ASHCROFT "INDICTS” FARC LEADERS: ANOTHER PLOY TO JUSTIFY INTERVENTION IN COLOMBIA
By Teresa Gutierrez
5/11/02--Developments out of Washington indicate that the Bush administration is steadily moving toward a wider intervention in Colombia that will have grave consequences.
On April 30, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft indicted six members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP) in the 1999 deaths of three North Americans. The three were Ingrid Washinawatok, Laheenae Gay and Terence Freitas.
Washinawatok and Gay were Native Americans.
Then, on May 1, Secretary of State Colin Powell certified that the Colombian Army now meets the necessary requirements to receive an additional $104 million in U.S. aid.
This additional money, over and above the billions already allocated in Plan Colombia, had been held up because of congressional requirements that the Colombian Army improve its dismal human rights record.
Both developments show that the Bush administration is gearing up for a wider military intervention in Colombia. Both announcements allegedly deal with human rights, but in reality show U.S. imperialism's heightened arrogance and hypocrisy.
What is the background to Ashcroft's indictment of the FARC members? In February of 1999, Washinawatok, Gay and Freitas traveled to Colombia on a trip in solidarity with Colombian Indigenous groups. They were there to work with the Uwa people, whose ancestral lands Occidental Petroleum had targeted to drill for oil.
The three were killed while in the jungle. The tragic deaths were a tremendous blow, not only for the Indigenous people of Colombia but for the U.S. movement as well. The three had a long history of progressive activism here. Washinawatok had worked with the International Action Center, among other organizations, and her loss was felt by the entire movement.
The U.S. government immediately accused the FARC of the assassination. The anti-war movement here was skeptical, as the U.S. government has a long history of arranging such atrocities to discredit liberation movements.
FARC DIDN'T TRY TO COVER UP THE TRAGEDY
A week after the incident, however, FARC Commander Raul Reyes announced that a FARC guerrilla had indeed been responsible for the killings. Reyes apologized to all the Indigenous peoples of the world and asked for their forgiveness in a statement issued to the public. He explained that the killings were in no way FARC policy.
Reyes also asked anyone who planned to enter areas under the control of the rebels to please seek authorization from the organization first. He added that revolutionary justice would deal with those who had carried out the action.
The Clinton administration immediately used the incident as a pretext to break off negotiations with the rebels.
Since this tragedy, the U.S. government has often referred to it with crocodile tears. Atty. Gen. Ashcroft, however, did not even bother to get the correct pronunciation of Laheenae Gay as he announced the indictments. After repeatedly stumbling over her name, he finally just said "Ms. Gay."
Could anyone believe that Ashcroft and Bush care about the lives of Gay, Freitas and Washinawatok? This is the same government that continues to unjustly imprison Native American leader Leonard Peltier.
Peltier has been in jail for over 26 years. His only crime is that he defended the rights of his people on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. President Bill Clinton had a chance to pardon and release Peltier before he left office, but backed off as a result of FBI pressure. Clinton at the same time was shedding crocodile tears for the three people killed in Colombia.
MURDEROUS U.S. RECORD
Where has there been even one U.S. indictment in the deaths of over 200,000 Guatemalans, mainly Indigenous people, during the CIA-supported war there?
What has the U.S. government done for the Native people of Chiapas? They still face dire economic conditions as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was forced on Mexico by Washington.
The U.S. government has the blood of millions of Indigenous people on its hands. It has been behind the deaths of countless Indians, not only in Latin America but in its very own territory.
The indictment of the FARC rebels has nothing to do with concern for the loss of lives. It has everything to do with finding any pretext for further intervention in Colombia, where a sharp polarization between rich and poor has fueled a 30-year guerrilla insurgency.
The parents of Terence Freitas have heroically spoken out against the indictment. They have stated that the U.S. government must not use the death of their son as a pretext for intervention.
A close look at Ashcroft's statement shows that the indictments are really about expanding the Bush administration's so-called war on terrorism into Colombia.
"Today, the U.S. strikes back at FARC's reign of terror against the United States and its citizens," he said. "Just as we fight terrorism in the mountains of South Asia, we will fight terrorism in our own hemisphere." (Washington Post, May 1)
The additional money the Bush administration is giving the Colombian military will strengthen its genocidal attacks on poor communities that support the rebels.
Plan Colombia, a $7.5-billion aid package for Colombia, is a deadly act of aggression against the people not only of Colombia but of Venezuela and other nations in the region. The $62 million awarded on top of over $1 billion already spent for military hardware in Colombia makes it even more compelling that the anti-war movement in this country continue in its work to stop Plan Colombia.
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