Hristov concludes that the centrality of paramilitaries to Colombian politics will not be disappearing anytime soon, mostly because repression has been necessary to enforce the country's stark social/political/economic injustice. Hristov argues that the paramilitaries have become an essential tool of repression, and because Colombia's poor majority will continue to resist this outrageous poverty, the paramilitaries' repression will continue. Seen in this context, the recent demobilization process is only a tactical restructuring of paramilitaries and the SCA, similar to their restructurings in the 1980s and 1990s. Hristov sees this restructuring as an "adaptation response to "assure its future survival in the face of "the reality of resistance and opposition by numerous sectors of society against further dispossession, with the state's ultimate goal being "the institutionalization of paramilitarism and the legalization of capital accumulation through violence.
War on Narco-terrorists?
Since the official end of the Cold War in 1989, US rhetorical justification for allying itself with and providing military aid to the Colombian government has shifted from fighting "communism to fighting "narco-terrorism. Hristov argues that official rhetoric may have changed but it's still easy to expose this fraudulent war on narco-terrorism as actually being a war against poor people. Concerning the so-called war on terrorism, how can the hemisphere's worst human rights violator fight terrorism? Then, similar to the absurd notion of a terrorist fighting terrorism, how can a government heavily complicit in the drug trade claim that it is fighting a war on drugs?
The Colombian government's multi-faceted complicity in drug trafficking extends all the way to current President Uribe, who was listed by the Pentagon itself, as one of the most wanted international drug traffickers. A declassified National Security Archives report dated September 23, 1991, explicitly accused Uribe of being a collaborator of the Medellin cartel and a personal friend of Pablo Escobar. This report states further that Uribe was one of the "more important Colombian narco-terrorists contracted by the Colombian narcotics cartels for security, transportation, distribution, collection, and enforcement of narcotics operations in both the US and Colombia. These individuals are also contracted as ˜HIT MEN' to assassinate individuals targeted by the ˜extraditables,' or individual ˜narcotic leaders,' and to perform terrorist acts against Colombian officials, other government officials, law enforcement agencies, and groups of other political persuasions.
It's not just the Colombian government! Hristov argues that the US government's Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) "has in reality been converted largely to an instrument of drug traffickers and paramilitaries. To support this assertion, she cites a 2004 memorandum issued by a lawyer at the US Department of Justice named Thomas M. Kent, which accused the DEA of extreme misconduct. Kent states that strong evidence of misconduct is routinely ignored by the control agencies of the Department of Justice. Hristov summarizes key points made in Kent's memorandum, including "to supplement their $7,000 monthly salary, some DEA agents have managed to negotiate with Colombian drug dealers"DEA personnel have been implicated in the killing of informants. "Members of the AUC [paramilitaries] have been assisted by DEA agents in money laundering...DEA agents have participated in the extortion of drug traffickers awaiting extradition.
On another note, Hristov makes the important point that drug trafficking and the rise of paramilitaries have both fed each other in two key ways. "First, the groups involved in trafficking needed to protect their laboratories, illegal cultivation, and clandestine airstrips in rural areas stimulated the emergence of local armed groups outside the state. Second, many drug dealers had begun to invest their capital in millions of hectares of the best agricultural land in the country and they needed armed forces to protect their lands. Hristov adds further that "the preexisting concentration of land ownership in the hands of the elite and the displacement of impoverished peasants was aggravated dramatically by this trend.
To further expose this fraudulent "war on drugs, it should be noted that the US government has a long history of complicity in drug trafficking, particularly in Latin America. While author William Blum has written the definitive short article on the topic, Alfred McCoy has written the most comprehensive book, titled The Politics of Heroin, documenting the CIA's relationships with drug traffickers around the world, including in France, Italy, China, Laos, Afghanistan, Haiti, and throughout Latin America. In 1989, a Senatorial Committee chaired by Senator John Kerry documented that during the 1980s, while working with the anti-Sandinista "Contras, the CIA and other branches of the US government were complicit in trafficking cocaine into the U.S. from Latin America. The Kerry Committee concluded a three year investigation by stating in their report that "there was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the war zones on the part of individual Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the Contras, and Contra supporters throughout the region"U.S. officials involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua. "In each case, one or another agency of the US government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
