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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

U.S. Human Rights Activism And Plan Colombia, Winifred L. Tate Jun 2009

U.S. Human Rights Activism And Plan Colombia, Winifred L. Tate

Faculty Scholarship

Non-governmental organizations claim to play a central role in defining U.S. foreign policy, particularly in the field of human rights. Here, I will examine the role of human rights and humanitarian groups in the debates over U.S. foreign policy towards Colombia, focusing on the design and subsequent additional appropriations for Plan Colombia, a multi-billion dollar aid package beginning in 2000. I argue that NGOs were able to build on the legacy of prior human rights activism focusing on Latin America, but failed to achieve significant grassroots mobilization around this issue. I examine the structural issues limiting such mobilization, as well …


From Greed To Grievance: The Shifting Political Profile Of The Colombian Paramilitaries, Winifred Tate Jan 2009

From Greed To Grievance: The Shifting Political Profile Of The Colombian Paramilitaries, Winifred Tate

Faculty Scholarship

On June 28, 2004, indicted drug trafficker and paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso, wearing a fashionable Italian suit and tie, addressed the Colombian Congress from the podium. "The judgment of history will recognize the goodness and nobility of our cause," he told the assembled legislators and press. The day before, Mancuso, along with two other paramilitary leaders, had traveled in an official air force plane from the small northern Colombia hamlet where paramilitary leaders had assembled to begin talks with the Colombian government. After almost a decade of fighting outside the law, Mancuso was now addressing the heart of the state, …