Columbia does not deserve support: Paramilitaries

[Moses]

February 3, 2005
EDITORIAL

Dismantle Colombia's Paramilitaries

In 2003, the Colombian government offered right-wing paramilitary leaders worried about extradition to the United States a sweet deal: pay a fine and do no time. After a public outcry, the government improved the proposal: members of paramilitaries, including major drug traffickers and mass murderers, could put down their guns in exchange for very little jail time. They could keep their war booty and would not have to cooperate with investigators. They could continue as criminal mafias, undisturbed. The United States ambassador in Colombia publicly supported both proposals. Thankfully, other nations that donate to Colombia's peace process did not, and the plan was scrapped.

President Álvaro Uribe has improved the demobilization proposal again, just in time for a meeting today in Cartagena of representatives from the donor countries. They should still not support it. While the latest plan takes a harder line, it is still too vague and ridden with loopholes to dismantle these criminal organizations. The new ideas are also missing some key necessary pieces. To wit, the government would require paramilitary leaders to confess to crimes to get reduced sentences but they wouldn't be punished for lying or omissions.

Colombia's paramilitaries have massacred tens of thousands of people and have grown rich stealing the land of hundreds of thousands more. They control some 40 percent of Colombia's cocaine exports. Their wealth makes them a scarily powerful force; one paramilitary chief boasted that the groups controlled a third of the Congress.

The Uribe administration seems to have undergone its conversion for international consumption, and may well abandon the improvements as soon as money is pledged. Mr. Uribe needs to come back to his donors with a firm law that will require the real dismantlement of paramilitary groups and real reparations in exchange for reduced jail time. Anything short of that does not deserve international backing.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[RPankn]

You know, the NY Times editorial board is really being selfish here and should be rebuked for making such a suggestion. I mean, what about the CIA? How would it finance its covert activities without the assistance of Colombia's rightwing paramilitary groups in drug production and trafficking?

And what about the Bush family? Did the NY Times think of the depletion of their net worth before it wrote this?

How would certain elements within the U.S. government keep the population under control without importing illegal drugs? Think of the addicts, junkies and dealers for Pete's sake. Who will these people go to for their next fix? And how will minority communities be kept down, and many of their residents imprisoned, without the free flow of cocoa products?

And what of the prison-industrial complex, which relies on these minority communities and addicts, junkies and dealers to make its living? Or the U.S. Reps that rely on prison populations to overinflate the importance of their district come apportionment time?

What kind of commies are running the Times these days?

[Moses]

Don't forget the "Drug Recovery Program" Industry. I think you have a famous one in Fla whose leader is also a member of the Holocaust museum board.

[RPankn]

Oh yeah. Melvin Sembler, his wife and Achieve, Inc. Beneficiaries of John E. Bush being so generous with our public tax dollars in outsourcing public services and the drug treatment program that gives a whole new and literal meaning to "tough love."

[Moses]

"Achieve, Inc." is involved in this?!

[RPankn]

Ooops. Good thing I'm not a journalist. Sembler's company is called "STRAIGHT, Inc." not Achieve, Inc. These people have so many front companies I get their names confused sometimes.

[Moses]

Well the educational testing system that "Achieve Inc" (a neocon front org for NCLB) is imposing on America w/ their political buddies who enjoy the patronage of the megabastardglobalcorps is very similar to the "STraight Inc" philosophy.

[Moses]

[ulr=http://www.heralddemocrat.com/articles/2005/02/04/life/religion/iq_1734617.txt]Accompanier of Threatened to speak in Sherman Sunday[/url][/b]

Group joined by locals who studied situation in Columbia last summer



Presbyterian Partner in Peacemaking Kelly Wesselink has just returned from accompanying a frequently threatened Colombian seminary and church community in Barranquilla. She will speak of her experiences at 4:30 p.m. Sunday in a meeting open to the public.

The meeting will be held in the fellowship hall at the back of Grand Avenue Presbyterian Church in Sherman.

Sponsored by the 60-year old Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (PPF), Partners for Peace is one of many faith-affiliated peace organizations operating under the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Kelly will be joined by Sherman residents who went to Colombia last summer with a Witness for Peace-Presbyterian Peace Fellowship information-gathering delegation; Andrew Patterson, Cat Garlit Bucher and Elizabeth Helbing.

Colombian clergy, church lay workers and human rights workers are increasingly being kidnapped and killed in Colombia. In response to a 2004 plea from Colombian clergy, the Presbyterian Church USA recently chose to form "peacemaker accompaniment teams" specifically trained to be with those threatened with violence and death at the Reformed Theological Seminary and larger faith community in Barranquilla, northern Colombia.
PCUSA joins American Friends Service Committee and the Mennonite Church in this endeavor by specifically equipping and sending Christian Peacemaker Teams.

Presbyterian Peace Fellowship is currently charged by PCUSA with organizing, training, and sending the teams. "We're not personal bodyguards," Wesselink says. "We accompany the larger community, live in seminary residence halls, and provide our presence whenever someone at risk goes to meetings in town."

 

"For me, the issue is `how do we do church,' how do we practice the values of Jesus," Wesselink said Tuesday night. "Our Colombian brothers and sisters said, `help! We're dying. We need your presence.'" Wesselink paused, then said, "How can we respond other than to go and accompany them?"

The first accompanier was PCUSA's national moderator, Rick Ufford-Chase, who spoke at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Sherman Sunday.

Potential accompaniers must be approved by PCUSA's World Mission Division, and be prepared to stay for three weeks at a time. They must also raise the funds for their own expenses.

Wesselink, in her mid-20s, said she hopes her Texoma visit will provide interactions which acquaint her with activities and perspectives of local universities, colleges and faith communities, and increase commitment in the area for solidarity with Colombians working for non-violent conflict resolution.

"Living with Colombians was so different than simply visiting on a delegation," said Wesselink last week. "The stress they face of never knowing who they can trust, and the amazing courage people have to develop to live their non-violent values in a place where power rests with all the different armed groups... it challenges U.S. citizens to think critically and behave their values in solidarity, with purpose."

"The history of these teams has shown that kidnappings and assassinations can be lessened when the eyes, ears and voices are present from citizens from the government providing major funding to the Colombian military," Bucher said in a press release. "Colombia currently receives more military aid from the U.S. Government than any country except Israel and Egypt."