Political pundits across the US and Colombia are on the edge of their seats debating the best course of action for the stalled, soon-to-be-scrapped year-old US/Colombia Military treaty. The treaty, which would allow for US use of 7 Colombian bases, was declared unconstitutional by the Colombian Constitutional Congress last week, and ruled it must be passed approved by the Colombian Congress. Now it looks like Santos, the new Colombian President, might be leaning towards scrapping the arrangement in order to appease his uneasy new neighbour Hugo Chavez. Read today’s op-ed on the saga over at the Washington Post. Find out more about the day of action against US militarism planned for Oct 11.
Turns out Colombia is quite the hotspot for US military action of late (not least Plan Colombia, starting in 1999) with a recent $42m civil settlement against everyone’s favourite military contractor, Blackwater (sorry, Xe services) from the State Dept, who apparently had no idea the company was providing combat training to groups in Colombia:
What is known is that the 2005 training was related to an agreement between Blackwater and the agency in Colombia, where “foreign persons were trained and deployed as third-country nationals in support of a contract with the US Department of State.” Blackwater responded to the State Department by stating that the training was held without the agency’s permission due to a “general misunderstanding” over licensing, although the department notes that there were many violations committed while Blackwater was “servicing US Government programs or providing training to US allies.”
What’s a little misunderstood paramilitary training between friends? More importantly, who knows how many of these “general misunderstandings” have led to the training of paramilitary groups in the region, trained under the guise of US foreign policy, that are impossible to hold accountable for their actions? Narco News has the full story here. And I may be a little late to the party on this one, but news is out that Blackwater is actually up for sale – though you can bet its Director Erik Prince will be keen to rebrand his paramilitaries-on-demand offering in the United Arab Emirates, where apparently he has skipped the country to in the wake of further scandals and mounting legal cases against his company. Serendipitously enough for Prince, the UAE doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US either.
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