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Chiquita International in Colombia, in which the execs got off with a "fine" for hiring rightwing death squads who murdered hundreds of trade unionists on Chiquita farms?
That's who Eric Holder is--a shill for multinational corporations, even those guilty (they admitted it) of hiring MURDERERS to deal with their "labor problem."
Some of us in the Latin American forum warned about this. We knew HOW BAD it was that Holder was appointed AG. Bad appointment. Bad omen. Personally--despite knowing who Holder was, and despite Hillary Clinton's close association with a paid agent of the Colombian government (her chief campaign advisor Mark Penn)--I have nevertheless been shocked at HOW BAD Obama/Clinton Latin American foreign policy is. Obama promised "peace, respect and cooperation" in Latin America. What we have gotten, instead, is death, mayhem and lies--including NEARLY 40 MORE murders of labor union leaders in Colombia, this year alone, and scores of labor leaders, teachers, community activists and others murdered in Honduras while Clinton arranged an "election" UNDER MARTIAL LAW to cover it all over.
And those are just two of the ways that U.S. Latin American policy is very, very, VERY BAD, and arguably even worse than that of the Bush Junta.
I have held off judging Obama on this matter, because it was apparent to me that some plots, such as the Honduran coup d'etat, were Bush Junta-designed, and unfolded only six months into the Obama administration. I should have known that someone who would appoint Eric Holder as AG was either, a) not really in control of the federal government, or b) lying about his intentions. I still hold out some little hope that it is the former (lack of power) rather than the latter (egregious duplicity) but that hope gets thinner every day.
Let me be quite blunt about this. U.S. policy in Colombia is to CLEANSE the country of labor leaders, preparing this bloody ground for U.S. "free trade for the rich." That's how they're doing it. COLD-BLOODED MURDER. Oh, our State Department liars tut-tut about how Colombia really ought to do something about all these trade unionist murders. They've been blathering about that for years. Ha-ha-ha. Well, here's what they're doing. Last year, Colombia's Alvaro Uribe, in collusion with Bushwhack ambassador William Brownfield (whom Obama/Clinton left in place in Colombia until last month), secretly 'EXTRADITED' key witnesses in death squad murder investigations and trials, to the U.S., charging them with mere drug trafficking, and burying them in the U.S. federal prison system (their cases completely sealed by the U.S. court in DC), putting them out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors (who loudly objected). This was AG Holder's doing (and/or Leon Panetta's).
Amnesty International attributed about HALF of the murders of trade unionists to the Colombian military itself, and the other half to their closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads. The U.S. funds the Colombian military to the tune of $7 BILLION in military aid. That funding and the tight relationship between the Pentagon and the Colombian military continues under Obama, not only with no effort to solve trade unionist and other political murders, but with the Obama administration SABOTAGING the cases, and REWARDING and PROTECTING Alvaro Uribe, seventy of whose closest political associates are in jail or under investigation for their close ties the death squads and other crimes.
Last year, Uribe and Brownfield also secretly negotiated, and secretly signed, a U.S./Colombia military agreement that (among other things) grants total diplomatic immunity to all U.S. soldiers and U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia.
The agreement also includes the U.S. military's use of at least seven military bases in Colombia, and U.S. military use of all civilian infrastructure in Colombia. What the 1,500 U.S. military personnel are supposed to be doing is "training" the Colombian military.
The secrecy of the negotiations and signing raised hackles all over Latin America, and within Colombia. Why did Brownfield need this signature, after eight years of Bush Junta/Pentagon activity in Colombia?
Very recently, the U.S. State Department "fined" Blackwater for "unauthorized" "trainings" of "foreign persons" (don't know who) IN COLOMBIA "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan." (Another "fine," another coverup?)
The suspicion that the above facts raises is that the U.S. is not just SUPPORTING a foreign military with one of the worst human rights records in the world--with its "extrajudicial" murders focused most especially on trade unionists--but that the U.S. military has been participating in this murderous "cleansing" policy. One of the areas of special interest and activity of the U.S. military and the USAID, in Colombia, is the La Macarena region, where a mass grave containing 500 to 2,000 unidentified bodies has been discovered. And the U.S. military just finished helping the Colombian military blow a 500 lb U.S. "smart bombs" hole in a leftist guerrilla camp in La Macarena.
There is a continuum of policy here. Nothing has changed. And death and mayhem is its name. FBI harassment of union leaders here in the U.S. is expectable and it is the least of what the U.S. is doing to labor unions elsewhere.
Obama has had two years, thus far, and has faced an array of Bush Junta-created catastrophes that would be stagger any leader. I VERY MUCH want to give him the benefit of the doubt, and give him time to gain control of a government that was, without doubt, riddled with land mines through and through (Bushwhack operatives, Bushwhack plots). But I fear that the compromises he made, going in--for instance, some sort of deal (clearly) not to investigate Bush Junta war crimes, and, for instance, appointing his primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State--are making it impossible for him to do the right thing on any front. He has other enormous problems, of course, in addition to Latin America--the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, the hostile corpo-fascist press, Diebold/ES&S 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines, to name just a few. He may have been "set up" for failure. I do not underestimate the difficulties that he has had to face, but I feel that he may have many "Achilles heels" as to what he had to do, to be permitted into the White House. Partially self-inflicted "Achilles heels." He should, for instance, have STOPPED ALL funding of Colombia. Not one more dime until the murders of trade unionists and other political murders are SOLVED (about 98% of them remain unsolved). He should have pulled Brownfield out of there, immediately. But, in the case of Latin America, I don't think he has control. I think he yielded it to Clinton (who apparently chose John "death squad" Negroponte as her advisor on Honduras) and Panetta (who is wiping Junior's bloody trail clean).
This is one reason that it's so hard to read Obama (powerless, or lying about his intentions?). Does he want labor leaders and anti-war activists harassed here? I DON'T KNOW. Does he have the power to stop it, if he doesn't want it done? I DON'T KNOW. Is it even possible for a person with a conscience to become President of the United States? I DON'T KNOW--but I have to say that it's looking unlikely.
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