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 News from Around the Americas | May 2005 
Colombia: The American Military's Little Traffickings
 Roméo Langlois & Pascale Mariani - Le Figaro
| | Drug seizure by American soldiers in Putumayo. Protected by diplomatic immunity, United States' personnel implicated in illicit dealings in Colombia systematically escape the country's justice system. (Photo: Ricardo Mazalan/AP) |
Drug traffickers, pornographers, but also hit and run drivers, and now, arms dealers to death squads, as more and more scandals involve men sent on missions to the country by Washington. Lately, American soldiers on mission in Colombia have shown up in the most sordid affairs. And, to widespread public indignation, the scenario never varies: protected by diplomatic immunity from any trial, they systematically escape this country's justice system.
Last week, a new scandal succeeded in revolting Colombians. An American Lieutenant-Colonel and Sergeant were arrested in a tourist complex in possession of a significant stock of Made-in-the-USA weapons. The bullets were supposed to be used to train Colombian soldiers in the framework of the anti-drug and anti-guerrilla struggles. The investigators, however, are categorical: the two shooting instructors were closing the sale of the arms to extreme rightwing paramilitaries who had been convicted of narco-trafficking and were responsible for the murders of thousands of civilians suspected of collaborating with the guerrilla.
Against the advice of the Public Ministry, the two American citizens were promptly remanded to their embassy. Ambassador William Wood, for whom "immunity does not mean impunity," has certainly promised an exemplary punishment. But Colombians have begun to find the 1962 agreement that confers judicial immunity on American personnel operating on Colombian soil within the framework of military cooperation programs indecent. "It's the last straw," a young lawyer in Bogotá objects. "We extradite our fellow citizens accused of narco-trafficking to the United States, but the gringos in our country think they can do whatever they like."
Today, eight hundred soldiers and six hundred "civilian consultants" supervise the endless war against "narco-terrorist" groups from Colombian bases. On March 28th, four of them, anti-drug instructors, landed in Texas with 16 kg of cocaine on board a military airplane from Colombia. The Andean country's intelligence services, even though they detected widespread traffic dating back to 2003, had to let the plane take off. The "narco-soldiers," as they are called in the Colombian press, were also spared an embarrassing appearance before a Colombian court. As was the soldier drunk at the wheel accused of running over two Colombian soldiers. As was the wife of a diplomat who sent cocaine to New York in 1999 by diplomatic pouch.
Protagonists of several quickly hushed-up affairs, civilian "contractors" are no better. Pilots from DynCorp, a private aviation company charged by the Pentagon with spraying thousands of tons of defoliants on the coca fields, were involved in heroin trafficking in 2000, and one of them died from an overdose in an Amazon base. In a quite different register, the 2004 marketing as DVDs of porn movies of young Colombian women and American military personnel made a terrible impression.
Today, more and more Colombian personalities demand revision of the immunity agreements now in force, throwing President Alvaro Uribe's government into confusion. Washington's most docile regional ally has no intention of imperiling the 700 million dollars of annual American military aid. |
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