The Narco News Bulletin
"The name
of our country is América"
-- Simón
Bolívar
European Union
Turning Against US Plan Colombia
Interview
with Paul Emile Dupret of the European Parliament
From the daily El Espectador
http://www.elespectador.com/
Bogotá, Colombia
Sunday, June 11, 2000
Translated by The Narco
News Bulletin
"Plan Colombia is
a Dracula"
Special guest at the International
Conference on the Colombian Peace Process that is happening here,
Paul Emile Dupret, delegate of the European Parliament for Latin
America, strongly criticized Plan Colombia.
According to him, the
plan has little clarity, doesn't contemplate true social solutions,
offers a different answer in each scenario that is presented,
and is backed only by one of the parties in the peace talks.
Because of that it will not receive unanimous support in the
European Union.
Q. Why doesn't Plan
Colombia contribute in offering solutions to the peace process?
A. Because it has a military
component that is debated in the U.S. Many of we Europeans believe
that it is directed only at one country, in that it doesn't speak
of the strong advances by paramilitary organizations in the North
of Colombia that grow together with drug trafficking.
Q. And the part of the
Plan that concerns Europe?
A. There's no clarity
as to what concerns Europe. It fails to speak in a true respect
of human rights and the practical role of the Human Rights agreement.
A plan of this magnitude doesn't mention agrarian reform, when
those most affected by the conflict are the small farmers.
Q. What are the European
Union's criteria in the talks over funding?
What I can say is that
Europe cannot support a plan that is 63% military and lacks many
things. The aims of it are questioned for being an essentially
military project.
Q. Will the European Union
support Plan Colombia financially?
A. There's not much money
here and we are in an economic policy of restriction. In this
moment it would be difficult to find money for Colombia, and
more so when one takes into account that there's no consensus
behind the Plan. There are various nations, between them Italy,
Holland and Belgium, that are asking very serious questions about
it. We believe that Plan Colombia is, in part, imposed by the
U.S.
Q. What are Plan Colombia's
inconsistencies?
A. All of them! Plan Colombia
is like Dracula, it doesn't stand up to light. If you shine a
light on it with only five questions it quickly falls down. I'm
almost certain that the European Union will not budget money
for it. It might be that England gives something, but as the
European Union there is not going to be a unanimous position.
Q. So the financial talks
will fail?
A. The discussion broke
the initial enthusiasm, because the people in the European Parliament
were asked how this plan would contribute to the peace when it
doesn't consider one of the parties in the peace talks. Inside
the nations many questions are also being asked. They are asked,
for example, why isn't there a proposal to change the tax system?
They already cannot be called financial talks, because no country
will make economic contributions. That is owed to the mass of
contradictions and the discussions that have generated inside
the countries of the European Parliament. This meeting is at
a very low level.
Q. What is the European
Union's proposal to contribute to the peace process?
A. To generate real cooperation.
That there won't be investments that lead to robbery. That we
pursue another type of cooperation at the economic level and
with advances in the application of the Human Rights agreement.
It's that Europe is at a crossroads: Accept the proposed Plan
Colombia -- here it's called militarized humanism -- and the
consequences could be similar to those of Kosovo. Or that an
alternative is constructed, that would be a system of cooperation
for development, to invest in the reconstruction of Colombia.
-------------------
The interview is then
followed by this story, also by Olga Gayón:
FARC
SUPPORTS PROCESS WITH ELN
Government negotiator
Fabio Valencia and the spokesman for the FARC (Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia), Raúl Reyes, voiced their satisfaction
over the beginning of peace talks with the ELN (Popular Liberation
Army).
Reyes less it as positive
that the ELN "is able to express itself, because they are
an important Colombian insurgent movement."
Valencia publicly challenged
Reyes to help the process logistically "since the FARC has
a presence in part of the (meeting) zone."
These two participants
in the meeting in Alcalá de Henares agreed that, once
a peace agreement is agreed upon, Colombia must open a space
for the democratic process. Reyes recalled the assassination
of 4,000 militants of the UP and said that this explains why
the Bolivarian Movement is clandestine.
Valencia recognized that
the far-right assassinated the members of the UP: "We are
fighting so that Raúl and I can live freely: him with
his ideology and me with mine. If tomorrow the Bolivarian Movement
wins the elections, we will accept it if the fight is democratic."
América
Calling