Thursday, February 22, 2007

Another Dirty Little War

With all the attention-grabbing headlines out of Iraq, it's easy to forget the other civil war that the United States is involved in, this one much closer to home: Colombia. Under the auspices of the cocaine eradication program, Plan Colombia, the Bush administration has funneled $3 billion to the government of President Alvaro Uribe since 2000. At least part of that money has gone to fighting the FARC and other leftist guerillas that are linked to drug-trafficking as a means of financing their insurgencies. In the meantime, critics have claimed, Uribe has shown much more leniency to rightwing militias, many of whom are also involved in the drug trade.

Of course, that could be because his government has very close ties to those militias. The kind of ties that have gotten nine members of his governing coalition arrested. The latest is Jorge Noguera, former head of the secret police, who's been charged with supplying a right-wing militia with the names of union activists and human rights workers, a number of whom later turned up dead.

I suppose it could be worse. At least they're getting arrested this time around.

Posted by Judah in:  Las Americas   

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