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Colombia: How does the candidate propose to ensure that U.S. aid is not being used to support paramilitaries who are killing civilians, "disappearing" opponents, and causing the biggest internal refugee flows in the hemisphere? Follow-up: Don't let the candidate turn the question into an opportunity to fulminate against drug-traffickers. No one supports drug traffickers. The problem is that Colombian military commanders maintain ties with paramilitary groups who are responsible for most of the political violence in the country. The Drug Enforcement Administration says these very same paramilitary groups are among Colombia's key drug dealers. Yet too many U.S. lawmakers continue to ignore close links between Colombia's military and the armed groups who are dealing drugs and committing widespread human rights abuses. So far, U.S. officials have been indifferent to the paramilitary threat. The Clinton Plan devotes almost all of the aid money to a so-called "push into southern Colombia," where guerrillas dominate. There is no plan to deploy the new, U.S.-funded antinarcotics battalions in a "push" into the coca-rich border with Venezuela in the north or the lucrative shipping routes through the Gulf of Urabá -- all controlled by paramilitaries protected by units of Colombia's Army. In a rare televised interview, paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño recently admitted that cocaine and heroin fund an entire unit of 3,200 paramilitary fighters. Overall, he said that 70 per cent of his war chest is culled from drug trafficking. |
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