January 2011 Colombia Peace Update

Pentagon Building “Advanced Operations” Base in Colombia

Despite Constitutional Court Striking Down Base Agreement

by John Lindsay-Poland

U.S. military agencies in September 2010 signed contracts for construction at Tolemaida, Larandia and Malaga bases in Colombia worth nearly US$5 million, according to official U.S. documents available to the Fellowship of Reconciliation. U.S. military contracts for Tolemaida [Excel file] in the fiscal year ending September 30 were larger than the last four years combined.

The contracts included two for an “Advanced Operations Base” [pdf files] for the U.S. Southern Command special operations unit in Tolemaida, located south of Bogota. The special operations unit, known as SOCSOUTH, has as its mission “the use of small units in direct or indirect military actions that are focused on strategic or operational objectives,” including “provid[ing] an immediately deployable theater crisis response force.”

Last August, Colombia’s Constitutional Court struck down the agreement that would give the United States military use of seven bases in Colombia for ten years, because the agreement was never submitted for Congressional approval or judicial review. Yet, even after the agreement was declared “non-existent” by Colombia’s highest court, the Pentagon initiated unprecedented amounts of new construction on bases in Colombia. The contracts place in serious doubt the Pentagon’s respect for Colombian sovereignty.

The base agreement also provoked strong regional opposition in 2009 after Pentagon planning and budget documents referred to “anti-U.S. governments” and the use of “full spectrum operations” in the region, indicating that the Pentagon seeks to project military power in South America. The construction now of a U.S.“advanced operations base” in Colombia raises similar concerns.

Besides the contracts naming military bases, there were also military contracts for $2.5 million construction at unnamed locations in Colombia signed in September. The new contracts may have been signed in September in order to spend funds allotted for the U.S. 2010 fiscal year, which ended September 30. Another military construction contract described as being for “Talemaida Avaition” [sic] for $5.5 million was signed in October 2009, just days before the United States and Colombia signed a military base agreement, and is scheduled to be completed by the end of this month. There was no mention of Palanquero, Apiay or Malambo, other bases included in the October 2009 agreement, in the contract information.

The contract information indicates commitments to fund US military construction at bases in Tolemaida, Larandia and Malaga in Colombia. The Army Corps info also shows plans to build an integrated logistics center in various locations in Colombia, for $14 million, apparently funded by Colombia itself, through a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) account. However, FMS projects frequently offer the United States the potential for continued access through “interoperability” and lowers costs for the buyer.

Annotated map of U.S. military construction in Latin America

FMS projects “promote standardization (by providing customers with defense articles identical to those used by U.S. forces) [and] provide contract administration services which may not be readily available otherwise,” according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

US Military increases Construction in Region. The Army Corps on Engineers Mobile District’s plans [pdf file] indicate that US military construction in Central and South America has more than doubled this year compared to 2009. This includes a Southern Command Counter-Narco-terrorism account that is funding construction in summer 2011 of facilities in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Ecuador and Belize, as well as a $10 million upgrade in Soto Cano, Honduras. [see our interactive map for details]

Facilities funded through the Counter Narco-terrorism account are generally for strictly military uses, not for civilians, nor for unarmed approaches to social and economic problems. Moreover, the Army Corps explicitly recognizes the military uses of even civilian-oriented projects. “Every soldier a sensor” proclaimed Lester Dixon, program director for the Corps’ division that operates in Central and South America. Corps “Civilians/Soldiers can collect information and intelligence” and “provide entry point into country” Dixon said in November. [pdf, see p. 5] He noted that Central and South America are “key locations of recent interest.”

It is important to note that U.S. construction of a base does not necessarily mean that the United States will have title to the base or keep personnel there. But it is an intelligence asset to know in detail another nation’s military base, and it contributes to “interoperability” — that is, integration — of armed forces. Public disclsoure of access agreements for U.S. forces is key, since these will shape the terms of U.S. use of the military facilities.

From Bogota to Kabul. On September 30, the US military’s Transportation Command signed two contracts, to be performed out of the airport in Bogota, for “Afghanistan rotary wing pax and cargo movement”, to be carried out by the Medellin-based Vertical de Aviacion Ltda. The contract shows how United States is using the Colombian military to support the war in Afghanistan, which has become unpopular in the US as well as in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Education and Strategy Conference on U.S. Militarism

Washington, DC — April 8-10, 2011

Pre-Register Now
Sponsored by: Latin America Solidarity Coalition
in Conjunction with School of the Americas Watch Days of Action
April 4-11, 2011

Register now to attend an informative and exciting conference to build a larger movement to end US militarism and the militarization of US relations with Latin America and the world. Join Latin America solidarity activists, people of faith, academics, youth and students, anti-war and immigration activists, labor, women, and all sectors which are working to build a better world. The United States is at a crossroads. Down one road lies permanent war, a stagnant economy and loss of liberty. Down the other lies a new world of cooperation, prosperity and freedom. This conference is all about how we can work together to travel on the road to a new and better world.

Please join us for a weekend of plenaries and workshops to educate and inspire each other and to plan actions, strategies, and organizing tools to build a greater movement to overcome US militarism. Participate in SOA Watch’s Days of Action including lobbying and direct action to shut down the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, better known as the School of the Americas. Agitate for closing US military bases in Latin America and for an end to US militarization throughout the Americas and the world. Click HERE to register.

We recognize that US militarism affects both the entire world and everything about our daily lives. If you are working to end US wars, morally stand in favor of peace, are in solidarity with the oppressed, are working to end racism and the criminalization of immigrants, stand solidly in favor of our First Amendment freedoms, or are working to create new economic models that defend the interests of workers and farmers over those of corporations and bankers — then you should attend this conference to build a strong and unified movement against US militarism.

Some topics covered by this conference will include: US military bases, military spending, immigration and border militarization, coups, war profiteers, privatization of war, closing the School of the Americas, foreign military and police aid, growing our skills in media, research, and other organizing, counter recruitment and support for active duty resisters, US relations with Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Haiti, Mexico, Honduras, etc., organizing within sectors to resist militarism, cross movement organizing, domestic costs of militarism, direct action, and much more.

Register HERE and visit the LASC web page for low-cost and free housing options. Visit the web page frequently to see updates on workshops, plenary speakers, direct actions and other preparatory information. Visit the SOA Watch Days of Action web page: for details on actions scheduled from April 4-11, 2011. We recommend that you plan your trip to participate in SOA Watch’s activities before the conference and advocacy day on April 11.

Demilitarize Your Life!

Daniel Serna Henao is one of four conscientious objectors to be recognized by a court in Medellín, Colombia. Here, he tells his story.

Mothers of Soacha: “Those who killed our sons have received medals and awards”

By Angel Gonzalo, Amnesty International

In 2008, it was discovered that the [Colombian] army had executed more than a dozen young men from Soacha, a poor neighborhood just outside of Bogotá. The government was forced to acknowledge that the armed forces were responsible for extrajudicial executions, as well as to adopt measures to address the problem. The young men had been taken to the north of the country with the promise of a job. After being killed, the army presented them as “guerrillas killed in combat.”

In the majority of the cases, the soldiers received money, days off, and a letter congratulating them for “having killed a member of the guerillas.” Those responsible for the murders removed the victims’ identity documents and attempted to hide the bodies. Since they discovered the common graves in which their sons were burred, 17 mothers and other family members of the victims have gone to the streets to beg for justice. That hasn’t been easy: they have been threatened, attacked and submitted to surveillance with the aim of silencing them.

Last November, during their visit to Spain, I spoke with Luz Marina Porras and María Ubilerma Sanabria, whose sons Fair Leonardo (26 years old and mentally handicapped) and Jaime Estiven (16 years old) were executed.

What is the current status of your demands for justice?

Luz: There still is not justice. Some hearings have begun in my son’s case and in other cases, but there haven’t been advances and the Attorney General has put up all kinds of obstacles in order to delay the cases. In many of the cases, nothing has happened, and it’s already been two years.

What have you asked of the government?

Luz: That it helps bring about justice and that there is no impunity. That there are prosecutors and judges assigned to these cases and that cases are also opened in the 3,183 cases of extrajudicial executions that have been documented in the country. The current president, Juan Manuel Santos, was Minister of Defense when our sons were executed. He has a responsibility and he can’t look the other way.

María: Now that he is president, he has to do what is in his power so that there is justice, and that the cases get moving. We can’t wait any longer. They killed our sons.

What response have you received from the Colombian authorities?

Luz: Nothing. We found the bodies of our sons in common graves very far from our homes, without identification, and we haven’t even received assistance to transport their bodies. We are in a lot of debt for that.

When did you decide to seek justice?

María: When we found out that our sons were executed by soldiers, or with their collaboration, and that the State was involved. We couldn’t believe it. They took them from home, promising jobs. And they killed them.

Where do you get the strength to fight after having lost a son and receiving threats?

Luz: The strength that we as mothers have comes from love for our sons. As mothers, we have to fight, to demand the rights of our dead sons, so that the truth is known and that justice is served. Our sons were our greatest treasure. Ex-president Álvaro Uribe offered us money to silence the Mothers of Soacha, but it didn’t work. Our sons are not for sale. We are poor women and we are fighting against the government, which doesn’t want to accept responsibility, but we will not tire.

María: When I hear a motorcycle nearby, I sometimes tremble because I think that it’s coming for me or for someone in my family, since we have received threats. But we continue to go out to the streets, we show up at events, we go where we are invited so that what happened is known. We won’t sit around at home crying all day for our loss. We carry photos of our sons everywhere so that people see who they are. This is not made up, we don’t do this to do damage to our country, rather to denounce that our sons were killed. In fact, I think we are useful for the country, because we want justice not just for ourselves, but also for all the victims. Hopefully there will be no more disappeared people, no more killed, in Colombia. We invite all mothers to denounce, without fear.

What did you do when your sons disappeared?

Luz: After the disappearance of our sons, we searched for eight months. We didn’t know what had happened. When my son disappeared, we went three times to the Attorney General’s office, where I was denied the possibility of denouncing his disappearance. So we searched using our own methods: in clinics, hospitals, and hostels— I knew that there was the possibility of going to Medicina Legal (government medical and forensic institute) to review photos of cadavers, but I didn’t want to even think that my son was dead. I looked among the homeless, fearing that my son, since he had a mental handicap, could have lost his memory and ended up somewhere alone and defenseless. And look, he was dead. They had murdered him.

María: They had everything prepared. We are people of scant resources, we are heads of poor families, and I’m sure they said, these women won’t come looking for their sons, which is why they took them far away and killed them. Disappeared, without identification, in a common grace, and labeled guerrillas. How absurd! They killed them as if it was nothing.

Who supports you in your struggle?

María: In Colombia we don’t have institutional support, but we have encountered support from NGOs and associations in our country like the Jose Alvear Restrepo Legal Collective, MINGA, MOVICE (Movement of Victims of State Crimes) and Amnesty International at the global level. We are very grateful. Thanks to this support, we can keep going despite the threats and everything that is said against us.

Luz: The laws also exist to protect the most vulnerable, those without resources. Some soldiers have been discharged for the Soacha case, but no one has been imprisoned. As mothers, this situation pains us, but we will not stop. Those who killed our sons have received medals and large rewards, yet we have received nothing. We get strength from the support of Amnesty International and its campaigns about us; it helps us know that we are not alone and we have to continue fighting. Thank you to all.

Source: Revista Amnistía Internacional. Enero-Febrero 2011 No 106.

New Threats against the Peace Community

Recently some news made us all jump up from our office seats in front of our mini-mac. José Obdulio Gaviria, a former aide to ex-Colombian-president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, hosts what is — luckily — a not widely-viewed cable TV show called Cablenoticias, together with Jaime Arturo Restrepo, the president of the association of civil victims of the guerrillas. On January 6, they accused several members of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó of being guerrilla leaders and threats to the country.

It was not the first time such harassment has happened. Since the enormous international outcry after the massacre of eight people, including three children, in 2005, massacres against the Peace Community have stopped. The risk of another international response like the one in 2005, which resulted in the six-month suspension of a portion of U.S. military aid to Colombia, has led, it seems, the Colombian government and its paramilitary allies to believe that massacres are not worth the political cost.

This does not mean, however, that Peace Community members are no longer at risk. There are still selective assassinations and continuous threats from the local public forces as well as from other armed groups. On December 11, for example, the police reportedly stopped, interrogated, and insulted a community member at a roadblock. During the community’s pilgrimage in Bogota on November 2, some police officers went to the place where they were staying and told the porter that they were hosting guerrillas, according to the community. This leads to a general environment of fear on the part of community members and a reluctance to travel far from their homes.

Nonetheless, the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó continues steadfast in its principles of neutrality and in its conflict with the Colombian state over its ability to maintain that neutrality and independence.

In recent years we have seen multiple examples of media attempts to strip the community of its credibility and support network by accusing it of collaboration with the guerrillas. Specifically targeting community leaders with these accusations, the accusers put the community and especially the leaders at risk given the regularity of targeted assassinations against those accused of guerrilla collaboration.

These accusations have been published in local, national and even international media — such as an op-ed by Mary Anastasia O’Grady in the Wall Street Journal in December 2009. A similar article in June 2009, in the Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland even led the Netherlands’ Foreign Ministry to temporarily question the community’s neutrality.

Accusations such as Gaviria’s always fill us with indignation, especially those of us who know personally the accused individuals. FOR volunteers have lived alongside the Peace Community and their members, and have had the chance to get to know their wonderful character and their commitment to nonviolence and neutrality. We know that the accusations are unfounded, and we know how much it affects their personal security.

News Brief

A message from Collective Action of Conscientious Objectors:

José Luis Peña, conscientious objector, was freed!

His freedom is provisional, but it is still big news for us. José Luis was detained because he refused to return to the ranks of the Colombian army, one month and a half after he had been recruited in a street round-up. José Luis declared himself a conscientious objector and was later transferred from Bogota to Leticia against his will, to fulfill his military service as a regular soldier. After almost two months of being prisoner, a judge in the military justice system ordered his provisional freedom, arguing that the way in which he was recruited was illegal, but refrained from making a decision to define his status as a conscientious objector.

To update you since the above was written, José Luis’ case as a conscientious objector was denied in Bogota and is currently being appealed. Additionally, the Constitutional Court of Colombia has taken up his case as an example to be reviewed. Their decision could affect the future of other conscientious objectors in Colombia.

Although José Luis didn’t have a good experience while he was being held at the military brigade in Leticia, he has returned to Bogota with a lot of energy to continue working on his case and to advance the cause of conscientious objectors in Colombia! If you would like to write a message to him directly, you can here: objecionbogota@gmail.com