The Medellín Youth Network is an organization of youth who promote nonviolence, civil disobedience, human rights and conscientious objection by means that contribute to the construction of a demilitarized society.

For us the plans for war, such as Colombian military bases where there are foreign – especially US – soldiers, are more reliable evidence that in this country there is neither sovereignty, nor autonomy, nor independence.

We believe the installation of the new base in Palanquero is not to end either the conflict or drug trafficking, but to aggravate and continue perpetuating the causes that created it, to continue imposing the neoliberal model by the government, with the aim of expanding it across Latin America, turning over our resources and property to foreigners for profit and exploitation at the lowest cost.

According to the Colombian Defense Ministry, there are no U.S. military bases in our country. But then what are the Larandia Hacienda and Tres Esquinas in the Department of Caquetá? The sites in Meta, in Arauca, in the Cerrejón [coal mine] in Guajira, in Vichada and in Turbo, with their support for interdiction and control of drug trafficking by the National Police: are they properties or payments that Colombia has made to the United States for Plan Colombia assistance? Are they places with more U.S. soldiers than Colombian soldiers? A single military base declared as such, with the Uribe government’s permission given by Defense Minister Santos in the lead, is the political lobby, is the payment and the legal lie so that the armed conflict generated by social inequality may be turned over to others.

Colombia is on the eve of 200 years of independence. Nevertheless, the U.S. military presence, economic dependence, food imports to ensure enough food for the whole nation confirm to us that another military base or trade agreement such at the FTA are a declaration of the country as a colony or ad hoc state of the United States in South America.

The U.S. military bases are a military strategy created to control an economic monopoly and general opposition to imperialism in Latin America. They are not to get rid of illicit crops nor to attack and end the insurgency – they are war strategies to use people, to exploit and maintain the large economic projects of private or transnational businesses. They are expenses made with our tax to continue reproducing hunger in the name of defense and security. In this way they consolidate the United States as the empire driven by the war economy.

Medellín Youth Network