Orlando Valencia

The body of Orlando Valencia, an Afro-Colombian peace activist and representative of the Community Council of Curvarad� in the department of Choc�, was found on Oct 27, washed up on the bank of the Rio Leon. Letters and faxes were sent from across the U.S.

According to CPRC board member Norma Jackson, who was a friend of Orlando, his wife and seven children and others who were witnesses of the abduction are now in danger. The local Comisi�n Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz, an independent human rights association, is demanding that the Colombian government take measures to guarantee the safety of Valencia's family and the community of Curvarad�, charging that paramilitaries have effective control of the region in collaboration with the National Police and the army's 17th Brigade. New verbal threats from the local paramilitary against Curvarad� community leaders have been reported in recent days.

Every day, at least 550 to 600 U.S. military personnel and advisors counsel, train, and share intelligence with Colombia's security forces in ways that support counterinsurgency efforts. Our government has already funded the creation of a 950-troop counternarcotics battalion that is being trained to operate in Southern Colombia in a territory under dispute between Colombia's leftwing guerrillas and rightwing paramilitaries. Two more battalions are in the works.

Colombia has sent more troops to train at the SOA than any other Latin American country, with chilling results. The 1993 human rights report State Terrorism in Colombia cites 247 Colombian officers for human rights violations. Fully one half of those cited were SOA graduates. Some were even featured as SOA guest speakers or instructors or included in the "Hall of Fame" after their involvement in such crimes. For example, General Farouk Yanini Diaz was a guest speaker at the school in 1990 and 1991 after his involvement in the 1988 Uraba massacre of 20 banana workers, the assassination of the mayor of Sabana de Torres, and the massacre of 19 businessmen. According to a U.S. State Department Report, he was also accused of "establishing and expanding paramilitary death squads, as well as ordering dozens of disappearances, and the killing of judges and court personnel sent to investigate previous crimes."

A 1998 U.S. State Department Report states that Colombia's 20th military brigade was disbanded for its involvement in human rights abuses, including the targeted killing of civilians. The commander of that brigade was SOA graduate Paucelino Latorre Gamboa. The report also links SOA graduates to an illegal raid on the offices of a nongovernmental human rights group, and implicates an SOA graduate for his complicity in a 1997 massacre.

Plan Colombia

The U.S. government has directed funds to Colombia that will amount to $2.6 billion over the next two years. The majority of the aid will go to the most abusive military in the Western Hemisphere and pull the United States into the quagmire of a counterinsurgency war. People in areas of conflict are caught between the U.S. supported military, the Colombian government supported paramilitary, and the guerrillas.

With both right and left wing armed forces having a "If you not with us you're against us." attitude to villagers, the result has been devastating for people living in the resource-rich areas that are populated mostly by the poor. Two and a half million people have become refugees in their own country. Human rights monitors, labor unionists, peace leaders, humanitarian workers, Afro-Colombians, and indigenous peoples are increasingly threatened, displaced by violence, disappeared and murdered.

Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) returned from Colombia at the end of February calling for steps that must be taken to before Colombia receives additional U.S. aid. These steps include:

• The Colombian Military must sever all ties with paramilitary groups, pursue and prosecute outstanding warrants against paramilitary actors.
• Ensure that U.S. military aid be subject to human rights conditions that are strictly enforced. These conditions must not be subjected to any waiver.
• Invest more in Colombian civilian institutions, particularly the office of the Attorney General. Funds for that office should be released immediately.
• Bring an end to the illegal coca cultivation through manual eradication and crop substitution, rather than indiscriminate and dangerous aerial spraying.
• Support and protect organization working to bring peace and justice to Colombia, including the UN High Commission for Refugees, The UN Human Rights office, the World Food Program, and non-governmental organizations.

Civilians in Colombia have overwhelmingly voted for and marched in favor of peace. Massive infusions of military aid will not only increase the displacement and suffering of the Colombian people, being perpetrated by all the armed groups, but will also strengthen hard-liners in Colombia who oppose the peace process.

Increased funding to enable farmers to shift from coca production to other crops not aerial defoliation, for drug addiction programs in the United States , for economic development, and for human rights work is needed - not more weapons for military training.