The people's movements were driven underground, and a reign of terror continues against Communists, trade unions, peasant leaders, or anyone who opposes the plunder of Colombia by its ruling elite and the U.S. multinationals. Most goes to the military, which in turn supports the death squads. U.S. workers will lose jobs. These are exactly the policies tens of thousands of U.S. unionists protested at the WTO meeting in Seattle in December. Impoverishment of Colombian workers and peasants occurs as local businesses are crushed by international monopoly practices, and funds for health, education and human services are cut to pay foreign bankers.
Human rights disappear when anyone who speaks out is assassinated by death squads.
But that is only a smokescreen when the military, the death squads, the land-owning elite and the multinational corporations form an interlocking group with a common interesting in maintaining power and wealth. Twenty-five years after the end of the Vietnam War, we should remember that, too, began with sending a few advisors to defend a client government against a peasant insurgency. The danger is more acute because Colombia's neighbor, Venezuela, recently elected a populist President, Hugo Chavez, who is pursuing a populist program against that country's elite. He is challenging U.S. domination over the oil and other wealth of the country. Other Latin American countries also face increasing popular unrest, as living standards have fallen in conditions of the new global economy.