...and that leads to kneejerk reactions by their 'news' consumers that the Colombian government oughta just slaughter more "narco-terrorist" FARC guerrillas, "drive 'em back to the Stone Age" and sneer and snarl at any overtures for peace in Colombia's SEVENTY YEAR civil war.
1. President Santos himself recently said that peace with the FARC is possible, i.e., negotiations are under way. (There is always a lot of tit for tat in such negotiations. Public statements may not mean much as to the parties' goals and the ultimate outcome of the negotiations.)
2. The FARC's most recent efforts to release hostages and make peace, in 2008, were met with a load of 500 Lb U.S. "smart bombs" that obliterated a FARC hostage release camp, killing 25 sleeping people including the FARC's main hostage and peace negotiator, Raul Reyes, who was trying to end this very long civil war.
3. The bombing of Raul Reyes' camp, just inside Ecuador's border, abruptly ended an international effort to bring Colombia's civil war to a peaceful conclusion, that included France, Spain, Switzerland, Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina and other mediators, and it furthermore nearly started a war between the U.S./Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela.
4. The Colombian military, funded by $7 BILLION in U.S. taxpayer money, has been slaughtering trade unionists, human rights workers, teachers, peasant farmers and other advocates of the poor, in the name of the U.S. "war on drugs" and the U.S. "war on terror," and has also been luring young men with promises of jobs, murdering them and dressing their bodies up like FARC guerrillas, to up their "body counts," to earn bonuses and promotions and to impress U.S. senators, to keep the filthy lucre coming. They have also driven FIVE MILLION peasant farmers from their lands with state terror--the worst human displacement crisis on earth, bar none.
5. The U.S. "war on drugs" and the U.S. "war on terror" in Colombia are extremely corrupt and are being used to prep Colombia for U.S. "free trade for the rich" by decapitating the labor movement and terrorizing the countryside. These "wars" may also have had the purpose of consolidating the cocaine trade and directing its trillion+ dollar revenue stream to the Bush Cartel, the CIA, U.S. banksters and other beneficiaries. (Clearing the peasants off the land and eliminating the smaller coca leaf growers and smaller, uncooperative drug operations would be essential to controlling the cocaine revenue stream.)
6. The last time the FARC demobilized--put down their weapons and committed to peaceful political activism--5,000 of them were gunned down by rightwing paramilitary death squads.
This is an important negotiation to watch. Santos is in a struggle with Mafia boss Alvaro Uribe--former president of Colombia and Bush Jr pal--whose criminal networks and death squads are still active in Colombia. Santos' first act in office was to make peace with Venezuela. (Uribe was a warmonger and Bush-style liar.) Tens of thousands of poor Colombians have been fleeing into Venezuela from the Colombian military and its deaths squads, and to obtain the social benefits that Venezuelans have. Uribe's "Black Eagles" (death squads, drug and crime networks) were found infiltrating this unstable border area. Santos signed an accord with Chavez on trade, border security and peace between these countries, whereas Uribe had been trying to exacerbate every problem likely to lay the ground work for a Bushwhack oil war. Leon Panetta's first visible act as CIA Director was to visit Bogota and relieve Uribe of his office as president-mafia boss of Colombia, in a new Panetta/Obama/Clinton strategy to clean up Colombia's image. Uribe landed on a silk cushion, likely because of what he knows about Bush Junta crime in Colombia, and thus remains a political threat to reasonable, more honest and more peaceful leaders like Santos.
Santos has said that he could support the legalization of drugs and the end of the "war on drugs." He has promised universal free medical care to Colombia's poor by the end of the 2012. He is a much better leader than Uribe. And high on his priority list is ending Colombia's 70 year civil war. He himself has hinted at peace before the FARC said anything about it. The way this Rotters article is framed--and the gaping black holes between the lines where information should be--creates a false picture of what is going on. My guess is that Rotters (Rueters turned rotten) has war profiteer interests in the situation.
One more thing, as to political context: The presidents of Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela all spent time in prison for armed rebellion against fascist regimes. The presidents of Brazil and Uruguay were tortured by the fascists for belonging to armed guerrilla groups. The president of Nicaragua was the leader of the armed guerrilla group that overthrew the fascist government of Nicaragua. The recent former president of Chile was tortured and lost her father to torture by the fascists in Chile, for their leftist political views. The recent former president of Brazil was imprisoned for union activity by the fascists in Brazil. And the president of El Salvador, though too young to have been involved in that civil war, leads the political party that used to be an armed guerrilla group. And all of the above fascist regimes which imprisoned or tortured current political leaders were supported by the U.S. government.
"The times they are changin' in Latin America. Having been a member of an armed leftist guerrilla group is not a bar to public office, including the presidency, in MANY countries. Santos is trying to navigate this vastly changed political landscape between countries whose people have ELECTED former members of armed guerrilla groups as PRESIDENT and the U.S. and its Corporate/War Profiteer goals. I'd guess that it's not just A priority but his TOP priority to end Colombia's civil war but he has to convince the FARC that they will not be slaughtered, as before, if they disarm and possibly, also, that there has been a real turn toward democracy and away from fascist murder, mayhem and truly gross exploitation that benefits the big, protected drug lords and U.S. and allied corporations.
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