Speaking of rape, and denial, and cover-ups…the International Business Times reports:
The U.S. Army has pledged to investigate recently resurfaced allegations that American soldiers and contractors sexually abused more than 50 Colombian minors in the mid-2000s, weeks after the accusations appeared in a report on the Colombian government’s battle against rebel militias.
Colombia’s Historical Commission on Conflict released a landmark 800-page report in February detailing the government’s fight against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a guerrilla group that engaged in a 50-year conflict with state forces. One section of the report focused on the U.S. military’s assistance to Colombia’s government in its efforts and noted harrowing accounts of rape and sexual abuse against underage Colombian girls.
Very nice of the US Army to take notice at last. It would have been even nicer to have taken notice of it at the time, but hey, these are men in power, and underage Colombian girls just don’t count.
“There is abundant information of sexual violence with total impunity, thanks to bilateral accords and diplomatic immunity to U.S. officials,” the report stated. In the towns of Melgar and Girardot, 70 miles from Bogotá, U.S. military workers allegedly abused 53 girls, recorded the acts and sold the footage as pornographic videos, the report said.
Good old American ingenuity and efficiency, eh? Entrepreneurship at its finest. First they get a free fuck with a nice tight little girl, then they get to sell the video. Score!
Although the report called it one of the most “notorious” cases of sexual violence of that time, Colombian media outlets began amplifying the allegations in the report in late March. On Friday the U.S. Army confirmed it would investigate the situation along with Colombian officials. “We take this issue very seriously and will aggressively pursue all credible allegations,” Chris Grey, a spokesman for the Army’s criminal investigation unit, told USA Today.
Don’t lie, you fuckers. Obviously you do not take this issue very seriously or you would have aggressively pursued all credible allegations at the time.
(Am I going to get a scolding now for calling them fuckers and accusing them of lying? Ok I’ll fix it. Make that fucking fuckers who are fucking lying, the fuckers.)
Brace yourselves for this next bit; it’s nasty.
One case highlighted in the report, in which a U.S. military contractor and sergeant allegedly raped a 12-year-old Colombian girl in 2007, is well known in Colombia. Last month Colombian newspaper El Tiempo spoke with the girl’s mother, Olga Lucia Castillo, remarking that “half the country knows of her tragedy.”
Castillo told the newspaper her daughter was “never the same” after the incident. “When I was finally able to establish that the girl had been raped, we tried to find who was responsible and, despite the pain that overwhelmed us, I found them at the base and confronted them,” she said. “Their response was: ‘Your daughter is a little whore; nothing has happened here.’ ” Castillo said her daughter, now 20, has attempted suicide three times and rarely speaks or leaves the house.
Does the US Army take that “very seriously”? If it does, why did it respond that way? Why has it done nothing in the 8 years since?
All the little whores want to know.
I heard about this yesterday on listener-supported public radio, while driving. I came home and did a search “army colombia” and got nothing but adverts for the army bases there. I had to look harder – then I found it. I don’t know if your source mentioned it, but the Army is claiming immunity in the same way diplomats (and their families) claim immunity while stationed at their country’s embassy in another country. We have had some trouble with diplomats behaving with impunity because of their immunity; now we’re seeing it here. The Army basically gave carte blanche to their people to behave with impunity. It’s not that the Army didn’t know. They claimed they could not be prosecuted.
I heard about it yesterday on On the Media (on public radio)…but I had also seen a headline or two about it before that, like Friday or so, and meant to follow up but – as so often – didn’t get to it. Yes, I did get the part about immunity, also impunity. The Daily Beast article has a lot more; to be continued.
(On the Media talked to Chris Albritton, who wrote the Daily Beast article.)
I’ve seen these reports for a week or so. Along with the Narco-trafficante sex parties for DEA and Secret Service agents.
No matter how corrupt and exploitative Colombian society may be…after decades of war, and the inheritance of colonial Spanish morality, sending Americans into that nation without SPECIFIC policies around their conduct is vicious negligence.
And, note the presence of ‘contractors’ (e.g. unregulated mercenaries) as representatives of U.S. policy.
‘Diplomatic immunity’ is a grotesque rationale for the failure of the Colombian authorities to prosecute the offenders, it’s neither absolute nor irrevocable. Immunity could be waived by the US authorities or the sexual predators could be expelled by the Colombians.
The ‘USAians’ are simply exercising their prerogatives as representatives of an imperial power and there’s always a local ‘comprador’ class to accommodate them.
RJW, remember who is in charge there. You *truly* think there’s an equal balance of power between the United States and whatever cowtown colony it happens to be occupying??
?????
If he thought that, why would he have ended with “The ‘USAians’ are simply exercising their prerogatives as representatives of an imperial power and there’s always a local ‘comprador’ class to accommodate them.”?
@6 Blanche Quizno,
Ophelia has answered your question. To clarify, my point was that diplomatic conventions aren’t the problem in this situation, it’s the interests of a corrupt local elite.
To my mind, the fact that the girl was identified by that spokesperson as a ‘whore’ is itself implicit acknowledgement that soldiers had had sex with her. Whether she was raped as alleged (which I happen to believe is far more likely the case) or whther she is some rampant temptress, or whether she is having sex in return for money, it remains that the soldiers involved had sex with a 12 year old. Thus, no matter which of the above scenarios is true, the fact that sex occurred at all – which they have acknowledged – means it is rape anyway.
It’s not just Columbia – US military personnel have virtually unlimited immunity from prosecution all over the world. There have been several cases here in the UK where US personnel have walked away from credible accusations of serious crimes.
It surely doesn’t matter whether the offenders have “immunity”.
The sergeant, if not the contractor, definitely has no impunity against disciplinary or criminal charges by American authorities.
The reporter and others made exactly that point – they’ve given themselves not just immunity but impunity.