Colombia:
over 10,000 SOA Graduates
"Plan Colombia... Plan Death"
(Revised 2006)
"Just Say No!" Plan Colombia
Flier
3 SOA Graduates Cited in the Trujillo
"Chainsaw" Massacre
"The Ties That Bind: Colombia [the
SOA] and Military-Paramilitary Links"
| “I saw
soldiers, shooting their rifles [at demonstrating
workers] and as they passed in front of me, they began to
beat me with the butts of their weapons and tips of their
boots. I held tight to my camera, still running, until
the blow from a rifle butt broke the camera gear... I
gave a colleague the tape and that night everyone saw
those images while I recovered in a hospital with a
perforated liver and testicles destroyed by the blows.
One year later, I sought political asylum in the United
States due to threats.” -- Colombian TV journalist
Richard Velez describing a 1996 repressive campaign lead
by troops commanded by an SOA graduate. Colombia is enduring the hemisphere's worst human rights crisis. Some 10 people per day die in political violence; 1.5 million people have been displaced since 1985 in a refugee crisis greater than Kosovo's. Human rights, union, university and religious leaders are among the many people living under death threats or forced into exile. Guerrilla groups and rightwing paramilitaries both target civilians which they claim are supporters of the other side. Guerrillas commit serious violations, including extrajudicial killings and most kidnappings, but paramilitaries committed 78% of violations in 1999. The army, though directly responsible for fewer violations, has extensive links with paramilitary forces at a local and regional level. Some army officers facilitate the work of paramilitaries or look the other way as violence occurs. Colombia has sent more troops to train at the SOA than any other Latin American country, with chilling results. The 1993 human rights report State Terrorism in Colombia cites 247 Colombian officers for human rights violations. Fully one half of those cited were SOA graduates. Some were even featured as SOA guest speakers or instructors or included in the "Hall of Fame"after their involvement in such crimes. For example, Gen. Farouk Yanine Diaz was a guest speaker at the School in 1990 and 1991 after his involvement in the 1988 Uraba massacre of 20 banana workers, the assassination of the mayor of Sabana de Torres, and the massacre of 19 businessmen. According to a U.S. State Department Report, he was also accused of "establishing and expanding paramilitary death squads, as well as ordering dozens of disappearances, and the killing of judges and court personnel sent to investigate previous crimes." SOA graduates have been linked to some of Colombia's most heinous massacres, including the 1988 massacre in Segovia in which 43 people were killed, the Trujillo chainsaw massacres, which took place between 1988 and 1991, and the 1993 Riofrio massacre. In one instance, the Colombian legislature asserted that a military officer was sent to the SOA to avoid having to answer questions about the Fusagauga massacre of a peasant family. A 1998 U.S. State Department Report on Colombia states that the 20th military brigade was disbanded for its involvement in human rights abuses, including the targeted killing of civilians. The commander of that brigade was SOA graduate Paucelino Latorre Gamboa. The report also links SOA graduates to an illegal raid on the offices of a non-governmental human rights group, and implicates an SOA graduate for his complicity in a 1997 massacre. More recently, Colombian General Rito Alejo del Rio was dismissed in April 1999 for allegedly fomenting paramilitary violence. Clearly the abuses are not a thing of the past, yet US-Colombian military ties are growing rapidly. Our government has funded the creation of a 950-troop counternarcotics battalion and provides intelligence support, training and equipment to other units of the Colombian armed forces. Some 250 to 300 US military personnel are on the ground in Colombia on a typical day, many carrying out training missions. The US Army School of the Americas has been one of the Key training sites for Colombian military, but the training being initiated and debated now goes far beyond the School. Most will be provided by US trainers in Colombia. US military aid to Colombia is being promoted by the Pentagon and other supporters under the guise of the drug war. Some US policymakers make a simplistic equation of guerrillas equal drug traffickers, so aiding the army is the solution offered for the drug problem. The reality is more complex. While guerrillas profit by taxing the drug trade, paramilitaries are directly tied to traffickers. Aiding the army risks aiding the paramilitaries and deepening Colombia's human rights crisis. Further, evidence shows that the military solution does not deter the drug epidemic. Despite a 17 fold increase in US drug war spending since 1980, illicit drugs are now cheaper, more potent and more easily available than when the "war on drugs" began. The United States should help Colombians in their hour of need not with military aid but with long-term, peaceful solutions to civil conflict, drug production and violence. In October 1999, an astonishing
10 million Colombians marched for peace, calling for an
end to violence from all sides. US activist can be in
solidarity with their Colombian counterparts by opposing
US aid to the Colombian army and by supporting a positive
aid package for Colombia -- including: relief aid for
people displaced by violence; crop substitution for small
farmers to switch from coca to legal crops; programs to
strengthen government investigations into human rights
violations and drug trafficking; aid for civil society
peace and human rights initiatives. Further, US activists
can support Colombian human rights groups by working to
close the US Army School of the Americas. |