You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Congress to Review $1.6 Million in Military Aid to Colombia

Listen
Media Options
Listen

Related

    In Europe this week, Colombian officials are continuing their tour with top commanders of the 17,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country’s largest guerrilla group, in an effort to jump-start peace talks aimed at ending a 35-year-old civil war.

    Back home in Bogota, the U.S.-backed government is pressing harder than ever for a military victory against the guerrillas. Colombia is already the world’s third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid. And, if President Clinton and Republican leaders of Congress have their way this month, the country will soon start receiving a two-year military aid package totaling more than 1.6 billion dollars. Congress is set to debate the aid in the coming weeks.

    But human-rights advocates there say the additional U.S. military aid will only expand an internal refugee population of nearly 2 million people, and increase the likelihood of human rights violations by the Colombian military and its surrogate paramilitary forces. And some top Pentagon officials are expressing concerns that a heightened military presence in Colombia could drag the US into a drawn-out counterinsurgency war.

    We now go to a story filed by reporter Chip Mitchell, who has spent two weeks traveling through Colombia.

    Tape:

    • Report by Chip Mitchell, freelance reporter.

    Guest:

    Related Story

    StoryMar 22, 2024U.S. Said It Was Calling for a Gaza Ceasefire, But Its U.N. Resolution Didn’t Say That: Phyllis Bennis
    The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

    Non-commercial news needs your support

    We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
    Please do your part today.
    Make a donation
    Top