Colombia: School of the Americas light?
The Colombian military and police have, by far, the worst record of human rights abuses in the Western Hemisphere. Over the last 7 years, more than 2,000 innocent civilians have bee killed by the Colombian army and then presented as guerrilla or paramilitary killed in combat to bump up the body count numbers and qualify for bonuses, vacation time and promotions. The Army has also been involved in the execution of horrific massacres of innocent civilians, including children such as Santiago and Natalia Bolivar and Deiner Guerra (18 months old, 5 and 11), chopped up with machetes in February 2005 along with their parents, all San Jose de Apartado Peace Community members.
The record of the Colombian Police is not brighter. Human Rights Watch, in recently released report, describes on going links between the police and the “heirs of paramilitaries”, bands that, although have undergone slight changes such as leadership, names and areas of influence, continue working as death squads, threatening, killing and raping union leaders, human rights defenders and community leaders, particularly those working to defend the rights of the victims of paramilitary abuses and restitution of forcebly grabbed land .
Ironically those tainted institutions are being hailed as models delivering training to the armed forces of countries in Latin America, Africa and Europe. Colombian daily El Espectador unveiled the existence of military cooperation agreements signed by Colombia with Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone and Togo. The text of such agreements is unknown. Military personnel from the United Kingdom, Chile, Spain and Ecuador would have also received training by Colombian armed forces, as well as the police from Panama, Haiti, El Salvador, Argentina and Trinidad and Tobago.
The United States has a key role in the rise of the Colombian armed forces in the military education ranking. Outsourcing training has been a key component of the October 2009 US Colombia Military Cooperation agreement —the same agreement that opened all Colombian military bases and locations to US use.
Colombia has also gotten in the business of providing assistance to Afghanistan military and police forces. Its record has been extolled as the reason for their involvement in Afghanistan. In a July 27, 2009 CBS piece, Lara Logan excitedly reported Colombian participation in the Afghanistan war, noting that “with the help of America’s best warriors, Colombian Special Forces have become some of the finest soldiers in the world”. Logan backed her claims on Col assertions of Colonel Greg Wilson’s assertion that "I would rank it as one of the top special operations in modern day history" and finished her piece with the statement of an unnamed top US official saying "The more Afghanistan can look like Colombia, the better."
The US military incursion in Afghanistan has had devastating in terms of collateral damage. It took over 2,400 civilian casualties in 2009 alone according to a UN report released in past January. A pretty grim picture that would only worsen if started to resemble Colombia.
The record of the Colombian Police is not brighter. Human Rights Watch, in recently released report, describes on going links between the police and the “heirs of paramilitaries”, bands that, although have undergone slight changes such as leadership, names and areas of influence, continue working as death squads, threatening, killing and raping union leaders, human rights defenders and community leaders, particularly those working to defend the rights of the victims of paramilitary abuses and restitution of forcebly grabbed land .
Ironically those tainted institutions are being hailed as models delivering training to the armed forces of countries in Latin America, Africa and Europe. Colombian daily El Espectador unveiled the existence of military cooperation agreements signed by Colombia with Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone and Togo. The text of such agreements is unknown. Military personnel from the United Kingdom, Chile, Spain and Ecuador would have also received training by Colombian armed forces, as well as the police from Panama, Haiti, El Salvador, Argentina and Trinidad and Tobago.
The United States has a key role in the rise of the Colombian armed forces in the military education ranking. Outsourcing training has been a key component of the October 2009 US Colombia Military Cooperation agreement —the same agreement that opened all Colombian military bases and locations to US use.
Colombia has also gotten in the business of providing assistance to Afghanistan military and police forces. Its record has been extolled as the reason for their involvement in Afghanistan. In a July 27, 2009 CBS piece, Lara Logan excitedly reported Colombian participation in the Afghanistan war, noting that “with the help of America’s best warriors, Colombian Special Forces have become some of the finest soldiers in the world”. Logan backed her claims on Col assertions of Colonel Greg Wilson’s assertion that "I would rank it as one of the top special operations in modern day history" and finished her piece with the statement of an unnamed top US official saying "The more Afghanistan can look like Colombia, the better."
The US military incursion in Afghanistan has had devastating in terms of collateral damage. It took over 2,400 civilian casualties in 2009 alone according to a UN report released in past January. A pretty grim picture that would only worsen if started to resemble Colombia.
