CPTnet
19 August 2010
July: Bicentennial of “independence,” ten years of Plan Colombia

by Eloy García

July was a busy month for social activists in Colombia. The 20th marked the Bicentennial of Colombia’s so called “independence,” and the 13th marked 10 years of Plan Colombia. Social activists are calling the bicentennial a “commemoration” and not a celebration because Colombia has never fully realized its true independence. The claim is that the neocolonialism of the United States replaced the Spanish imperial yoke.

Plan Colombia has only added to the distaste of celebrating independence as it directly conflicts with Colombian sovereignty. Plan Colombia is a strategy imposed by the United States to reinforce the armed forces, eradicate illicit crops through aerial fumigations, and supposedly reactivate the economy.[1] After 10 years, coca eradication is a failure, and the economy continues to flounder with unemployment at 24%, and the military, with all its abuses, is opening bases throughout Colombia to U.S. forces.

Recently the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and the U.S. Office on Colombia released Military Assistance and Human Rights: Colombia, U.S. Accountability, and Global Implications, a report that exposes a high level of extrajudicial executions and human rights violations in areas under the command of Colombian SOA-WHINSEC[2] graduates or units that have received increased U.S. military aid.

Even with this information the Colombian government continues with its plans for the further encroachment of the U.S. military in Colombia through the use of seven national military bases by U.S. forces.

What do Colombians have to say about the bases and Plan Colombia? It seems to differ depending on a person’s socio economic status. Some Colombians who live in the city say U.S. military support and the bases are necessary for protection from Venezuela. Most of the rural population actively involved with organizations that protect their human rights firmly disagree with the idea of Plan Colombia and U.S. bases in Colombia.

According to the support shown for Alvaro Uribe and Manuel Santos in the last two presidential elections, Colombians living in the United States support U.S. intervention in Colombia. This would include U.S. use of the seven military bases. Unfortunately it seems the lure of consumerism and economic opportunity in the United States is stronger than culture, family, and historical memory. Somehow the connection is not made that the consumer lifestyle and support for continued military intervention from the north is impoverishing and destroying families in the south. When speaking to these immigrants, the influence of U.S. propaganda is obvious – propaganda that is heavy on demonization of Latin American leaders and false patriotism, and light on hard facts.

What should not be forgotten is that, as military analyst Charles Mair states, the United States is an “empire of consumption.”[3] “The United States possesses less than 5 percent of global population but consumes about one-quarter of all global resources, including petroleum,” he writes, and adds, “Our empire exists so we can exploit a much greater share of the world’s wealth than we are entitled to, and to prevent other nations from combining against us to take their rightful share.”[4]

The United States protects this global empire through the use of its military. According to the Pentagon, the United States maintains 761 active military “sites” in foreign countries. As author Chalmers Johnson points out, given that there are only “192 countries in the United Nations, 761 foreign bases is a remarkable example of imperial overstretch.”[5] Military analysts like Johnson and Mair openly admit that the purpose of U.S. bases overseas are to maintain U.S. dominance in the world militarily and economically.[6]

In other words the United States has a military presence all over the world in order to help itself to the world’s resources, such as petroleum, strategic minerals, and of course cheap labor. Latin American countries are resource-rich but poor economically because the Empire continues to siphon off those things necessary to create jobs, infrastructure, and economic stability in the region.

As thousands of campesinos mobilized for Bicentennial events commemorating 200 years of people’s struggle for independence and sovereignty, the U.S. government’s role in the United Fruit Company’s Banana Massacres and the strikebreaking violence used by Rockefellers’ Tropical Oil Company were dots on a line connected to Plan Colombia, U.S. use of Colombian military bases and other affronts to Colombian sovereignty. In Colombia the historical memory is not easily erased as campesinos still struggle for liberation from poverty, injustice, and state terrorism. As one campesino stated, “After 200 years we are not free. We must continue to march and organize because the only solution the government provides for ending poverty is to kill the poor, through hunger, fumigations and bullets.”

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[1] The proposed economic stimulus has been increased militarization and a push for further privatization and free trade, proposals that have only further hindered an economy which lacks the industrial base necessary to create employment.

[2] School of the Americas also known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Concerns. Colombia continues to be the Latin American country with the largest yearly assistance to the school and the country with the largest record of Human Rights abuses.

[3]Chalmers Johnson quoting Charles Mair in Update on the Empire: OVER 761 US military bases abroad (not counting the Iraq, Afghanistan or Secret bases). Mother Jones. August 22, 2008.

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] Ibid