US funding for Military in Colombia goes to Para-military Terrorist Death Squads.

Press Release
Contact: John Lindsay-Poland / Susana Pimiento Chamorro
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tel: 415-495-6334
Email: johnlp [at] igc.org
NATIONAL GROUPS CALL FOR END TO MILITARY AID TO COLOMBIA
Reports of Army Chief’s Ties to Death Squads Highlight Need for Change

Dozens of organizations released a letter to Congress (see below) today calling for a complete cessation of U.S. military aid to Colombia as that country’s president, Alvaro Uribe, arrives in Washington seeking support for his military and trade programs.

The letter, signed by 40 religious, peace and activist organizations and leaders from throughout the United States, condemns the current U.S. aid policy for failing in its stated aims, reinforcing impunity for human rights violations, and contributing to the displacement of millions of Colombians. Colombia is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the world outside the Middle East. In the light of expanding revelations of Colombian government and army involvement with paramilitary death squads, which are responsible for 70% of atrocities committed in the country, the letter calls on Congress to re-cast U.S. policy in Colombia and articulate goals consistent with respect for human rights.

“The United States should not support an institution that collaborates with death squads that the U.S. itself has labeled as terrorist groups,” said John Lindsay-Poland of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, one of the groups signing the letter. Others included United Methodist General Board of Church and Society, School of the Americas Watch, Witness for Peace, and groups from Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, Los Angeles and Westchester County, NY.

Military aid to Colombia is supposed to be contingent upon the Colombian army breaking ties with the death squads, but the organizations argue that current “mechanisms for separating the State from illegal paramilitary groups and protecting human and labor rights do not work.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month certified that Colombian armed forces had met human rights conditions for the release of military aid. Less than two weeks before, The Los Angeles Times disclosed a CIA report stating that Colombian Army chief General Mario Montoya Uribe had collaborated with paramilitary groups in 2002 in an operation that resulted in the deaths of 14 civilians and over a dozen disappearances. The leaders’ letter also cited legal charges against Uribe’s ex-chief of intelligence for paramilitary collaboration, Army executions of peasants who were then dressed as guerrillas, torturing of cadets, and Army involvement in domestic bombings as reasons why military aid should be terminated.

Colombian lawmaker Gustavo Petro two weeks ago accused President Uribe of hosting paramilitary groups on his ranch before they went out to commit massacres. Petro based his accusations on government documents and depositions by former paramilitary members and military officers.

Other prominent organizations, including the AFL-CIO, have also called for terminating U.S. military aid to Colombia. Amnesty International urges “a complete cut off of all US military aid until human rights conditions improve and impunity is tackled.” Some Democratic lawmakers also have called for steep cuts in military aid. Congress has previously banned military aid to Guatemala and Indonesia because of severe human rights abuses by the armed forces there.

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Fellowship of Reconciliation
Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean
2017 Mission St. #305, San Francisco, CA 94110
Tel: 415-495-6334 Fax: 415-495-5628
Web: http://www.forcolombia.org/

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To: Members of Congress
May 7, 2007
Recommendations for U.S. Policy in Colombia: Military Aid to Colombia is Not Justified
We are writing to you as representatives of grassroots organizations with members from across
the United States to urge you to lead a change in U.S. policy toward Colombia, and terminate
US military aid. Such aid has failed in its stated aims, reinforced impunity for human rights
violations, and contributed to the displacement of millions of Colombians.
The current policy’s mechanisms for separating the State from illegal paramilitary groups and
protecting human and labor rights do not work. On April 4, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
signed a document certifying the Colombian armed forces fulfillment of human rights conditions
in the “Leahy law.” The conditions include the requirement that: “the Colombian government is
vigorously investigating and prosecuting those members of the Colombian armed forces, of
whatever rank, who have been credibly alleged to… have aided or abetted paramilitary
organizations.”
Secretary Rice submitted the document to Congress less than two weeks after The Los Angeles
Times disclosed a CIA report stating that the chief of the Colombian Army, General Mario
Montoya Uribe, had collaborated with paramilitary groups in 2002 in an operation that resulted
in the deaths of 14 civilians and over a dozen disappearances. The CIA report also cited the
U.S. military attaché in Bogotá, who said that the report “confirms information provided by a
proven source” and that information from the source “also could implicate” armed forces chief
Freddy Padilla de Leon. Reports of General Montoya’s history of paramilitary collaboration date
back to the late 1970s and continued in the 1990s.
The most disturbing aspect of the affair is that the State Department had “vetted” General
Montoya for placement in a high-profile counter-narcotics command in 2000 as part of Plan
Colombia. Yet the 59-page certification document made no mention whatsoever of reports of
General Montoya’s collaboration with paramilitary groups, nor of any investigation of the data in
the CIA report.
General Montoya is not the only case of collusion with paramilitary forces to undertake serious
human rights violations. In another high-level example of state-paramilitary collaboration,
Colombia's intelligence services compiled lists of union members and human rights activists and
gave them to paramilitaries, who then carried out assassinations, according to captured
documents and a key witness. The former chief of the secret police was jailed in February 2007
for these charges, and subsequently released. Yet, while the abuses were occurring and the
security agencies were benefiting from Plan Colombia, the State Department regularly certified
Colombian compliance with human rights conditions.
These are among a widening series of revelations that, since November 2006, has mired
Colombia in one of its most serious political scandals directly linking state and military officials to
the paramilitary United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a U.S.-designated International
Terrorist Organization. In spite of the demobilization and amnesty for members of the AUC,
paramilitary groups have re-armed or did not disarm in 14 of Colombia’s 32 departments,
according to a recent report by the Organization of American States, while the lands illegally
taken by paramilitaries through forced displacements of civilians have not been returned.
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Other recent revelations show the corruption and disregard for human rights in many levels of
the Colombian Army. The publicly documented revelations include: torture of army cadets as
punishment for missing an exercise; summary execution of civilian peasants and asserting they
were guerrillas killed in combat; and army intelligence officers coordinating bomb attacks in
Bogota on the eve of President Uribe's second inauguration and claiming that guerrillas were
responsible. The United Nations reported an increase in the number of extrajudicial executions
by the Army in 2006.
During his recent visit to Colombia, President Bush focused on promoting a controversial
NAFTA-style free trade agreement with Colombia. Yet he did not publicly raise the problem of
violence against trade unionists, human rights defenders, women, or the impunity in which many
violations remain, although the Colombian armed forces have the worst human rights record in
this hemisphere and Colombia is by far the world's most dangerous country for trade unionists.
The message this sends to the Colombian military, should aid to it continue, is that it is immune
to prosecution for these crimes. While the investigations of links between state officials and
paramilitary terrorist groups is a positive sign, it has not come about as a result of initiative by
the military or President Uribe, but because of the discovery of a paramilitary leader’s laptop
documenting in painful detail the para-political links and subsequent action taken by the
Supreme Court and attorney general.
The United States should not support armed forces and a government with ties with armed
groups designated by the State Department as terrorists. We believe that percentage cuts
in military aid do not go far enough in addressing the fundamental problems with assistance to
the Colombian military. Because of apparently pervasive infiltration of the Colombian state by
paramilitary terrorist agents and the failure of legislative mechanisms such as the certification
process to address this infiltration, we urge Congress to cut military aid entirely. There is no
justification for any aid to the Colombian Army.
Moreover, military aid has been completely ineffective in achieving its principle policy goal of
reducing illicit drug use. The impact on the price of drugs and the amount of land planted with
coca has been nil. "The most recent data released by the State Department," the San Francisco
Chronicle reported in March, "show that more land was cultivated with coca in 2005 -- 144,000
acres -- than when the effort began in 2000." Meanwhile, despite $4.7 billion spent on Plan
Colombia, retail cocaine prices have fallen and purity has increased between 2003 and 2006,
according to the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy. Yet, Plan Colombia has
resulted in massive displacement of civilians, environmental degradation, and the
institutionalization of gains in power made by paramilitary terrorist groups.
Congress can usefully start by banning training of the Colombian armed forces. The United
States trains more than 10,000 Colombian soldiers a year, and more Colombians attend the US
Army School of the Americas (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security
Cooperation in 2001) than from any other country. There is historical precedence for Congress
to ban military training to US allies because of gross violations of human rights - specifically, in
Indonesia for its role in East Timor, and Guatemala. US training of both nations' militaries was
suspended for more than 10 years. The ban on training occurred while the level of violations in
each was substantially less than that documented currently for the Colombian armed forces.
Congress should re-cast U.S. policy in Colombia and articulate goals consistent with the values
of respect for human rights. Because the fundamental causes of the armed conflict in Colombia
are political and economic, the United States should support comprehensive negotiations for an
end to the armed conflict with guerrilla forces, fully involving Colombian civil society. Promotion
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of respect for human rights and the rule of law should be at the forefront of policy, by
conditioning economic aid on effective action to end impunity for human rights violations and
collaboration with paramilitary groups. US drug policy should be re-oriented toward programs for
demand reduction in the United States.
We are eager to work with you to make these policy changes a reality. Thank you in advance for
your attention to this important issue.
Sincerely,
National Organizations and Leaders
Fellowship of Reconciliation
United Methodist Church
General Board of Church and Society
Global Exchange
School of the Americas Watch
Witness for Peace
Amazon Watch
Code Pink
U.S. Office on Colombia
Association for the Sovereignty of
Colombia, ASOCOL
Network in Solidarity with the People of
Guatemala
Quixote Center/Quest for Peace
Alliance for Responsible Trade
Baptist Peace Fellowship of North
America
Buddhist Peace Fellowship
Episcopal Peace Fellowship
Lutheran Peace Fellowship
Presbyterian Peace Fellowship
U.S./Labor Education in the Americas
Project
Christian Peacemaker Teams Colombia
Team
Angela Berryman
Interim Assistant General Secretary for
Peace and Conflict Resolution
American Friends Service Committee
Rev. Mari Castellanos
Justice and Witness Ministries
United Church of Christ
Séamus P. Finn, OMI, Director
Missionary Oblates Justice, Peace and
Integrity of Creation Office
Alfred Marder, President
U.S. Peace Council
Katherine Hoyt, Co-Coordinator
Nicaragua Network
Jon Hunt, National Coordinator
Campaign for Labor Rights
Regional and Local Organizations and
Leaders
Colombia Human Rights Committee
Washington, DC
WESPAC Foundation
White Plains, NY
Chicagoans for a Peaceful Colombia
Gary L. Cozette, Director
Chicago Religious Leadership Network
on Latin America
Chicago Metropolitan Sanctuary Alliance
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Lawrence Bragman
Mayor
Fairfax, California
Marin Interfaith Task Force on the
Americas
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Oakland, California
Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service
Oakland, California
Elizabeth Martinez, Director
Institute of Multiracial Justice
San Francisco, CA
Peaceworkers
San Francisco, California
Ilise Cohen
Interfaith Peace Builders
Colombia Peace Project
Los Angeles, California
James Odling
Green Party County Council
Los Angeles, California
Episcopal Peace Fellowship
Missouri Diocese Chapter
Rodolfo (Roy) P. Jimenez, Regional
Associate
Mennonite Central Committee
Great Lakes IL-WI