Controversy dogs Farc hostage release

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Controversy dogs Farc hostage release
4:00AM Tuesday Feb 03, 2009

Colombia's badly battered Farc rebels delivered three police officers and a soldier to the International Red Cross yesterday in a mission marred by accusations of military interference.

A Brazilian military helicopter, emblazoned with the Red Cross insignia, retrieved the four hostages from a guerrilla stronghold in Colombia's southern jungles and flew them to a provincial airport where they were met by relatives and peace activists with hugs and white daisies.

A reporter accompanying the release, Jorge Enrique Botero, said it was hounded and delayed by more than two hours of military overflights that he called "notorious, abundant and repetitive".

"This of course caused enormous nervousness, not just among us but also among the people of the Farc," he said at Villavicencio's La Vanguardia Airport in Colombia's eastern plains.

Read more: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10554827

[Judi Lynn]

1. A visit to Colombia by Mary Bousted, General Secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers

A visit to Colombia
by Mary Bousted, General Secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers

I visited Colombia as part of a delegation organised by Justice for Colombia, to which my union, the ATL, is affiliated. This is an account of my visit to that tragic country.

Walking round central Bogota, with its shops, offices, government buildings and Spanish colonial houses, you could easily forget that Colombia is in the midst of a brutal civil war, that huge areas of the countryside are controlled by guerrillas or paramilitaries. Leave the centre and the reasons for the civil war become clear. Miles and miles of shanty towns; people living in shacks with plastic roofs, with no running water and illegal, and dangerous, electricity supplies. Colombia is a country of great contrasts, and the biggest of these is the huge gap between the elite, who own vast tracks of land and wealth, and the poor, who struggle to survive. The inequality is vast.

Our personal sense of security as we travelled through Bogotá was shattered as we saw a uniformed policeman, impassively watched by three others, viciously kicking a homeless man. His crime? Sitting on a street corner.

Colombia is a beautiful country. It has a wealth of natural resources – producing coffee, copper, emeralds, flowers, fruits and gold. It has huge natural reserves of gas, petroleum and oil. But these natural resources are not used to improve the lives of the majority of Colombians. Consider these facts: two and a half million families in Colombia have no home; 1.7 million children cannot go to school either because their parents cannot afford school fees, or because they live in conflict areas where schools, at the centre of rural communities, are targets in the war between the military and the guerrillas. Twenty million Colombians have no health insurance and, in a country where, following the government's privatisation programme, there are only eight public hospitals, five children in the past month have died on hospital door steps – their parents unable to pay the fees for their treatment. Consider, also, the priorities of a government which, faced with these problems, continues to allocate 35% of its income on military spending and just 3 or 4% on education.

Colombia is also, notoriously, a producer of cocaine – a trade controlled by right wing paramilitaries with close links to the ruling elite and to the government.

The delegation represented nine trade unions with over four million members. We spent a week hearing testimonies from trade unionists, human rights lawyers and social leaders. What we heard was terrible – accounts of torture, murder, massacres, forced displacements and false imprisonment – all elements of a brutal suppression, by the Colombian government, of the democratic rights of its people.

More:
http://www.justiceforcolombia.org/?link=6&deleg=5

[Peace Patriot]

2. Good to read the truth about Colombia...somewhere. We certainly don't get it from

our government (Dem or Puke), nor from our corpo/fascist media. When they condemn the FARC--the armed leftist guerrillas, who have been fighting the narco-fascists who run Colombia for over 40 years--they NEVER say WHY there is an armed leftist movement. You and I may not approve of FARC murders or kidnappings (and it should be noted these pale in comparison to fascist/Colombian military crimes), but understanding WHY this is occurring is the FIRST condition necessary to negotiating a peaceful end to this 40+ civil war.

It (FARC armed resistance) is occurring because of vast, unrelieved poverty--with no relief in sight--and extensive government brutality, with aspects to it that are difficult even to write about--chainsawing union leaders and throwing their body parts into mass graves, slitting children's throats in front of their parents, on suspicion of their parents being "leftists," the torture and deaths of thousands of people, whose only crime is wanting a decent living and a good government.

If you or I had a teenage brother, who had been lured by promise of a job, and ended up murdered and his body dressed like a leftist guerrilla by the Colombian military, in order to up their body count, to impress US Senators and war profiteers, would we be tempted to take up arms in resistance? You bet we would be--if we have any blood flowing in our veins. I'm not saying it would be right. I'm not saying that any killing would be right. I'm just saying that we in the US have been systematically denied information needed to UNDERSTAND this conflict, and help bring it to an end, because our war profiters and multinational corporations don't want it to end. They prey off the conflict, as they prey--unmercifully--off the poor themselves.

I am especially grateful for US labor unions, and the work of people like Mary Bousted, who have done so much to bring the light of truth to conditions in Colombia, to US relations with Colombia, and to the misuse of US taxpayer dollars to fund Colombia's exceedingly corrupt and brutal government. What are we doing, larding these fascists with $6 BILLION to kill peasants--mothers, children, teenagers--union leaders and others?! It is dreadful malfeasance in Washington. And if we have any chance at all to stop these horrors that are being inflicted with our money, in our name, it is because of Mary Bousted and others' efforts to bring the truth back here, where these policies and made.

And thank you, Judi Lynn, for posting it!

[clixtox]

3. An eye-opening peek behind the curtain!

I also applaud Judi Lynn for posting this, and to the Peace Patriot also for adding more context.

Two DU posters whose writing is always cogent, clear and compelling!

Kicking!