Play Democracy and Hide the Corpses for Good Business in Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Play Democracy and Hide the Corpses for Good Business in Colombia
by Jose David Torrenegra / July 29th, 2011

Not a week goes in Colombia without reports of assassinations and persecution of labor and political activists. Ana Fabricia Cordoba, gender activist and leader of displaced peasants, was shot dead on June 7th inside a street bus, after she foretold her own death due to constant threats and abuses against her family;1 Manuel Antonio Garces, community leader, afro-descendent activist and candidate for local office in southwestern Colombia received on July 18th a disturbing warning that read “we told you to drop the campaign, next time we’ll blow it in your house” next to an inactive hand grenade;2 Keyla Berrios, leader of Displaced Women’s League was murdered last July 22nd , after continuous intimidation of her organization and threats on behalf of death squads linked to Colombian authorities,3 a fact so publicly known after hundreds of former congressman, police and military personnel are either jailed or investigated for colluding with Paramilitaries to steal elections, murder and disappear dissidents, forcefully displace peasants and defraud public treasury, in a criminal network that extends all the way up to former president Alvaro Uribe and his closest aides.4

The official explanation to these crimes is also well known; Bacrim, an acronym which stands for “Criminal Gangs”, a term created from the Colombia establishment including its omnipresent corporate media apparatus to depoliticize the constant violence unleashed against union leaders, peasants and community activists, Human Rights defenders or anyone humane enough to point at the extremely unequal and unjust structures of power and wealth which rely heavily on repression. However, no matter how much effort is put into misleading public opinion about the nature of this violence, the crimes are so systematic and their effects always turning out for the benefit of the elite that a simple class analysis debunks the façade of these “gangs” supposedly acting on their own, and expose the mutual benefit relation between armed thugs and political power in Colombia, an acute representation of present-day fascism in Latin America.

In a country overwhelmed with unemployment and poverty — nearly 70% — and 8 million people living on less than U$2 a day who daily look for their subsistence in garbage among stray dogs or selling candies at street lights and city buses, is also shockingly common and surreal to see fancy cars — Hummers, Porsches — million dollar apartments, country clubs and a whole bubble of opulence just in front of over-exploited workers, ordinary people struggling merely to make ends meet, or at worst, children, single mothers, elderly, and people with disabilities, without social security and salaries, much less higher education and decent housing. For instance, in Cartagena, a Colombian Caribbean colonial city plagued with extreme poverty, beggars, child prostitution and U$400 a night resorts, you can pretend to feel in Miami Beach or a Mediterranean paradise, and in less than five minutes away you can also visit slums which would make devastated Haiti look like suburbia. The same shockingly contrast can be experienced in all major cities in Colombia. Thus, in order to keep vast privileges of a few amidst infrahuman conditions of the majority, the elite needs to have an iron grip on political power, and once its power is contested or mildly threatened by the collective action of social movements, democratic parties and conscious individuals, a selective burst of state violence is unleashed effectively dismantling any kind of peaceful organizing by fear and demoralization. The high levels of attrition suffered by activists raising moderate democratic banners such as the right to assembly, collective bargaining, freedom of expression and reparation from political violence, are the result of decentralized state repression carried out by death squads led by high state officers5 who supply them with intelligence and economic resources extracted from defrauding public treasury and money laundry in the narcotics chain, where social investigators claim that most of the profit accounts for institutional economy, the banks and the state.6

This elaborated repressive strategy differs from the one perpetrated by the military juntas the ruled Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, among others, where public forces exercised directly the political violence against dissidents without pretentious democratic credentials, such as the ones constantly regurgitated by the Colombian establishment, making it more difficult to expose its deep dictatorial mechanisms that have disappeared more than 30000 Colombians7 in the last years of US backed “counterinsurgency” policies, far surpassing Pinochet’s reign of terror.

More:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/07/play-democracy-and-hide-the-corpses-for-good-business-in-colombia/

[LiberalLoner]

1. Colombia is the model for what the freepers want the US to be like. I know that because my

father has literally told me, he thinks Colombia is a good model for the U.S. and he's a freeper.

[Jefferson23]

2. Now there is an accomplishment to wave our flag about. K&R

:sarcasm:

[gbscar]

3. Torrenegra's rhetoric is passionate, but sadly selective and silent about far too many details

Before writing anything else, it would be almost cruelly insulting to deny that this opinion piece is right to reference many of the brutal crimes, abuses and painful or unfair situations we can all identify as part of the current Colombian status quo. That is indeed so.

Just as well, it would be equally unfortunate to ignore the role played by the Colombian elite in both fostering and allowing this to happen, through the ongoing use and tolerance of unmentionable paramilitary atrocities, together with the knowing support provided by the U.S. government throughout the years. Those responsible have their hands soaked in blood and thus it is more than justified to oppose such criminal efforts.

If the gist of those basic facts and principles is accurate, as I've acknowledged, then what is the problem with this article?

In essence, what Torrenegra hides and prefers to not say, because it would complicate and ostensibly detract from his conclusion.

In order to both explicitly and implicitly justify the guerrilla struggle as the only option for those who do not want to be killed or oppressed, the author needs to paint a picture that allows no room for exceptions, alternatives, contradictions or annotations.

Torrenegra admits that he is relying on a "simple class analysis" and centers many of his arguments around it. While I believe that type of analysis does have a certain amount of usefulness, it cannot possibly hope to replace a far more comprehensive review of a complex situation. It is, in my opinion, a double-edged sword that must be wielded together with a host of other weaponry in the context of proper research, for the sake of obtaining the best possible results.

Great simplifications are always popular, particularly when some of their supporting arguments are in fact as absolutely and tragically real as they are in Colombia, but I do not believe that such a perspective can provide us with a greater understanding of reality if this involves relying on incomplete and simplified or even outright inaccurate descriptions.

For Torrenegra, you are apparently either with the armed poor fighting against oppression or with the armed oppressors fighting against the unarmed poor. If you believe this dilemma is not partial or false but completely correct and all there is to the Colombia tragedy, then I suggest you stop reading the rest of this comment lest it overly inconvenience your line of thinking.

For instance, we see Torrenegra mention the evident fact that many of Uribe's friends and allies have been investigated or jailed for their apparent links to paramilitaries, death squads and other crimes, but he assigns no inherent or positive value to this turn of events. For him, it just provides us with an ever increasing number of crooks.

But if, as one of the quotes he employs explicitly suggests, the conflict is essentially reduced to a polarization between the military and oligarchy on one side against guerrillas and peasants on the other...what possible benefit could there be for the oligarchy by allowing its own flesh and blood to be publicly shamed and humiliated, if not punished with jail time or political bans? Perhaps it would be wise to consider that the oligarchy is not monolithic and that Colombia's class make-up -and the conflict it has given birth to- is not exclusively reduced to its nominal extremes? Just by doing so, I believe additional doors would also be opened and any investigation or debate should become a lot less narrowminded.

For example, it would be possible to notice that there is an active legal opposition in Colombia made up of overwhelmingly unarmed civilians and even many government officials, who carry on despite all of the state and non-state right-wing terror, and there have been certain judicial and political developments favoring said opposition or at least going against the interests of the darkest sectors of the elite from time to time, regardless of all the bloodshed. Sometimes the trend has been to move one step forward and two steps back, no doubt, but at other times the trend has attempted to be far more positive if also relatively fleeting and clearly fragile.

Colombian history is something of a painful paradox, because progress towards modernity has often been followed by violent reactions that slow or sabotage, but never truly stop, the march of history. This was true back in 1991, for example, with the new progressive Constitution, and it is true right now, with numerous judicial decisions in favor of minorities and discriminated sectors and against the Colombian right-wing or even the state. They haven't endured such setbacks by sitting down, no, but they haven't reverted them either, and the fact that poverty and inequality have continued or even worsened isn't automatically incompatible with progress in other areas.

If it could well be considered naive to only see the bright side and ignore all of the brutality throughout Colombian history, then it should also be disingenious -though often understandably so as I do not expect victims of right-wing violence to smile and take a step back- to see nothing but continuing brutality and pay no mind to any other events.

Then comes the matter of the U.S. role in the conflict. Torrenegra says that the class confrontation is "mostly" funded by the U.S. but...is this really the case? The issue has come up numerous times before and it should be, of course, reiterated that the U.S. government has in fact provided more than 7 billion USD to the Colombian government from 2000 to date, most of which has been spent directly or indirectly on the war effort under the pretext of counter-narcotics or counter-terrorism, with little or no consideration at all for the resulting murders and abuses. In fact, it is hard to argue these developments haven't been at least partially intentional.

That being the case, careful observers would still notice this conflict significantly predates the visible and unprecedented increase in U.S. involvement we have seen over the past decade. And, perhaps more to the point, the little considered fact that the Colombia government's own military and defense budget regularly dwarfs U.S. aid on a yearly basis by an order of magnitude. Or, to put things in far more blatant terms, let's stop to seriously think about how many foreign resources are really all that necessary in order to fund the Colombian conflict when both legal and illegal sources of income are widespread in the country, obviously including but not limited to the drug trade itself and its related activities.

This doesn't mean the U.S. hasn't had plenty of direct and indirect influence in these and other affairs, beyond the mere statistical figures involved, but if we are to allow incorrect generalizations to survive unchallenged then I fear the misguided idea that simply stopping the flow of U.S. dollars will automatically lead to the end of the conflict is what we are ultimately going to be left with. And believing that, in my humble opinion, is a grave mistake. The end of U.S. funding could help, but it requires a comprehensive anti-war and pro-peace effort at the same time. Otherwise, the conflict will still find numerous ways to drag on.

Finally, it is at least worth mentioning that the Libyan debacle is a completely different can of worms, to put it lightly, but not in the way Torrenegra appears to suggest by tacitly indicating Gaddafi is innocent or unjustly punished, regardless of the admitted hypocrisy of the "humanitarian" intervention of the U.S. and NATO. That is, however, a topic best left to those familiar with the subject.

I haven't even addressed all the potential issues with the article, to be quite honest, but I believe this should be enough to at least introduce some dissent and fodder for further debate through the use of critical thinking.

[texshelters]

4. I don't see your comment as completely contrasting to

the original Torrenegra post. The history and current political situations in Colombia is way to complicated to address in a short post, and while you make some excellent points, you are nit-picking at what is a valuable discussion of the Colombian situation. I see no harm in have a faulty and incomplete post that you have helped enhance and refine. Your petty criticism is unnecessary, however.

Torrenegra didn't mention Libya, so I am not sure why you felt that was important, for example.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[gbscar]

6. I do not consider Torrenegra's opinion to be worthless, but criticism and nitpicking...

...is necessary and potentially helpful for the sake of furthering the debate, as long as it is understood in a constructive manner. Without raising any number of specific questions, the debate tends to be non-existent or otherwise easily divided into "right vs. left" without much additional thought.

For the record, I don't hate Torrenegra and wouldn't call him names or anything of the sort. I just strongly disagree with his explicit or implicit conclusion. I accept that he did make some good underlying points too, especially about the many horrible injustices and violent abuses present in today's Colombia affecting the poor and the left as a result of right-wing terror and oppression, but I feel that stopping right there and not saying anything else is a bit intellectually disappointing and certainly establishes a clear distinction between my thinking and Torrenegra's, despite sharing some of our sensibilities and intentions.

Nevertheless, I do not consider myself perfect nor do I hold any monopoly over the truth either. If I weren't already prepared to defend my opinion and even concede some arguments, I wouldn't be posting here in the first place. My overall tone and specific expressions may have been a little too aggressive in a couple of respects, I can acknowledge that, so apologizing for what you considered as petty is warranted.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Human rights commission denounces Colombia for civilian bombing

Human rights commission denounces Colombia for civilian bombing
Thursday, 28 July 2011 10:13
Travis Mannon

The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IAHCR) condemned Colombia for failing to respond properly to the 1998 bombing of a village in the north eastern department of Arauca which killed 17 civilians.

An independent branch of the Organization of American States (OAS), the IAHCR declared before the Inter-American Court that the Colombian government failed to punish those responsible for the attack.

"The IACHR concluded that these acts remain in impunity, as the State did not conduct serious, effective investigations to identify the masterminds and other perpetrators and impose the appropriate punishments," a statement to the court said.

The bombing, which took place December 13, 1998, was carried out by the Colombian Air Force. The attack killed 17 people, including four boys and two girls, and injured another 27, nine of whom were children. After the initial bombing the Air Force "continued its aerial bombing of civilians who were trying to help the wounded and those trying to escape the village."

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/17933-human-rights-commission-denounces-colombia-for-civilian-bombing.html