THE DEMOCRACY CENTER ON-LINE
"CLINTON AND GORE TAKE US INTO THE COLOMBIAN QUAGMIRE"
Volume 34 - August 24, 2000
Dear Readers:
The Democracy Center On-Line did not disappear. It, and I, just took a break for the summer, including a long family visit back to the U.S. The newsletter is now back to our regular monthly production, in this issue looking at Clinton/Gore taking us into the quagmire of war in Colombia.
For those of you interested in the Bolivian water uprising which I covered here in April and May, two notes: First, I received a lengthy letter from a senior official of the World Bank challenging my coverage of their role in the water fiasco. That letter, along with my response, and the full set of articles I wrote on the uprising are now posted on our Web site at: http://www.democracyctr.org. In addition, One World Communication, the producer of a new documentary video on the water uprising, is putting together a trip to Cochabamba Sept. 25-28, for those interested in understanding events here first hand. Information on the trip is available at: http://www.1worldcommunication.org.
Jim Shultz The Democracy Center
"CLINTON AND GORE TAKE US INTO THE COLOMBIAN QUAGMIRE"
Cochabamba, Bolivia
With the U.S. political season in high gear, I recently got together with a group of other U.S. citizens living here in the Andes, converging in front of a TV with CNN to watch the Republican and Democratic conventions. George Bush pitched us on school vouchers and big tax cuts. Al Gore took credit for the bull market and touted himself as champion of the little guy. Both of them had a lot of balloons. Eventually, the conversation turned to the current debate among progressives - the same one I ran into over and over traveling through the U.S. this summer. Al Gore or Ralph Nader?
The Clinton/Gore critics press their case - welfare reform that shredded a dangerous hole in America’s safety net (they cut welfare rolls in half, not poverty); relentless support of economic globalization without adequate rules to protect the environment, workers or consumers; more prisons and more death sentences; the rebirth of Star Wars and renewed visions of missiles hanging over us from space.
I listen. It is painful. The charges are accurate, every one of them. But I vote in California, the one state where voting for Nader (who I admire greatly) might really end up putting America’s conservative party back in the White House. I fall back on the one argument that always gives me pause, that makes me tremble. "Hey folks, don’t forget Ronald Reagan and Central America in the 1980s. Don’t forget how bad, how really bad, it can get." I was in Nicaragua in 1986. I met the mother of a young girl killed by a "Contra" attack paid for with U.S. funds. I think she’s be 19 today has she lived. The Democrats, I argue, may have abandoned principle on a lot of things, but a return to U.S.- financed murder in a Latin jungle is something I never want to risk again.
Then on Tuesday Bill Clinton blew my argument away.
On Tuesday Clinton planted himself squarely in Ronald Reagan’s cowboy boots and announced that he was waiving the human rights conditions that a Republican Congress tied earlier this year to Clinton’s military aid package for Colombia. Setting human rights aside, Clinton is going to send $1.3 billion dollars to Colombia’s generals. A lot of money, $1.3 billion. Huey helicopters. Machine guns. Buys a lot of killing, $1.3 billion. But the ones who get killed mostly aren't who we thought would be. "Since the legislation is fairly recent, it’s understandable the Colombian government has not had sufficient time to meet all the conditions," explained the White House. "That required the President to waive some of the criteria."
Criteria. Here’s what (a Republican) Congress said had to be certified before the aid could be released: That Colombia’s President put down in writing that soldiers who commit gross violations of human rights will be tried and punished in civilian court. That the Colombian armed forces cooperate in the investigation of human rights abuses. That any soldier involved in human rights abuses be immediately suspended. That the Colombian government prosecute leaders of paramilitary groups, the source of more than two thirds of the human rights abuses. How many of these conditions has the Colombian government met? "Not a single one," said Human Rights Watch on Monday
Too hard to do, to soon to do it - that’s the Clinton/Gore line. "We do think there is a good faith effort under way in Colombia," says their State Department. Echoes of Reagan. Echoes of Central America 20 years ago. "Good faith effort," the same words Reagan’s people used in 1982 to describe El Salvador’s human rights efforts when they "certified" that Latin American military for receipt of massive U.S. aid. That good faith effort included the massacre at El Mozote the year before. 926 people killed there. Over half children under the age of 14. "Good faith effort."
Here’s what’s included under the Clinton/Gore Colombian version of "good faith effort" - murder carried out by soldiers last February in the town of San Jose de Apartado. Here’s the account passed on to me by a young American I know who was there. He watched it happen:
"They split into four groups: one went into a billiard bar and ordered the men inside to lie on the floor and not look at them. When Edgar Mario Urrego did not obey, and reportedly said that he recognized some of the gunmen as soldiers, they shot him dead. Another group went to the Pentecostal church, where they forced Jose Ubaldo Quintero out of the building and shot him several times in the head, killing him instantly. Luis Ciro Aristizabal and Alonso Jimenez were forced out of their homes and shot dead. Albeiro Montoya was killed in the town square."
Murder in a Pentecostal church. "Good faith effort."
Reagan’s war in El Salvador was a war against "Communists". Clinton and Gore’s war in Colombia it is a war against "drug dealers and guerillas." I agree, the drug dealers are thugs. The guerillas are killers. The community where this killing took place was a "peace community" which pledged neutrality between everyone and just asked to be left alone to live. No such luck. The people killed that day weren’t drug dealers or guerillas. The killers were soldiers. Soldiers like the ones to whom Clinton is sending helicopters, guns and cash. Some of the lobbying forces behind the aid package were the U.S. companies who will sell the guns and Huey helicopters to the U.S. government to give away.
A "mockery". That’s what Senator Patrick Leahy called the Clinton/Gore waiver of human rights requirements. A mockery that Clinton announced Tuesday. Next Wednesday Clinton goes to Colombia. He probably won’t visit the Pentecostal church in San Jose de Apartado. Maybe he ought to. He could have used the trip to emphasize the U.S.’s commitment to human rights. Instead he’ll go as cheerleader for the war he wants to leave us with in January.
Clinton took my argument away. Helicopters, guns, cash, bullets to the head, and "good faith efforts". He’s leaving office as Reagan. Maybe I’ll send he and Gore a message. Maybe I’ll do it by e-mail: townhall@algore2000.com
Maybe I’ll do it by absentee ballot.
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