Were getting away with it, again

I’m not that unique in my embarrassment of the U.S.’s history of open support for dictators and regimes that destroyed their countries to benefited U.S. interests. Its easy to be so looking back at the U.S.’s relationships with Somoza and the Contras in Nicaragua, the Salvadoran 1980s military, and Pinochet in Chile among others all who were violently repressing their civilian populations and any group that organized for social change. Nowadays the legacies of Somoza, Pinochet and the Right in El Salvador are generally recognized as repressive, which makes it hard for me to imagine how the U.S. government ever got away with so openly supporting such nightmare governments. Especially considering that at the time, the information was there thank you to 1980s activists in the U.S. and in Latin America. But I guess so were the ever so alluring lies about fighting communism. The U.S. populace largely only got around to recognizing that the U.S. was supporting repressive governments out of self-interest after the fact. It must have been so frustrating for those speaking the truth to have the U.S. government and populace continue to support repressive regimes while being told that they were repressive.

But, along with the Rolling Stones’ “Dirty Work” album cover I saw this kind of strategy by our government as something that, like many things in the 80s, was embarrassing, but in the past. Needless to say, living in a community targeted by the Colombian government has affected my view of things. The fact that the U.S. government continues to fund the Colombian military is just as ridiculous as when they funded Pinochet. Just like in the 80s, the information about the Colombian military and government’s approach towards its civilian population is available and recognized by many!

The paramilitaries are merely a branch or strategy of the Colombian military. All the internationals I’ve met here who are working in humanitarian organizations, accompaniment organizations, the United Nations, or just working on their thesis recognize this fact. Daily occurrences attest to this reality to the extent that the Peace Community does not differentiate between Paramilitary and Military troops. Many times the military will sweep through an area threatening campesinos and warning of “those that come behind.” In 2008 the “Black Eagles”, a name used by paramilitary groups countrywide, spread fliers around Apartadó (where we go to buy groceries) warning businesses to close and people to stay off the streets for two days. Guess where the military and police were those to days…nowhere. A town normally chocked full of military and police presence was suddenly without state presence the two days the “Black Eagles” were carrying out their “armed strike.” While the military-paramilitary alliance is obvious to people that can see the evidence in their daily lives, there are also some clear signals for the international community as well. Capitan Gordillo plead guilty of working with paramilitaries to plan and carry out the killing of eight Peace Community members in 2005! The ten soldiers involved in the operation have also been convicted and await their sentence. Even with this information made clear in reports, letters and demonstrations, the U.S. government has chosen to ignore or negate the violence the Colombian military and paramilitaries have jointly brought to the Colombian people by giving the Colombian military 6 billion dollars over the last 10 years.

And whom does the Colombian government threaten and kill with the paramilitaries? The left, those working for social change, anyone that threatens their power, or anyone that disagrees with them. Of course, the government chooses to call them guerrillas, terrorists or communists. The Colombian government targets civil society working for human rights and social change as the enemy! People working to inform communities of their rights are often the most in danger of being accused of 'unpatriotic activities' in a country where such slander often leads to threats and death. After the 2005 massacre in the Peace Community Uribe, the president of Colombia, explained the massacre on national television by accusing the Peace Community of being guerrillas. Among those the Colombian government finds suspicious is FOR! In February 2009 FOR’s phones were revealed to be tapped along with other non-governmental organizations, trade unionists, opposition politicians and Supreme Court justices by the DAS (Administrative Department of Security, which is kind of like the CIA, FBI, and Immigration Services all rolled into one). Now when we make calls to each other we assume someone is listening and we encrypt all our email communication. The Colombian government views those working for human rights or just a life without war as threats and treats them as such.

Colombia is the current day instance of the U.S’s major support of violent repression of social change in Latin America. The U.S. continues to pump money into a system that is known to view human rights defenders as the enemy and a military known for its complicity with the paramilitaries. I bet that ten years from now we’ll look back and wonder how the U.S. was able to get away with supporting a government so clearly repressive.