Is the U.S. Enabling the Humanitarian Crisis in Colombia?

[Judi Lynn]

September 11, 2013

Is the U.S. Enabling the Humanitarian Crisis in Colombia?

Terror attacks are on the rise and millions remain displaced, but U.S. military aid keeps flowing.

BY Jeremy Kryt

It’s a cruelly hot day in rebel-held territory. On a crumbling and abandoned plantation, in the insurgency riddled Cauca region of southwestern Colombia, more than three dozen indigenous leaders have gathered in the shade for a tribal meeting. Children’s murals and peace-themed banners cover the white-washed adobe walls. Outside, in the mortar-cratered fields that once grew sugar cane for the California market, shirtless men labor in the noon heat to plant beans and squash.

“We’re in a hard place,” says Ernesto Conda, a ruling council member of the Nasa tribe, one of several indigenous groups native to Cauca. Conda is 44 and wears his hair in a sleek black queue streaked with gray.

“Our people are always under fire here—always in range of the mortars and machine guns,” he says, taking a break from the tribal council to show this reporter around the former plantation, which the Nasa have occupied in a bid to raise subsistence crops. The twenty or so families who now squat here were driven from their homes in Cauca’s jungle-covered mountains by fighting between leftist guerrillas, right-wing militias, and Colombian troops.

These Nasa families are among the 4.7 million internally displaced Colombians produced by five decades of civil war, according to a recent study by a government-sponsored truth commission called the National Center for Historic Memory. The report revealed that the number of internal refugees in this resource-rich Andean nation is the highest of any country on earth. The struggle between Bogota’s armed forces and right-wing proxy militias and the nation’s largest, leftist insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), has claimed more than 220,000 lives, 82 percent of them civilians. Untold thousands of native Nasa have also been killed in the world’s longest-running civil war. In the Cauca region alone at least 128 native peoples have been slain in conflict-related violence since the start of 2012.

More:
http://inthesetimes.com/article/15475/us_military_aid_and_colombias_human_rights_crisis/

[Peace Patriot]

1. It's very VERY important to understand the true purposes of the U.S. "war on drugs"...

And those are, in my opinion:

1) The brutal displacement of FIVE MILLION Colombian peasant farmers--who once were able to feed their families and local communities--to steal their land for the rich 1% and its transglobal corporate allies, to destroy local food production (a corporate/neo-liberal goal), and to create a slave labor force with no power, no rights and no options. DELIBERATE creation of the worst human displacement crisis on earth, with the U.S. "war on drugs" as the weapon.

2) Other prep for U.S. "free trade for the rich," including the murders, by the U.S.-FUNDED/TRAINED Colombian military and its closely tied rightwing death squads, of thousands of labor leaders, peasant farmer leaders, community activists, human rights workers, teachers, leftist politicians and other advocates of the poor, i.e., the decapitation of the peoples' leadership, so that they cannot get organized (or face great difficulties in doing so) to advocate for their own interests and to elect leaders who will represent them. The U.S./Bush Junta was aiding their tool/mafia boss/'president', Alvaro Uribe, to spy on Colombian labor leaders, to draw up HIT LISTS for their assassination, as well as spying on judges and prosecutors, in order to protect Uribe's criminal organization--all using the resources of the U.S. "war on drugs." Killing them with our weapons; spying on them with our technology; supporting an outright criminal regime--Uribe's--to accomplish U.S. corporate purposes.

3) Consolidation of the trillion+ dollar cocaine and other drugs revenue stream into fewer hands and better direction of its enormous profits to U.S. banksters, the CIA, the Bush Cartel and other "players."

4) Destruction of Colombian civil society, through militarization and violence, so that the people stand helpless before "free trade for the rich" policies.

5) Once the "big players" have control of the land, legalization of drugs (which Manual Santos openly advocates) so that Big Pharma/Big Ag/Big Chem can GMO-ize and monopolize the trade in herbal, medicinal, recreational and/or addictive drugs--how Big Corporate gets the "last laugh" out of this horrendous U.S. policy: $7 BILLION U.S. taxpayer dollars larded on the Colombian military to clear the peasants off the land and create a country whose people have no power to resist U.S. "free trade for the rich" (corporate rape). (Big biofuel farms, mining and oil, and the dumping of Big Ag's products on the Colombian market, to destroy local farming, are also part of this Big Rip-off.)

The OP article dances around these points just a bit (and doesn't mention some of them), though it is very informative on the whole. Here's what I mean by a bit of a dance (after the article lays out the horror of the Colombian civil war for poor peasant farmers):

...in the wake of the truth commission report and Bogota’s brutal response to the nationwide protests, a growing chorus of international observers contend that U.S. foreign policy—including military aid and trade agreements—could be helping to fuel the violence and contributing to the plights of those caught in the crossfire.... --from the OP (my emphasis)

My God, "could be" helping to fuel the violence? $7 BILLION in military aid to these butchers! ($2.03 BILLION since 2009.)

But the article does go on to lay out the evidence that the U.S. IS fueling the violence, on an on-going basis.

The funding of Colombia’s armed forces continues despite the evidence offered in a 2010 study which showed that the rate of extrajudicial killings and other war crimes committed by individual units often spiked just after receiving U.S. aid in the form of training, construction, helicopter fleets, and advanced weapon systems. The rate of recorded atrocities by those same units subsequently went down when aid was withdrawn.

“So many units have committed terrible rights abuses after they’ve received (military) assistance,” says Lindsay-Poland, who has served as an advisor to the State Department on Colombia. He accuses the Obama administration of failing to “evaluate the human rights impact of enormous of amounts of military assistance” in Colombia. --from the OP (my emphasis)

As for the reduction of coca leaf cultivation, claimed by the U.S. State Department (if their numbers can even be believed--they are such liars in so many respects), we really need to consider my point no. 3, above--that the U.S. "war on drugs" has been used to ELIMINATE the small players (such as small peasant farmers who may have grown a few coca leaves for local use--it's a traditional medicine--and may have sold a few to drug exporters to supplement extreme poverty incomes; or, such as rival gangs--criminal organizations that didn't support Uribe, or that Big Pharma/Big Ag/Big Chem wanted to eliminate, before their Big Plan for legalization goes forward).

Seen in a different light, the reduction in coca leaf cultivation is just more evidence of CONSOLIDATION of the revenue stream, to narrow and monopolize the production of these drugs. Now read this paragraph:

In support of its continued aid to the Colombian government, U.S. officials can point to the numbers: according to information In These Times received from the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, coca leaf cultivation in Colombia went down seven percent from 2011–2012, largely due to aerial spraying and ground-based eradication efforts by the army. Overall production of pure Colombian cocaine has fallen from an all-time high of 700 metric tons in 2001 to just 175 metric tons in 2012—a drop of 75 percent. Due to such optimistic numbers, some in Washington have begun to trumpet Drug War efforts in Colombia as a model to be followed in Mexico and Central America. --from the OP (my emphasis)

The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, and all such entities of the U.S. government, and all their many private corporate 'contractors,' have a vested interest in these numbers. They are WAR PROFITEERS, and they have to make it seem like they are "winning" the "war"--to keep their gravy train on track. The source of these numbers is VERY tainted. But even if there is some truth to it, what the Hell is our man in Bogota, Manuel Santos, doing calling for the complete legalization of all of these currently illicit drugs?

What is wrong with this picture?

Here may be the clue: (The article goes on...)

But even as cocaine production has fallen, Colombia’s insurgents and criminal bands have turned to other sources of funding, such as mining for precious metals, which make them less dependent on narco-trafficking. And the dip in drug production has not led to a decrease in violence. Like many other critics, FOR director Lindsay-Poland refuses to label the Colombia model a success:

“Any program that has resulted in, or done nothing to stop, the forced displacement of five million people is not a success, but a human rights disaster,” he says. “A policy based on ending violence instead of reducing coca leaves would look a lot different.”

The violence continues because the violence IS THE POINT. Mass displacement. Destruction of civil society. All paid for by you and me, so that the uber-rich and U.S. and allied transglobal corporations can take Colombia's resources--its land, its minerals, its food security (small farmers), and every manner of its productive capacity including coca leaf cultivation--away from the Colombian people along with their civil and human rights.

I repeat, we really need to understand the "Alice in Wonderland" world of the U.S. "war on drugs." It was never intended to stop illicit drugs, and it never has. It was intended to produce the MILITARIZATION of civil society, and all the horrors attendant on that militarization, for CONTROL purposes. And it is no wonder--given the false premises of this "war"--that a criminal regime--the Uribe/Bush regime--could USE it for its OPPOSITE purpose (getting control of the trillions in cocaine profits), while no doubt fostering rampant corruption in every U.S. "war on drugs" agency, as well as in the Uribe government. (Over a hundred of Uribe's closest political associates are under investigation or already in jail for drug trafficking, ties to the rightwing death squads, illegal domestic spying and other crimes.)

I am convinced that they did this--used the "war on drugs" for profit (as they used the "war on terror" for profit). I am also convinced that the Democratic Party "neo-liberal" leadership has, a) covered up terrible crimes by the Bush Junta in Colombia, and great scandals such as Bush Junta drug trafficking, b) is trying to squirm away from Bush Junta drug trafficking, and serve their corporate masters, with a "neo-liberal" legalization plan (Santos would never have proposed legalization without Washington's OK); and c) is not opposed to MORE displacements, and more murders of peasant leaders and labor leaders, in the cause of "free trade for the rich."

----------------

All the quoted material is from the OP:
http://inthesetimes.com/article/15475/us_military_aid_and_colombias_human_rights_crisis/

[Judi Lynn]

2. We've never seen it acknowledged by a corporate media source

that a country in the Americas has the very worst humanitarian crisis in the entire world! They just don't want to admit it here, since our government places so much importance in maintaining Colombia as its door to South America, as a forward operating location.

Thank you for taking a close look at the article, and sharing your excellent comments. It was tremendous reading.

[Socialistlemur]

4. The worst humanitarian crisis in the entire world?

That's a bit hyperbolic, don't you think? Right now I could think of countries like Syria, Palestine, and Afghanistan in the Middle East. Haiti in the Caribbean. I can think of a few in Africa, but the Central African Republic is the shining new member of the failed state pantheon, as far as I can see:

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/aug/15/central-african-republic-failed-state-un

[Bacchus4.0]

5. yep, I saw that nonsense too. She thinks there are refugee camps in Bogota

the displaced people in Colombia have moved away to other locations. That is what is meant by internally displaced.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Internally displaced means displaced people STILL living in Colombia.

Easy to grasp.

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Refugees in their own country
25/11/2012 – by Gloria Ortega Pérez

Colombia has a huge problem: for years, great numbers of villagers have been fleeing to the cities in order to escape the violence in the country’s remote regions. Masses are flooding cities, testing infrastructure and welfare systems. Internal displacement is proving a humanitarian disaster.

By Gloria Ortega Pérez

They can be found at every intersection in the major cities: begging for money, selling ice cream or fruit, or washing car windows. Nearly all of them carry similar signs that state: “I am a refugee.” Most internally displaced persons in Colombia end up on the streets. Only very few are fortunate enough to find a regular job, for instance as a cleaner in an office or private home.

Millions of Colombians are affected. They are weighed down by indescribable suffering. These people have experienced the war that is rocking Colombia the hard way. Ignored by urban society, they populate the outlying districts of agglomerations, bringing along fear, hunger and insecurity.

Regular security forces and illegal militias have been fighting over land and access to resources in Colombia since the 1960s. What started as a guerrilla uprising against the state and a protest against social inequality, developed into a bitter war in which, over the years, drug trafficking became a key element.

~snip~
Faced with such violence, millions of Colom­bians had no option but to flee. Entire villages – especially those belonging to indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities – abandoned everything they owned to escape attacks, threats and intimidation. Many were forcibly expelled from their land and fled to the departments of Nariño, Antioquia, Cauca, Valle del Cauca, Córdoba and Bogotá. However, the mass influx of people is over-burdening local authorities to the limit. Infrastructure and social services cannot cope. Many refugees have become dependent on aid, and most live in extreme poverty. The humanitarian situation keeps deteriorating.

More:
http://www.dandc.eu/en/article/internal-displacement-cause-colombias-humanitarian-disaster

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Jul 24, 2009

Colombia needs refugee camps to deal with displacement: Bogota
posted by Katharina Wecker

Bogota authorities are expecting 1200 displaced families from Tolima to arrive in the city this weekend. The capital fears that it is unable to take care of more refugees and demands
that the national government recognize the gravity of displacement and establish refugee camps. Bogota has neither the space nor capacity to deal with the expected 1200 displaced families, Health Secretary Hector Zambrano told local Caracol Radio. He said that the government of Alvaro Uribe refuses to accept the problems that exist with displacement.

“We do not share what some top government officials say. The issue of displacement is not about the occupation of public space. This is a very short-sighted and limited view of the problems of displacement in Colombia,” Zambrano said.

The Health Secretary urged the government to consider what other countries in war are doing, to recognize the problem of displacement and to create refugee camps.
“What is happening in Colombia is that the government did not take that decision and the problem of displacement is treated like dirt that is hidden under the carpet,” Zambrano added.

More than 1000 displaced families are already living in Bogota’s Parque Tercer Milenio where authorities declared a health alert on Thursday after the District Emergency Committee examined the medical condition of the displaced who have been living in the park for more than four months.

The examination revealed that 131 people show symptoms of the AH1N1 virus, three are infected with HIV and others have tuberculosis and cancer. According to the newspaper El Tiempo, authorities started to evacuate the ill and sick from the Parque on Thursday afternoon. Only 28 left the park voluntarily. The displaced gather in the Parque Tercer Milenio to protest against forced displacements and insufficient aid from the government.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/bogota-expecting-1200-displaced-families-this-weekend/

[center]~ ~ ~[/center][font size=1]


Nearly half of the displaced population in Colombia
are children.



The vast majority of displaced families do not even
receive running water in their homes. These women
are using water from a stream to wash their clothes.



The neighbourhood of
Cazuca in the capital Bogotá
is home to thousands of
displaced people. In total
there are over 2 million
displaced people in Colombia.



This displaced
neighbourhood in Bogotá lacks
every sort of basic service so
members of the community are
forced to illegally tap into the
electricity system.



A camp for the displaced in the city of Medellin.



The government refuses to help most displaced people
forcing community organisations to take on much of
the burden. This community soup kitchen is in the
southern city of Neiva. Unfortunately the state security
forces and paramilitaries are now targeting the
organisers of the community groups and accusing
them of being rebel sympathisers.[/font]

More:
http://www.lukemastin.com/testing/colombiapeace/gallery_displaced.html

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
~snip~

At the end of 2011, there were an estimated 26.4 million internally displaced people around the world, down slightly on the year before. UNHCR was helping about 15.5 million of the IDPs in 26 countries. These included the three countries with the largest IDP populations – Colombia, Iraq and South Sudan.

More:
http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c146.html

[Judi Lynn]

6. Clearly it's NOT hyperbolic. It's been discussed repeatedly for years.

Last edited Thu Sep 12, 2013, 01:17 PM - Edit history (1)

~snip~

For more than a decade, Witness for Peace has documented one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises—Colombia is currently the country with the largest internally displaced population in the world. More than 5.2 million Colombians have been internally displaced by right-wing paramilitaries often working in conjunction with Colombia’s U.S. funded and trained military, left-wing insurgents, indiscriminate aerial fumigations, large-scale extractive industries and agro-fuel production. At every turn, U.S. corporations have benefited from the violence and mass displacement, most notably Coca Cola, Chiquita, Dole and Drummond Coal.

More:
http://www.witnessforpeace.org/section.php?id=95

On edit, added:

~snip~
Colombia has the highest recorded number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world, with 3.9 million people – 8.5% of the population – displaced since 1996, and between 150,000 and 200,000 continuing to be displaced each year.

More:
http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Colombia-final-draft.pdf

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Colombia: Resources for humanitarian response and poverty reduction
Uploaded: 29/04/2013 Author: Chloe Stirk

In GHA’s latest country briefing paper we analyse the international and domestic response to the humanitarian crisis in Colombia, which has the highest levels of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world. The paper examines the resource flows to and within the country, including official development assistance (ODA), humanitarian aid, counter-narcotics funding, security investments, domestic resources, foreign direct investments and remittances.

More:
http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/colombia-quantifying-the-international-and-domestic-response-to-the-humanitarian-crisis-4065.html

[Bacchus4.0]

7. you said it was the very worst in the world

which means its worse than the civil war and people being gassed in Syria, Haiti, a variety of placed in Africa. None of that is true so your post was bs. Internally displaced are people who have been forced out and moved away. There aren't refugee camps, tent cities, or dying from the level of violence you see in Venezuela.

People in Colombia have access to basic food items and toilet paper

[Judi Lynn]

9. Oh, my god! Spend some time on research! n/t

[Bacchus4.0]

10. OMG!! get out from behind your computer!!

Venezuela beckons you. p.s. bring your own TP

[Judi Lynn]

11. That's no problem for someone from the Land of Plenty.

[center]







[/center]

[Bacchus4.0]

13. well, thats you. What are you waiting for? n/t

iw

[Socialistlemur]

12. I sincerely doubt it's all "right wing paramilitaries" the FARC scare people

It's a bit biased to claim "right wing paramilitaries" scare people away and the FARC don't do it as well. Also, internal migrations are common as people move searching for jobs and so on. I happen to think the FARC are way past being a political movement and are closer to a band of kidnappers and drug dealing warlords. They have a veneer of communist dogma, which I find extremely primitive and dissonant with the 21st century reality, and all they achieve is killing and death. To me it's evident movements such as the ones led by Lula, Humala and Correa are the way. As for the right wing paramilitaries, they will be defeated easily once the FARC is gone and the USA legalizes drugs. This may happen within the next 50 years.

And yes, the comment was hyperbole. There are many nations suffering much worse disasters.

[roody]

14. The people were driven from their homes by

the governing forces. Please educate yourself about displaced people in Colombia.

[Socialistlemur]

15. That's your version

I've talked to people who claimed they were driven from their land by the FARC and ELN .... I have no reason to believe they lie. As I mentioned, it's all sides:

(Washington, DC, February 10, 2009) - The recent killings of some 17 members of the Awa indigenous community by the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the state of Nariño shows its utter disregard for the lives of civilians and refusal to respect the most basic tenets of humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch said today.

[link:http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/02/10/colombia-farc-kills-17-indigenous-group|

[Judi Lynn]

16. Even a small block of research reveals it is the military, and PARAMILITARIES

who have driven the vast majority of displaced people out of their homes, off their land. Period.

Michael Solis.
Mitchell Scholar and LLM Candidate
Posted: September 13, 2010 04:20 PM

Colombia's Internally Displaced People

~ snip ~
The driving cause of displacement in Colombia is the ongoing civil war, which began in 1964 when the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas rose up in arms. Government-backed paramilitary groups emerged in the 1980s to combat the insurgents. Paramilitary forces remain active despite failed demobilization tactics between 2002 and 2006, and they continue to commit rights abuses.

Such abuses do not stop with the State-sponsored expulsion of people from their land. Human Rights Watch's 2010 report on Colombian paramilitaries documents the widespread abuses of successor military groups to the paramilitary coalition that regularly commit massacres, killings, forced displacement, rape, and extortion. They often target human rights defenders, trade unionists, victims seeking justice, and community members who do not follow paramilitary orders.

According to women's rights activist Ana Teresa Lozada, at the core of the Colombian conflict is deep social inequality. Half of the country's population of 45 million people live in poverty. The territorial dispute has caused the dispossession and displacement of the poor and marginalized to the benefit of the powerful -- the State and multinational corporations -- who gain minerals, oil, and other natural wealth as a result of exploitation.

Forced displacement continues in countryside towns and cities, with indigenous and Afro-Colombians being the main target groups. Nearly half of the displacements that occurred in 2009 took place in Nariño, where paramilitary forces have assassinated indigenous peoples. An estimated 300,000 people were displaced in Colombia in 2009 alone.

Paramilitary organizations have helped facilitate the entry of multinational corporations in Colombia by doing the "dirty work" of removing farmers and their families from their land. Internally displaced people are excluded from the enjoyment of their economic and social rights, including the right to work. Approximately 11 percent of internally displaced people earned Colombia's minimum wage of $260 per month, while the rest rely on informal work such as rummaging and selling things like cell phone minutes or tamales.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-solis/colombias-internally-disp_b_715186.html

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]

The Paramilitaries

~ snip ~
Colombia’s rightwing paramilitary death squads are notorious for their brutality and have been responsible for the vast majority of the human rights abuses that have occurred in the country in the past 25 years.i They are infamous for their use of vicious violence, including massacres with chainsaws, brutal torture, sexual violence and cutting off of limbs as tactics designed to instil fear and terror among those they target. The scale of their violence is astonishing and it is estimated that the paramilitaries have killed around 150,000 Colombians and displaced hundreds of thousands more (see Forced Displacement).

More:
http://www.justiceforcolombia.org/about-colombia/

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]

BACRIM Return to Paramilitary Roots in Colombia Land Battle
Written by James Bargent
Wednesday, 19 June 2013

An emblematic land restitution campaign in north Colombia illustrates how in some parts of the country, the BACRIM continue to act as a private army for business interests with deep ties to Colombia's paramilitary movement.

A new report by Colombialand.org, a group monitoring Colombia's land restitution process, tells the story of the long-running case of Curvarado and Jigumiando, which predates the Victims and Land Restitution Law but is widely considered to be a test case for the how the law will be implemented.

The region's largely Afro-Colombian population was displaced during a military campaign between 1996 to 1997. The operation was one of the clearest examples of collusion between the Colombian army and paramilitaries, and remains one of Colombia's biggest single displacements.

After the community fled the constant massacres, assassinations, and indiscriminate bombardments, their lands were snapped up by large-scale cattle ranching and African palm agri-businesses with close ties to leading members of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

More:
http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/bacrim-return-to-paramilitary-roots-in-colombia-land-battle

ETC.

ETC.

ETC.

ETC.

[Judi Lynn]

17. Neo-paramilitary groups preventing return of Colombia’s displaced: HRW

Neo-paramilitary groups preventing return of Colombia’s displaced: HRW
posted by Daniel Freeman
Sep 17, 2013

“If Colombia does not take further action to stop the (death threats, intimidation, and killing), the problem (facing Colombia's displaced) is likely to get much worse,” said the Human Rights Watch in a report released Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international NGO dedicated to preserving and protecting human rights across the world, released a report of an investigation almost two years in the making about Colombia’s internally displaced population and their journey back to their homelands.

The investigation included interviews with 250 Colombians who are either displaced and are now trying to fight for their land back, or public officials linked to the issue.

The testimonies revealed that throughout efforts to return to their homes and reclaim their property, these displaced citizens have been abused due to incidents of death threats, intimidation, and murder.

[font size=5] Since 1985, 4.8 million Colombians have been displaced from their homes generating the worlds largest population of internally displaced people according to HRW. [/font] These displaced Colombians have had to abandon an estimated six hectares of land, much of which various armed groups still hold captive. These lands and properties in question can be found in the Departments of Antioquia, Bolivar, Cesar, Choco, Cordoba, La Guajira, Sucre, Tolima, and even in parts of Bogota, Colombia’s capital city.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/internally-displaced-colombians-still-long-road-home-hrw/

[Socialistlemur]

3. Of course they are

The USA backs and finances both sides. Dopers finance the FARC drug business, and the Feds finance the Colombian army. It reminds me of me playing chess with myself...I always lose.

[a la izquierda]

18. What shitty thing in Latin America has the US NOT aided?

If it screws 99.9% of the population down there, the US is for it.

[Judi Lynn]

19. It's ugly finding out, bit at a time, how deeply US corporations have been involved,

along with the U.S. gov't, behind everyone's backs, especially the ones who have to pay for their operations. Inhuman, vicious people.