Colombia Terror

The Times’ Aug. 1 editorial invokes Human Rights Watch in claiming that leftist rebels are the main provocateurs of violence in Colombia. In fact, HRW has repeatedly pointed to the right-wing paramilitaries as the main agents of terror in Colombia. Furthermore, The Times leaves out the explicit links HRW and others have found between the paramilitaries, the government and the United States.

In its 1996 report on the conflict, HRW documented the “disturbing role played by the U.S. in Colombia’s military-paramilitary partnership.” HRW also points out that despite Colombia’s “disastrous human rights record, a U.S. Defense Department and CIA team worked with Colombian military officers on the 1991 intelligence reorganization that resulted in the creation” of the paramilitaries in the first place. The editorial gets one thing right. The world is watching, but not whom The Times may think it is watching.

TONY SAMARA

Santa Barbara