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Center for Public Integrity
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U.S. Military Aid Implicated in Human Rights Abuses, Center
for Public Integrity Investigation Shows
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| WASHINGTON
- July 11 - U.S. anti-drug money
spent on Latin America has been funneled through corrupt
military, paramilitary and intelligence organizations and ends
up violating basic human rights, a new Center for Public
Integrity investigation shows.
The investigation by the Center's International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists found that in three of the Latin
American countries examined, U.S. aid was implicated in civilian
human rights abuses. Other findings:
- The $1.3 billion Plan Colombia aid package represents the
largest American commitment in a guerrilla war since Vietnam.
With the drug war's focus on leftist guerrillas, successive U.S.
administrations have tolerated the Colombian military's ties to
right-wing forces, even though they, too, are steeped in drugs.
- In Peru, the CIA paid at least $10 million to spymaster
Vladimiro Montesinos, who also diverted U.S. high-tech
surveillance equipment to spy on political opponents. Montesinos
betrayed his American benefactors by arming Colombia's FARC
guerrillas.
- The ICIJ investigation reveals human rights abuses by
members of the elite Mexican special forces unit known as GAFE,
many of whose troops are trained by the United States. As in
South America, U.S. assistance to the Mexican military ends up
as dual use - to counter drugs and to deal with internal
security matters.
U.S. officials are particularly concerned about regional
stability in Latin America, which ships more oil to the United
States than the Persian Gulf. Major U.S. corporations with Latin
American interests spent more than $92 million lobbying the U.S.
Congress in the latter half of the 1990s, in part to affect U.S.
policy in the region.
The complete report can be found, as of July 12, 2001, on
http://www.public-i.org. For
an embargoed copy of the report,
contact Helen Sanderson at 202-466-1300.
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