Dear Friends, here is this month's Colombia Update. We send best wishes to you and your family and for peace and justice in 2011. Contents 
In November 2010, the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, took to the streets. They walked for 10 days. They walked to build relationships with other communities and in hopes of telling their story of struggle over the last 13 years. Watch FOR's video letter here. FOR Pilot Project: No U.S. Guns in Latin America Under President Obama’s administration, the United States has supported the military  coup in Honduras, secured Colombian military bases, occupied Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, and secured a deal with Costa Rica to send warships and over 7,000 Marines to this country that abolished its military. Social movements in the region have responded with clear opposition to militarization and installation of foreign bases. FOR has joined the Continental Campaign for a Latin America without Foreign Bases, and is launching a pilot project to strengthen a coalition of activists that will monitor and organize nonviolent vigils at US military bases connected with Latin America through training or deployment of troops, war vessels or aircraft. With the message “No US guns in Latin America,” the pilot project is raising awareness with local communities on the impacts of military expansion in Latin America and how resources could find better use by filling domestic social needs. We have begun by urging people to let the White House know our priorities for Latin America policy, as it assembles next year’s federal budget, through postcards to President Obama. With other U.S. organizations we also issued a statement on December 10, International Human Rights Day. An important way to resist military intervention is through actions that make it visible and express our reasons for opposing it. Our interactive map and list of US sites from which military intervention in Latin America is carried out illustrates the geography of intervention in the United States. The most important of these sites are located in the Southeastern and Southwestern states, as well as the Washington, DC area, although there are some important training sites elsewhere (e.g. Leavenworth, KS). The campaign will enable us to address US militarization in Latin America at home, and by doing so, support the Continental Campaign against militarization.  FOR is also exploring ways to support anti-militarist youth in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, a city that’s experienced over 7,000 murders since the U.S.-supported Mexican army inserted itself into the city in 2007. Our partners in Colombia have persevered, and we continue to accompany them. Our experience there shows that such community initiatives for peace are desperately needed in situations such as Ciudad Juarez faces – and can survive.
New US Ship Deployment to Costa Rica during Heightened Tensions By John Lindsay-Poland The Costa Rican legislature on December 20 approved another deployment of dozens of U.S. ships to its territory for the next six months, but denied permission for warships to deploy to the country until a full debate occurs after the New Year. The decision came at a moment when the country’s relationship with neighboring Nicaragua remains tense. The permission is for 46 Coast Guard ships, 42 armed helicopters, and up to 4,000 sailors, deployed – as in the last six months - to combat drug trafficking. Only four legislators voted against the deployment. Juan Carlos Mendoza, leader of the Citizen Action Party, explained that his opposition to the agreement is based on the United States being at war and that, as such, even Coast Guard ships are under the mandate of the military. “Costa Rica signed a patrolling agreement with civilian authorities and not with the military part. This could be violating the active and permanent neutrality of our country,” he said. Another deputy, José María Villalta of the Broad Front, said there is no evidence that the deployments have contributed to reducing drug addiction or to traffickers changing their routes away from Costa Rica. Meanwhile, the day after its approval of the US naval deployment, Costa Rica denounced Nicaragua at the United Nations for the presence of troops along the San Juan River that serves as a border between the two nations, alleging that Nicaragua had “invaded” and “occupied” Costa Rica. The same day, Nicaragua protested a “incursion” into Nicaragua by Costa Rican ships and a plane. Costa Rican ambassador to the UN Eduardo Ulibarri said that his country has no military, and has instead appealed to the OAS, but that Nicaragua had rejected the OAS’s jurisdiction. Nicaragua asserts that the troops dredging the river are in their own territory, which extends to the Costa Rican side of the river. The approval to deploy armed U.S. ships and helicopters to Costa Rica sends a message that the United States could use the threat of force to arbitrate the conflict, probably in Costa Rica’s favor. Republican Senator Richard Lugar took Costa Rica’s side in a December 15 letter to the Millennium Challenge Corporation, urging action against Nicaragua. At the same time, the United States continues to deploy troops in smaller numbers to Nicaragua as well, mostly for training missions. Nicaragua authorized more than 700 U.S. troops to conduct exercises and training in Nicaragua this year, including a Special Forces unit that conducted an exercise in May. Nicaragua reportedly approved another U.S. deployment for 2011 on December 13. Last July, when the United States and Costa Rica agreed to deploy up to7,000 US Marines and 46 warships, some of them assault ships armed with Sparrow missiles, to army-less Costa Rica for counter-drug operations, some Costa Ricans were upset. “I love my country without soldiers,” read a popular statement. One legislator sued in the courts to turn back the agreement, so far unsuccessfully. Only two of the announced ships deployed to Costa Rica, one of them for ‘humanitarian missions.’ The other, USS Rodney Davis, conducted counterdrug operations in August. The US Navy’s Fourth Fleet again plans to deploy ships to Costa Rica for the first six months of 2011. This time, there are no Navy ships on the list (and no US Marines), only US Coast Guard vessels. Although the Coast Guard is an armed and foreign entity, the fact that Navy warships were excluded from the proposal represents a victory for the efforts opposing the deployment of warships to Costa Rica. It is possible that the Navy did not anticipate the opposition to the arrival of such ships. “We are not sure why there is this uproar,” said US ambassador Anne Slaughter. Or they may have been testing reaction, experimenting in order to inoculate the public to the idea that the United States can send its troops wherever it wants, but that the response was not politically acceptable. This time. The current proposal continues to insist Susana Pimiento and Chris Courtheyn led workshops on accompaniment, US militarization, and human rights in Colombia, joining 10,000 others at the November vigil at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, to push for the closure of the School of the Americas / WHINSEC. | that Coast Guard personnel may wear their uniforms in Costa Rican territory, and enjoy freedom “to carry out the activities necessary to fulfill their mission” (without naming those activities). It also confers immunity from Costa Rican laws for damages caused by the presence of ships or personnel. US organizations urge Clinton to suspend aid to Colombian units Human rights organizations in the United States called on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week to comply with the law and “act decisively” to suspend aid to all units implicated in killings that remain in impunity. The letter gave detailed information on Colombian Army units aided by the U.S. and reportedly responsible for hundreds of extrajudicial killings. U.S. legislation known as the Leahy Law prohibits U.S. aid to foreign military units credibly reported to have committed gross abuses unless those responsible have been brought to justice. Citing official investigations and nongovernment human rights reports, the letter notes that aid to commanders and intelligence groups within a unit that has a pattern of abuses constitutes aid to the whole unit, and that assistance to those commanders and intelligence groups should be suspended. The letter said the units described “represent only some egregious examples” and cited United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston as stating that “There have been too many killings of a similar nature to characterize them as isolated incidents carried out by individual rogue soldiers or units.” The groups also urged Clinton to publish required reports on foreign military training, as the State Department is nearly three years behind on that reporting. The letter was signed by Fellowship of Reconciliation, U.S. Office on Colombia, Washington Office on Latin America, United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries, Alliance for Global Justice, Open Society Foundations, and nine other groups. Peace Community Leader to Tour U.S. Colombian community leader Jesús Emilio Tuberquia has far too much first hand knowledge of just how dangerous it is to work for peace in the middle of a war zone. He is one of the founding members and legal representative of the San Jose Peace Community, located in northwest Colombia.  In 1997, Jesús Emilio and 800 other small farmers claimed their territory as a neutral civilian community and refused to cooperate with any armed group (including military or police). The community has since survived threats, killings, massacres, disappearances, and food blockades perpetrated by various armed actors, including the U.S.-funded Colombian military. Despite this violent pressure, Jesus Emilio and the people of the Peace Community have succeeded in building a non-violent community in resistance and as an alternative to the violence that surrounds them. Jesus Emilio Tuberquia will speak in a nationwide tour in April about what led to his town’s decision to become a Peace Community, and the importance of international solidarity for their survival. Tuberquia’s speaking tour is organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation and Peace Brigades International, both of which maintain a human rights observer presence in San José de Apartadó. Planned visits during the tour include New York, Philadelphia; Washington, DC; Chapel Hill, NC; Florida; Cincinnati; Chicago; Madison, WI; Colorado Springs; Albuquerque; and the San Francisco Bay Area. For information, or to help organize events in these areas, contact FOR organizer Susana Pimiento. News Briefs C.O. Recognized A Medellín high court recognized the conscientious objection of Daniel Serna Henao on December 13, reversing an earlier denial of CO status by the Army. Serna is a graphic design student and active member of the Medellin Youth Network (an FOR partner). We join the Medellin Youth Network in celebrating this victory. Colonel Implicated in Youth Killings in the US… to study Colonel José Gabriel Castrillón García commanded of the Velez Battalion, operating in San José de Apartadó and other communities in the northwestern Urabá region in 2004 and 2005. On February 10, 2004, four youths – Luis Armando Ocampo Mercado, Alberto Mario Arias Manjarres, José Ulises Pérez Pérez, and Edwin Enrique Aras Chavez – were recruited with false promises of work, then subsequently killed and claimed by the Army as guerrillas killed in combat by members of the Velez Battalion under Castrillón’s command. Like many extrajudicial killing cases, this one was wended slowly through the Colombian court system, until December 9, when Castrillón was called to testify in a court in Sincelejo, Colombia, where eight of his soldiers were on trial for the killings. But Castrillón didn’t show up, because he is in Washington until next July on a diplomatic mission visa, studying at the Inter-American Defense College. Family members of the four youths sent a letter of protest to President Santos on December 9. “We don’t accept that an army colonel being investigated for an extrajudicial execution is now on a diplomatic mission,” the letter said. “As family members we can see this diplomatic mission as a reward for the forced disappearance and subsequent homicide of our family members.” Mixed Signals President Juan Manuel Santos has signaled less hostility to human rights defenders than his predecessor Alvaro Uribe. His appointment of former armed forces commander Manuel José Bonnet on December 20 as governor of Magdalena Department doesn’t bode well for ending impunity for the military’s crimes, however, as Bonnet commanded a brigade that reportedly disappeared and killed more than 50 people in 1990. (Terrorismo de Estado en Colombia, p. 71)  But people have another side. Last year, Bonnet harshly criticized the military drug war that he waged, as well as the bombing of Afghanistan. “The more glyphosate is burned,” Bonnet said, “first it helps to poison Colombia’s environment and it helps the big producers like Monsanto, selling large amounts of herbicide.” Drug trafficking should be fought where it is generated, he said. “They do the money laundering, the arms trade is done there. They criticize us because drugs go from here to there, but we can’t criticize them because the weapons go from there to here.”
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