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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 6, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Pentagon escalates war as Colombia vote reveals weakness of regime

By Andy McInerney

Colombian President Ernesto Samper has provided the U.S. Congress with a convenient excuse for propping up his regime with millions of dollars in military aid.

According to Samper, nationwide municipal elections held on Oct. 26 were much more than routine parliamentary maneuvers. Samper all but came out and said that any vote in the elections—for any candidate—would be a renunciation of the revolutionary movement sweeping that South American country.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) had called for a boycott of the elections. They pointed to widespread fraud and assassinations of thousands of leftist politicians and union leaders as proof of the electoral process’s illegitimacy.

Millions of Colombians heard both messages—and stayed home.

In the past year, the military struggle led by FARC and the ELN has grown in strength. So has the workers’ struggle. A presidential commission report issued Sept. 10 concluded that the Colombian Armed Forces cannot defeat the communist insurgencies.

Samper’s government has responded in a classic manner: unleash the military while talking peace. The elections were to be a political component in the government’s counter-revolutionary war.

Two days before the vote, the National Electoral Council announced it had discovered 150,000 fraudulent names registered in over 100 towns.

Those who voted did so in polling places looking like armed encampments. Men and women were separated and searched by heavily armed soldiers and police.

Besides ballots for municipal candidates, voters were handed a green ballot and told to "vote for peace" in what was billed as a referendum to end the armed struggle. Members of the national police, prohibited by the constitution from voting, lined up to cast the green ballots—a clear move to both increase the vote total and intimidate voters.

In the northern regions of the country, paramilitary death squads organized by the military and the big landowners threatened to murder anyone who refused to vote.

After the election, government officials were quick to declare victory. They claimed that 5 million of the country’s 20 million eligible voters had voted "for peace."

International press reports paint a different picture. The New York Times reported that turnout in most rural areas was negligible. In the town of Puerto Rico, for example, only 240 people voted out of 10,000 eligible. The French press agency AFP reported that in the small town of Gachala only the local priest voted. "My bishop ordered me to," he said.

AFP called the abstention rate "overwhelming."

Samper mobilized 100,000 police and 121,000 Armed Forces troops for the elections. Many of the troops were fresh from battles in northwestern Colombia, where the army has been on a four-week offensive against the FARC-EP. Tens of thousands of peasants have been forced out of their towns.

Pentagon involvement deepens

Alarmed by the Colombian government’s inability to stem the revolutionary tide, the U.S. government announced it would send emergency military aid to Colombia. Gen. Barry McCaffrey said that $50 million in military helicopters, aircraft and ammunition would be used to fight "narcoguerrillas"—the code word for the revolutionary movement.

Colombian Gen. Jose Manuel Bonnett was more blunt. "The United States has enormous interests and investments here," he said. "The U.S. has every right to defend itself, and the best way to defend itself is through the Colombian government."

The $50 million in military aid is in addition to $100 million in aid to the Colombian police. The U.S. Congress is also discussing sending three advanced Blackhawk attack helicopters, worth another $50 million.

Colombia is already the biggest recipient of U.S. military aid in the Western Hemisphere.

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Ford, Procter & Gamble and narcocapitalism

When the U.S. State Department or the Colombian government try to sell their dirty war against the revolutionary movement, they talk about "narcoguerrillas"—meaning that the revolutionaries are in cahoots with cocaine and heroin drug kingpins.

But recent testimony in the U.S. Congress shows the drug lords’ real accomplices: U.S. multinational corporations.

A "confidential Colombian informant" explained the link to Congress. The biggest media organs of the ruling class like the New York Times ignored it. Only the smaller Christian Science Monitor covered the story on Oct. 21.

Drug bosses transfer billions of dollars from the U.S. to Colombia simply by buying huge stocks of goods from companies like Ford, Procter & Gamble, and Sony. Instead of wiring money directly, Colombian capitalists send the goods to Colombia in small shipments.

Of course, the U.S. corporations plead innocence. And the government shields them. "I don’t believe most corporations understand this process or where this money is coming from," said U.S. Customs Agent John Forbes.

Whether Ford’s CEO sits down for lunch with the head of the Cali cartel or not, the two have one interest in common: profit. Ford makes millions, the drug bosses make millions, and of course the banks facilitating all these transactions make billions. So who’s going to complain?

The drug lords are big capitalists and landowners, with interests diametrically opposed to the workers and peasants of Colombia. The guerrillas are fighting to liberate the poor.

Will the Pentagon authorize military operations against U.S. or Colombian narcocapitalists?

Don’t hold your breath.

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