Does US funding for Colombia represent a 'true partnership'?

[Judi Lynn]

Does US funding for Colombia represent a 'true partnership'?
Tuesday, 16 November 2010 08:52
Teresa Welsh

Both the United States and Colombia have expressed the desire for the two nations to develop a "true partnership." They say the relationship will become more than just a fight against drugs and terrorism through Plan Colombia. They say the two nations will work together to promote action on the environment, scientific knowledge transfer, and increased support for social projects. The 2011 Fiscal Year foreign aid budget, however, suggests something else.

The U.S. Foreign Aid budget for Colombia for the fiscal year of 2011 is $464 million, a figure down $56 million from last year. The decrease supposedly marks a shift from heavily military-based aid to a plan including more social aid, rhetoric that has been repeated by the U.S. but the concrete effects of which remain to be seen. The U.S. says the country wants to direct more energy towards social support, but examination of the 2011 budget shows otherwise. All of the budget areas where Colombia is specifically mentioned refer to narcotics enforcement, terrorism, or military training.

The U.S. budget for the Department of State was submitted by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton on February 1, 2010. The budget summarizes all foreign aid requests, which includes money to fund all state programs overseas (diplomatic and consular functions), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), international organizations, and all foreign operations.

According to the budget, the largest appropriation made for Colombia in the coming year is the $204 million that will go towards International Narcotics Control and Enforcement. These funds are meant "to support country and global programs critical to combating transnational crime and illicit threats, including efforts against terrorist networks in the illegal drug trade and illicit enterprises." The budget says that these funds are replacing those previously allotted to the Andean Counterdrug Initiative, a program started by President George W. Bush that included funds to fight drug production in Colombia as well as Bolivia and Peru. This money "will reduce the flow of drugs to the United States; address instability in the Andean region; and strengthen the ability of both source and transit countries to investigate and prosecute major drug trafficking organizations and their leaders, and to block and seize the organizations’ assets," the budget says.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/opinion/157-guests/12741-does-us-funding-for-colombia-represent-a-qtrue-partnershipq.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. The U.S. is going to "improve" Colombia's justice system? What a joke!

"The second area where the U.S. will direct the most money to Colombia is with an appropriation of $202,988,000 through the Economic Support Fund. According to the budget the ESF 'advances U.S. interests by helping countries meet short- and long-term political, economic, and security needs. These needs are addressed through a range of activities, from countering terrorism and extremist ideology to increasing the role of the private sector in the economy; assisting in the development of effective, accessible, independent legal systems; supporting transparent and accountable governance; and the empowerment of citizens.'" --from the OP

The U.S. arranged for the extradition of death squad witnesses from Colombia to the U.S., on mere drug charges, and "buried" them in the U.S. federal prison system--out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their vociferous objections--by completely sealing their cases (an unusual procedure) in U.S. federal court in Washington DC. They are so "lost" in the U.S. prison system that their cases don't even have docket numbers. (Death squad victims' relatives are concerned that they could even have been set free.) The U.S. also likely arranged for weird, overnight asylum in Panama for the chief spying witness against Alvaro Uribe--former president of Colombia and a Bush Cartel pet who is being protected and coddled by the CIA--and six other spying witnesses against Uribe have requested such asylum.

By these actions, the U.S. government SPAT UPON Colombia's justice system, GRAVELY UNDERMINED its independence and GROSSLY INTERFERED in active cases against Uribe, SEVENTY of whose closest political cohorts, including family members, are under investigation or already in jail for their ties to the rightwing death squads and drug trafficking, spying, bribery and other crimes. The U.S. is going to assist in the development of an "independent legal system" in Colombia? Give me a break!

The other "goals" of this HUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY from OUR POCKETS are equally suspect--if not absurd or downright evil. "Countering extremist ideology" at best means countering decent wages for the poor majority, countering "bootstrapping" services for the poor majority (education, health care, land reform, etc.) and preventing the poor majority from ever getting a voice in government--typical U.S. "free trade for the rich" objectives--but, in Colombia, it also means KILLING trade unionists and other advocates of the poor. As for "increasing the role of the private sector in the economy," this is one of THE most evil planks of U.S. "free for the rich" enforcement. It means, say, Bechtel taking over the water system and jacking up the price of water to the poorest people--as Bechtel did in Bolivia. It means squeezing the poor and excluding the poor in every way imaginable--health care, education, public services, pensions, the cost of food, the type of food available--Burger King, MacDonald's. In fact, one of the purposes of the preliminary "free trade" policy of displacing small peasant farmers--FIVE MILLION of them in Colombia!--is to create urban slums, where these former farmers cannot feed their families and communities and are dependent on U.S. corporations for unhealthy food as well as for slave labor.

AND WE'RE PAYING FOR THIS! For our jobs to be outsourced to a country where thousands of trade unionists and other advocates of the poor have been murdered, where the poor have been terrorized and displaced, and where the U.S. has wreaked havoc on the one independent branch of the government--the judiciary--no doubt to cover up its own war crimes as well as those of its tools in Colombia.

The State Department recently 'fined' Blackwater for "unauthorized" "trainings" of "foreign persons" IN COLOMBIA "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan." We can only guess what THAT is about. But I'll tell you one thing that it is very likely about--obstructing justice in Colombia.