CHICAGO – For the 30th year in a row, the Vietnam Veterans Against War held out a special commemoration here on Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11.

The VVAW is an organization orginally formed by Vietnam veterans who became anti-war as a result of their experience in Southeast Asia. They worked for the end of the Vietnam War and now are concerned that the Bush administration is getting ready to plunge the country into not one, but two or more, Vietnams in Central Asia and in Colombia.

Edgar Paez, director of international affairs for the Colombia labor group Sinaltranial, denounced the terrorist acts of Sept. 11 but asked people to consider that U.S. actions in Colombia have now displaced more than three million people in this country of 37 million, with untold suffering and vast economic and social damage.

He said transnational monopolies such as Coca Cola and Occidental Petroleum both profit from and connive in brutal repressive actions against Colombian workers and peasants. He pledged Colombian workers’ solidarity with the international movement against corporate globalization and war.

Samuel Morales, president of the Colombian labor federation in the Arauca area, gave specific details of how U.S. military aid given to Colombia under the pretext of fighting drugs is actually being used for counterinsurgency and repression.

“In our country,” he said, “many people have been killed in the name of peace and the war on drugs ... chemical agents used in fumigating have done serious damage to our people and country.”

This year alone, there have been more than 1,000 massacres carried out by the right-wing militias in Colombia, with a death toll of at least 6,500 civilians. Some 126 labor and student leaders have been murdered this year alone, Morales said.

Referring to the massacre that took place in Arauca three years ago when the Colombia air force bombed innocent civilians, killing many, Morales thanked the Vietnam veterans for the valuable technical work they did on the scene, identifying pieces of shrapnel as coming from the U.S.-made bombs, which were dropped on the villagers.

Joseph Miller, VVAW activist and a former Navy intelligence officer in Vietnam, said, “We thought we were the last generation to go through this, but now it’s happening all over again [in Afghanistan].” Miller also denounced the USA-Patriot law as all too reminiscent of the way the government tried to suppress dissent during the Vietnam War.