On December 19, 2000, the Colombian army’s two U.S.-trained anti-narcotics battalions arrived in Putumayo, Colombia’s principal coca growing region. For the next six weeks U.S.-supplied Huey helicopters swooped down almost daily to unload soldiers to prevent attacks against the fumigation planes by leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries. In early February, with 62,000 acres of coca destroyed, the politicians and generals in Washington and Bogotá were calling Plan Colombia’s initial fumigation campaign a success. But on the ground in Putumayo it was clear that more than coca had been eradicated.
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Human Rights Not Part of Clinton’s Legacy
President Clinton ignored the human rights certification process demanded by Congress and authorized the release of the remaining aid money to Colombia last week. The administration justified this action by claiming the remaining aid is “emergency funds” and therefore not subject to the certification process. One can only speculate that the Colombian Government’s failure to meet the human rights conditions called for by the U.S. Congress was the reason Clinton decided to sidestep the certification process. Besides, a waiver of the human rights conditions by Clinton, especially in light of the 154 civilians massacred by paramilitaries over the past two weeks, would have resulted in negative publicity that might have marred his farewell love fest with the American people.
US Elections Need International Observers
The US loves to point out flaws in other countries’ elections. We slammed Yugoslavia’s September presidential election because international observers were not allowed to verify the fairness of the electoral process, and Peru’s recent elections after international observers said the ruling party denied opposition candidates access to the media. The same observers also accused Peru’s ruling party of using state police power to restrict the activities of opposition candidates. And government policies resulting in the disenfranchisement of ethnic minorities have often led to elections being condemned as undemocratic by outside observers. But US elections are above such unpleasantness, right? Wrong.
Interview with FARC Commander Simón Trinidad
In January 1999, newly-elected Colombian president Andres Pastrana ceded an area of southern Colombia the size of Switzerland to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas as part of an agreement to begin peace talks. Although there is no cease-fire agreement while the talks are being carried out, the Colombian Armed Forces have withdrawn all their forces from the region known as the Zona de Despeje (Clearance Zone). The FARC’s headquarters in Los Pozos, a small village located 18 miles from San Vicente del Caguan in the Zona de Despeje, has been host to the peace talks as well as public conferences where all sectors of Colombian society can come to participate in discussions about Colombia’s future. On June 14, 2000, I traveled to Los Pozos to interview Simón Trinidad, a FARC commander and a spokesman for the guerrilla group. Trinidad was a professor of economics and a banker before joining the FARC 16 years ago.
Garry Leech 