Reply #26: Rafael Correa, Ecuador's President, said that the Colombian government LIED to him [View All]

[Peace Patriot]

that they were in hot pursuit. Ecuador does not approve of the FARC guerrillas and has, in fact, shut down at least 20 FARC camps along its border. They permit hot pursuit, if the Colombian military is being shot at. But they do NOT permit Colombia to freely, at their will, BOMB and INVADE Ecuadoran territory, killing 21 people IN THEIR SLEEP--whoever they are!

As it turns out, the Colombians took this initiative, to INVADE ECUADOR, to murder the CHIEF HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR and the people who were with him--who could well have included Ingrid Betancourt and other hostages. They were given his location by the Bush/U.S. GOVERNMENT, so we are complicit in this invasion. And God knows what other support the Bushites are providing for Colombia's notorious security forces and rightwing paramilitary death squads.

The Colombian government has slaughtered THOUSANDS of union leaders, small peasant farmers, community organizers, political leftists, human rights workers and journalists, in their bloody 40+ year pogrom against the poor. That is WHY there is a FARC in Colombia. The last time FARC tried to demobilize and enter the political process, 400 of their ELECTED representatives in the national legislature were murdered, and thousands of the people who voted for them were tortured and murdered as well.

Yes, the FARC has killed people, and kidnapped people. It's a CIVIL WAR. How do you stop a 40+ year civil war? By more killing? By dashing the hopes of all the hostages and their families for a political settlement of this conflict? By violating the border of one of the governments trying to bring about peace?

You sound like Bush! We can go anywhere and murder, kidnap, torture and indefinitely detain anyone we like--pull them off the streets in Italy (sabotaging local anti-terrorist efforts!), grab kids holding a rifle as the U.S. bombs and invades Afghanistan and put them on the road to hell in Guantanamo Bay, arrest and torture thousands of innocents in Iraq, after slaughtering 1.2 million innocent people to get their oil, and waft people away in secret CIA flights to secret torture dungeons in eastern Europe, because why? Because SOMEBODY hurt us. That's Bush logic. Very convenient for war profiteers!

Yeah, people have been hurt in Colombia on both sides--and, according to every human rights organization on earth, the Colombian SECURITY FORCES and closely tied paramilitary death squads are responsible for most of the carnage. So, how do you stop it? More "scorched earth" against the poor of Colombia?

And WHO has killed more innocent people, in the last, oh, six years? Bush? Rumsfeld? Uribe? Uribe's relatives? Uribe's death squad pals? Or FARC? Or, for that matter, Al Qaeda? What's the score here, hm? Bush, Rumsfeld & co. = 1.2 million (not counting refugees, injured and sick--millions more). Uribe & co. = thousands. Al Qaeda = thousands (if they did 9/11; hundreds, if not). FARC = 20? 50? (AI says, of the union leaders murdered in Colombia, that Colombian security forces and associated paramilitaries have killed 95% of them; and the FARC has killed 2-3%, and those were probable collaborators with the Colombian security forces.)

WHO are the "terrorists"?

It's a hard reality to face, that our government is WORSE than the "terrorists" they accuse. Far worse. And their puppet, Colombia, was chosen as their puppet for a reason. They, too, are worse than the people they accuse.

Are we to have a world run by such people--Bush, Uribe--whose solution to every problem is MORE KILLING? Are we all now going to be living in a gangster world, where bombs, guns and bullets rule, and where war and rumors of war forever terrorize people into paying for MORE bombs, guns and bullets?

Uribe's sabotage of all of these other leaders' efforts at peace is very like Bush's sabotage of the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, and like their refusal of Saddam Hussein's offer to step down and leave Iraq, on the eve of the war. Neither Bush nor Uribe wants peace. They thrive on war, on the armaments industry, and on exploitation of the poor and mass murder of the poor.

They are the PAST, let us hope--and are in the agonizing death throes of a class of people who have gone mad with greed and bloodshed. The MacBeth's among us must be retired to a madhouse, and the sane and the good must take up the challenge of creating a peaceful and just world. More killing never will.