Where Does US Military ‘Aid’ to Colombia Go?

[Judi Lynn]

Where Does US Military ‘Aid’ to Colombia Go?
Written by John Lindsay-Poland
Monday, 07 December 2009
Source: Fellowship of Reconciliation

The United States continues to assist Colombian military units that have reportedly violated human rights, a review of recently released State Department documents shows. FOR obtained the list of 353 Colombian military and police units that the United States approved for aid in 2008-09 and 2009-10. US law requires the State Department to review all foreign military units proposed for assistance and exclude those with histories of gross human rights abuses.

According to US officials who spoke to FOR, military aid this year is concentrated in three geographic “bands”: in a long band across southern Colombia, from Meta, Tolima and Huila departments – where the Army-FARC war is focused – west to Buenaventura on the Pacific coast; in the southwestern state of Nariño; and in the northern Montes de Maria area.

The United States continues to fund military units reported to have committed large numbers of civilian killings, including the macabre practice known as “false positives,” in which civilians executed by the army are reported as guerrillas killed in combat. This includes the Codazzi Engineering Battalion of the 3rd Brigade, which operates in Valle and Cauca states and reportedly killed 12 civilians in 2007 and 2008. The battalion’s commander during this period was Coronel Elmer Peña Pedraza, a graduate of the School of the Americas. The Colombian Prosecutor General is investigating nearly 2,000 cases of extrajudicial killings reportedly committed by the army since 2002.

A good deal of current assistance is to increase Colombian military training capacity. Twenty different military training centers and schools, for everything from infantry and special operations to aviation and officer training, are approved for US assistance this year, as well as two police training centers. Colombian officials have stated that the military base agreement signed with the United States on October 30 will strengthen Colombia’s military training program and help it to sell training to other nations, despite the Colombian military’s history of systematic human rights violations.

The United States is also assisting Colombian intelligence units. For the fourth year in a row, three regional army intelligence units in Medellín, Bogotá and Villavicencio have been approved for assistance, despite histories of abuse and scandal. The 6th and 7th Regional Military Intelligence Units have produced specious reports accusing human rights defenders, university professors, and community leaders in Medellín and in the southern department of Caquetá of being members of the FARC guerrillas. On December 3, FOR and Human Rights First wrote a letter to Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela urging suspension of US assistance to these units.

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2247/68/

[lib2DaBone]

1. I have a GREAT idea....

Why don't we go to Chile.. murder a few nuns.. overthrow a democratic government and that way we we can win the hearts and minds of the people?

Then.. we go to Nicaragua... and set up a guns for cocaine deal. We'll tell the American people that we are bringing "democracy" to the region.

Then we can use those guns in Iran to trade for whatever we need?

It's a PERFECT plan. The American people are so friggin dumb.. they will never figure it out! There is no way we can ever get caught... because we own the courts AND the media! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha

[roody]

2. k

[Vidar]

3. It's been 50 years since we were on the right side of anything.

[Union Yes]

4. America continues to commit warcrimes all around the globe unchecked, and unfettered. knr nt