| Subject: Colombia: Bush/Pastrana Meeting-A Q&A on the Human Rights Situation in Colombia |
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Date Posted: 14:38:53 12/03/01 Mon
from Anne B..thanks!
From: "Human Rights Watch"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2001 8:04 PM
Subject: Colombia: Bush/Pastrana Meeting
Colombia: Bush/Pastrana Meeting
A Q&A on the Human Rights Situation in Colombia
(New York, November 6, 2001) This week President Andrés Pastrana will visit the United States on a trip that includes a scheduled meeting on November 11 with President George W. Bush. His agenda will include discussions about the new war on terrorism as well as continued U.S. funding for counternarcotics efforts in Colombia.
Currently, the U.S. Congress is negotiating a proposed aid package for FY 2002. A bill passed by the House of Representatives on July 24 included approximately $510 million for Colombia, most of it security assistance for counter drug battalions and other equipment to detect and stop the shipment of cocaine and heroin. On October 24, the U.S. Senate cut the Bush Administration proposal for the Andes by $184 million, much of it from the Colombia account. The Senate also included new limits on how money could be spent, including human rights conditions that require effective measures by the Colombian government on breaking persistent links between the Colombian military and illegal paramilitary groups.
The issue of U.S. support for Colombia's military is critical. Human Rights Watch has found evidence that the U.S. violated the spirit of its own laws and in some cases downplayed or ignored evidence of ties between the Colombian armed forces and paramilitary groups in order to continue funding abusive Colombian military units. In a recent report, "The 'Sixth Division': Military-Paramilitary Ties and U.S. Policy in Colombia," Human Rights Watch detailed evidence of ties between paramilitaries and Colombian military units deployed in the U.S. antinarcotics campaign in southern Colombia, showing that Colombian troops vetted, funded, and trained by the U..S. were continuing to mix freely with other units that maintain close ties with paramilitaries.
This occurred in the case of the U.S.-trained First and Second Counternarcotics Battalions. On their first joint deployment in December 2000, these battalions depended heavily on the army's Twenty-Fourth Brigade for support and logistical assistance, particularly with regard to intelligence, civic-military outreach, and psychological operations. Yet there was abundant and credible evidence to show that the Twenty-Fourth Brigade regularly worked with and supported paramilitary groups in the department of Putumayo. Indeed, the Twenty-Fourth Brigade hosted counternarcotics battalion troops at its facilities in La Hormiga - a town where, according to witnesses, paramilitaries and Colombian Army troops were indistinguishable.
Human Rights Watch supports strong human rights conditions on security assistance to Colombia aimed at severing the ties between the Colombian security forces and illegal paramilitary groups. It is critical that these conditions not be subject to a waiver. Colombia's Government needs to see that the United States is serious about holding them to promises to clean up the country's dismal human rights record.
The full Q & A can be found at
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/americas/colombia-qna.htm.
For more information on human rights and the civil war in Colombia,
please see:
The "Sixth Division" Military-paramilitary Ties and U.S. Policy in
Colombia (HRW Report, September 2001) at
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/colombia/
Colombia: Beyond Negotiation: International Humanitarian Law and its
Application to the Conduct of the FARC-EP
(HRW Report, August 2001) at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/farc/
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