Tribune – Comment, news and reviews from Britain's democratic left

by Chris McLaughlin

FOREIGN Secretary David Miliband has been challenged to open an investigation into the deaths of 37 Colombian civilians killed by soldiers likely to have received British military training.

The Justice for Colombia campaign has also questioned public claims by Mr Miliband last weekend that the number of extra-judicial murders of trade unionists is going down and that Britain those responsible receive no British military aid.

Challenged during a question and answer session at the Fabian Society’s “Change the World” conference in London, Mr Miliband said: “The charge is that we’re giving military aid to people who are then killing trade unionists. I can absolutely assure you that is not the case.”

Mr Miliband forcefully asserted the official line that “£350,000 is given by the UK, not in military aid but in training to reform the Colombian military”. He said he believed President Alvaro Ulribe “is trying to reduce the attacks on trade unionists”.

Referring to “shocking and terrible” statistics, Mr Miliband listed 41 trade unionists killed in 2006, compared to 140 in 2005 and 440 in 2003.

But the disputes the claim that the trend is downwards, citing a United Nations report on 2006 which refers to the “persistence of murders” and “an increase in the number of complaints received compared with 2005″.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has recently reported an increase in extra-judicial killings by the Colombian army, mostly in counter-guerrilla operations in isolated areas of the country. The Foreign Office has confirmed that Britain has funded and advised the army’s counter-guerrilla mountain units.
The JFC campaign has sent Mr Miliband a dossier of 37 deaths since last August and urging the Government to “seriously re-consider Britain’s support for an army that has one of the worst human rights records in the world”.

Mr Miliband told the Fabians: “If there were any suggestion, or any allegation of substance that we were somehow conniving in the attacks against trade unionists, that would be an incredibly serious thing and completely contrary to what our foreign policy is doing.”