August 2007 Peace Presence Update

August 23, 2007
In this Update:

School of Americas Instructors Served in Colombian Mafia

By John Lindsay-Poland

The Colombian Army’s Third Brigade, based in Cali, was deeply penetrated by drug trafficking mafia, according to a recent criminal investigation. “What the prosecutors’ investigation has shown as it progresses,” reported Semana magazine, “is that ‘Don Diego’ [a drug mafia kingpin] didn’t just buy these officers in exchange for one-time favors, but that many of them belonged to his organization. They were part of the mafia and put their jobs in the Army at its service.” Brigade commander Leonardo Gómez Vergara resigned August 16 as a result of the investigation, and a dozen other officers have been arrested or are under investigation.

Colonel Álvaro Quijano — who served as an instructor at U.S. Army School of the Americas — was arrested on August 15, while the former chief of the brigade’s operations, Lt. Colonel Javier Escobar Martíez, has also been arrested and accused of mobilizing army units to protect the drug trafficker. Javier Rico Escobar graduated from the SOA in 2003, having studied “counter-drug operations” there. Quijano, former commander of Colombia’s Special Forces en Valle Department, and another accused officer, Major Wilmer Mora Daza, taught “peacekeeping operations” and “democratic sustainment” at SOA in 2003.

The Valle army ‘special forces’ provided security to the capo, according to the daily El Tiempo, but also guarded drug shipments that left Colombia via the Pacific Ocean from Chocó in the north to Nariño near the Ecuador border. U.S. military officials have claimed that a reason a U.S. military base is needed in Manta, Ecuador is to intercept increased drug trafficking in the eastern Pacific.

The commander of the Army’s Third Division (General Hernando Pérez Molina, another SOA grad), to which the Third Brigade belongs, was relieved of his post. The Third Division’s command staff had been vetted to receive U.S. military assistance as of July 2006, according to the State Department.

Last year, Colombian army officers from the Third Brigade ambushed an elite, U.S.-trained anti-drug squad in the Valle town of Jamundí, killing ten policemen. The leader of the attack, Colonel Bayron Carvajal, now under arrest, was also a graduate of the SOA.

The Third Brigade’s collaboration with the mafia is apparently no isolated case. Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos admitted that more than 150 military officers have been suspended in the last year, accused of collaborating with drug traffickers. Among them was the Colombian Navy’s Rear Admiral Gabriel Arango Bacci, who is suspended and under investigation for helping drug traffickers to evade naval patrols by Colombian and U.S. ships in the Caribbean. Criminal investigators saw a red flag when last year traffickers were found with naval documents showing the locations and operations of Colombian and U.S. ships in the area. The evidence against Arango includes receipts from traffickers for $500,000, with his verified fingerprint and signature. Arango was commander of the San Andrés and Providencia Islands naval area; his unit was vetted to receive U.S. military assistance.

Reducing Aerial Fumigation in the Drug War

Source: Miami Herald, July 30, 2007

Colombia announced in July it will favor manual eradication of coca crops over the current system that focuses heavily on aerial fumigation. The spray program has been the source of endless legal, social and diplomatic conflicts because of the controversy over the health and environmental effects of the chemicals. The latest estimates of coca acreage — showing little drop — have fueled doubts on the effectiveness of the spray program. And the new Democratic majority in the U.S. Congress is viewed as less friendly toward spraying.

“Instead of uniting Colombians around the idea of eradicating drugs, [aerial spraying] causes complaints and provokes reactions against eradication,” President Álvaro Uribe said in a July 20 speech in which he announced the shift. He said spraying would remain only a “marginal” part of the counter-drug strategy.

Many longtime critics of the fumigation policy applauded the decision, including the government in neighboring Ecuador, for whom aerial spraying along the border had become a major diplomatic issue with Colombia.

Coca growers often replant crops damaged by aerial fumigations, and plants often grow back stronger after fumigation. They also have learned to coat leaves with a sugary substance to protect them against the herbicide glyphosate. Manual eradicators do a more thorough job by chopping off bigger plants, uprooting smaller ones and destroying plant nurseries that otherwise quickly would replace plants killed by the aerial spraying.

The U.S. government has limited its contributions to previous manual eradication efforts in Colombia, supplying only logistical support for the programs such as aircraft fuel. But Colombian, U.S. State Department and U.S. congressional officials are looking into a major overhaul of Plan Colombia rules that would allow more U.S. assistance for manual eradication efforts, several persons familiar with the conversations say.

The Senate version of the Foreign Appropriations bill earmarks $10 million of the military aid specifically for operations to provide security for manual eradication, and stipulates that funds for aerial fumigation could only be used in specific areas where the State Department has certified that manual eradication is not feasible.

This year, Defense Minister Santos said, the government expects to manually eradicate 173,000 acres, and spray 321,000. But Victoria Restrepo, head of the government’s manual eradication program, said she cringes every time she hears Santos announce the target. She told The Miami Herald that with the resources she now has, she barely will make her agency’s original target for the year of 123,500 acres. So far this year, eradicators have cleared just under 60,000 acres.

Analysts warn, however, that any eradication efforts not accompanied by comprehensive efforts to give farmers a legal alternative to coca growing are doomed to fail. “The farmers have to be taken into account. Otherwise, they will just wait for the eradicators to leave, and they will replant,” said Astrid Puente of the environmental group AIDA, which monitors fumigation in Colombia.

The Truth about Triple-A

Michael Evans, Director, National Security Archives Colombia Documentation Project
[Published in Spanish at Semana.com, July 1, 2007]

Colombia's rapidly unfolding 'para-politics' scandal has renewed focus on official links to the country's illegal right-wing terror groups, especially among the armed forces. The flood of recent revelations, stemming in part from the government's paramilitary demobilization program, has also gravely impacted relations with Washington, holding up a trade agreement and jeopardizing millions in U.S. assistance.

Now, a 1979 diplomatic report from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá raises additional questions about the paramilitary ties of embattled Colombian army commander Gen. Mario Montoya Uribe. Montoya came under scrutiny in March after the Los Angeles Times published information from a classified CIA report linking him to a paramilitary group in 2002.

The 1979 Embassy cable, released as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Security Archive, reveals that a Colombian army intelligence battalion linked to Montoya secretly created and staffed a clandestine terror unit in 1978-79 under the guise of the American Anti-communist Alliance (AAA or Triple-A). The group was responsible for a number of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations against leftist targets during that period.

The formerly 'Secret' cable, a review of Colombia's human rights record from U.S. Ambassador Diego Asencio, is also the first declassified evidence that a top Colombian military official directly authorized a paramilitary terror operation.

According to the report, then-army commander Gen. Jorge Robledo Pulido approved the plan by the 'Charry Solano' Intelligence and Counterintelligence Battalion (BINCI) "to create the impression that the American Anti-communist Alliance has established itself in Colombia and is preparing to take violent action against local communists."

Previously declassified U.S. intelligence reports have revealed that Colombian officers often turned a blind eye to the rightist militias, which are blamed for a large number of massacres and forced displacements in Colombia over the last decade. The Colombian government has long denied official links to paramilitaries, explaining that instances of direct collaboration were isolated and not the result of an explicit strategy. The country's largest paramilitary umbrella organization, the United Self-defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), was added to the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in 2001.

The Asencio cable confirms that Gen. Robledo was more than simply acquiescent to paramilitarism and actively promoted the military's direct involvement in rightist terror operations even as the modern paramilitary movement was still taking shape. The document also suggests that many of the young officers involved in those operations like Montoya have risen to influential positions in the Colombian armed forces at a time when the institution is supposedly severing ties with paramilitary groups.

Gen. Montoya, now a top military adviser to President Álvaro Uribe, was assigned to BINCI at the time of the Triple-A operation, according to five former members of the battalion who in 1980 detailed the unit's terror operations in the pages of the Mexican newspaper El Día. The officers named then-Lt. Mario Montoya as the mastermind behind the bombing of the Communist Party newspaper Voz Proletaria.

The U.S. has examined Gen. Montoya's alleged ties toTriple-A on several occasions as part of a human rights vetting process for recipients of U.S military assistance. In each case, the U.S. found no evidence to support the charges and dismissed them as leftist slander.

Allegations of paramilitary collusion have dogged Montoya throughout his career. The discovery of a mass grave in the southern department of Putumayo in March 2007 has raised questions about Gen. Montoya's actions as commander of Joint Task Force South, the US-funded unit charged with coordinating counternarcotics and counterguerrilla operations in that region from 1999-2001. Investigators estimate that the more than 100 victims of paramilitary violence found in the grave were killed over the same two-year period that Montoya led the Task Force.

Click here for the rest of Michael Evans’ article on General Montoya and links to the declassified documents.

Quote of the Month:

“Legal sources on both sides say there was a genuine debate within the [U.S.] Justice Department about the seriousness of the crime of paying AUC. For some high-level administration officials, Chiquita's payments were not aiding an obvious terrorism threat such as al-Qaeda; instead, the cash was going to a violent South American group helping a major U.S. company maintain a stabilizing presence in Colombia.”

- In Terrorism-Law Case, Chiquita Points to U.S., Washington Post August 2, 2007

Emergency Delegation to Respond to Bogotá Robberies
September 17-25

Witness for Peace and Justapaz are organizing an emergency delegation to Colombia in response to the burglaries of Justapaz, FOR, Corporación Yira Castro and other groups. We invite you to participate in this delegation that will enable you to stand in solidarity and meet with courageous with human rights defenders, churches leaders and NGOs in Colombia. Hear their stories and experience first-hand the important peace work that is being constructed in Colombia. International support is vital to the protection of these NGOs and an effective means to call for action in response to these violations.

Cost: The price of the 9-day delegation is $960. The delegation fee covers all reading materials, set-up, preparation, meals, lodging, and interpretation. The delegation fee does not include airfare to or within Colombia. For more information and to register for this delegation, contact Ken Crowley at: 202-547-6112 or ken@witnessforpeace.org

FOR Presents:
Grassroots Civilian Diplomacy: Activists in the Halls of Power

A Two-day Training on Advocacy for Demilitarization

WHEN: Sunday-Monday November 4-5, 2007
(Sunday 1 pm — Monday 3:30 pm)
WHERE: Washington, DC

Being able to advocate for a society that uses nonviolent means to achieve its goals is part of the community-based power that will help us bring about the world we seek. FOR is working to demilitarize US policy towards Colombia, the Middle East and among US youth and schools. To walk in this path we invite you to join us with your energy and ideas. In this hands-on training, FOR brings together experienced advocates, issue experts and people like you to learn more, act strongly and create a peaceful and just future for everyone.

Participants in the training will develop public advocacy skills through practice and through actual visits with public officials. The group will explore ways to:

Impact policy through visiting members of Congress (of your area)
Organize and build community through strategic policy change
Work in teams across faiths, generations, and cultures

We encourage you to participate in this training with a partner from your local community or group, to strengthen relationships and support each other in using these skills on your return home. Let us know if you would like support in finding a partner from your area!

Please register by October 15, 2007
Registration cost: $25 — $75 sliding scale
To register, contact: Sharon Martin, smartin@forusa.org

Housing: Participants who are able to should make their own housing arrangements. Contact us for a list of suggested affordable lodging.

Letter from the Field:
Independence Day Event Uses a New Strategy

By Camila Nieves

Aren’t independence and freedom supposed to be synonymous? If we assume that this is the case, then according to the Medellí Youth Network — the Red Juvenil — there is no reason to celebrate Independence Day in Colombia, since freedom is one of those luxuries that most Colombians have not yet been allowed to enjoy. This July 20, Colombia’s Independence Day, Medellí youth took to the streets accompanied by various national and international social organizations to tell the state that, until there is an end to the violence of a half-century-long conflict, until there is an end to obligatory military recruitment of youth, until there is an end to massive displacement, there will be no reason to celebrate independence.

Every year the Red Juvenil organizes an anti-independence day action, but this year the event was organized with a bit of a twist, different from that of your traditional political action. Some might have observed that the main difference this year was the appearance of the march. The theme was of a loud boisterous carnival, of laughter and music, of dancing and acrobats. But the real difference was not in the change of costume, or the chirimia band playing the whole way through. It was a change of feeling, a difference of emotion, a change of strategy for this youth resistance movement. They wanted to see if a tactic different from the traditional angry protesters yelling in the streets would help them achieve their goal of raising awareness in the community. This year they decided to confront the anger and repression of the state with love and laughter.

This was not simply a change in strategy for the Red Juvenil but it marked a change in consciousness of these young people. They spent months preparing for the event with trainings for youth in the barrios of Medellí, critically analyzing the concept of enemies that had been so accepted before. No longer did they want to confront as enemies these young officers who at one point or another had been forced to serve the armed forces. They journeyed through a long process of understanding the way in which this war has used poor Colombian men and women to fight against fellow oppressed brothers and sisters.

The Red had always known this, and it has been a central part of their discourse. But now it was about putting it into practice. How could they make their political message clear and yet not alienate many of the people that they wanted to reach? How could they change their image of angry youth rioters so that common people would feel a level of trust and desire to listen to them? They found that way through a cultural expression of resistance, using traditional music and dance to win over the hearts and ears of a community.

In the end, their mission was successful. During a two-hour-long march through the streets of central Medellí, dozens of passers-by joined them, including private school girls, mothers and interested onlookers. They invaded busses that where forced to stand still because of the protest and filled them with loud music and colorful dance while the entire bus read their pamphlets which were entitled “What Independence? Free your Consciousness.” They danced around highly decorated officers as they tied balloons and streamers to their motorbikes, and even to their rifles.

The people danced to traditional coastal Colombian music with political slogans as the choruses. “What independence if there is forced recruitment? What independence if even the water is a business? What independence if there is so much unemployment? What independence if poverty is rising? What independence if there is massive displacement? What independence if the state built 11 new prisons this year while they can’t find enough money for education?”

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August 2007 Peace Presence Update

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End U.S. Military Aid to Colombia

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