The Sun's editorial praising Colombian President Andres Pastrana's Plan Colombia and the $1.3 billion U.S. aid package that helps fund it was based on a leap of faith with no landing in sight ("Flying down to Cartagena," Aug. 30). Not once did it mention the extent of the Colombian military's corruption, and it only perfunctorily referred to the violence of the nation's armed forces. It also trivialized the role of the army's brutal collaborators, the right-wing paramilitary forces of the United Self Defense Groups of Colombia, which the country's president maintains are together responsible for 80 percent of the country's political killings. [continues 215 words]
WASHINGTON - President Bill Clinton's daylong trip to Colombia was preceded by his fateful decision to waive congressional human rights constraints placed on U.S. weapons aid to that country's already darkly controversial armed forces. In doing this, he shed the moral component of the $1.3 billion aid measure and confirmed that Colombia's military was a world class human rights violator, which together with associated rightist death squads accounts for 80 percent of all human rights violations in that country. This alone would have disqualified the armed forces from receiving any U.S. aid. [continues 685 words]
