{"id":166,"date":"2003-10-01T09:39:41","date_gmt":"2003-10-01T13:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=166"},"modified":"2003-10-01T09:39:41","modified_gmt":"2003-10-01T13:39:41","slug":"save-the-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=166","title":{"rendered":"Save the Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald<\/a> Rumsfeld visited Colombia in August to express U.S. support for the war on domestic insurgents and drug-traffickers<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Since then it’s been reported<\/a> that private contractors such as DynCorp have received additional U.S. support despite unsuccessful efforts<\/a> to stop the continued financing of that group and others in Colombia:<\/p>\n

According to a report released by the US State Department earlier this year, there are 17 primary contracting companies working in Colombia, initially receiving some $3.5 billion. <\/p>\n

The largest contracts have gone to companies like Lockheed Martin, DynCorp, and Northrop Grumman, but lesser-known firms like the Rendon Group (providing public relations support for the Ministry of Defense) and Science Applications International Corp. (assisting in imagery analysis) are also here.<\/i><\/p>\n

According to this article<\/a> Colombia bowed to U.S. threats to cut-off this funding in exchange for signing an accord that exempts Americans in the South American nation from prosecution before the new UN international war crimes court .<\/i><\/p>\n

Many issues continue to be ignored in the non-debate preceding the signing-on to this continued funding.<\/p>\n

Increasing<\/a> instability in the region could lead to an unmanageable situation.<\/p>\n

Checkbook Impunity<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Colombian President ?lvaro Uribe has presented a bill to his congress that would allow paramilitaries who have committed atrocities to skip prison for a fee. Among them are men that have ordered and carried out the killings of thousands of Colombian civilians. <\/p>\n

Unlike other amnesty laws, the Uribe proposal presumes that accused paramilitaries would stand trial; however, it would be clear from the outset that the accused would face no punishment.<\/i><\/p>\n

Widespread Use of Child Combatants<\/a> <\/p>\n

Children fighting in Colombia’s civil conflict–including thousands under the age of 15–undergo gruesome training regimens, are made to execute prisoners and forced into sexual relationships with commanders, according to a disturbing new report from Human Rights Watch.<\/i><\/p>\n

Colombia cuts outreach programs for thousands of children working in prostitution<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Thousands of abandoned and abused young people who have turned to prostitution in the streets of Colombia’s capital may never receive help from child care workers because of a government cut in funding for outreach programs, activists said.<\/p>\n

The state family welfare institute said Tuesday it was eliminating about $60,000 a year in funds used by the Renacer foundation to locate, assess and refer exploited children. The decision outraged workers who said it halts aid for those who most need it. <\/p>\n

”They will be left completely in the hands of the pimps, without any attention,” Timothy Ross, a Renacer volunteer, said of the estimated 5,000 children working in prostitution in Bogota.<\/i><\/p>\n

If someone were to tally-up the number of civilians killed in the funding and execution of these dirty U.S. operations Saddam would look like a two-bit player in comparison.<\/p>\n

Not a new observation but one that continues to sicken me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Rumsfeld visited Colombia in August to express U.S. support for the war on domestic insurgents and drug-traffickers. Since then it’s been reported that private contractors such as DynCorp have received additional U.S. support despite unsuccessful efforts to stop the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-2G","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}