LaRouche Says Give Colombia Logistics And Intelligence Help, Not U.S. Troops

PRESS RELEASE

LaRouche Says Give Colombia Logistics
And Intelligence Help, Not U.S. Troops

This press release was issued on Feb. 22, 2002 by Executive Intelligence Review News Service, after the government of Colombia designated the FARC narco-guerrillas as terrorists, and moved to retake its sovereignty over the so-called Demilitarized Zone in which the FARC had effectively ruled for three years. EIR for years has covered the FARC as a narco-terrorist force of extraordinary international danger; and has denounced the open financial negotiations with the FARC by Wall Street leaders including Stock Exchange President Richard Grasso.

Lyndon LaRouche, Executive Intelligence Review founding editor and U.S. Democratic Presidential pre-candidate, said yesterday that the United States should confine its support to the Colombian military, to logistical and intelligence matters, but should not intervene militarily, in the offensive which the Colombian government of President Andres Pastrana has launched against the narco-terrorist Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC). If U.S. assistance is "is confined to logistical and intelligence support, that is proper, because we are not breaching the sovereignty of the Colombian government," LaRouche said. "We don't go into another country. and conduct warfare there, even as an ally, in a way which breaches the sovereignty of that country, and we don't need to. If Colombia gets sufficient support, logistical support and intelligence support," it can defeat the narco-terrorists on its own.

LaRouche was responding to a proposal made by Alvaro Uribe Velez, a purported hard-liner against the FARC who is considered the front-runner in Colombia's Presidential elections, scheduled for March 15. Uribe Velez expressed support for Pastrana's current offensive, but insisted that Colombia requires international mediation to force the FARC back to the negotiating table, as well as international military aid.

In his Presidential campaign, Uribe Velez has insisted that Colombia requires the intervention of United Nations "Blue Helmets," or other supranational forces, to secure peace.

No War on Terrorism Without War on Drugs

"Candidate Uribe Velez should study my important policy directives on dealing with drug-related international terrorism," said LaRouche. The U.S. candidate referenced two documents, which Uribe Velez and others should study: what became known as his "GUATUSA" policy of the 1980s, which specified the parameters for cooperation in fighting narco-terrorism between Guatemala and the United States; and "A Proposed Multi-National Strategic Operation Against the Drug Traffic for the Western Hemisphere"—a document first presented in Mexico City in March 1985, now famous as LaRouche's 15-point war-plan against drugs.

The offensive launched by Colombia's military on Feb. 21, to retake control of the FARC-run demilitarized zone in the south of the country, "is obviously necessary," said LaRouche. "If someone is serious about trying to contain international terrorism, and they are not taking measures against the drug-running empire of the FARC, then they are not serious about fighting one of the more serious components of international terrorism in the more recent period."

However, LaRouche rejected as "crazy" a proposal made by Peter Romero, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, for the U.S. military to "cross the line" and intervene in Colombia, following "the rules of engagement it does in the Philippines," where American troops have joined the Philippines Army offensive against the Abu Sayyaf Muslim insurgents, under the guise of joint maneuvers.

Romero, currently a partner in the New York-based investment company Violy, Byorum & Partners, speaks for the Wall Street interests who struck a public deal with the FARC in 1999-2000. Violy, Byorum & Partners played a key role in pulling together the so-called "Millennium Group" of Wall Street and other foreign money-bags backing "peace" with the FARC. Figuring prominently in the Millennium Group, are New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso, who in June 1999 paid a personal visit to the FARC-controlled "demilitarized zone zone," where he embraced the chief of FARC finances, "Raul Reyes," and invited FARC leaders to come visit Wall Street; and America Online founder Jim Kimsey, who also visited the DMZ, exchanged caps with the commander of the drug-running FARC, Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, and returned to the United States calling for the FARC to be invited to address the U.S. Congress.