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| U.S. Certifies Colombian 'Progress' on Rights |
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Posted by FoM on May 02, 2002 at 07:26:49 PT By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer Source: Washington Post 
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell certified yesterday that the Colombian armed forces have met the congressionally mandated requirements to suspend and prosecute alleged human rights violators and to sever their ties with right-wing paramilitary forces accused of civilian massacres and other rights abuses.Certification was required before the Bush administration could spend any of the $104 million approved for the Colombian military in the 2002 budget. U.S. and Colombian officials had warned in recent weeks that they were curtailing counter-narcotics activities in the southern part of the country because no money was available. A State Department statement said that "both we and the Government of Colombia recognize that the protection of human rights in Colombia needs improvement." Certification had been held up since early this year, officials said, while U.S. officials worked with civilian judicial authorities in Colombia and pressured the government to take more substantive action. The statement yesterday said that "real progress" has been made. But human rights groups -- including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Washington Office on Latin America -- criticized the decision, saying that the Colombian government has failed "to take even minimal steps to meet" the congressional conditions. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who wrote the restrictions, commended the State Department for urging the Colombian government to do more. "But the proof is in the results," he said, "and the results are disappointing. . . . This certification has more to do with the fact that U.S. aid was running out than with sufficient progress on human rights." Congress required Powell to certify progress in three areas: suspension of armed forces members credibly alleged to have committed gross violations of human rights, or to have aided or abetted paramilitary groups; armed forces cooperation with civilian judicial authorities in prosecuting and punishing such members in civilian courts; effective measures taken to sever military links with paramilitary forces. Leahy and others have long been concerned that the zeal of the U.S. and Colombian military in combating the 16,000-troop-strong leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has led them to turn a blind eye or, in the case of the Colombian military, to collaborate with the paramilitary United Self Defense Forces, or AUC. Pentagon assessments have concluded that the AUC poses a greater long-term threat to Colombian stability than does the FARC. Formed and funded in the 1980s by landowners who charged that the military was incapable of defending them against guerrilla attacks and extortion, paramilitary groups were declared illegal by the Colombian government in 1989. Since then, the AUC and the FARC have become involved in the production and export of cocaine and heroin and have been designated "foreign terrorist organizations" by the State Department. The AUC is held responsible by the State Department and by Colombian and U.S. human rights groups for the majority of the thousands of civilian killings each year in Colombia. The State Department estimates that the AUC has more than 10,000 combatants. As evidence of progress against the paramilitary forces, a senior administration official told reporters that the second highest ranking officer in the Colombian Navy, Gen. Rodrigo Quinones, has been transferred to administrative duties because of allegations of complicity in two of the largest AUC massacres in recent years. But human rights organizations noted that, despite the credibility of the allegations, Quinones has not been suspended from the military nor turned over to civilian jurisdiction. Last month, he was appointed military attaché to the Colombian Embassy in Israel. Source: Washington Post (DC) Related Articles & Web Site: Amnesty International Human Rights Watch - Americas Colombia Drug War News U.S. Expects a Wider War in Colombia Official: No Combat Role in Colombia Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #3 posted by Jose Melendez on May 05, 2002 at 14:13:57 PT |
| Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy weighed in on this in the LA Times, at: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-000031820may05.story ...Last week, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell certified that, while additional improvement is important, Colombia has met the human rights conditions on which further U.S. aid is contingent. But the certification had more to do with the fact that U.S. aid was running out than with Colombia's actually making sufficient progress on human rights. Senior military officers who have been implicated in the murders of civilians or who have abetted paramilitary violence and drug trafficking have not been jailed. Many remain on active duty and some have been promoted. Human rights investigators and prosecutors have been threatened, killed or forced to flee the country. Although some soldiers have been suspended, none have been prosecuted and some have joined the paramilitary groups responsible for a large share of targeted assassinations and gruesome attacks against unarmed civilians. Like the guerrillas, the paramilitary groups are deeply involved in drug trafficking. Yet some local military commanders share airfields, intelligence and logistics with them. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by mayan on May 02, 2002 at 09:50:39 PT |
| I'm convinced that this current administration wants the rest of the world to hate the U.S. so that the sheeple will feel an urgent need to be "protected" by them. More Spending$$$ - Cynthia McKinney has balls...regardless of her gender. She was the only lawmaker to vote against defense spending legislation... House Panel OK's Defense Spending Plan: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-1704280,00.html [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by Dark Star on May 02, 2002 at 08:30:53 PT |
| Of course you can! I hope that these government officials think that they are fooling someone, but in actuality they are continuing to tarnish our already brutal reputation in the world. High time to wise up. [ Post Comment ] |
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