Opinion

Oil over human rights

Bush uses 'war on terror' to protect Colombian oil investment

By Catie Joyce

Posted on May 13, 2002, at 12:00 a.m.

The United States has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Colombia. In the past year, the U.S. government spent more than $1 billion in aid mostly to help fight the war on drugs there, according to The New York Times.

The Bush administration is now proposing to increase military aid, requesting $537 million more. Ninety-eight million dollars will pay for helicopters, communication equipment and training of the Colombian Army to protect a 500-mile-long oil pipeline from guerilla attacks.

The pipeline was attacked 170 times last year, costing Colombia and Occidental Oil Co. $500 million. The Marxist rebels oppose the pipeline because they “see Occidental as an exploiter of Colombian resources,” according to a Feb. 6 article in The New York Times.

What does the Colombian government see in the pipeline? A lot of money. Oil is Colombia’s largest money-making export. Ecopetrol, Colombia’s state-owned oil company, supplied the Colombian Treasury with $2.3 billion in 2001, 23 percent of central government spending for the year.

So why is the U.S. so interested in the pipeline? Maybe it’s because Occidental, a Los Angeles-based oil company, operates the oil field the pipeline is in. Or maybe it’s because this proposal comes at a time when the United States faces a need to find fuel from sources other than the Middle East. According to petroleumworld.com, “[The world's major oil companies] are confident that Colombia will benefit from the U.S. desire to diversify its oil imports in order to reduce its reliance on the Middle East and on Venezuela. International companies also recognize that Colombia has a huge oil-producing potential that [has] not been fully exploited.”

The leftist rebel group that is attacking the pipeline, FARC, is currently on the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorists, although its acts have never gone beyond Colombia. This allows the Bush administration to explain away the extra aid as part of its “war on terror” package, another example of the Bush administration riding the coattails of Sept. 11 in order to slide legislation through Congress.

The Colombian government is also learning how to play our political game. While it is true that the U.S. government has labeled the rebels as terrorists, the Colombian government has only adopted this label within the last few weeks. This labeling sweetens the proposal in the eyes of Congress, some of whose members have compared the situation with the guerilla forces in the Vietnam War. The word “terrorist” then becomes a justification for the increased funding, because terrorism affects the world guerillas only affect a country.

However, whether guerilla or terrorist acts, these are not black and white issues of good versus evil, a fact that the Bush administration repeatedly chooses to ignore. The Colombian government and the United States blame Colombia’s huge narcotics-trafficking problem on FARC, equating the elimination of FARC with the elimination of drug trafficking. FARC however, a group whose goal is to bring power back to the people, denies responsibility for the country’s drug problem.

Add into the equation a counter, right-wing paramilitary group, AUC. This group is also on the United States’ list of terrorists. However, there are several reports linking AUC to the Colombian Army. U.S. human rights groups fear AUC, a huge human rights violator, will take over the rebel zone if FARC is driven from power and persecute innocent civilians there for leftist sympathies. Colombia has also denied the United Nations access to the rebel zone to assess civilian casualties.

While the U.S. government appears to be lending a helping hand to Colombia, I can’t help but also see the other hand behind its back holding a wad of money. This is another example of the government’s foreign policy – to help out only if it will benefit us. This is not only a selfish way of doing business, but in Colombia’s case, may not even be helping the citizens of the country, merely the government and its oil companies. I sincerely hope Congress takes a closer look at the issues at hand and rejects the president’s proposal of increased military aid to Colombia, and suggests instead much needed humanitarian aid.

Catie Joyce is a junior English and journalism major.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 13th, 2002, 12:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.