These and other such measures, presented as a strategy to combat opposition guerrilla forces, have gained the backing of the U.S. government. Under the "Plan Colombia," approved by the U.S. Congress in 2000, Washington has been pouring military funds and equipment into the country, along with military advisers.

The new president’s standing among working people is not so assured, however. On September 16 a nationwide one-day strike was organized to protest the effects of the worsening economic crisis and government austerity measures.

The September 10 decree handed the army brass the power to impose curfews in the new zones of "rehabilitation and consolidation." The proclamation also granted town mayors and other authorities the power to seize residences, aircraft, boats, and other vehicles if they deem such action to be necessary "to resolve a situation that can put the community at risk." Colombia has been under a state of emergency for more than a month, which began just four days after the Colombian president took office on August 7.

In the name of financing an increased allocation of resources to the military, Uribe had earlier imposed a 1.2 percent tax on those with $60,000 or more in assets. The $800 million that would be collected, said Fernando Londoño, the minister of the interior of Colombia, would be used to train and equip 40,000 new troops by the beginning of next year.

The army presently stands at 200,000 troops. The new forces would boost the army presence in areas under the control of opposition guerrilla forces, he said.

Claiming that the military forces had been deliberately weakened by past governments, Defense Minister Martha Ramírez stated, "the current government is just rectifying that mistake by creating a force of the size that Colombia needs."

Bogotá also says that it will arm 15,000 peasants to aid the army in the rurally based civil war.

The authorities are also beginning to implement an Uribe proposal to recruit people to what is referred to among working people as a "network of snitches." Uribe had first raised the proposal during his election campaign. His pledge to wield an "iron fist" in the "fight against terrorism" dominated the electoral contest, which ended on May 26 with his resounding victory.

Uribe’s vice president, Francisco Santos, said in Washington in mid-September that the new administration was fulfilling its campaign pledge to bring "peace" to Colombia.  
 
Washington declares support
The U.S. ambassador, Anne Patterson declared Washington’s confidence in the new government during a forum at a university in Bogotá, the capital, in September. The new measures, she stated, will not endanger human rights. A couple of days earlier, Washington had authorized $42 million in military aid to Colombia. The aid installment came after the U.S. State Department "certified" the Colombian army, clearing it of accusations of a series of human rights violations linked to right-wing paramilitary forces tied to the regime.

Washington has used the ongoing Colombian civil war and the sizable drug trade as pretexts for a steep rise in military intervention in the broader Andean region over the last couple of years. Under both Uribe and his predecessor, Andrés Pastrana, it has provided Colombia with more than $2 billion in military aid and training. Colombia is the third-biggest recipient of U.S. military aid, exceeded only by Israel and Egypt.

Earlier this year the U.S. Congress shifted Washington’s stance of restricting the Colombian government’s use of military aid to the fight against "drug trafficking." It allows the Colombian regime to deploy U.S.-supplied attack and transport helicopters and other war materiel in its fight against the opposition rebel forces. Gen. Galen Jackman, director of operations for the U.S. Southern Command, said before a U.S. Senate panel September 17 that the U.S. military needs the "flexibility to help the Colombian government with counter–insurgency equipment, training and intelligence."

Uribe is expected to request even more military aid in his scheduled visit to Washington in late September. He is also expected to ask the White House to press the World Bank and the InterAmerican Development Bank for loans to alleviate the current financial crisis confronting the country.  
 
A protracted civil war
Colombia’s nearly 40-year civil war has taken some 34,000 lives in the past four decades. Despite their brutality and Washington’s generous backing, the armed forces and right-wing paramilitary units have to date been unable to deal deathblows to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), a smaller guerrilla group. The FARC, in particular, has not been dislodged from the substantial area that it controls.

The paramilitary forces, known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia--financed largely by wealthy landowners--have expanded their terror tactics in the last several months, massacring thousands of peasant leaders, trade unionists, and supporters of the FARC.

Leaders of trade union and peasant organizations have spoken out against the new government’s attacks on working people’s rights. Miguel Caro, vice president of the Central Trade Union Federation of Colombia, said on September 11 that the decree seeks to establish a "true witch hunt."  
 
Workers take action against crisis
Some 700,000 state workers, organized by the country’s main trade union federations, staged a one-day strike to protest the measures announced by the government as necessary to confront the economic crisis. The strike affected the oil industry, as well as the telephone company, government offices, schools, airports, and trash collection.

The government mobilized army troops and the police throughout the country to prevent tens of thousands of peasants who had joined the mobilizations from marching into the capital and other major cities, and from setting up roadblocks.

Colombia’s three main trade union federations have made a call for a one-day general strike on October 30.  
 
 
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