Colombia: US funds death squads

If a classic example of an evil axis of terrorism exists, this is it: 
the US Southern Command, employing former School of the Americas trained 
Colombian military death squad-linked counter-insurgency officers, is 
effectively absorbing the infamous Carlos Castano's so-called United Self-
Defense Forces (AUC) — rechristened civilian militias.

They are then turned loose on resistance, peasant and trade union 
organisations, to protect Occidental Petroleum, Enron natural gas and the 
projected Darien overland canal interests of the Green (and Black) Popes in 
North America.

But the project is even larger than Colombia itself. Washington has 
enmeshed several neighbouring nations — Ecuador, Bolivia, Panama, 
Argentina, Peru and a reluctant Brazil — into a variant of NATO South, 
which was poised for a mutual attack against southern Colombia in December 
of 1999.

That was only four months after the passage by the US House of 
Representatives of the so-called Plan Colombia and, a few weeks after that, 
the predictable waiving of the human rights rider attached to it.

The US continues to receive surveillance and other military assistance in 
this escalating war — the deadliest in the Western Hemisphere — from its 
NATO allies Great Britain and the Netherlands.

"Our approach to Colombia recognises that the problem in Colombia is much 
more than drugs", Army Brigadier General Galen Jackman said.

US Congress is preparing to provide about US$95 million more to train and 
equip two Colombian army brigades.

"We need to treat (the rebels) as they are, which are terrorist 
organisations, and we need to help the Colombians deal with those 
organisations", Jackman said.