|
|
|
"Anyone who believes we should strive toward an ethical
foreign policy should oppose British and US support for killers in Colombia":
GLENN BASSETT, Enfield, Middlesex
If the US was truly waging a war against drugs in Colombia then
it would not continue to support the military, which for years has worked
hand-in-glove with drug lords and their murderous goons.
THE INDEPENDENT [London]
Tuesday, 26 October 1999
UK aids killers
By Glenn Bassett
Sir: The Independent deserves credit for being one of the
few newspapers to report on the Colombian military being equipped and trained
by the US and UK ("US pours in combat experts to train drug-busting squads
of Colombia", 22 October).
However, the record of the Colombian military cannot accurately
be described as a "war against drugs". Political murders in Colombia outnumber
drug- related killings by about 10 to 1, and total some 35,000 in the last
ten years. Reports by groups such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch (HRW)
show the link between the Colombian army and right-wing paramilitary groups
financed with drug money.
HRW reports that the paramilitaries work "with the acquiescence or open
support of the security forces" and that this alliance was responsible
for some 83 per cent of political killings last year. Among those routinely
murdered and tortured by the forces our SAS is helping to train are journalists,
human rights activists, church activists, trade union workers and anyone
who tries to form an opposition party.
If the US was truly waging a war against drugs in Colombia then it would
not continue to support the military, which for years has worked hand-
in-glove with drug lords and their murderous goons. Clues as to the real
reason for US intervention come from HRW's 1999 report: last year two of
the guerrilla opposition groups repeatedly bombed an oil pipeline linking
the eastern oilfields with the port of Covenas on the Caribbean. These
groups, whose own hands are by no means clean, have managed to take over
almost half the country, and now represent a serious peasant-based threat
to the dominance of the regime that the US is so happy doing business with.
Anyone who believes we should strive toward an ethical foreign policy
should oppose British and US support for killers in Colombia.
GLENN BASSETT, Enfield, Middlesex
|
