With their backs to the wall, African Colombians are fighting back and need our help 6/14/02 SF Bay View
6/14/02 SF Bay View: "African Colombians note that in 1997 the paramilitaries auspiciously arrived in Medio Atrato, a zone in the municipality of Bojaya, with Alvaro Uribe Velez, then the governor of Antioquia, a neighboring municipality. Antioquia neighbors Choco, the ancestral home of African Colombians, which has become virtually uninhabitable. “Twenty-five days after the May 2 church massacre, the Colombian National Army and paramilitaries are in the urban wastelands of Vigia del Fuerte and Bellavista, where there isn’t a soul remaining,” the correspondent writes. Antioquia, a predominantly white municipality, has been an area of great violence since the beginning of hostilities in the mid 1940s. “They are killing us for no reason,” the writer from Bojaya says. “They kill us while we seek protection in the church. They kill us because we don’t agree with all the things the government, the paramilitaries and the guerrillas are doing. For me,” he continues in an e-mail dated May 27, “it is better to die standing than to live on my knees. There’s no way out of the crisis. I have decided to die speaking out, not as my countrymen died on May 2 and as thousands of African Colombians have died during the last 10 years.” The massacre and displacement of African Colombians by an indifferent Colombian government and a national military of 60,000 aligned with a paramilitary force of 10,000 fighters involves us, the people of the United States, as citizens, voters and tax payers. Our Congress approved in 2000 a $1.1 billion mostly military aid package called Plan Colombia and is debating a $35 million supplementary emergency fund to help Colombia fight terrorism, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Bush wants $494 million more in military and police aid plus $164 million in economic aid. He has also proposed spending $98 million next year to protect the Colombian oil export pipeline operated by Occidental of Los Angeles. Congress has also approved $363 million in economic and social programs since 2000. The U.S. is now involved in a counterinsurgency operation, not an anti-narcotics program in Colombia. The U.S. government, the Colombian government and the Colombian paramilitary forces are now pitted against the 22,000 member leftist rebel groups. The African Colombians want ownership of their ancestral lands. They want economic assistance to create jobs, education and health programs and fund business development."
