Friday, May 05, 2006
Gorman on Colombia
My former colleague at High Times, Peter Gorman, is one of the world's leading experts on South American affairs. The latest edition of World War 4 Report features his story about the current state of Colombia. Here's an excerpt:
"Fifty FARC leaders were indicted in the US in late March as cocaine traffickers, with prices as high as $5 million put on each of their heads. The federal indictments accuse the FARC of being behind '50 percent of the world's cocaine trade and 60 percent of the cocaine exported to the United States.' At the announcement of their indictments, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said, 'We believe these men are responsible for not only manufacturing and exporting devastating amounts of cocaine, but enforcing their criminal regime with violence.' Some of that is obvious hyperbole, as many of the charges try to link the FARC commanders with cocaine operations either nowhere near where they operate or to operations that occurred long before the FARC were involved in the drug trade.
"Some of them are undoubtedly involved in the trade—even FARC-sympathizers concede that the FARC have moved from taxing coca farmers to trying to get a piece of the trade in recent years. But by naming 50, rather than half-a-dozen, alleged traffickers, and placing a fat price on their heads, the US has unleashed every mercenary and paramilitary in the hemisphere to go after them..."
To read the full story: CLICK HERE
"Fifty FARC leaders were indicted in the US in late March as cocaine traffickers, with prices as high as $5 million put on each of their heads. The federal indictments accuse the FARC of being behind '50 percent of the world's cocaine trade and 60 percent of the cocaine exported to the United States.' At the announcement of their indictments, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez said, 'We believe these men are responsible for not only manufacturing and exporting devastating amounts of cocaine, but enforcing their criminal regime with violence.' Some of that is obvious hyperbole, as many of the charges try to link the FARC commanders with cocaine operations either nowhere near where they operate or to operations that occurred long before the FARC were involved in the drug trade.
"Some of them are undoubtedly involved in the trade—even FARC-sympathizers concede that the FARC have moved from taxing coca farmers to trying to get a piece of the trade in recent years. But by naming 50, rather than half-a-dozen, alleged traffickers, and placing a fat price on their heads, the US has unleashed every mercenary and paramilitary in the hemisphere to go after them..."
To read the full story: CLICK HERE
