Like the “War on Terror” the “War on Drugs” is also largely bogus. Yet Dyncorp’s presence in Latin America has stuck like mud against the aspirations of its inhabitants since the early 1990s. It was during one of its contracts for helicopter maintenance that some of the long held suspicions about Dyncorp were further confirmed when one of those helicopters crashed in the Peruvian jungle in 1992. On board were three DynCorp employees, including Robert Hitchman, a covert-ops specialist, who had worked for the CIA in a number of operations ranging from the CIA front, “Air America” wars, to Libyan black-ops for Colonel Qaddafi. Hitchman was in fact, flying DEA agents and the Peruvian military on missions into guerrilla territory to destroy cocaine labs and coordinate the herbicide spraying program. True to Dyncorp services he was also training Peruvian pilots to fly combat missions.8 Colombia was to be a much more extensive capturing of a country’s destiny where the Colombian army, paramilitary groups, toxic spraying and fumigation would be stepped up and where huge sums of money would be paid to ex-military veterans and black ops personnel.
As part of this propaganda the corporation dutifully and profitably went about its $200 million contract to spray 2,550 Square miles of Colombia with Monsanto’s “Round-Up Ultra” herbicide from 2000-2005, under the pretext of eliminating the illegal cocoa crops. 9 An environmental disaster loaded on yet more suffering for the Colombian peoples already being squeezed by Bogota and the U.S. government. With 82 percent of the population living under the poverty line, growing their own food would have been one possibility to feed their families, when they often have no option but to grow cocoa for the insatiable demand from the States. While a class-action lawsuit has been filed in Washington, DC, on behalf of 10,000 farmers in Ecuador and the AFL-CIO-related International Labor Rights Fund, (ILRF) it may not save the thousands of children already suffering the effects of fumigation and spraying.
After the initial veiled threats from Dyncorp CEO Paul V. Lombardi, towards Bishop Jesse DeWitt president of ILRF, the lawsuit for indigenous Quichuas and farmers from the state of SucumbÃo, Dyncorp subsequently used its State Department leverage to ask “…the judge to dismiss the case because it involve[ed] national security interests of the United States.” Luckily the Judge after consulting material derived from an investigation by Ecuador’s Acción Ecológica rapidly came to the conclusion that Dyncorp had “committed crimes against humanity, torture and cultural genocide.”10 This ruling finally led to the 2003 court rulings ordering the suspension of aerial fumigation of coca and poppy crops until environmental and human impact studies can be carried out. However, in clear violation of Colombian law, the U.S. puppet President Uribe continues to do the State Department’s bidding and the spraying has continued. According to Narco news, a Latin American journal that reports on the drug war and (the lack of) democracy in Latin America: “Food crops have been destroyed, rainforest ravaged, tens of thousands of peasants have been displaced because their crops, livestock and water sources have been poisoned.”11
Colombia’s armed conflict is the longest-running guerrilla war in the Americas, and with U.S. involvement, shows no signs of decreasing in intensity. According to the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, in 2002 alone “an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 civilians were killed in fighting; were targeted in political assassinations or were ‘disappeared.’ By comparison, the death toll was 3,000 to 3,500 in the previous year and where 4,077 children suffered violent deaths, including political violence and common crime, according to the Colombian Ombudsman’s Office (Ombudsman, DefensorÃa del Pueblo).”12
The crux of the problem in the declining fortunes of the Colombian people and the next generation of children being born into such chaos is U.S. sponsorship and support of guerrilla groups, paramilitaries, government armed forces and national police that have consistently perpetrated violence and abuses against civilians, particularly children and adolescents. There is widespread grievous bodily harm (GPH) and instances of rape in conflict and in domestic life. According to Human Rights Watch the actual rate of rape of adolescent girls is estimated as 2.5 per every 1,000 young women. “Rape, sexual torture and other forms of sexual violence against women and girls are used as tactics to destabilize the population.” Despite a 2006, $20 million budget to help fund Colombia’s paramilitary demobilization process; the commercial sex trade is gaining ground, with estimates ranging from 20,000 to 35,000 children forced into commercial sexual work.13 Dyncorp should feel right at home.
A steady unchecked business in arms trafficking and an equally plentiful supply of child soldiers for whom paramilitary life becomes the forced option, parallels the figure of over 3 million children who do not attend school. It will also come as no surprise that a high percentage of indigenous and Afro-Colombian child soldiers of Between 11,000 and 14,000 are often targeted for recruitment. The U.S. State Department becomes uncharacteristically silent on the subject of support for Uribe and government armed forces that are known to use children as informants and “counter-insurgency” propaganda activities.14
Paramilitary leaders unilaterally declared a cease-fire in late 2002, with much trumpeting of the U.S. negotiations which were heralded as more evidence of US bending over backwards to “assist.” If we look deeper, this “assistance” represents more attempts to find ways to circumvent the maze of interests that wish to continue the carving up of Colombia. Most paramilitary leaders at the negotiating table are there due to the possibility of extradition to the U.S. under the demobilisation laws and are haggling away their wealth that was illegally-acquired. Paramilitaries and drug barons are putting themselves forward as human bargaining chips to avoid imprisonment should the need arise.
However, in truth, before 2005, demobilization had not been enforced due to the absence of a legal framework and served to act as yet another sop for Congress. Human Rights Watch reported in 2004: “…the government has been holding ceremonies in which thousands of purported paramilitaries turn over their weapons and become eligible to receive stipends and other benefits. As a result, there is a real risk that the current demobilization process will leave the underlying structures of these violent groups intact, their illegally acquired assets untouched, and their abuses unpunished.” 15
The U.S. and the European Union actively encouraged the tragically misplaced naming of “Ley de Justicia y Paz” (Justice and Peace Law) while the United Nations Security Council sheepishly turned a blind eye. The Colombian Congress dutifully passed in June 2005 the legal framework for the demobilization of the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), the worst Human rights offender responsible for 80 percent of the most appalling abuses country-wide. They have been a dominant factor in the drug trade with various AUC leaders being extradited to the United States for prosecution on drug trafficking charges. Prison sentences are limited to a maximum of eight years and prosecutors are given a very limited leeway in which to present their charges.
High level criminals including drug barons are often blurring the lines between paramilitary groups. It means that they are protected from extradition to the United States by legal semantics and loopholes. Safe in the assurance that they will be protected from the harsh realities of their crimes, the turning in of arms amounts to window dressing for Congress and NGO’s because they will not be required to reveal information about the paramilitary financing and methods. On top of this, they will not be detained for any undue length of time.
To translate: The CIA and its corporate covers in the monopolization of the drug wars wish to hold onto and protect their assets while expanding and mopping up drug operations. Drug lords are bought off and given immunity in exchange for their illegal wealth while ex-paramilitaries are “re-integrated” back into the community. The latter means, of course, that probable psychopaths have been hired back into the national police and army with a ridiculous assurance that no arms will be given to these men. Given Colombia’s record, this is nonsense. It is also an interesting example of the U.S. predilection for recycling military and special ops personnel back into its cover corporations abroad. We may well have the same practice happening in Colombia, with the hiring priority going to private security firms, replicating the standards that Dyncorp is now so famous for.
It seems that everyone is a winner, except that is, the citizens of Colombia and its lost children. After all, mechanics, trainers, maintenance and administrative workers, logistics experts, rescuers and pilots and CIA agents with fat pay packets are all busy helping to fleece what is left of Colombia on a variety of support operations. For Dyncorp CSC, civilian death is its primary measure of success.
Notes
8 Private Warriors by Ken Silverstein, published by Verso July 2000.
9 ‘A Plane is Shot Down and the US Proxy War on Drugs Unravels’by Julian Borger, The Guardian, June 2, 2001.
10 Narco News '02 ‘DynCorp Charged with Terrorism Lawsuit Unites U.S. Workers & Ecuador Farmers vs. Fumigation’ Part I of a Series By Al Giordano ‘Lawsuit in U.S. vs. Fumigation on Ecuador Border’
11 ‘Fumigations Continue in Colombia Despite Court Ordered Suspensions’ Uribe and Bush Administrations in Clear Violation of Colombian Law By Peter Gorman The Narco News Bulletin April 29, 2004. www.narco.com
12 ‘Colombia’s War on Children’ February 2004, Womens’Commission www.watchlist.org/
13‘The Effects of Armed Conflict on Colombian Children’ October 2004, U.S. Office on Colombia www.usofficeoncolombia.org.
14 Ombudsman’s Office, Human Rights Watch, Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, 2003,www.hrw.org/
15 Human Rights Watch Colombia: ‘Human Rights Concerns for the 61st Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights,’ March 2005.
