Recent allegations by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch strongly indict the connection between Colombian military forces and U.S. weaponry. The seriousness of the charges demand a congressional investigation to ensure that U.S. aid is not being used in the lethal suppression of peasant leaders in remote Colombian villages.
Both reports charge that Colombia's military high command has promoted and protected paramilitary groups to provide intelligence on anti-government guerrillas and that the paramilitary groups have killed both guerrillas and villagers falsely suspected of being their supporters. In 1995, says the Human Rights Watch report, "almost half of all acts of political violence where the perpetrator was identified were attributed to paramilitaries." The innocent victims, according to the reports, are usually community and peasant leaders, trade unionists and human rights monitors with no ties to guerrillas, "trapped in a conflict where few wear uniforms."
