaign organized by Greenpeace is targeting
ExxonMobil for being one of the main obstacles to greenhouse gas
reductions. Twenty-one percent of stockholders recently voted for
ExxonMobil to adopt a renewable energy plan. See StopEsso;
Campaign ExxonMobil; StopMobil; PressurePoint; GreenPeace
CZN also has mining operations in Cerrejon Central and they are
actively pursuing new mining opportunities in Cerrejon Sur. Mine
expansions are imminent.
- Drummond Inc.
CEO: Garry N Drummond ;
CFO: Jack Stilwell;
President: Mike Zerzos
PO Box 10246
Birmingham
AL 35202
(205) 945-6500; fax 205-945-6521
DrummondCo; email
Drummond has fallen from the 318th largest private company in 1999 to
a rank of 492. In 2001 it generated revenues of $615 million with
2,800 employees. It mines coal; produces coke; develops real estate.
Drummond's ABC Coke plant in Tarrant, Alabama, is the largest single
producer of foundry coke in the US Most Drummond's coal and profits
come from the La Loma mine in the Cesar region of Colombia. Each year
Drummond exports about 6 million tons of coal from Colombia to US
electrical utilitiy companies.
Douglas N. Daft, Chairman of the Board and CEO, of Coca Cola
practices the same kind of labor relations as Drummond: they pay
death squads to kill workers or anyone they want, anywhere they want.
Ligia Ines Alzate, a longtime labor activist and General Secretary of
the Confederation of Trade Unions for the state of Antioquia, toured
the US and spoke to groups in Alabama in April. A Colombian union,
Sintramienergetica, has sued Drummond Co. in federal court claiming
that Drummond hired hit men to kidnap, torture and murder three men
last year for their ties to the union that represents Drummond
workers. Alzate said many foreign multinational companies hire
paramilitary groups to target union leaders during contract
negotiations or when restless workers protest company practices. Coca
Cola is also being sued for encouraging death squads to kill union
members. The United Mine Workers and the United Steel Workers Unions
support the lawsuit against Drummond.
- Dole Food Company Inc.
David H. Murdock, Chairman and CEO
Scott Greenwood, President, Dole Fresh Flowers
Lawrence A. Kern, President and Chief Operating Officer
Richard A. Harrah, President of Latin American Production
31355 Oak Crest Drive
Westlake Village
California 91361
Dole is the leading producer and supplier of fresh fruit and
vegetables and a leader in the production of bananas and pineapples
(2001 revenues of $4.5 billion). It has been expanding into fresh-cut
flower production and markets a growing line of packaged foods. Dole
is the largest employer in Colombia and employs 51,000 workers in
Latin America on 44,000 hectares of prime farmlands. They control
banana production in Colombia and in 1998 they bought 25 percent of
the flower cultivation industry. Colombia is the second largest
exporter of flowers in the world. Two-thirds of fresh-cut flowers
sold in the United States come from Colombia. Dole is the largest
producer of fresh flowers in Latin America with over ninety percent
of production shipped into North America.
The industry has hurt the environment of a central savanna where most
of the flowers are grown. Aquifers there have dried up, requiring
water to be brought in from Bogotá, the capital. Toxic residues from
pesticides banned in Europe have turned up in groundwater. One-fifth
of the chemicals used in the Colombian industry's greenhouses have
been restricted in the United States for health reasons (Aldicarb,
DDT, Lindane, Aldrin and Metomil). Studies by local nongovernmental
organizations have found that nearly two-thirds of Colombian flower
workers suffer from peculiar illnesses, ranging from nausea to
miscarriage. Dole employs 11,133 mostly women workers in the
Colombian flower industry. Many make less than 60 cents an hour and
women who become pregnant are immediately terminated from their jobs.
Last year Dole agreed to participate in an environmental standards
program, but the government provides no effective monitoring or
enforcement of the standards. [footnote 4]
The IUF, an international union of agricultural and restaurant
workers, has been waging a campaign for a year now against Dole Food.
This dispute originated over Dole's treatment of banana workers and
subcontracted cooperatives in the Philippines. (see: www.iuf.org).
Dole gets about 40 percent of its bananas from Colombia and Ecuador.
In Ecuador Dole is considered the largest employer of child labor and
active in resisting unions and improvements in working conditions. In
mid-July Dole agreed to pay $24 million to 3,000 Honduran banana
workers exposed to sterility and cancer causing pesticides used on
company plantations over the last 30 years.
- Ecopetrol: Empresas Colombiana de Petroleos
Ecopetrol
Refineries in Barrancabermeja, Tibu, Cartagena, Guamez and Apiay.
Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe has named former Ecopetrol board
member Isaac Yanovich to head the state oil firm. He replaces
outgoing Ecopetrol President Alberto Calderon. Oil is Colombia's
biggest foreign exchange earner and the government's top source of
revenue. Calderon has signed 60 exploration agreements with foreign
companies in the past 30 months. Oil generates $2 billion in
government revenue a year. Colombia's Congress has slashed the amount
of royalties oil companies must pay the state on newly discovered oil
fields from 16 percent to 5.
Foreign firms say that lower royalties are crucial to continue doing
business in Colombia, where kidnappings and attacks on pipelines by
guerrillas, who have fought the government for 38 years, drive up
operational costs and scare off investment.
The city of Barrancabermeja, is home to Colombia's largest oil
refinery. From here 70 percent of oil exports flow down the Magdalena
River. An army base is located in the city and yet paramilitaries
have intensified a terror campaign murdering 100s of civilians in the
last year. In June, USO oil union workers went on strike to protest
the assassination of union officer, Cesar Blanco. Two hundred and one
unionists were killed in Colombia in 2001 - more than 80 percent of
the world total.
An international consortium led by Canadian Occidental Petroleum
expects as much as 300 million barrels from a new oilfield, called
Boquerón - the nation's third-largest deposit.
Other major investors in Colombian oil have included Exxon, Shell and
Elf Aquitane. They have helped boost oil production 80 percent over
the last decade.
Ecopetrol diverts most of its profit to federal and local
governments, but average Colombians see little benefit. Officials
face pressure from guerrillas and right wing paramilitaries to pay
protection money. Many officials simply steal or squander the money.
Arauca, a boomtown about 25 miles from the Caño Limón oilfield, has
received millions of dollars annually in oil royalties but is ringed
by shantytowns. In a petroleum-rich central valley known as the
Middle Magdalena, more than 70 percent of the 750,000 inhabitants
live in poverty and nearly 40 percent are unemployed, double the
official nationwide rate.
- BP Amoco (British Petroleum)
The Lord Browne of Madingly, FREng:
Group Chief Executive, 53 years old, appointed Executive Director 1991 and Group Executive in 1995.
He is a non-executive director of Goldman Sachs Group and Intel Corporation and a trustee of the British Museum.
John H. Bryan Non-executive Director
63 years old, joined Amoco's board in 1982. He serves on the board of Bank One Corporation,
General Motors, and Gold Sachs. Retired from Sarah Lee in 2001.
John G.S. Buchanan, CFO appointed 1996.
Eroll B. Davis, Jr., Non-Executive Director
57 years old, joined Amoco's board in 1991. He is Chairman, President and CEO of Alliant
Energy, a non-executive director of PPG Industries and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Mellon University.
Amoco Colombia Petroleum Company
BP Exploration Company Limited
Carrera 9 A No. 99-02, 5th Floor
Sante Fe de Bogota
Colombia
57-1-628-4077; Fax 57-1-611-1127
Colombia's biggest foreign investor is BP Amoco, formed when British
Petroleum merged with Chicago-based Amoco in 1998. The London-based
giant controls Colombia's largest oilfield, a 1.5-billion-barrel
trove called Cusiana-Cupiagua in the northeastern province of
Casanare. This region produces almost half of Colombia's total crude
output of 600,000 barrels a day. The oil fields are operated by BP,
which has a 19 percent share in the project. France's TotalFinaElf
has 19 percent and Triton Energy of the United States - a subsidiary
of Amerada Hess Crop - has 12 percent, Ecopetrol owns 50 percent of
the project. A 444-mile pipeline called Ocensa carries BP Amoco oil
to the Caribbean port of Coveñas for export.
BP and Ecopetrol are studying whether to spend $130 million on a
plant to allow them to sell natural gas from Cusiana-Cupiagua. The
Chuchupa field, operated offshore off the Caribbean coast by
ChevronTexaco Corp, has similar reserves to Cusiana-Cupiagua and
produces most of Colombia's current gas supply.
BP maintains close ties with a number of right wing paramilitaries
who it helped to train in the early 1990s.
- Occidental (OXY) Petroleum
Dr. Ray R. Irani, Chairman and CEO
Stephen I. Chazen, CFO and Executive Vice President
Kenneth J. Huffman, Vice President
Corporate Headquarters
10889 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles
California, 90024-4201
(310) 208-8800
Oil and Gas Division
5 Greenway Plaza Suite 2400
Houston
Texas 77046-0504
(713) 215-7000
OCC-Colombia
Occidental Quimica de Colombia Ltda.
Cra 43A, No. 1A Sure 29, Ofc. 407
Edificio Colmena, Avda el Problado
Medellin
Colombia
(574) 266-7967; (574) 312-7167; Fax (574) 268-2626
This Delaware corporation based in Los Angeles and Houston operates
the Cano-Limon pipeline in northeastern Colombia. The Cano-Limon is
480 miles long and was bombed 79 times in 1999 by guerrillas (more
than 1000 bombings since it was built in 1986). Oxy claims to have
lost $100 million since 1995 because of guerrilla attacks. At Bush
and OXY's urging, the US Congress has passed a military
appropriations bill that includes an additional $98 million to pay
for security on the pipeline. The new aid package constitutes a
public revelation of Bush's shift from the pretense of fighting the
war on drugs to a strategy of counter-insurgency. This aid will save
OXY the $30 million a year it has spent protecting the pipeline since
the mid 1990s. [footnote 5]
Colombia is 7th largest supplier of oil to the US and has the largest
untapped pool of petroleum in the Western Hemisphere. Almost
President, Al Gore controls up to one million dollars of family stock
in Occidental. Lawrence P. Meriage, Occidental's public-affairs vice
president, not only pushed for Plan Colombia last year but urged a
House subcommittee to extend military aid to the nation's north to
"augment security for oil development operations."
They have temporarily pulled out of the disputed U'wa territory
because of international publicity and pressure from their main
stockholder: Sanford and Bernstein - parent company Alliance Capital.
Another big scandal with OXY involved its Florida-based subcontractor
AirScan who directed the cluster bomb attack of the village of Santo
Domingo near the Cano-Limon pipeline in Colombia. This attack
resulted in the deaths of 9 children and nine other civilians in
1998. Investigations continue into this massacre.
Across the border in Ecuador, OXY is a partner in the OCP petroleum
pipeline - one of the most destructive and potentially catastrophic
projects in the Andes.
This pipeline cuts through one of the most
biologically diverse regions in the world. Mud slides and earthquakes
are frequent threats to the area and now there will be crude oil
flowing through it. [footnote 6]
- DynCorp
CEO: Paul K. Lombardi
CFO: Patrick C Fitzpatrick
Chairman: Dan Bannister
President DynCorp LLC: Steven J. Cannon.
11710 Plaza America Drive
Reston, VA 20190
phone (703) 261-5000; fax (703) 261-4800
DynCorp; email.
DynCorp Sucks!
DynCorp is one of the largest private contractors for the US armed
forces with 2001 revenues of $1.8 billion; up 34.5 percent for the
year. It has assets of $644 million and 2001 profits of $102 million.
DynCorp is the 121st largest private firm in the world and performs
technical and consulting services including: aviation maintenance,
logistical support, telecommunications, information systems, weapons
testing; and management. In 2001 DynCorp received a $600 million
contract for Colombian fumigation and $35 million for related
services says senior US official Andy Higginbottom.
Many of the DynCorp executives are former CIA or military personnel,
others were formerly of Enron or Citigroup. The coca spraying
campaign is directed by Rand Beers, Assistant Secretary for the
Department of State's division of International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs and the State Department's secretive Air Wing.
DynCorp and its contractor, Eagle Aviation Services and Technology
(EAST), have made millions of dollars spraying Monsanto's
Roundup-Ultra (Glyphosate) over millions of acres of jungle and
farmlands in Colombia. UK-based ICI recently pulled their soapy
surfactant ingredients out of the spray mixture over concerns about
liability and bad publicity T.D. Allman in Rolling Stone magazine said
of DynCorp's subcontractor EAST, "Once upon a time these pilots and
crews were called mercenaries. Today they're known as contract
personnel. Many come from US involvement in clandestine warfare in
Cuba and Central America. (May 8, 2002)"
EAST Inc. is headquartered at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida. Here
fumigation pilots are trained by the State Department's Bureau of
Narcotics and International Law Enforcement - an operation referred
to as the Air Division or the Air Wing.
EAST is incorporated in several US states, but has refused to discuss
its operations in Colombia. The State Department has stated that EAST
is concerned for the safety of its pilots. East maintains that its
activities are classified.
Based out of Landria military base in Colombia, Blackhawk choppers
fly cover for fumigation pilots. Despite these escorts, American
pilots flying Vietnam-era Bronco DV-10s over FARC-EP dominated
Caqueta Department recently chose to abort their spray mission when
they encountered heavy fire from the guerrillas. Reminiscent of
Vietnam, the US-contracted pilots say that the Colombians would
prefer it if the US fight their war for them.
Four DynCorp and EAST pilots have died in crashes since 1997. One was
killed in early August when guerrilla fire brought down a
DynCorp-piloted Super Huey chopper. The pilot and four Colombian
military personnel died. A computer expert working for DynCorp was
killed the same day in Putumayo Department.
DynCorp's contracts with the CIA include covert work in Colombia and
Peru, according to James Woolsey, former head of CIA at Senate
hearings. Several DynCorp employees have been investigated for drug
trafficking and it is common knowledge in Colombia that these US
subcontractors consume hard drugs and are above the law.
By most definitions they are terrorists and what they do to the
environment of Colombia and Ecuador is eco-terrorism. EAST has a long
history of CIA and clandestine operations. DynCorp has been awarded
100s of millions of dollars in defense contracts in the US and in
Bosnia - scandals follow their every step. The spraying of defoliants
has damaged vast areas of food crops and sensitive habitat. The
International Labor Rights Fund has filed suit in US federal court on
behalf of 10,000 Ecuadorian peasant farmers and Amazonian Indians
charging DynCorp with torture, infanticide and wrongful death for its
role in the aerial spraying in the Amazonian jungle, along the border
of Ecuador and Colombia.
Rand Beers has admitted making false statements in a Federal court that is hearing
the lawsuit against DynCorp brought by Ecuadorean peasants. Last
November Beers signed a declaration stating that the FARC guerrillas
went to Afghanistan to receive terrorist training. Other officials
who were contacted about Beers perjury were flabbergasted having no
idea where he got such information and perplexed at why he would sign
his name to it. I smell Otto Reich and the desperate fear of the Bush
administration that this lawsuit has merit.
Terry Collingsworth of the International Labor Rights Board, which is
co-counsel for the plaintiffs, said the mistake indicates that the
State Department and DynCorp were eager to tie Plan Colombia - the
multi-billion dollar aid package that pays for DynCorp's contract -
to the post-Sept. 11 terror attacks.
"They are so desperate to keep this suit away from a jury that
they'll say anything to convince the judge it's related to
terrorism," he said.
- Military Personnel Resources Inc. (MPRI)
President: Ret. Gen. Carl Vuono
Executive Vice President: Ret. General Ronald H. Griffith
Senior Vice President / General Manager of The Alexandria Group Joe Wolfinger
CFO: Ret. Colonel Stephen E. Inman
Senior Vice President / General Manager of the International Group Ret. Gen. Crosbie Saint
and Senior Vice President / General Manager of the National Group: Ret.Lieutenant Gen. Jared L. Bates
1201 East Abingdon Drive
Suite 425
Alexandria
VA, 22314; (703)
684-0853; Fax (703) 684-6356
MPRI; email
Insiders joke that MPRI has more generals than the Pentagon. This
high level mercenary group has over 1000 elite military and law
enforcement leaders on retainer, including Gen. Ed Soyster, former
head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Gen. Frederick Kroesen,
former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe and a former Assistant
Director of the FBI Many of its employees serve on the Council of
Foreign Relations. The President, Carl Vuono was the Army Chief of
Staff during the invasion of Panama and the Gulf War. He retired
after the war and joined MPRI in 1991. One of his first big jobs was
advising the Croatian government when it split away from Yugoslavia.
He is credited with the victorious military strategy of lightning
armor drives that were used against the Serbs. MPRI is a military
consultancy and also supplies pilots and Special Forces and elite
training and security services worldwide. They recently completed an
$800,000 contract to review and advise the Colombian military.
At the end of MPRI section add in "MPRI also has a
contract to train young college students in military affairs through
the Army's ROTC program at 217 universities in the US.
- The NARCO-TERROR COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT Inc. :
Cartels. Armed forces and Paramilitary Death Squads
Kingpin of Drugs and Power: George W. Bush
Acting President : Alvaro Uribe
Armed Forces: Gen Fernando Tapias
Paramilitaries and Drug Cartels: Carlos Castano of the AUC
"Today we cannot expect to fight drug trafficking while we turn a
blind eye to the corrupted ways of government, these are, after all,
one and the same, they work together to make sure that things don't
change. The Colombian government has permitted the creation of the
paramiltary forces financed by powerful landlords and drug
traffickers and trained by high ranking army officers.
As long as the AUC paramilitary forces are a clandestine instrument
of the establishment negotiations are impossible... in the end the
Colombian government accepts illegal money to win a war that protects
- not the lives of civilians - but the properties of those [drug
lords] financing the war." - Ingrid Betancourt, Until Death Do US
Part (page 223), Apprehended by the FARC-EP when the Colombian
government refused to let her fly into the former FARC-EP safehaven
with the other major presidential candidates. [footnote 7]
Every NGO, International Agency, and most US State Department and DEA
reports agree with the above summary by the Green Party Presidential
candidate Betancourt, that an axis of evil has united against the
leftist FARC-EP and the poor people of Colombia to maintain the
status quo of violence and drug dealing. The US played the decisive
role in establishing this nexus when it brought the AUC into the
"killer networks" that the US established in 1991. Without massive US
financial support the corrupt Colombian government would have fallen
to the FARC last year. [footnote 8]
The UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention says that
"Deforestation caused by coca and opium cultivation is close to
340,000 hectares. Each hectare of coca costs four hectares of Amazon
forest. When vegetation is cut on slopes, the water supply downstream
is affected, in addition to a loss of some 120-230 tons of topsoil
per hectare. Pollution of water sources results from use of
herbicides and fertilizers applied to the drug crops, and from
solvents and chemicals used in drug refinement 20 million liters of
ethyl ether, acetone, ammonia, sulphuric acid and hydrochloric acid
are discarded from laboratories into the tributaries that feed the
Amazon and Orinoco rivers Šendangering 350 Andean floral species, 210
animal species, 600 birds species, 170 reptiles, 100 amphibians, and
600 fish species in the Amazon and Orinoco alone." The use of
herbicides to eradicate illicit crops causes additional
environmental and social damage and yet has failed to reduce drug
crop production at all.
A phony drug war has become a bloody large-scale anti-guerrilla
campaign that is guaranteed to devastate the flora, fauna and the
peasants while making Colombia safe for massive, coal, oil, and
mineral extraction for US markets. [footnote 9]
War Crimes lawsuits are pending against this US barbarity. [footnote 10]
- – Marcel Idels / Ecosolidaridad-Andes
NOTES for The Political Economy of a Narco-Terror State: Colombia and
Corporate Profits by EcoSolidaridad-Andes
1) Colburn, Forrest D., Latin America at the End of
Politics,Princeton Univ. Press, 2002, page 82. Drawing from the Inter-
American Development Bank's 1998-99 report "Economic and Social
Progress in Latin America," Brazil is the most unequal country in the
world - the top ten percent have 50 percent of national income, the
bottom 50 percent have 10 percent of the income; Chile, Guatemala,
Ecuador, Mexico, Panama and Paraguay are the next most unequal.
The income of a third of Latin Americans (150 million) is less than
two dollars per day. And inequality is actually mush worse than the
statistics since income from capital is not included.
2) The US will react to the revolutions sweeping Latin America by
the usual means - economic isolation, propaganda, and bribery of
opposition leaders and movements - as we have seen in Venezuela.
Assassination and contrived scandals are also possibilities. But the
US no longer can call upon the local militaries to squash democracy,
especially not in several countries at once. The militaries are
generally discredited as institutions having already used brutality
previously. Furthermore, the US model - neoliberalism - no longer
offers any promise and so the region will go it alone or rather
through regional integration and alliance with Europe.
3) The Colombian Economy After 25 Years of Drug Trafficking; UN ODCCP - Colombia. By Ricardo Rocha Garcia.
"Although, drug trafficking has had little direct and positive effects on the Colombian economy, there is no doubt that the incidence of trafficking on the country's social and political instability has been very important. The escalation of violence coincides with the increase in drug trafficking, and there is a strong correlation between homicides and drug trafficking offenses. And the drug traffickers fuel the armed conflict through their financial support to guerrilla and paramilitaries. In order to protect their interests the drug traffickers are furthermore engaged in a large scale corruption of politicians and civil servants with the predictable result that people's faith in their country's institutions has declined further at incalculable costs to the society.
Both the guerrilla and the paramilitaries depend on illicit drugs to finance their war. In most regions of illicit cultivation and processing they levy taxes on harvesting, processing and transport by river or air, and in some areas the insurgents control the local trade in coca base. In addition many drug traffickers have their own private armies to protect, not only laboratories and domestic trafficking routes, but also their own investments in landed property outside the regions of illicit cultivation and processing. (Part V)."
4) "The Dark Side of Dlowers," Sarah Cox, Georgia Straight,
www.zmag.org, 2002. "Of the 134 pesticides
approved for use in the Colombian flower industry, seven are
considered by the Colombian government to be extremely toxic. At
least twelve of the approved pesticides, including some on that
extremely toxic list are named by the US Environmental Protection
Agency are posssible or probable carcinogens. These include Aldicarb
and Metomil, insecticides and nematicides that belong to a class of
pesticides known as N-methyl carbonates. Both are suspected endocrine-
system disrupters. Exposure can cause sterility or decreased
fertility, impaired development, birth defects of the reproductive
tract, and metabolic disorders, according to the Pesticide Action
Network's on-line database."
The article mentions the Florverde and European based ICC fair
flowers programs, but admits that "Colombia has rules governing
pesticide use, but there are no specific rules specifically for
greenhouses. 'The application of pesticides in greenhouses,
constructions covered in plastic, triples the impact of these
substances,'…'And greenhouses are where almost all the flower
production takes place.'
5) Laws have also been changed to allow for a higher percentage of
foreign ownership. Now these corporations can extract more profits
from poor Colombia. Coinciding with this is the steady increase in
all types of US military, economic and intelligence aid in the guise
of anti-terrorism for Colombia and the whole region. Most important
has been the massive propaganda efforts of US media and Otto Reich of
the State Department. The complicity of Europe has also given the US
a slight aura of respectability - how EURO leaders can sleep at night
after listing the FARC-P as a terrorist group (38 years of civil war
suddenly becomes terrorism?) will be a subject of debate for many
years. The guerrillas commit 1-5 percent of human rights violations
against a government-death squad alliance the has been committing
atrocities against the poor for 65 years or longer!
6) See www.Amazonwatch.org
7) Betancourt, like her Liberal party mother, was a constant thorn
in the side to Colombian politicians who they saw as utterly
corrupted by drug dealing, cigarette smuggling, tax evation and
currency exchange fraud. Her mother told her just before popular
presidential candidate Carlos Galan was assassinated in 1990, that
Galan was the last hope for Colombia. The two Betancourts were nearly
killed in the assassination of Galan in Medellin. People on the
street in Bogota almost laughed upon hearing she had been siezed by
the FARC-EP since her program was similar, though she did critisize
the guerrillas' violence - as does almost everyone in Colombia, since
to do otherwise is a certain death warrant. By the time she is
released some expect that Betancourt will have no choice but to join
the guerrillas since she could never support the death squad
government of Uribe.
8) The peace talks initiated by Pastrana were a clever ploy to buy
time, since the FARC-EP had nearly taken out Castano's base in Nudo
de Parramillo and surrounded the capitol, Bogota just before they
were granted the Switzerland-sized safe haven. The government dragged
its feet much more than the guerrillas and nothing except
negotiations over how to negotiate ever developed for the next
several years. Meanwhile, the US military rushed in with Blackhawk
choppers, additional spy planes and intelligence for the
paramilitaries who launched an all-out progorm in many areas outside
of the FARC-EP safe haven, nearly eliminating the smaller guerrilla
force, the ELN, which was forced to join up with the FARC-EP to
survive.
9) UNDCP Projects in Colombia:
"UNDCP Programme and Financial Requirements (2001-2002)
- Economic sustainability will be sought by promoting commercially viable agricultural and agro-industrial activities, with emphasis on modern processing and marketing methods. Private sector investment promotions will be implemented.
- Environmental protection and sustainability are key concerns in Colombia. It is estimated that the deforestation caused so far by coca and opium poppy cultivation is close to 340,000 hectares. Each hectare of coca costs four hectares of Amazon forest and every hectare of opium poppy implies the destruction of two and a half hectares of forest. Water supply and erosion are also problems. When the vegetation is cut on slopes, the water supply downstream is affected, in addition to a loss of some 120-230 tons of soil per hectare.
Pollution of water sources results from use of herbicides and fertilizers applied to the drug crops, and from solvents and chemicals used in drug refinement. It is estimated that more than 20 million liters of ethyl ether, acetone, ammonia, sulphuric acid and hydrochloric acid are discarded from jungle laboratories into the tributaries that feed the Amazon and Orinoco rivers. The deforestation of the Amazon, Orinoco and Andean regions is endangering the survival of some 350 Andean floral species. In addition, the modification of the biological balance, further aggravated by the process of agricultural colonization, endangers the survival of 210 mammal, 600 bird, 170 reptile, 100 amphibian and 600 fish species in the Amazon and Orinoco regions alone.
The use of herbicides to eradicate illicit crops has been criticized for some time by people within and beyond Colombia. Aerial spraying is said to cause extensive environmental damage, social tension, while leaving the net supply of drug crops unaffected. Nevertheless, the Government remains committed to using this method of eradication for commercial plantations. The more rational implementation of the proposed PLANTE alternative development zones will ensure that this method of eradication does not affect the living conditions of smallholders working with PLANTE, and that it does not jeopardize the overall goal of peace and development in Colombia's highly conflictive illicit crop areas.
The Colombian response
The Pastrana Government has been tackling the fiscal and economic crisis and devoted much time to armed conflict resolution. In late 1998 the government adopted a new national drug control plan, the main thrust of which is alternative development. UNDCP and the PLANTE leadership have advanced considerably in defining the framework for future alternative development work.
The Government is committed to illicit crop eradication and alternative development as a mutually complementary response to cultivation. Crop eradication will address commercial plantations, whereas smallholders will be supported by PLANTE. In spite of the fiscal crisis alternative development should play a much more prominent role, both to reduce cultivation, and to place the peace process on a sustainable course in drug crop areas.
FARC (Colombia's largest guerrilla group and the closest to drug production) has declared that it will collaborate with illicit crop elimination, provided substantial alternative development resources are invested in exchange. Alternative development activities are planned to be managed independently of, but parallel to, the overall peace process."
Contact USWarCrimes@Comision.zzn.com for more information or to support this important effort at justice and peace.
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Photos
1. Rand Beers
2. Tony Trahar - AngloAmerican
3. Carl Vuono - MPRI - photo
4. Dan Bannister/ Paul Lombardi - Dyncorp
5. BP
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More documentation of the Human Rights-Drugs-DeathSquad Nexus:
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2000
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
February 23, 2001 [Excerpts]
"Many observers maintain that government action to combat paramilitarism has been inadequate, and in the past security forces regularly failed to confront paramilitary groups… members of the security forces sometimes illegally collaborated with paramilitary forces. The armed forces and the police committed serious violations of human rights throughout the year. "
"High levels of violence greatly inhibit business confidence. Narcotics traffickers continued to control large tracts of land and other assets and exerted influence throughout society, the economy, and political life. Income distribution is highly skewed; much of the population lives in poverty. Per capita GDP was approximately $2,100."
"The Government's human rights record remained poor; there were some improvements in the legal framework and in institutional mechanisms, but implementation lagged, and serious problems remain in many areas. Government security forces continued to commit serious abuses, including extrajudicial killings. Despite some prosecutions and convictions, the authorities rarely brought higher-ranking officers of the security forces and the police charged with human rights offenses to justice, and impunity remains a problem. Members of the security forces collaborated with paramilitary groups that committed abuses, in some instances allowing such groups to pass through roadblocks, sharing information, or providing them with supplies or ammunition. Despite increased government efforts to combat and capture members of paramilitary groups, often security forces failed to take action to prevent paramilitary attacks. Paramilitary forces find a ready support base within the military and police, as well as among local civilian elites in many areas."
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2001
Almost the same year to year wording - but worse actually. [Excerpts]
"Many observers maintain that government action to combat paramilitarism has been inadequate, and in the past security forces regularly failed to confront paramilitary groups. However, the security forces confronted and detained significantly more members of paramilitary groups during the year compared with the previous year. Nevertheless, members of the security forces sometimes illegally collaborated with paramilitary forces. Members of the armed forces and the police committed serious violations of human rights."
"High levels of violence greatly inhibit business confidence. Narcotics traffickers continued to control large tracts of land and other assets and exerted influence throughout society, the economy, and political life. Income distribution is highly skewed; much of the population lives in poverty. Per capita GDP was approximately $2,087. "
"Paramilitary groups increasingly used threats both to intimidate opponents and to raise money. Letters demanding payment of a war tax and a threat to mark victims as a military target if they failed to pay were typical. In 1999 CINEP reported that nearly half of those threatened were public school teachers and that approximately half of all threat recipients were residents of Antioquia department."
Paramilitary groups committed numerous extrajudicial killings, primarily in areas where they competed with guerrilla forces for control, and often in the absence of a strong government security force presence. Several major paramilitary campaigns during the year included massacres in Sucre, Norte de Santander, Magdalena, and Valle del Cauca departments. The office of the Human Rights Ombudsman received complaints regarding 125 massacres during the year. The MOD reported that paramilitary forces were responsible for the deaths of 1,015 civilians in the period from January to November. According to the MOD, during the year, the paramilitaries killed 281 persons during massacres. The CCJ reported 161 massacres during January-September, of which 102 massacres (representing 671 victims) are attributed to paramilitaries. The CCJ attributes a total of 1,929 political killings and 319 social cleansing killings to paramilitary groups in the period from June 2000 to June 2001. Paramilitary activities also included kidnaping, intimidation, and the forced displacement of persons not directly involved in hostilities (see Sections 1.b., 1.c., 1.g., and 2.d.). Paramilitary groups targeted journalists and teachers (see Section 2.a.), human rights activists (see Section 4), labor leaders (see Section 6.a.), community activists, national and local politicians (including the President), peasants, and other persons whom they accused of supporting or failing to confront guerrillas. Paramilitary forces killed indigenous people (see Section 5).
AUC paramilitary groups were suspected of hundreds of selective killings throughout the country, especially in Valle del Cauca, Antioquia, Norte de Santander, Bolivar, and Sucre departments. The FARC, the ELN, or both had a strong presence in these areas as paramilitary forces vied with them for control of territory or resources, including coca cultivation. Paramilitary groups continued to kill political leaders and peace activists, including Ismael Valencia, the former mayor of Calima Darien, Valle del Cauca department; and nun and human rights activist Yolanda Ceron in Tumaco, Narino department. Six members of the CTI were killed during the year in various parts of the country; paramilitary forces were suspected of responsibility in two of these killings; in the others the responsible group had not been identified at year's end."
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