Columbia, Nicaragua and Israel:
parallels and lessons

Ahmed Bouzid

Andres Oppenheimer, a Latin America correspondent for the Miami Herald, wrote recently in a column published by the Philadelphia Inquirer (Feb. 9, 2001) that "[at] least 3,000 people were killed in political violence [in Columbia] last year, and an additional 2,500 were kidnapped, many of them by [the Marxist guerilla group] FARC." Anyone who relies on the American press and its columnists for information about Columbia would find nothing notable in Mr. Openheimer's statement. Anyone who has access to other sources of information would immediately note that Mr. Oppenheimer's statement is so misleading that it borders on being a flat falsehood. Indeed, a detailed report issued by Human Rights Watch last year offers "detailed, abundant, and compelling evidence of continuing close ties between the Colombian Army and paramilitary groups responsible for gross human rights violations." A report issued by Amnesty International this past January states, "Paramilitary activity increased in 2000 and paramilitary groups were considered responsible for ninety-three massacres in the first five months of the year."

The distortions offered us by Mr. Oppenheimer are nothing new: back in the days of the Nicaragua Contras, we were told that most of the atrocities were perpetrated by the Sandanistas. A decade after the end of the conflict there, we know that the truth is the opposite: most of the atrocities were committed by the US-backed Contras and their various criminal cohorts in an effort to terrorize the population into abandoning the rebellion.

The truth about Columbia is remarkably similar. The pro- establishment factions and their paramilitary units benefit from massive financial support from the United States -- to the tune of $1.9 billion of US taxpayer money. Moreover, according to Marcos Romero, spokesman for Paz Columbia -- a coalition of more than 100 non-governmental human rights and environmental groups -- "80% of the US aid is for purchasing helicopters and weaponry.... Only 20% of the money is going toward social programs."

The truth about Plan Columbia -- the US-backed effort to quell the insurgency -- is that it is undemocratic. "Plan Columbia was drafted in the US Senate and implemented by President Andres Pastrana," says Episcopalian priest Monsenor Jime Prieto, "but the people of Columbia were never consulted or included in this important decision.... The Plan is undemocratic... it does not represent a social investment in peace, but a plan for escalating the war."

The truth about Columbia, explains Almando Belwena, president of the National Organization of Indigenous Columbians (ONIC), is that "the main motivation behind the war is territory.... For five centuries, we indigenous have maintained our sovereignty and the been anti- imperialist. [But] now the Plan Columbia is escalating the war to new levels."

Bulwena puts it bluntly: "The [government] knows that it cannot negotiate with the indigenous to gain access to the natural resources on our lands. So, it is waging a war that is intended to kill us or drive us off the territory."

The one thing on which I agree with Mr. Oppenheimer is the parallel he draws between Columbian president Andres Pastrana and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. But while Mr. Oppenheimer wishes us to believe that Mr. Pastrana and Mr. Barak are men of peace, well intentioned but lacking in backbone, reality tells us that they are not. Both Pastrana and Barak have come to the conclusion that honest negotiations will not bring them what they want, and so they have waged a war against indigenous peoples who will not submit. The Columbian resistance is demonized as "Marxist guerillas", the Palestinian resistance as "terrorist groups".

Mr. Oppenheimer fears the replication in Columbia of the Israeli swing to the right. But by calling on Mr. Pastrana to "[show] some back-bone and [begin] seriously cracking down on leftist and rightist guerillas," he is doing nothing less than pointing the way to the further escalation of bloodshed, with no prospect for anything resembling a lasting peace. Shimon Peres cracked down harshly on the Lebanese in operation Grapes of Wrath in Southern Lebanon, back in April 1996, just before the May elections that year, desperately trying to demonstrate that he was not soft; alas that did nothing but escalate the violence. As a result, he was roundly defeated by Benjamin Netanyahu. Ehud Barak tried the same strategy for the past four months against the Palestinians. The result was a massive landslide defeat delivered to him by someone most Israelis considered just a few months ago the least plausible candidate to the premiership. The swing to the far right in Israel is indeed no fiction, but the cause is clear: the notion that problems can be forced into a solution if only more force were applied against an indigenous population that understands force, and only force.

The Columbians have endured 36 years of conflict; the Palestinians 52. It is time that something new was tried both in Columbia and in the Middle East. One suggestion: start listening to the indigenous populations and abandon the notion that force is the only thing they understand.