Colombia: FARC and other murder groups target teachers

by angry liberal - labour party Tue Aug 19, 2003 22:03 renrir666 at hotmail dot com

on march 19th 2003 the president of a teacher's union asociacon de educadores de arauca recieved a death threat "take care of your children or you won't see them again".since 1986 over 4000 trade unionists have been killed in colombia and new labour laws are going to ban collective bargaining and the right to work.now why didn't i see that on tv3 OR FOX NEWS?if anyone is bothered you can sign an online petition at www.labourstart.org.

by Karmen Seli - Indigenous FARC PR Wed Aug 20, 2003 06:47 info at circleoflife dot org

FUnny how obvious and childish this article is - first it touts the FARC as killers then it never actually atributes a murder to them - but it does attribute - rightfully many deaths to paramilitaries - LET ME TELL YOU PEOPLE SOMETHING _ the AUC and the COlombian Military and the Government of COlombia and the BIg NARCS are all the same people and they do 95 percent of the drug deals and the murderes in Colombia the FARC defend the people and deal very little in drugs and they almost never kill innicent people on purpose - also the FARC are made up largely of indigenous warriors and women fighters.

STOP THE RIGHT WING HYPE and stop being NAzi apologist - trust the facts

by me Wed Aug 20, 2003 11:14

Glorification of FARC is pointless. In may 2001 a mass grave of up to 30 farmers killed by farc was found in Columbia so there is your murder for you. They are simply authoritrian butchers.

Farc themselves don't deny that they deal drugs whether right or wrong. Raul Reez Farc 2nd in command has on several occasion admitted that huge amounts of Drugs are grown in so called Farcland. diversification of that economy away from Drugs is virtually impossible since money they have they spend on military raher than on the people they claim to liberate. Reminisent of china in the 50 s where they spent 50% of their budget on the Korean war while millions lived in abject poverty.

by MG Wed Aug 20, 2003 12:40

http://www.counterpunch.org/donahue08192003.html

by james wilson Wed Aug 20, 2003 19:31

Besides failing to exp-lain why his original article title makes sense - the authopr or the commenter ME" - says not to glorify the heroic FARC Freedom fighters becuase they killed 30 farmers - again no links no reference just twisted rhetoric and still he refuses to address the real and unquestioned mass murders of COlombia the US-AUC-COlombian Army and NArcos - you say that the FARC are heavily invovled in drugs - but again no citations - check out the DEA who have never claimed or proven that the FARC are actually even traffickers - yes lots of coca is grown in areas under FARC control - WHY - becuase they operate in the remote jungles - oh and by the way the FARC have been fighting the US - Death Squad machine in Colombia since 1949, 1958? nCoca has only been grown in colombia since 1980 and even then in very samll amounts until 1990...

No one will have a real educated debate on COlombia - not even Human Rights Watch - which thanks to SOROS control radically underestimates the number of AUC murder victims???

Wake up you Irish - and hey why don't you wallop those bRITS FOR BEING the second largest contributiors to the URibe-Bush killing machine in COlombia - the most biologically diverse place in the world by a factor of 4!

by angry liberal - labour Wed Aug 20, 2003 22:01

is it possible that you people live in a world where you are never wrong?can i go there?independant agencies(amnesty international,they are currently running a campaign with the ictu,go to www.amnesty.ie)have said that all sides in this conflict have committed murder or disappearances.but in your rose tinted worlds which when they come into contact with each other lead to the above dribble that can't be.none of your saints or villains are more guilty than each other.
this board is wrecked by idiots who bring a pre-disposed political point of view and can never,ever be wrong.we are lucky you are such perfect people and omnipresent that you know it all.if you want to help more than you want to be right than go to the addresses i gave if not than continue the indymedia version of a finger painting competition between the really slow kids.

by Eduacation for Angry Liberals Thu Aug 21, 2003 04:53

again as in almost all debates i see no answers each others questions and no proof is given to support anything - especially from the right = find us proof that the guerrillas kill more than a tiny percentage of the 40.000 people who will die in colombia this year.

then we could talk drugs and guns

by Joe Ranii Thu Aug 21, 2003 07:55

...find us proof that the guerrillas kill more than a tiny percentage of the 40.000 people who will die in colombia this year.


What do you think I am doing each time I post further details of mass murders by FARC and kindred murder gangs? I have only one motive in doing this, I want to get those who romanticize the FARC as modern Che Guevaras to see the nasty reality of mass murder, kidnap and torture.
And yet some people here object to the truth ! How come no one here is posting information--detailed facts, not just the usual spurious claims--about the alleged killings by the National Army of the Republic of Colombia ? There is nothing to stop any FARC romanticizer from doing what I do here, except for the fact that the National Army is not doing the things that ignorant posters accuse them of.
As to the poster who claimed that the "indigenous" population are big FARC supporters, that's absolute rubbish. The FARC has a particularly murderous record in their dealings with Indian communities.

by Major Woody Thu Aug 21, 2003 14:00

Seeing as you asked

Amnesty International (1999)
"More than 1,000 civilians were killed by the security forces or paramilitary groups operating with their support or acquiescence. Many victims were tortured before being killed. At least 150 people "disappeared". Human rights activists were threatened and attacked; at least six were killed. "Death squad"-style killings continued in urban areas. Several army officers were charged in connection with human rights violations; many others continued to evade accountability."

US state department (2002)
In a report to the U.S. Congress, the State Department noted that, "Credible reports persisted of paramilitary installations and roadblocks near military bases; of contacts between paramilitary and military members; of paramilitary roadblocks unchallenged by military forces; and of military failure to respond to warnings of impending paramilitary massacres or selective killings.

by joe ranii Fri Aug 22, 2003 10:24

Get your dates right--the second one is from 2000, not 2002. There is no doubt that rogue elements of the Colombian Army and police collaborated in some past cases with paramilitaries. The same thing happened in the Six Counties--would that justify a campaign of mass murder and kidnapping in the North ?
As to Amnesty, they are an unreliable source--notice one again the total lack of detail in your posting. No specifics as to times and places, in contrast to my postings. And I don't remember them condemning collusion by RUC and British Army with Loyalist paramilitaries !

by angry liberal Fri Aug 22, 2003 13:38

why is amnesty an unreliable source?do they have some vested interset in the farc or the colombian government?no.i think you bunch just don't want to be convinced that you are wrong.how more impartial than amnesty can you get?they had teams of people researching,as did human rights watch who agreed with them.i think if you any of you saw the killings yourselves you would just put it in the "odd mishap"file and continue your denial.

by Janus Fri Aug 22, 2003 15:53

The Human Rights Watch report, the Sixth Division, military-paramilitary ties and US policy in Colombia is available at:

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/colombia/

And that one does have specifics Joe, dates, names, places.

I've no love for FARC, I don't agree with their politics and I know they've carried out war crimes and massacres.

But they're left in the ha'penny place by the AUC, the Colombian military and Government.

by PINR Tue Apr 20, 2004 10:09

"The Role of Drug Trafficking in Colombia's Internal Political Conflict"
Drafted by Ron Chepesiuk on April 20, 2004
http://www.pinr.com

With the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, terrorism has become the biggest threat to the stability of the international community. Attention has focused primarily on the terrorism emanating from South Asia and the Middle East, but Colombia has been dealing with terrorism long before Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda appeared on the scene. While Islamic terrorism is rooted in fundamentalist religion and globalization and its discontents, drug trafficking has largely fueled terrorism in Colombia.

During the 1980s, the term "narco terrorism" was used to describe the actions of the Medellin Cartel, the powerful drug trafficking group headed by Pablo Escobar. The Medellin Cartel was not afraid of violent confrontation with the Colombian government, and it did not hesitate to use indiscriminate violence to eliminate its enemies. To impose its will on the state, the cartel killed scores of government officials, police officers, journalists, Supreme Court justices, and even a leading presidential candidate named Luis Carlos Galan.

In 1989, nine years before al-Qaeda committed the terrorist attacks in Kenya and Tanzania, Escobar arranged to have a bomb hidden aboard Avianca Flight 203, en-route from Bogota to Medellin. The plane exploded over Bogota killing all of its 107 passengers. In the same month, a bomb blast outside the Bogota headquarters of DAS, Colombia's Administrative Department of Security, killed 52, injured 1,000, gouged a 30-foot deep crater and damaged buildings forty blocks away. In March 1990, bombs exploded in Cali, Bogota and Medellin simultaneously, killing 26 people and injuring 200 more.

The Medellin Cartel and, to a lesser extent, its chief rival, the Cali Cartel, were willing to resort to terrorist acts like these because of the huge profits that the drug trade generated. In the late 1980s, Colombia drug trafficking groups were earning between $2 and $5 billion annually, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and godfathers like Pablo Escobar, Jorge Ochoa and Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez were making Fortune magazine's annual list of the world's richest individuals.

Drug trafficking has also fueled terrorism in Colombia by weakening the state's institutions. Traffickers have used drug money to penetrate and corrupt Colombia's democratic political system, creating a virtual state within the state. Indeed, the illegal drug trade has had a serious corrupting influence on every aspect of Colombian society.

The nature of Colombia's judicial system and the way it has dealt with the extradition issue provides a case in point. Because of the threat drug traffickers and other criminals pose, defendants appear in court before so-called "faceless judges," whose identities are hidden for their protection.

In early 1991, as part of its efforts to reform Colombia's constitution, the Colombian Constitutional Assembly reviewed the country's extradition policy, giving serious consideration to banning it completely. In the previous seven years, Colombia had extradited 49 suspected drug traffickers to the U.S.

Several Constituent Assembly members took money from the drug traffickers, who threatened those members who couldn't be bought off. The vote was 51 against extradition, 13 for, with ten abstentions.

By the mid-1990s, Colombia's security forces had dismantled the Medellin and Cali Cartels, but the ability of drug trafficking to fuel terrorism did not abate. Colombia is a graphic example of how enterprising groups will enter a lucrative illicit market like drug trafficking if the opportunity presents itself. Both of the country's guerillas and paramilitaries expanded their role in the drug trade and helped fill the void that the Medellin and Cali cartels created.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (F.A.R.C.) is a 20,000 strong guerrilla force involved in the Colombian drug trade, mainly in protecting the drug traffickers' crops, labs and airfields and taxing the peasants who grow crops in areas under guerrilla control. Today, these "revolutionaries" rely on their connection to the drug trade to fill the financial gap left by the downfall of its formal financial backers, the Soviet Union. By the year 2000, the guerrilla's total annual take from drug trafficking was put as high as $400 million annually.

"The guerrillas have taken a direct role in the drug trade because the vacuum could easily be filled," explained Dr. Bruce Bagley, a professor of international relations at the University of Miami and an expert on Colombia. "The money they make from the drug trade gives them the degree of autonomy they need to pursue their agenda."

The Colombian guerrilla movement has been primarily rural in nature and claims to champion the rights of the country's poor and dispossessed peasants. As Colombia's largest and oldest guerrilla group, F.A.R.C.'s political agenda has changed little in the past forty years. It has a ten point program that calls for land distribution and social benefits and demands that the poor be given access to political power.

Colombia's guerrillas are using the drug profits to buy arms and munitions on the international market. In 2002 three Irishmen -- two convicted Irish Republican Army (I.R.A.) members and another, a member of Sinn Fein, the I.R.A.'s political arm -- were arrested in Bogota while trying to leave the country. It is suspected that they were in Colombia as representatives of the I.R.A. and were trying to arrange a deal in which F.A.R.C. would give the I.R.A. drugs in return for training in the ways of guerrilla warfare.

The 10,000 strong paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (A.U.C.) has also financed its operations through the drug trade. In January 2000, Carlos Castano admitted on Colombian television that his organization routinely charged a tax on the coca and poppy crops that Colombian farmers grow. Fueled by the drug trade, the brutal struggle between guerrillas and paramilitaries has terrorized the populace and contributed to at least 3,500 murders annually.

Since the September 11 attacks in the United States, Washington has tried to tie the drug war in Colombia to the "war on terrorism," but critics say U.S. anti-drug policy is actually fueling terrorism in that country. They charge that the U.S. has looked for a military solution to counter the guerrillas' growing strength and has geared the majority of its aid to Colombia towards the purchase of helicopters and weaponry for military and police use and towards the funding of coca eradication projects. The U.S. has justified the policy by warning that the guerrillas' increasing power is seriously undermining the Colombian government.

Critics respond that the U.S. strategy of supporting a repressive military in league with brutal paramilitaries ignores Colombia's economic realities that have forced the impoverished farmers to turn to coca and poppy production as a means of survival.

As this debate continues, it is certain that U.S. anti-drug policy toward Colombia will not change anytime soon, given the focus of U.S. policymakers on the "war on terrorism." Therefore, we can only conclude that drug trafficking will continue to fuel the violence that has terrorized Colombia.

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an analysis-based publication that seeks to, as objectively as possible, provide insight into various conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of [email protected]. All comments should be directed to [email protected].