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Burma Out! Columbia : More jobs for



Subject: Burma Out! Columbia : More jobs for "the boyz"?

Saturday November 13 7:41 AM ET
U.S. Steps Up Drug War in Colombia
By Karl Penhaul 

CARLISLE, Pa. (Reuters) - The United States is due to begin training two
new Colombian army anti-drug battalions next spring in a move political
analysts said on Saturday could give Washington a more direct role in
the long-running war against drugs and Marxist rebels. Gen. Keith Huber,
operations director of the U.S. Army's Miami-based Southern Command,
said on Friday that each of the elite units would comprise some 950 men
-- similar to the Colombian army's first anti-drug battalion set up
earlier this year with U.S. know-how at an estimated cost of some $70
million. 
Plans to create the units were outlined months ago but Huber gave the
first firm timetable. He said all three units, together with a joint
U.S.-Colombian military intelligence center would be based in southern
Colombia, a region rife with illegal drug plantations and a stronghold
of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Latin America's
largest surviving 1960s rebel army. 
Despite some $289 million in U.S. aid last fiscal year, cocaine and
heroin production has spiraled in Colombia. Human rights groups and some
political analysts argue Washington is looking to reverse that setback
by setting up the battalions that will be subject to heavy U.S.
influence and thereby give the Pentagon a much greater say in how
Colombia's three-decade-old war is fought. ``We have been told to get
prepared to train (two new anti-drug battalions) and that will begin
next spring. There is no funding as yet,´´ Huber, who served as a
Special Forces adviser during the civil war in El Salvador in the 1980s,
told reporters on the sidelines of a two-day conference about Colombia
at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. 
``This is a war, a conflict that we must win collectively. (Drugs) is a
chemical and a weapon of mass destruction that kills our children one at
a time,´´ he added. 
Officials in Washington and Bogota accuse Colombia's 20,000 guerrillas
of fueling a two-fold increase in cocaine production and a 20 percent
rise in heroin output over the last four years. They say the rebels earn
some $600 million a year in drug profits to bankroll an uprising that
has claimed more than 35,000 lives in just 10 years -- a charge the
guerrillas deny. 
``The enemy in Colombia is a business enterprise and if you want to look
at how to defeat that you must look at how they grow (the drugs) process
it and transport it,´´ Huber said. 
Despite on-going wrangles in the U.S. Congress that have blocked a
planned $1.5 billion, three-year aid package to Colombia, the creation
of the new units seems unlikely to be delayed. The necessary funding
could be drawn from U.S. Department of Defense coffers with little or no
accountability to Congress. 
Rights groups see the creation of the battalions as the start of a much
more significant U.S. role in Colombia. Washington already has some 220
U.S. personnel, including soldiers and advisers, in Colombia at any one
time. 
``This represents a quantitative and a qualitative shift. This creates
from scratch U.S.-trained units and they (the United States) will be
maintaining contacts through the joint intelligence command,´´ said
George Vickers, executive director of the Washington Office on Latin
America (WOLA), who also attended the conference. ``It´s a mechanism
that could give Southern Command not necessarily a determining role but
certainly a strong influence over what will be done,´´ he said. 
Gen. Ernesto Gilibert, sub-director of Colombia's National Police,
however, believed the issue was simply one of the army giving greater
operational support to the police, which until now has taken a lead role
in drug interdiction efforts. 
But many political analysts continue to warn that under the pretext of
fighting drugs Washington will be sucked into the quagmire of Colombia's
guerrilla war. 
``Some people are making the same mistakes they made with Vietnam in
1963,´´ said Cynthia Watson, associate dean of the National War
College in Washington, D.C. ``Colombia is not the first place where the
potential for mission creep is great.´´ 
______________________________________

Follow the plea by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and the appreciations 
of HH the Dalai Lama, the Shan Democratic Union,  film maker John 
Pilger, the Free Burma Coalition,  author Alan Clements, Dennis 
Skinner MP, Tony Benn MP, Ann Clwyd MP, Congress-woman  
Maxine Waters,  Socialist Workers' Party,  Dr and Welsh rugby  
star JPR Williams, Hendrix  bassist Noel Redding,  S African jazz 
pianist Abdullah Ibrahim,  All Burma Students Democratic 
Organisation,  All Burma Students Democratic Front, Tasmanian 
Trades & Labour Council,  SACP (South African Communist Party),
COSATU,  Tim Gopsill, editor.  The.Journalist@xxxxxxxxxx, and 
numerous others.   

Supporting a Genuine war upon drugs and human rights abuse.
Sydney 2000 : Burma Out! 
http://www.mihra.org/2k/burma.htm

Music Industry Human Rights Association
http://www.mihra.org / policy.office@xxxxxxxxx 

Rachel and James http//:www.mihra.org/2k/rachel.htm
Union Action http://www.mihra.org/2k/Union.htm

Founded during UN50. Mihra's roots are in music and anti-racism and 
was first in line in calling for a sports boycott of Burma for the Sydney
2000 Olympic Games. Mihra also advances protection of creators rights 
in an anti-cultural market, currently 93.8% monopolised by the recording  
/ publishing Grand Cartel. 

Major solo work "Piece of Mind". With orchestra, Holland 69. same  
time as Beatles "Abbey Road".   http://onlinetv.com/rogerbunn.html
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