OFFICE OF THE AMERICAS REPORT DELEGATION TO COLOMBIA
By Blasé Bonpane

What does Medellin mean to a U.S. citizen? Narco-terrorists, sicarios (hired
assassins) and drug lords. It is actually a beautiful and mountainous city
located at many altitudes, all of them comfortable.
Colombians may joke about sacred things and local humor might identify the
Holy Trinity as the army, the oligarchy and the church. But such shady humor
does not apply in Medellin. Church base communities made up of lively clergy
and laity reach out to the urban delinquents and former addicts.. We sat in
a church rectory full of young delinquents in a process of rehabilitation.
There was no moralizing. There was only a spirited discussion about the
establishment of their new bakery.
Monsignor Hector Fabio Henao Gaviria witnessed a march for peace in
Nicaragua some years ago and decided to attempt a similar peace march and
vigil in Medellin. Powers of the city were doubtful of the success of such a
venture and even feared the program would deteriorate into the violence
which has marred Colombia for a half century. Hundreds of thousands of
citizens came out to vigil, to march and to pray.
In the wake of this sustained event, Medellin has begun to change. But
change is difficult in the midst of an invasion. The invaders are people
from the countryside who are pouring into Medellin, Bogota and all major
urban centers. Why? There is a war on and they are being ordered off their
lands by paramilitary death-squads.
And who are the paramilitary? Some 200 entities are identifiable. Some are
under the direction of large land-owners, some are the "protectors" of oil
companies, but most of them are shadow killers who do the dirty work for the
Colombia military. Yes, it is similar to Guatemala and El Salvador where
death squads operated almost exclusively under military direction. To our
chagrin we discovered that the paramilitaries are now part of a legal entity
known as Convivir (to live together). We left Medellin with data from the
Andean Commission of Jurists identifying two percent of Colombia's violence
as drug related.
We proceeded to Uraba. Uraba is not a state or a province, it is a jungle
region just south of the border of Panama which includes coastal lands of
the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. We were greeted by the Mayor of
Apartado, Gloria Cuartas. It was here we determined that no good deed in
Colombia will go unpunished. Some months ago Gloria prepared a school
program on peace. While her class was in process the paramilitaries slid by
the school, grabbed a young child, cut his head off and threw it into the
classroom where she was speaking.
We were invited to visit a community under paramilitary control. Our guides
recommended that we travel in a church vehicle over the dank, dirt, jungle
path to San Jose. In the torrid humidity, a paramilitary death squad was
guarding access to the community. Our diocesan vehicle was allowed to pass.
I saw a hungry looking couple approach the food storage center with an empty
sack. A brief word was spoken to them and they departed sadly with their
empty sack.
Weeks before our arrival a human rights group including a representative of
the United Nations and a bishop was investigating a massacre in the nearby
community of Vigia Fuerte. The group received a message to be out of the
area within twelve hours or to die. The bishop inquired about the
whereabouts of the missing pilot of a small boat they used for travel. The
paramilitary leader said, "We have just killed him". The human rights group
was told they were interfering with the paramilitary's right to kill.
There is a social center in San Jose. It is staffed by Doctors of the World
and other most welcome "internationals" who come to share their lives with
the oppressed. One of the women volunteers witnessed the brutalization of a
peasant by the paramilitary and said, "Why don't you kill me instead?" The
peasant was released.
But where are the guerrillas? They are virtually everywhere. There are over
a thousand municipalities in Colombia, over half of them are under rebel
control. The rebels are of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia)
and the ELN (Army of National Liberation). These forces were created because
of the institutionalized violence of Colombia. The voice of presidential
candidate and revolutionary priest Camilo Torres demanded social justice and
human rights for Colombia's masses. He was killed in combat in 1966. It
would be futile to romanticize about the moral perfection of the rebel
forces. Actually there seems to be a deterioration of the rebel ethic. While
the rebels are not in the drug business, they do tax growers of food crops
and coca.
One of the most extreme rebel organizations, the EPL (Army of Popular
Liberation) has completely dissolved. Some of its members have been
recruited into the paramilitary death squads. Paramilitary salaries are said
to be $300. per month. Rebel salaries are placed at about $100. per month.
The net result of  these decades of conflict is one million displaced
Colombians, a fate second only to death.
African Colombians from the Choco were bombed and told by paramilitary
forces to leave their homes immediately. They walked for days and finally
were settled in the sports stadium of Turbo. We spent an afternoon with
these sick, tired and hungry people.
A second refugee center in Turbo under the direction of the Church, was
better organized and better fed. But everyone wants to return to their
beloved Choco.
After these experiences with refugees, it was time to visit the General in
charge of the Colombian Army in Uraba, Rito Alejo del Rio Rojas. General del
Rio welcomed us at a large staff table. His intelligence officer was present
as well as his human rights officer. The General called in a Special Forces
officer and said, "Look at the uniform worn by the Special Forces, it's
beautifully made of soft cotton. And look at the coarse material of my
uniform. The Special Forces uniform is made in the United States and mine is
made here in Colombia."
We introduced ourselves and the general began a long and defensive argument
about the role of the Colombia Army. He identified the paramilitary forces
as criminals and delinquents operating on the margin of the law. We said
that we had just driven to the community of San Jose and that the
paramilitary were running the check-point at the entrance of the town. If we
could see the paramilitary, why could the army not see them?
He shrugged his shoulders.
Why had the army never confronted the paramilitary squads? No answer.
The workers in the banana plantations had a major problem, according to the
General, they drank. He made no reference to the fact that they worked from
6:00 AM to 6:00 PM in a heat and humidity of international fame. The massive
banana plantations pay no taxes to the municipality of Apartado. The people,
however, gather some of the rejected produce and boil it into a banana stew.
Question: But who are the paramilitary? Who runs them? If you know so much
about the FARC why don't you know so much about the paramilitary?
General: I believe that here in the book it is very clear. We are speaking
about delinquents financed by the people of the region. They are
drug-traffickers.
Question: Are you spending as much energy protecting people from the
paramilitary as you are spending protecting people from the FARC?
General: You can see we have pursued them, we have captured them.
Question: Have you visited the people in San Jose and Turbo?
Have you received their testimony?
General: Yes. I visited Rio Sucio. I have spoken to them individually. They
are welcome to come here. Because of the reduction in homicides and
massacres, the people are coming back to Uraba. This includes businessmen.
Question: But the people in Turbo said they want to go back to Choco and
they want guarantees.
General: It is physically impossible to guarantee them complete safety.
Choco includes hundreds of square miles.
Question: We listened to the people of Choco. Planes and helicopters came in
and bombed them. Where did the helicopters come from? Do the paramilitary
have helicopters?
General: No. But they could have rented them. We have no proof.
In those operations, however, some of the helicopters were damaged, pilots
were injured, soldiers were killed and injured. Remember the FARC killed
some people they had kidnapped.
Our delegation departed after viewing photos of elderly couples dancing
which were presented to us by the human rights officer.
A video camera panned all of the delegates as we approached our vehicle.
Back to the airport at Apartado on our way to Bogota. The military guards at
the airport were into an endless stare as we awaited our Otter aircraft. It
is hard to be pleasant with people who can take your life with impunity.
From the jungles of Uraba we flew to the cool Andean heights of Bogota.
Our first meeting was at the Colombian equivalent of the Pentagon. The
guards subjected us to search after search prior to our admission to this
sacred sentinel. Our passports were taken and we were told to proceed to the
office of Mery Lucia Garcia Parra, the advisor on human rights in the
National Defense Ministry.
Mery Lucia made it clear that her office is not an investigative agency.
They simply receive reports and channel them to the appropriate offices. She
repeated General Rito's position regarding the paramilitary as extra legal
criminals and the enemy of the Colombian Army. The presentation of a
military "line" became so clear. It is hard to find a Colombian intellectual
or private agency that accepts the line. But what else is new? As U.S.
citizens we had been victims of equally irrational military propaganda for
ten years in Indo-China, to say nothing about the gibberish slobbered on us
during the rape of Central America, the psychotic war in Grenada, the
bombing of Panama and the holocaust in Iraq.
The military clique is a closed cult. They create their mythology, share it
internationally and then apparently begin to believe it. Just as Jim Jones
or David Koresh, the military cult leader's word is sacred. Disbelief is
treason. Critical thinking is the enemy. The cult leader is generally an
opportunist.
The drill of the Colombian military is clear.
   a. The civil war in Colombia is a drug war.
   b. The United States will give us billions of dollars if we claim to be
fighting drugs, just as they gave billions to dictatorships which claimed
they were fighting communism. Therefore the political rebels are actually
narco-guerrillas.
   c. To maintain our international reputation as a legitimate military we
will support a paramilitary apparatus for all dirty war activities. We will
identify our paramilitary death squads as the enemy and disclaim any
relationship to them.

The relationship between the military and the death squads of Guatemala and
El Salvador was absolute and so is the relationship between the military and
the paramilitary of Colombia.
Now we can understand how the Generals, the Ministry of Defense and
Governmental Human Rights Offices unanimously claim that international and
national Non-Governmental Organizations are "guerrilla sympathizers". Such
claims are both insulting and threatening. Similar charges are made against
any Colombian officials who attempt to identify the charade of the Official
Story.
In the midst of the bloodshed which is Colombia, there is a domestic and
functional answer. It is the program of the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity),
an alternative political party. People of all classes are impressed with the
goals and objectives of this party. There is just one difficulty. Anyone who
stands up to organize or lead the Unidad Polular is killed. Thousands of
party leaders have been brutally assassinated. This is the perplexity of the
hermit kingdom which is Colombia. It is a nation which has never encouraged
immigration. It has isolated itself in a liberal-conservative pendulum swing
between co-existing oligarchs and feudal land barons. The drug lords are at
home with and fully integrated with this crowd.
Does this mean that the FARC and the ELN have the answer for Colombia? I do
not think so. We cannot ignore the fact that their ideology has focused on
the needs of the poor and the oppressed. But together with the military they
have helped to create a population of one-million displaced Colombians.
Personally I think the answer to the conflict lies in the proven potential
of the United Nations. This international body can be proud of its
achievements in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.
In Bogota we had a lengthy meeting with Almudena Mazarrasa Alvear, the
director of the Office of the High Commission of the United Nations for
Human rights in Colombia and her assistant, Javier Hernandez Valencia. It is
her opinion and ours that President Clinton has the ability to promote a
United Nations Negotiating Team for peace accords in Colombia.
The current policy of the United States is to promote victory for the status
quo in Colombia. This means that a war which is now fifty years old will be
one hundred years old in 2047. Such a war will undoubtedly lead to the
purchase of a great deal of military hardware. It seems to me, however, that
a political economy of peace and distributive justice would be better for
everyone.
For Colombian documentation of the absolute relationship between
pararmilitary death squads and the Colombian Military, I recommend:
Colombia, the Genocidal Democracy by Javier Giraldo, S.J., Common Courage
Press, 1996.
Our current military aid to Colombia, which is well over a billion dollars
in recent years, is simply adding fuel to the fires of war and confirming
the cult of Colombian militarism.

Blase Bonpane, Ph.D., Director
Office of the Americas 8124 West Third Street Suite 202 Los Angeles,
California 90048     213/852-9808    FAX 213/852-0655  EMAIL  OOA@igc.org
For an excellent bibliography on Colombia contact the web site of the
Colombia Support Network http://www.igc.apc.org/csn/lit.html. The General in
Colombia has ordered this site to be closed. It remains open!