Colombia in the cross hairs of U.S. drug war

MADISON, Wis. -- The drug war. A war waged by the U.S. government
against its own citizenry. The losses we as U.S. citizens have
experienced are enormous. More than one million people arrested,
shackled and made prisoners of this war. The real question is how far
will we let the government go?

Democrats and Republicans on both sides of the political spectrum
have unilaterally decided, without many debates open to the public,
to escalate the drug war. Pentagon military machine officials long
ago dismissed the idea that impoverished countries should have
national sovereignty. In the last couple of years we have sat back
and watched the U.S. government bomb the countries of Sudan, Iraq,
Serbia and Afghanistan. Not content with immiserating U.S. citizens,
our rulers now have their sights locked on Colombia.

For the past 40 years the Colombian government has been engaged in
armed battle with an entrenched guerrilla army. The violence has
displaced hundreds of thousands of peasant farmers and sent the
Colombian economy into a tailspin increasing the unemployment rate to
a staggering 20 percent.

Paramilitary groups are massacring and kidnapping people on an almost
daily basis, and out of all the kidnappings in the world, 50 percent
occur in Colombia. Almost all of the 3,706 people kidnapped last year
were taken by guerrillas as a way to secure funds to fight the
Colombian military.

These guerrilla groups also attain wealth by persuading peasants to
grow coca plants on the land. They present these poor farmers with an
offer they can't refuse -- either grow coca and receive a little
money for it or lose their land and possibly their life. The fact
that cocaine is illegal in the United States drives the drug's
profit-earning potential through the roof, making drug profiteers
millions of dollars.

The president of Colombia, Andres Pastrana, has made an international
plea for humanitarian aid to help rebuild the Colombian economy. The
Clinton administration instead approved $1.6 billion that would go
directly to counter-insurgency missions and spraying toxic chemicals
throughout the jungle.

The same day, 26 villagers were beaten to death by right-wing
paramilitary troops. Former President Bill Clinton employed a
loophole in Plan Colombia in which he voluntarily decided to waive
certification that the Colombian government has complied with human
rights demands attached to Plan Colombia legislation.

These demands set up requirements that the Colombian military show
proof they are working to suppress paramilitary death squads, and
that the military not engage in massacres of peasants. Amnesty
International has found numerous cases in which "paramilitaries work
hand in hand with the government forces."

Besides the complete absurdity contained in the idea that more guns
and Black Hawk choppers will bring peace to a country with a surplus
of violence, the U.S. plan will also spray rain forest ecosystems
with deadly chemicals. The government claims only large plots of coca
plant will be sprayed, but there are several documented cases of
"Cofan Indians who had their food crops, medicinal plants, fish
harvesting tanks and grazing fields sprayed," according to Amnesty
International.

Colombia is also a security interest for multinational corporations
in the region. Colombia has major ports of trade on the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans that are necessary for petroleum shipping. Occidental
Petroleum and British Petroleum-Amoco hire private security forces
directly from the ranks of paramilitary death squads. Efforts by the
indigenous U'wa to stop oil drilling in their rainforests have been
met with violence from corporate security forces.

President Bush has scoffed at peace talk efforts with the rebel
forces of Colombia, diminishing any chance for coca reduction and
sustainable crop substitution programs. As a result, rebel forces of
Colombia have called off peace with the Colombian government.

The United States continues to use millions of our tax dollars to
finance a civil war. Both Democrat and Republican administrations are
exporting a failed and brutal drug war abroad. Both the geo-political
interests of the U.S. military and its corporate paymasters threaten
regional stability and peace.

The drug war must end. If the U.S. government was genuinely concerned
for the safety of its citizens, it would use our surplus money for
social programs. Reducing poverty, raising the minimum wage and
providing universal health care would drastically reduce the demand
for cocaine. It's time to take democracy back.