Foreign Correspondence

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US rewards Colombia with aid for rights "progress"

Colombia is the top Latin American recipient of aid from Washington, which is trying to help it defeat a rampant drugs trade and quell a four-decades-old civil war that kills thousands of people each year.

The cooperative security locations, purportedly created to monitor drug traffic, have no mechanism for transparency or monitoring by civil society in the host countries and are thus subject to other missions. This is especially disturbing in light of the expansion of U.S. objectives in Colombia to include “counterterrorism.”
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US rewards Colombia with aid for rights "progress"
24 Sep 2004 22:46:25 GMT

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - The United States on Friday gave Colombia $33 million in military aid to fight outlawed armed groups in reward for what it said was the South American nation's progress on human rights in its civil war.

The reward contrasts with human rights groups' criticism that Colombia has not done enough to break links between parts of the armed forces and right-wing paramilitary groups despite a purge this year of the military ranks.

The aid, which represents an eighth of the U.S. funds for Colombia's military in fiscal year 2004, will help the armed forces fight Marxist guerrillas, the paramilitaries and drug-traffickers.

"While there has been progress, more needs to be done to improve the human rights situation in Colombia," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said in a statement. "President (Alvaro) Uribe is committed to working with us on concrete measures the government of Colombia should take to achieve these objectives."

To release the funds, the Bush administration by law had to certify Colombia met certain conditions such as severing links with paramilitary groups and punishing military officers involved in rights abuses.

"U.S. engagement with Colombia has helped keep them from moving backward but they haven't moved forward enough to justify certification," said Tom Malinowski of the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Colombia is the top Latin American recipient of aid from Washington, which is trying to help it defeat a rampant drugs trade and quell a four-decades-old civil war that kills thousands of people each year.

In January, the administration made a similar aid decision, which was also criticized by human rights groups.


http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N24353278.htm