Terrorism, calling it what it is. In all cases.
A little more than a week after meeting in Santo Domingo to defuse the regional crisis, Latin American countries met again in Washington yesterday to bury the conflict once and for all.
The meeting of the Organisation of American States, (OAS) was decidedly different from the Rio Group summit. This time round the US had a voice and a vote.
Where as the last meeting saw the region condemning the violation of national sovereignity in general and calling on Colombia to apologize for an unlawful incursion on its territory, yesterday’s summit was unlikely to yield a similar result.
The Bush-doctrine, as reiterated again by Secretary of State Condaleezza Rice on her recent trip to Brazil, stood in the way of any forceful rejection of Colombia’s behaviour. National security and the demands of the so-called “War on Terror” weigh heavier than national borders and the integrity of the state. What goes for Israel goes for Colombia too. In other words it’s OK to bomb your neighbours if you’re chasing terrorists.
The problem in Colombia is that sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the good guys and the bad. Almost certainly, the FARC are terrorists. Yesterday, for instance, a court in Granada, Colombia, sentenced the central command of the group to 39 years in prison for stuffing the corpse of 14 year-old child with explosives and using it in an attack in May of 2002.
But if they are terrorists, then so are the paramilitary groups responsible for executions, death squads and massive forced evacuations. These groups, accused of massacring peasants who fed the guerrillas, have benefited from a mass pardon and decommissioning of arms. They are free to go home. Meanwhile, Colombia has 3 million displaced people, second only to Sudan.
And if the paramilitaries are terrorists then so is the army that collaborated and supported them, as countless testimonies prove. And if found guilty, then the 40 congressmen under investigation for ties to the paramilitaries are also terrorists, including Senator Mario Uribe, the president’s cousin. So who do we bomb first?
Over to Ecuador. Up until now Rafael Correa was able to play the victim card with relative success, especially in the region. Unfortunately for Ecuador, it’s starting to look more and more like the Correa government has something to hide. Two damaging reports in Spain’s El Pais newspaper suggest that there was a lot more to relations between Correa and the FARC than the Ecuador’s president has acknowledged.
An article on March 12 reported on the apparent network of clandestine settlements that the FARC have in northern Ecuador. Basing its reports on the testimonies of defected rebels, El País claims there are eight functioning FARC bases that provide support for a large scale drug running network. “Ecuadorean army officers provide us with uniforms and logistical support,” says Miguel, an ex-guerrilla leader who worked closely with the slain Raul Reyes. He explained how Ecuador’s roads were used to transport drugs to and from Colombia, with the explicit knowledge of local authorities and army officers.
The sustained presence of the FARC in Ecuador was echoed by a story in Ecuador’s El Comercio yesterday. Ecuador’s police report that since 2004 26 rebel fighters have been arrested in the country and 117 FARC camps dismantled, as well as various drug rings in which local police and military were involved. The FARC obtain weapons from Peru in the south and treat their wounded in medical camps on Ecuadorean soil.
A second article in El País details the alleged funding of Correa’s presidential campaign by the 43-year-old insurgency group. Relying mainly on documents retrieved from Reyes’ three computers and on testimony of the same “Miguel,” the newspaper claims the FARC paid up to 100,000 dollars to “our friends in Ecuador.”
The former guerrilla fighter was quoted as saying that “we were informed that if we supported Rafael’s campaign economically and morally, in the case that Correa became president we could expect some benefits for the FARC, like for instance discussions about security in the border area.”
If the above is true, then Correa is in serious trouble (Afghanistan was bombed for less). He will have discredited himself with regional leaders, such Peru’s Alan Garcia and Mexico’s Felipe Calderón, who sided with him in his indignation over the Colombian attack. At home, where opposition figures initially rallied around the president and against Uribe, the outcry will be even greater. It doesn’t look good for the Correa administration, already struggling with a constitutional rewrite.
For now though, we must wait for the examination results of the computers seized from the FARC, a task entrusted to Interpol. The secretary-general of the international police organization went to Colombia personally, insisting his team will do an objective job.
Meanwhile though, the FARC has suffered a number of serious blows. A second guerrilla leader was killed by his bodyguard, turning himself in along with information as to the whereabouts of the body, EFE news agency reported yesterday. The fate of “Emilio,” as the commander of 37 Front was code named, is similar to that of “Ivan Ríos,” the FARC commander who was killed by his security chief 11 days ago. Ríos’ killer, who shot his boss, took his laptop and chopped of his right hand as evidence, will receive part of the 2.5 million dollar bounty, the Colombian government announced on Friday.
The decision to pay the killer will no doubt spurn more guerrilla fratricide. It has also turned President Alvaro Uribe into nothing better than a mob boss, forking out taxpayer’s cash for the deadliest hitman. Some might call that terrorism, too.
The meeting of the Organisation of American States, (OAS) was decidedly different from the Rio Group summit. This time round the US had a voice and a vote.
Where as the last meeting saw the region condemning the violation of national sovereignity in general and calling on Colombia to apologize for an unlawful incursion on its territory, yesterday’s summit was unlikely to yield a similar result.
The Bush-doctrine, as reiterated again by Secretary of State Condaleezza Rice on her recent trip to Brazil, stood in the way of any forceful rejection of Colombia’s behaviour. National security and the demands of the so-called “War on Terror” weigh heavier than national borders and the integrity of the state. What goes for Israel goes for Colombia too. In other words it’s OK to bomb your neighbours if you’re chasing terrorists.
The problem in Colombia is that sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between the good guys and the bad. Almost certainly, the FARC are terrorists. Yesterday, for instance, a court in Granada, Colombia, sentenced the central command of the group to 39 years in prison for stuffing the corpse of 14 year-old child with explosives and using it in an attack in May of 2002.
But if they are terrorists, then so are the paramilitary groups responsible for executions, death squads and massive forced evacuations. These groups, accused of massacring peasants who fed the guerrillas, have benefited from a mass pardon and decommissioning of arms. They are free to go home. Meanwhile, Colombia has 3 million displaced people, second only to Sudan.
And if the paramilitaries are terrorists then so is the army that collaborated and supported them, as countless testimonies prove. And if found guilty, then the 40 congressmen under investigation for ties to the paramilitaries are also terrorists, including Senator Mario Uribe, the president’s cousin. So who do we bomb first?
Over to Ecuador. Up until now Rafael Correa was able to play the victim card with relative success, especially in the region. Unfortunately for Ecuador, it’s starting to look more and more like the Correa government has something to hide. Two damaging reports in Spain’s El Pais newspaper suggest that there was a lot more to relations between Correa and the FARC than the Ecuador’s president has acknowledged.
An article on March 12 reported on the apparent network of clandestine settlements that the FARC have in northern Ecuador. Basing its reports on the testimonies of defected rebels, El País claims there are eight functioning FARC bases that provide support for a large scale drug running network. “Ecuadorean army officers provide us with uniforms and logistical support,” says Miguel, an ex-guerrilla leader who worked closely with the slain Raul Reyes. He explained how Ecuador’s roads were used to transport drugs to and from Colombia, with the explicit knowledge of local authorities and army officers.
The sustained presence of the FARC in Ecuador was echoed by a story in Ecuador’s El Comercio yesterday. Ecuador’s police report that since 2004 26 rebel fighters have been arrested in the country and 117 FARC camps dismantled, as well as various drug rings in which local police and military were involved. The FARC obtain weapons from Peru in the south and treat their wounded in medical camps on Ecuadorean soil.
A second article in El País details the alleged funding of Correa’s presidential campaign by the 43-year-old insurgency group. Relying mainly on documents retrieved from Reyes’ three computers and on testimony of the same “Miguel,” the newspaper claims the FARC paid up to 100,000 dollars to “our friends in Ecuador.”
The former guerrilla fighter was quoted as saying that “we were informed that if we supported Rafael’s campaign economically and morally, in the case that Correa became president we could expect some benefits for the FARC, like for instance discussions about security in the border area.”
If the above is true, then Correa is in serious trouble (Afghanistan was bombed for less). He will have discredited himself with regional leaders, such Peru’s Alan Garcia and Mexico’s Felipe Calderón, who sided with him in his indignation over the Colombian attack. At home, where opposition figures initially rallied around the president and against Uribe, the outcry will be even greater. It doesn’t look good for the Correa administration, already struggling with a constitutional rewrite.
For now though, we must wait for the examination results of the computers seized from the FARC, a task entrusted to Interpol. The secretary-general of the international police organization went to Colombia personally, insisting his team will do an objective job.
Meanwhile though, the FARC has suffered a number of serious blows. A second guerrilla leader was killed by his bodyguard, turning himself in along with information as to the whereabouts of the body, EFE news agency reported yesterday. The fate of “Emilio,” as the commander of 37 Front was code named, is similar to that of “Ivan Ríos,” the FARC commander who was killed by his security chief 11 days ago. Ríos’ killer, who shot his boss, took his laptop and chopped of his right hand as evidence, will receive part of the 2.5 million dollar bounty, the Colombian government announced on Friday.
The decision to pay the killer will no doubt spurn more guerrilla fratricide. It has also turned President Alvaro Uribe into nothing better than a mob boss, forking out taxpayer’s cash for the deadliest hitman. Some might call that terrorism, too.
posted by PIT @ 10:48 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home