Amelia and I eventually arrived to the department of Putumayo in southern Colombia, where our activities included attending a dance at an outdoor pavilion in the village of Umbria. Cocaine, Death Squads, and the War on Terror: It tells where the vast majority of profits from the multi-billion dollar Colombian cocaine trade go — certainly not to the impoverished people growing coca leaves — how the profits get there, and how this ill-gained wealth furthers the imperial interests of the U. Of course, such assessments are not easily grafted onto the consciousness of a populace conditioned to impute noble — or at least sincere and non-paradoxical — motives to US projects abroad. Colombian National Police officers guarding workers eradicating coca. The authors go to great lengths to describe the terrorism of the narco-state and the psychological operations used to legitimize it. Comments Leave a comment:
These may seem like wild claims at first blush, but the authors put this in context by reminding the reader of the history of U. The litany of this is a long one, with the OSS the predecessor of the CIA forming a strategic alliance with the Sicilian and Corsican mafia after World War II to prevent possible communist uprisings in Europe and to smash left-wing unions; the CIA's assisting the Kuomintang with its opium trafficking operations to fund their joint anti-communist efforts in Asia; the CIA's actual trafficking of opium out of Laos, Burma and Thailand to help fund the U.
Defense Intelligence Agency as number "82 on a list of 'more important narco-traffickers contracted by the Colombian narcotics cartels. As the book explains, the U.
Thus, as the book notes, quoting the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, while there is "no evidence of FARC involvement in drug trafficking," there is indeed "extensive drug smuggling to the United States by 'right-wing paramilitary groups in collaboration with wealthy drug barons, the [U. As for the right-wing paramilitary death squads, which carry out the vast majority of terrorist acts against civilian targets in Colombia, while the U.
Colombia's history is a chronicle of violence and class warfare dating back to the Spanish era with its institutions of slavery and semifeudal land allocation. Cocaine, Death Squads, and the War on Terror: U.S. Imperialism and Class Struggle in Colombia [Oliver Villar, Drew Cottle] on www.farmersmarketmusic.com *FREE* shipping.
Speaking just this week about the paramilitaries' integration into the Colombian state, jailed former paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso explained: All this [was] with a view to gaining political power in the regions in order to consolidate our position as the de facto state. By Taking Power Issue Journey to the Dark Side Issue The Party We Need Issue Rank and File Issue Between the Risings Issue Up From Liberalism Issue Uneven and Combined Issue Struggle and Progress Issue Ours to Master Issue Paint the Town Red Issue A World to Win Issue Alive in the Sunshine Issue Misery Index Issue Assembly Required Issue 9: Modify Your Dissent Issue Spanish colonisation started the process, forcing landless peasants into brutal slave labour to produce coca as a medicinal crop for European markets.
This unleashed a class struggle in the countryside that continues today. Villar and Cottle explain the historical factors that converted this form of exploitation into cocaine production.
The transformation of coca production into cocaine production was the result of capitalist chemical production techniques. The new drug found an insatiable market in the US. It is a dynamic and complex relationship, but it essentially goes like this: The authors provide the seemingly counter-intuitive, but perfectly logical rebuttal: A key opponent in this war is the FARC, a guerilla army largely comprised of peasant farmers that continues to control large swathes of rural Colombia.