1,000 U.S. TROOPS FIGHT IN COLOMBIA?
Startling Claim as Attacks Escalate on Indians, Peasants and Unionists
Hernando Lopez, writing in the May 3 edition of the Bogota weekly VOZ,
voice of the Colombian Communist Party, says that 12.000 Colombian army
troops--led by nearly 1,000 US troops--have launched a "scorched earth"
campaign in the southern Amazon region. Dubbed Operation Patriot, the
campaign is targeting territory held by the FARC guerillas. (ANNCOL, May 4)
Lopez cites an April 25 story in the Bogota daily El Tiempo, which notes
that an operation called New Year, launched Dec. 31, is currently underway
in the Colombian Amazon department of Caqueta, part of a larger "Patriot
Plan" aimed at winning back the countryside from guerillas. The operation
includes construction of a new military base at Araracuara on the Rio
Caqueta in Amazonas department. The article emphasizes the US role in the
operations, which is to be funded by Washington to the tune of $110
million. The Pentagon is also to provide training for the elite Special
Forces Brigades (FUDRA) which is spearheading the operation. US Southern
Command chief Gen. James Hill is quoted as saying the White House will ask
Congress to raise the current limit of 400 soldiers and 400 private
contract agents in Colombia to a respective 800 and 600, in order to give
the "maximum support" to the operation. (El Tiempo, April 25)
Little information has emerged from the remote region, but reports are
escalating from throughout the country of army attacks on indigenous and
campesino communities.
WAYUU, EMBERA INDIGENOUS PEOPLES UNDER ATTACK
The Colombian independent news agency ANNCOL reports that on April 18 the
Wayuu indigenous community of Bahia de Portete in northern Colombia's La
Guajira peninsula was sacked by paramilitaries, who killed 12 residents.
According to Amnesty International, the paramilitaries interrogated a
number of children on the whereabouts of their parents, torturing and
killing some on suspicion of lying.
More than 300 Wayuu were able to flee across the border to Venezuela,
walking for more than 24 hours. One refugee told a reporter from the
Venezuelan newspaper Ultimas Noticias that he had witnessed two sons burned
alive, and his mother and nephew dismembered with a chainsaw. An Embera
spokesman named Juchi told the reporter: "The Guajira people [Wayuu] have
reached a decision... war has been declared. We are going to respond in
such a forceful manner that they will have no desire to return to our
lands. We will apply our own law, because the justice of the courts only
serves to help them, the assassins."
Colombian authorities deny that the incident occurred. The public
prosecutor of the nearby city of Rio Hacha says that he has proof of only
two deaths. According to the press office of the Army's First Division, the
Army is only sowing "seeds of friendship with the population" of La
Guajira. During the last three years the Wayuu communities have suffered
numerous attacks and assassinations at the hands of paramilitaries
supported by troops of the Colombian Army's Second Brigade, based in the
city of Barranquilla. (ANNCOL, May 27)
ANNCOL also reports that on March 30, 76 soldiers of the Alfonso Manosalva
Florez battalion arrived at Gengadu, a small village of the Wounaan Embera
indigenous people, located in the municipality of Rio Quito, Choco
department. Two local residents were forced from their home at gunpoint and
walked to the local cemetery where they were interrogated, and one was
forced to dig a shallow grave--told it was to be his own. Local residents
were also forced to patrol the area with the army. The Wounaan Embera
Regional Organization of Choco (OREWA) told ANNCOL that in an earlier
recent incursion into the village, army troops stripped and beat two women
in public before interrogating them.
In the nearby village of Quijarado, two Embera youth were detained while
sailing in their canoe. One, aged 16, was tortured--his head submerged in
water until he was near drowning, then a gun shoved into his mouth, his
tongue tugged out by a knife-wielding soldier who threatened to cut it off.
He was also beaten and kicked in the testicles. His companion, 21, was
beaten with rifle butt. Three adolescent girls in the village were
threatened with rape. Two chickens were also taken by the troops, with one
resident reportedly told that "just as he gave food to the guerilla, he had
to give food to them without them paying a peso."
Residents considered the threat of death and rape all to credible. "The
Security Forces killed 6 of our brothers in 2003, and permit the activities
of the paramilitaries against our communities and our lands," said the
group's statement. (ANNCOL, April 15)
See also WW3 REPORT #94
ARAUCA CAMPESINOS UNDER ATTACK
In conflicted Arauca department, on Colombia's eastern plains, 12 peasants
were killed by paramilitaries May 21 at the villages of Pi–alito and Cravo
Charo, according to the local Joel Sierra Human Rights Committee. The
killings come just as the army has launched a major offensive against FARC
and ELN guerillas in the region, dubbed Operation Borrasca (Squall).
Peasants accuse the army of openly cooperating with paramilitaries in the
operation. ( ANNCOL, May 21)
The Joel Sierra Committee reports a wave of assassinations across Arauca
department in recent weeks, with seven killed in the towns of Arauca,
Arauquita and Tame between April 14 and 20. The victims were mostly local
peasants and workers, and no arrests have been made in their murders. The
Joel Sierra Committee counted 15 killings in the department over the past
month by late April. The Committee also reported several illegal
detainments by army troops, including the "disappearance" of some who the
army will not acknowledge holding. (Colombia Support Network, April 20)
See also WW3 REPORT #97
OIL WORKERS UNDER ATTACK
On April 22, Syndicated Workers Union (USO) began a strike against the
state oil company Ecopetrol in protest of President Alvaro Uribe's plans to
privatize Colombia's energy sector. The following day, the government
declared the walkout illegal on the grounds that petroleum refining is an
"essential service" of the nation. Over a dozen union leaders were
arrested, and the National Police announced that "anti-terrorist" measures
would be taken against striking workers.
In an open letter to Uribe, the International Federation of Chemical,
Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) protested that the
declaration violated International Labor Organization (ILO) standards.
"Declaring the strike by members of USO illegal and citing petroleum
refining as an essential service to Colombia contradicts ILO jurisprudence
on what constitutes a nation's essential services," wrote ICEM General
Secretary Fred Higgs to President Uribe. "Case after case has omitted oil
refining from that category." (ANNCOL, May 3)
The strike was called in response to new contracts with private oil
companies signed since Ecopetrol was re-organized in June 2003, giving
private firms easier access to Colombia's fossil fuel resources. The strike
ended May 26, when the government agreed to roll back the new contracts and
instate compromise measures--such as a policy that oil fields revert to
Ecopetrol control automatically when current contracts expire. Some 250 USO
members, including president Gabriel Alvis, who were sacked after the
government declared the strike illegal will retain their full pension
rights and have an opportunity to win their jobs back through arbitration.
The strike caused production losses of up to $180,000 per day. (ICEM press
release, May 29)
On May 21, the National Police fired tear gas from helicopters to break up
a protest in Cartagena by unionists and campesinos against Uribe's plan to
enter the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Local authorities had
prohibited the march at the urging of Uribe. Several protesters were also
hit with rubber bullets, as were two reporters and photographer from the
paper El Universal. Dozens were injured and over 20 arrested.
The action was part of a national day of protest against the FTAA, which
also a 24-hour general strike in the cities of Bogota, Bucaramanga, Cali
and Popayan. 300,000 teachers nationwide participated the strike. (ANNCOL,
May 21)
Death threats against unionists in all trades escalated in the prelude to
the oil strike. On April 20 in Bucaramanga, men with machine guns entered
the home of the brother of Coca-Cola union leader Efrain Guerrero's wife in
Bucaramanga, killing Efrain's brother-in-law, Gabriel Remolina, his wife
Fanny and wounding three of their children--one of whom is reported in
grave condition in the hospital. (CSN, April 21)
See also WW3 REPORT #97
"BIGGEST HUMANITARIAN CATASTROPHE OF HEMISPHERE"
Attacks attributed to leftist guerillas are also escalating. On May 22, a
bomb explosion near Antioquia University in Medellin killed four--including
the person carrying the explosive--and injured 17 more. Other explosions
were also reported around the city. Nobody claimed responsibility, but
authorities blamed FARC guerillas. Four days earlier, three bombs exploded
in Cali, with no injuries reported. In Bogota, police arrested a man
driving a truck loaded with a ton of an explosive mix of ammonium nitrate
and fuel oil, stating he planned to blow up a highway tunnel near the
capital. (VOA News, May 22)
Following a visit to the nation, UN humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland
told a news conference in May that Colombia is "by far the biggest
humanitarian catastrophe of the Western Hemisphere." With 2 million
displaced by the war, Colombia is second only to Sudan and Congo in global
refugee crises. But rather than going to UN-administrated camps, the
refugees congregate in the massive shanty-towns that surround Colombia's
cities--making the crisis largely invisible to the outside world. (Reuters,
May 10)
Egeland said he is "particularly concerned" with the situation in remote
areas "where Indian tribes and peasant communities are totally trapped
without access by us, the international community, because the guerrillas
don't allow entry, because the paramilitary forces don't allow our entry,
or because the military offensives...make it impossible for us to get
access." (VOA News, May 10)
See also WW3 REPORT #96
(Bill Weinberg)
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Special to WORLD WAR 3 REPORT, June 5, 2004
Reprinting permissible with attribution
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