-Caveat Lector-
[radtimes] # 210
An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities.
"We're living in rad times!"
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Send $$ to RadTimes!! --> (See ** at end.)
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Contents:
--Global arms sales up in 2000
--RTMark Quarterly Report
--Campus Activism: What's Hot for Back-to-School
--Radicalism reborn
--WTO shocker, invite only
--The Fight For Everything
--Argentina Braces for Mass Protest
--Slavery story stuns UN racism conference
--DynCorp: Beyond the Rule of Law
===================================================================
Global arms sales up in 2000
DAVID MULHOLLAND, Jane's Defence Weekly Business Editor
London, 24 August 2001
Global arms sales to the developing world, which represent about two-thirds
of global arms deals, increased 7.7% last year reaching $25.4 billion, up
from $23.6 billion the year before, with the USA, Russia and France leading
the pack, according to a US government report.
The report, Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1993-2000,
is a product of the Congressional Research Office, a non-partisan research
group that works for the US Congress.
However, while sales have climbed in 2000, in the period 1997-2000 new arms
sales fell 21.1% to $125.1 billion from $142.4 billion during the 1993-1996
period, the report said. Additionally, developing nations are representing
a larger share of the total international arms trade, reaching 70.2% during
the 1997-2000 period, up from 65.8% in the 1993-1996 period.
Among other things, the report shows that while Russia's arms deliveries
have been lagging, sales are picking up with major deals with China and India.
In 2000, Russia signed $7.7 billion worth of deals, 20.9% of all
agreements, globally putting the country behind only the USA in new deals
inked.
The USA leads 2000 with almost $18.6 billion, or slightly over 50% of all
sales worldwide, up from $12.9 billion in 1999. The spike in sales is
largely because of an order by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for 80
F-16C/D block 60 aircraft.
During the 1997-2000 period, the UAE became the number one-recipient of
weapons on the strength of the F-16 order. Following the UAE was India,
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and China, in that order. In the 1993-96 period the
order was Saudi Arabia, China, Kuwait, UAE and Egypt.
SALES
Sales to developing nations 1997-2000 (in $ millions)
1. USA 30,486
2. Russia 16,200
3. France 9,200
4. China 5,000
5. Germany 4,600
6. UK 2,600
7. Sweden 2,300
8. Israel 1,500
9. Belgium 1,000
10. Belarus 1,000
Sales to developing nations 1993-96 (in $ millions)
1. USA 30,965
2. France 15,500
3. Russia 14,300
4. UK 6,300
5. China 2,200
6. Italy 1,600
7. Ukraine 1,400
8. Germany 1,200
9. Israel 1,100
10. The Netherlands 1,100
ARMS DELIVERIES
Arms deliveries to developing nations 1997-2000 (in $ millions)
1. USA 42,452
2. UK 18,000
3. France 15,500
4. Russia 8,900
5. Sweden 2,400
6. China 2,300
7. Germany 1,600
8. Ukraine 1,500
9. Belarus 1,100
10. Italy 1,000
Arms deliveries to developing nations 1993-1997 (in $ millions) 1. USA 35,958
2. UK 19,200
3. Russia 8,400
4. France 6,400
5. Germany 3,300
6. China 3,000
7. Sweden 2,300
8. Israel 1,900
9. Canada 1,000
10. South Africa 900
Source: Congressional Research Service
===================================================================
http://www.rtmark.com
From: RTMark Quarterly Report <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: WTO applauded for insulting Gandhi
August 30, 2001
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WTO INTRODUCES NEW MEMBER
Gold and one meter long, phallus is brand-new technology to control
distant workers
Anti-WTO impostors have struck again, delivering a lecture about the
rights of slavery, the stupidity of Gandhi, and the supremacy of free
trade to an enthusiastic crowd of scientists, engineers, and marketing
professionals--all of whom thought they were watching an official WTO
representative.
The 150 experts at the "Textiles of the Future" conference in Tampere,
Finland heard one Hank Hardy Unruh explain that Gandhi's "self-
sufficiency" movement was entirely misguided, because it centered
around protectionism, and that Lincoln, by outlawing slavery, had
criminally interfered with the trade freedom of the South, as well as
with slavery's own freedom to develop naturally. Had slavery never
been abolished, Unruh said, today's much cheaper system of sweatshops
would have eventually replaced it anyhow; following this free-market
logic to the end, Unruh declared the Civil War just a big waste of
money.
Finally, to applause from the highly educated audience, Unruh's
business suit was ripped off to reveal a golden leotard with a
three-foot-long phallus. The purpose of the "Management Leisure Suit",
he explained, was to allow managers, no matter where they were, to
monitor their distant, impoverished workforces and to administer
shocks to encourage productivity--assuring that no "Gandhi-type
situation" develop again.
"If a group of Ph.D.s cheers at such crudely crazy things, just
because it's the WTO saying them, what else can the WTO get away
with?" said Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men, the impostors' umbrella
group. (The entire PowerPoint lecture is available at
http://www.theyesmen.org/finland/, along with some shots captured by
a video crew preparing a film on the Yes Men's activities.)
The Yes Men had a similar experience last October with a group of
international trade lawyers (http://www.theyesmen.org/wto/). And in
July, a member of the group, again passing as a representative of the
WTO, appeared on a major television network show about protest's
effect on the market (http://theyesmen.org/tv.html); among other
things, he spoke about how the privatization of education will
naturally eliminate "unproductive" thinkers from the high-school
classroom, a long-term solution to the problem of protest. (Because
the imposture was not noticed and the Yes Men hope for further
appearances, the show's name is being withheld.)
In other quarterly developments:
* A conference session on techniques to counter anti-corporate
activism, normally available for $225 to corporate clients, is
available to activists for free at http://rtmark.com/prsa/, thanks to
an anonymous donor.
* At the G8 protests in Genoa, activists distributed one thousand
vanity mirrors, which were then used to reflect the sun into the eyes
of attacking policemen; this fulfilled RTMark project MIRR
(http://rtmark.com/archimedes.html), and those who carried it out
received a $1,000 anonymous investment.
The "Archimedes Project" comes on the heels of the medieval catapult
attack on the FTAA fortress in Quebec City, for which the workers were
awarded $200. For the upcoming IMF protests in Washington, D.C., on
September 29, an RTMark investor has offered $500 to any Lacrosse
team that harnesses their skills and equipment to throw tear gas
canisters back to the police (http://rtmark.com/fundhigh.html#LACR).
* A software development kit and book from http://hactivist.com,
entitled "Child as Audience", allows anyone to reverse-engineer the
Nintendo Gameboy. Because of content that many will find
objectionable, RTMark has lent its corporate veil to the project,
meaning that any legal flak will be absorbed by the RTMark corporate
body rather than by those responsible.
* The same label that enraged Geffen Records with "Deconstructing
Beck" is issuing its fourth RTMark-sponsored release, "A Mutated
Christmas," a paean to musical sharing illegally assembled from
copyrighted holiday music. Promotional copies will be available in
late September; press and radio requests should be directed to
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED].
RTMark's primary goal is to publicize corporate subversion of the
democratic process. To this end it acts as a clearinghouse for
anti-corporate projects. A list of just-added projects is maintained
at http://rtmark.com/new.html.
===================================================================
Campus Activism: What's Hot for Back-to-School
<http://www.ewire-news.com/index.cfm?temp=detail&id=B6E9D078-6719-4B40-A4F438BD4D26C2A5>
EMS Offers a Guide to the Top Issues, Protests and Students
WASHINGTON, DC, Aug. 29 -/E-Wire/ --National forests, international trade
protocols and coffee
farmers in Latin America will be at the top of the list for campus
activists this fall. Protecting the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, protesting World Bank policies and getting dining
halls to go vegan are also
among the nationwide campaigns students will undertake.
College students have wholeheartedly embraced activism again. And
Environmental Media Services
has put together a guide to the hot issues on campus this fall and contacts
on campus, at http://www.ems.org.
Much of this activism focuses not just on government actions the focus of
earlier generations but
on corporations and corporate accountability. This is seen in the
nationwide efforts to end Boise
Cascade's use of old growth wood and work to ensure that free trade
benefits the world's poorest
citizens. The sophistication of student activism has increased as well as
the volume.
Thousands of students are expected to descend on Washington, D.C., to
participate in protests and
teach-ins during the World Bank/International Monetary Fund meetings at the
end of September.
"When I got involved (five years ago), we were this scrappy band of student
environmentalists," says
Oberlin College senior Dave Karpf. "A lot more people are involved now and
they take what they do
very seriously it's very professional."
Across the country this summer, thousands of students attended leadership
training sessions and
workshops on conducting grassroots campaigns, political strategy and
working with the media. Armed
with this training, they head back to campus ready to enact high-visibility
campaigns on a variety of
issues.
The dining hall, surprisingly, is the center of much activism. Recent
student efforts have succeeded in
getting campus dining services to offer fair trade coffee and vegetarian
and vegan meals, with more
campuses targeted this fall. Student protests in at least two schools have
prompted college
administrators to sever ties with the largest campus food service company,
Marriott Food Services,
because its parent company also owns the Corrections Corporation of
America, the controversial
for-profit prison operator.
"I think we're seeing greater sophistication in activism," says Aaron
Gross, a part-time Harvard
student and the college coordinator for People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals. "There's a lot
better organization, better grassroots and national advocacy."
And colleges are leveraging their purchasing power to buy only recycled and
sustainably harvested
wood products, thanks to the Tree Free Campus campaign and other student
efforts.
"The Sierra Student Coalition is taking up forest protection as one of its
priority national campaigns
this year," says Jim Steitz, a senior at Utah State University. "On the
consumer side, our goal is to rid
all institutions, university and otherwise, of Boise Cascade products."
President Bush's numerous efforts to roll back environmental protections
will no doubt spur more
students to action this year as well. As soon as students get back to
campus, they will work to gather
comments before the Sept. 10 deadline for public input on the Bush
administration's efforts to limit the
new roadless area protection rule in national forests. Working to get the
Senate to ban drilling in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will also be top-priority.
"Every student in the Sierra Student Coalition is going to drop whatever
they're doing to make sure the
refuge does not get drilled," says Karpf, a member of the group's executive
committee. "If we can't
stop (Bush) there, where can we stop him?"
For more information, go to http://www.ems.org.
SOURCE: Environmental Media Services
08/29/2001
CONTACT: Ryan Walker, EMS, 202/463-6670/
===================================================================
Radicalism reborn
<http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0830/p11s1-idgn.html>
Young radicals will have to learn to live with an inner conflict caused by
violent tactics, cautions an older generation of radicals.
By Sara B. Miller
Special to The Christian Science Monitor
August 30, 2001
NEW YORK - Michael Parenti sat in a jail cell, bruised and bloody, after a
1970 protest at the University of Illinois. This was only one of several
brutal arrests he faced as a 30-something protester during the Vietnam War.
He reached for the stub of a pencil and began writing a letter to his
3-year-old son on a roll of toilet paper - the only paper he could find.
"Dear Christian," he began. He wanted to tell his son a little bit about
himself, about his politics, his values, and what he was trying to achieve
- in case he didn't make it out of one of the most divisive eras in US history.
Mr. Parenti says he and many of his friends, many deeply involved in
violent radicalism, were so enraged by the inequities of the 1960s and
'70s, that they were willing to do almost anything to be heard. They
pushed cars through bank windows, clashed with police, and some even threw
firebombs.
Now, in his late sixties, Parenti has spent the past 30 years writing books
and lecturing at various universities nationwide, expressing very different
views on how to effect change.
"I think it's a good thing that there are less of the small revolutionary
cadres today," he says. "It's for the better. There is no swift-quick
direct blow you can give to the beast."
After years of retrospection, many of the radicals from the 1960s, often
the children of middle- and upper-class liberals, ascribe their
participation in the revolutionary movement to youthful naivet�. Many are
living within the system - uncomfortably or not - that they once so
vehemently denounced.
But a radical movement is refueling, and Parenti and some of his fellow
radicals see parallels between what is happening today and what they did in
their own youth. From the recent death of a young Italian protester in
Genoa, Italy, outside of the G8 summit this summer to the riots in Canada
over the Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement, the antiglobalization
movement has grown with speed and fury since the World Trade Organization
riots in Seattle in 1999.
"They are doing exactly what we were doing in the 1960s, just throw in the
environment," says David Horowitz. Born into a liberal, radical family, he
was swept up in the anarchist movement as the editor of the New Left
publication Ramparts. Today, he has shifted his opinions as far right as
they were far left.
Passing the radical torch
The newest radicals, who have turned out to protest high-level meetings on
trade agreements and other global alliances, are similar to their
predecessors in that they tend to be liberally minded, often children of
middle-to-upper-class professionals.
"They have the same ability as the Vietnam protesters, with large numbers
of people walking down a large number of streets. These are voices that
need to be heard," says Marci Rubin, now a San Francisco corporate lawyer.
And in many ways, they are gaining attention through some of the same
violent means as their predecessors. For Ms. Rubin, this is disconcerting:
"I have the same problem I did about the Weather people way back," she
says. "I have a problem with rioting and senseless destruction. It feels
like a call to arms, in a way."
Recent media attention about the regret of old radicals and the rise of new
antiglobalists shows that radicalism, so commonly considered the domain of
Vietnam or Berkeley, is not necessarily a war of time periods, but of age
groups - primarily, young idealists. And many are wondering: Will these
newer radicals one day also change course, like those who came before them?
"Their radical pasts will always be tied to them," says Dr. Nancy Snow, a
political analyst at the University of California, Los Angeles. "No matter
what they do, it will always follow them, as regret or conflict. It will be
a part of their obituaries."
The element of conflict in radicalism is something Rubin lives with every
day. She was full of activist fervor as a college student at Berkeley in
the '60s. When she was arrested at 19, for sitting in front of a bus at the
draft board in Oakland, "it was like winning a medal," she says.
But after 21 days in the cell, even among radicals who shared the
experience with her, her romanticism began to fade. "I was a middle-class
kid. It was shocking to find yourself in a place where your opinions, and
logic, and reason just don't count," she says. "They are meaningless in
prison."
The bulk of the radical movement today is comprised of young idealists, in
their late teens and early 20s. It is gaining momentum on college campuses,
just as it did in the '60s. Many believe activists today are more
politically astute than those of the '60s, because of their access to large
amounts of information.
A stark difference between the first group and the current one is that
activists today, unlike those in the '60s, are not mindlessly protesting,
says Parenti, but carefully calculating who and what is the enemy, and then
asking why.
Today's radicals have a greater consciousness of where the seats of power
are, he says. "Activism without deep analysis does not sustain itself. That
is why so many former radicals have been taken in by the very thing they
profess to oppose," Parenti says. "This time it's different."
"It is a far smaller world today, there is so much information," says Kevin
Danaher, the co-founder of Global Exchange, a San Francisco organization
that played an active role in the Seattle protests. "The Internet has
changed everything," he says. This is why he believes there is a greater
consciousness of where the seats of power are. "Activists are much more
well-informed today," Mr. Danaher says. "So they are bolder, and more
assertive." He believes the activist movement is less sectarian today,
which makes it a stronger force.
Still take to the streets
Radicalism today looks the same as it did in the '60s. "They [the
mainstream] complain about us on the streets. But we have to take the
streets to be heard," Danaher says. "You put thousands in the
streets, and they understand: 'We can disrupt you.' "
But there are new twists today. Danaher believes that '60s radicalism was
contained within a national framework. Protesters were outraged with the
decisions that the US government was making. "Now it's much bigger," he
says. With the Internet, activists from all over the world are banding
together. "This is a global movement."
"In the '60s, we were worried about getting sent off to Vietnam. We were
motivated by fear. Now, the issues are more universal, involving a
collective consciousness. It's about preserving forests; it's about
[feeding] starving children in the world."
Attorney Rubin had dreamed of becoming a civil rights lawyer.
She chose to work within a powerful bank in corporate America. She
struggles for women's rights within the bank and considers herself a
radical within the institution. But she has always been ambivalent about
her position. "Sometimes I just want to hide my head. Sometimes I ask
myself: Why didn't I just become a civil rights lawyer? Part of the answer
is: I don't know." She says friends have called her a sell-out; some never
talked to her again. She is often embarrassed to say what she does, she says.
But if the modified views of Rubin or Parenti seem like the closing of a
chapter in radicalism, another chapter may have begun with Lori Berenson
and the antiglobalist activists she typifies. Sentenced to 20 years in a
Peruvian jail for alleged association with a terrorist group there, Ms.
Berenson continues to maintain her innocence.
She has stood as a symbol of fortitude with her insistence on not admitting
any wrongdoing. A confession could have set her free much earlier. Now, she
could be 46 years old by the time she's released. "The majority of people
are going to say, 'I'm going to save myself,' " says her mother, Rhoda
Berenson, "confessing to what they have not done for freedom."
On June 20, Berenson wrote in her closing statement: "I have been very open
and honest about this, because it has been part of my way of life for many
years - I believe that when things are wrong, one should say they are
wrong. One should speak when faced with injustice."
Were it so simple. The years have given Rubin perspective on what it means
to be a radical. "Now I realize there are a lot of different ways to effect
change," she says. "When I was younger, I was adamant that it could only be
done one way."
===================================================================
WTO shocker, invite only
By Phil Stewart, Reuters, 8/30/2001
This story ran on page A37 of the Boston Globe on 8/30/2001.
BOGOTA - An upcoming World Trade Organization meeting in Qatar will be
spared the violent antiglobalization protests seen in Seattle, because of
Qatar's policy that limits visas, WTO chief Mike Moore said yesterday.
Moore said that only 4,400 people, including delegates, would have access to
the meeting from Nov. 9 to 13 in Qatar, which occupies a peninsula adjoining
Saudi Arabia.
''The difference [between Qatar and Seattle] is this: Qatar will not allow
people to enter unless they have a visa, and you can't get a visa unless you
have accommodation,'' Moore said in an interview.
''And we only have 4,400 rooms,'' he added.
The WTO director-general, on a visit to Colombia, said security was not the
reason why the world trade body chose Qatar as the site of its follow-up
meeting after Seattle, which made international headlines for violent
clashes between rioters and police.
''Qatar came and presented a case in Seattle to be the first country in the
region, a developing country,'' to hold the meeting and met all the
requirements, he said.
In Seattle, thousands of protesters, saying that free trade hurt workers and
the environment, shut down the conference in the autumn of 1999 by blocking
city streets.
On the fringe of the protests, vandals wrecked cars and windows, lit
bonfires, and threw rocks and bottles at hundreds of heavily armored police
officers, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.
Moore said he welcomed ''healthy scrutiny'' by nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) that protested peacefully.
But he branded the fringe Seattle rioters as ''fascists'' who were
tarnishing the NGO movement with violence.
''There is a group now internationally who say they want to stop ministers,
world leaders, from meeting. Now think about the implications of that.
That's fascist,'' he said.
''There is lots to protest about. What you don't have is the right to say,
`Well, you're not allowed to meet because of me.' Who are you? I think that
is dangerous, and it's hurting the NGO movement, too,'' he said.
Moore said the WTO had rejected only about 20 applications by NGOs to attend
the Qatar conference and had accepted some 660 requests from ''true'' and
''legitimate'' groups.
He said that because of the 4,400-person limit on the event, the world trade
body could allow only one person from each nongovernmental organization to
attend the meeting.
''There is some controversy with the NGOs,'' he conceded.
''We decided that only one person from each NGO could come. It's better to
have 650 different NGOs than have big ones,'' he said.
===================================================================
THE FIGHT FOR EVERYTHING:
20 Kick-Ass Organizers Talk About the Future of the U.S Movement to Stop
Corporate Globalization
--> Kevin Danaher of Global Exchange talks about a world run by lesbian
carpenters
--> Kai Lumumba-Barrow from the Student Liberation Action Movement tells
you to leave her neighborhood and go talk to your mom
--> Elizabeth "Betita" Martinez from the Institute for MultiRacial
Justice breaks down Zapatismo
--> David Solnit of Freedom Rising admits, "You can't just get all your
friends and duke it out in the street like you could 500 years ago"
--> Liz Butler from ForestEthics adamantly refuses to learn how to climb
stuff and hang banners
As the tear gas clears after yet another global trade summit, it's more
clear than ever that mass actions, by themselves will not stop corporate
globalization, and that the movement that surfaced in Seattle needs to
get bigger--and much more effective.
>From Prague to Portland to Porto Alegre, online and on the barricades,
people are asking each other, "Which way forward?"
I figured that many of the best ideas will come from those who have been
building this movement (or collection of movements) from the ground up.
So I asked 20 organizers of the recent protests-- people whose
backgrounds and viewpoints are all over the map-- where we should go
from here? How does the movement need to change and grow? How can we
actually transform the global economic and political order?
I was blown away by all that these folks said. I pulled some of the
wisdom from these conversations and built a web site. The result is
available at:
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~jar67/everything/
Check it out! You will not be disappointed.
===================================================================
Argentina Braces for Mass Protest
By BILL CORMIER, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday August 29, 2001
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) - Authorities sealed off government offices
and the Buenos Aires stock exchange Wednesday ahead off a mass rally
expected to draw thousands of people angered by a new round of austerity
measures.
Busloads of workers were coming to the capital for a march organized by the
country's main labor organization. It was expected to be the biggest show
of anger in the Argentine capital in months.
The government, struggling to check a severe economic crisis, is cutting
workers' salaries and retirement benefits in a bid to trim expenditure.
Seeking to get his message out before the march, President Fernando De la
Rua acknowledged the social impact of the belt-tightening measures.
``I understand the concerns of the people, the pain everyone is feeling
because of this prolonged recession,'' De la Rua said. But he called for
popular support, adding he had no choice but to press ahead with
controversial budget cuts.
``The measures we take now are borne out of necessity,'' he added.
The president has called on Argentina's 23 provinces to join him in a
``Zero Deficit'' plan to end a 3-year recession marked by 16 percent
unemployment. Last week, the International Monetary Fund awarded Argentina
an emergency $8 billion package.
But to meet IMF guidelines, the government must implement a tough
deficit-cutting plan that has rankled organized labor, triggering near
daily street protests.
In an unusual display of solidarity, both the main General Workers
Confederation and a hardline breakaway faction united to stage the protest.
Hugo Moyano, leader of the dissident union group, complained spending cuts
were targeting the wrong sectors.
``A retiree who makes $500 a month or a state worker shouldn't have to
shoulder the burden of the deficit. That has to be paid by those who make a
lot more money than the poor workers,'' Moyano said.
De la Rua said he will restructure Argentina's inefficient state medicaid
program and overhaul what critics consider a bloated social security agency.
===================================================================
Slavery story stuns UN racism conference
http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/09/02/slavery_010902
Sep 3, 2001
DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA - The face of modern-day slavery trembled and wept
before the world Sunday, silencing delegates to the UN Conference Against
Racism.
A 17-year-old girl stood in a grand meeting hall full of representatives
from more than 150 countries and described her life as the property of
someone else.
"I was born into an environment of slavery," the young woman began,
recalling her childhood in a tribe in Niger.
"My mother was a slave to a household, and I grew up into her work �
grinding grain, fetching firewood, tending the animals."
The teen then described how in her society there are two communities: black
members and white members, even though everyone's skin colour is the same.
The white people, who inherit the class title from their parents, use the
black people as slaves.
Delegates listened to her recount how she was sold at 15 to someone in
neighbouring Nigeria who had four wives. She was forced to perform
housework, as well as to sleep with the man at night.
Eventually she escaped, and foreign aid workers helped reunite the girl with
her mother.
Niger, which borders Chad, Libya, and Algeria in northwest Africa,
officially forbids slavery in its constitution. But some international
organizations estimate that as many as 20,000 people there live in
involuntary servitude.
The UN conference in Durban stopped as the teenager sobbed at the
microphone, talking about how officially prohibited practices are still
tolerated in some parts of the world. Eventually someone came up to the
podium, offered a tissue and thanked her for having the courage to share her
nightmare.
Modern-day slavery is one of many topics being discussed during the
eight-day meeting. Possible reparations for centuries of colonial
slave-trading is another.
Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs backed out of the conference at the
last-minute to protest against a campaign to label Israel a racist state in
the final communique. Ottawa and Washington both sent lower-profile
delegations instead.
===================================================================
DynCorp: Beyond the Rule of Law
http://www.colombiareport.org/colombia78.htm
by Robert Lawson
Monday, 27 August 2001
Despite the fact that a company contracted by the U.S. government to carry
out its program of fumigating and eradicating coca crops in Colombia has
been caught smuggling heroin out of the country, no attempts have been made
to bring it to justice. For more than a year the Office of Prosecutions has
failed to render a decision on the case, while the police official
responsible for setting the whole process in motion has since retired from
active duty. This is not the first time a case against Dyncorp employees
has disappeared in the labyrinth known as Colombia's judicial system.
On May 12, 2000, according to an official U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration document obtained by The Nation magazine under the Freedom
of Information Act, Colombian police intercepted a parcel sent from
DynCorp's Colombia offices to its air base in Florida.
Colombian authorities discovered two small bottles of a thick liquid in a
package which, when tested, was found to be laced with heroin worth more
than $100,000. When authorities discovered the name of the company
responsible for shipping the heroin they turned the results of the
'narcotest' over to the Immediate Reaction Unit, which then set into motion
prosecution procedure 483064. However, the heroin bust remained a secret
for more than a year until The Nation began its investigation and now it
seems the evidence has simply disappeared.
Apparently, a similar situation occurred last year when 29-year-old Michael
Demons, a paramedic member of DynCorp's team, suffered a cardiac arrest and
was taken to a hospital in Florencia, in southeastern Colombia, where he
died. Forensic tests conducted at the time revealed that the cause of death
was a cocaine overdose. Mysteriously, when the Colombian Central Office of
Prosecutions took an interest in the death and requested more information,
all related documents, such as the legal medical reports, vanished.
And two years ago, the records of ten DynCorp employees involved in the
illicit trade of amphetamines also disappeared. "Faced with evidence of the
scandal, DynCorp decided to expel these employees from the country and so
drop the heat on the issue," a government investigator told Colombia's
Semana magazine.
These discoveries might only be the tip of the iceberg as DynCorp's
activities are conducted in absolute secrecy and appear to be beyond the
jurisdiction of any governmental body. A high ranking police official in
Colombia, who has known about DynCorp since their 1993 arrival in Colombia,
told Semana magazine, "no authority, whether the Civil Aviation Authority,
police or army, is authorized to search DynCorp's planes. Nobody knows what
they carry on their return to the United States because they are
untouchable."
Some Colombian officials who disagree with DynCorp's involvement in
Colombia believe the pilots of the company are nothing more than
mercenaries who travel around the world offering their services. According
to another high-ranking police official who did not wish to disclose his
name, "They are very difficult people to deal with. Most of them consume
large amounts of drugs. Many inject before flying. Several officials have
had open confrontations with these pilots because they don't respect the
disciplines of military bases. And our officials don't accept that these
people, no matter how experienced they are in the field of war, consume
drugs on military grounds" (see Colombia Report, "U.S. Mercenaries in
Colombia").
According to the Guardian Weekly, the U.S. government's contract with
DynCorp is full of ambiguities, giving the company even more leeway to
avoid oversight by both Colombian and U.S. authorities. This not only
increases the opportunities for DynCorp employees to personally profit from
drug-trafficking, but also enables the company to conduct
counter-insurgency operations for the U.S. government that go far beyond
their official role of assessing and implementing the fumigation of illicit
crops.
The lack of transparency with regards to DynCorp's role in Colombia has led
Human Rights Watch to accuse the Pentagon of using companies like DynCorp
to violate conditions demanded by the United Stated Congress when it
approved Plan Colombia. The U.S. aid package allows for a maximum of 500
troops and 300 civilian contractors in Colombia at any given time. But
according to Human Rights Watch, the policy of subcontracting the war has
resulted in some 1,000 professionals with links to the United States
working in Colombia, many of whom have retired from U.S. Special Forces and
are now employed by private companies like DynCorp (see Colombia Report,
"Are They Civilians or Mercenaries?").
Consequently, Washington is sitting pretty. It may secretly approve of and
encourage counter-insurgency operations conducted by DynCorp, but it
doesn't have to take responsibility for them. Clearly, serious questions
need to be answered regarding the role of both the U.S. government and
Dyncorp in Plan Colombia and why personnel from DynCorp are being
implicated in drug trafficking.
The fact that nothing has been done to bring DynCorp employees to justice
implies a high level of corruption and complicity with regards to these
crimes. It also raises the question as to why a poor Colombian drug
smuggling mule should be sentenced to many years in prison while highly
paid U.S. mercenaries remain 'untouchable'.
---------------
Robert Lawson, English Ecologists in support of Campesinos of Colombia.
===================================================================
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