'Plan Colombia' protest targets Ft. Bragg
By Phil
Wilayto
Fayetteville, N.C.
In what organizers said would be the first of many such
actions here, about 150 people came together Feb. 10 to
protest Washington's increasing military intervention in
Colombia. Demonstrators came from North Carolina and
beyond.
Fayetteville is home to Ft. Bragg, headquarters for the
Army's Special Forces. The Special Forces has played a key
part in the U.S. intervention in that Latin American country.
And it is key to the Pentagon's $1.3 billion package of new
military support called Plan Colombia.
A highlight of the rally was the reading of a statement
from retired Special Forces Master Sergeant Stan Goff. Goff
was unable to attend because he was out of the country.
Goff is an author and veteran of many Special Forces
campaigns, including a stint in Colombia in the early 1990s.
Goff said he was sent there under the cover of training
members of the Colombian military in drug interdiction. But
all the training was focused on counterinsurgency
techniques.
"The war is about oil," Goff said. He pointed out that
Colombia sits on a vast oil reservoir. He called for an end
to both Plan Colombia and to the "election-stolen,
right-wing, de facto coup regime" in Washington.
Other speakers included Jon Elliston, an author and
journalist with the North Carolina newspaper Independent;
Gail Phares, Southeast regional coordinator for Witness for
Peace, who recently led a protest against Plan Colombia
outside the U.S. Embassy in Bogota; the Rev. Andrew Summers
of Warren Wilson College, who recently visited Colombia;
Meredith Aby of Minneapolis, representing the Colombia Action
Network; and Sue Kelly of the Richmond Action Center,
representing the U.S. Out of Colombia Committee of the
International Action Center. The IAC recently sent a
fact-finding mission to the rebel-held zone in Colombia.
"The U.S. government tells us that Plan Colombia is a war
on drugs," said Kelly. "Well, we know what they mean by that.
We have a war on drugs in this country, a war that has
resulted in a 500-percent increase in the prison population
since 1970--the majority from the Black and Latino
communities. And we still have drugs."
Kelly said the State Department's claim that Plan Colombia
is the brainchild of the Bogota government is a lie. "This
isn't Plan Colombia," she said, "this is Plan Washington,
it's Plan Pentagon, and the goal is to strengthen the
domination of U.S. capital over Latin America."
After the rally, protesters marched a half-mile to the
newly-constructed Army Airborne and Special Operations Museum
in downtown Fayetteville. Among the liveliest of the marchers
were 10 youths from the Charlotte, N.C., organization ARISE.
The group was a local organizing center for the Jan. 20
counter-inaugural protest in Washington.
They chanted: "Resist! Resist! We know that you're pissed!
Fight the capitalists! Resist, resist, resist!"
Today's protest was called by the newly-formed Peace Plan
Colombia, a North Carolina network of anti-war organizations.
Participating organizations were Carolina Interfaith
Taskforce on Central America, Colombia Action Network,
Colombia Media Project, Rainforest Action Network, Students
United for a Responsible Environment, Witness for Peace
Southeast, Veterans for Peace-San Francisco/Bay Area,
November Coalition and the Richmond Action Center.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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