[Think] Andean Voices - Media Distortion

[Fen Labalme]

In a different, but related, vein...


Andean Voices Rise Against the War
Jason Marti
bolivarno@hotmail.com


Only 60 percent of Argentinians, Bolivians, Venezuelans, and Peruvians
believe in democracy. Only about a third of Colombians, Guatemalans,
Panamanians and Brazilians believe in democracy. In El Salvador the
percentage was less than 25. (The Economist. 12-15-01)


Quito, Ecuador, January, 2002, COICA - the Coordinating Body for the
Indigenous Peoples' Organizations of the Amazon Basin made the following
declarations:

1) Rejection of Plan Colombia [the US War on Drugs] because it is a
   violation of human rights and causes severe environmental, social. cultural
   and economic effects.
2) Withholding of political recognition of the Colombian peace talks because
   Native Peoples are not represented.
3) Demands for compensation and reparations from the governments of the
   Amazon Basin and from oil and mining firms for damages caused by
   exploration and extraction of petroleum and minerals in indigenous
   territories. 
4) Constitutional reforms to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples.
5) Demarcation, legalization and protection of ancestral territories.

The COICA was founded in 1985 and now represents 400 indigenous groups from
the Amazon Basin or about 1.5 million people.

Outspoken groups at the meeting included the Cofan of Ecuador who live near
Sucumbios on the Colombian border and Kickwa of Sarayaku with the Sarayaku
Indigenous Centers of the central-eastern Ecuadoran province of Pastaza, a
center of oil exploration.

Globalization has forced more Ecuadoran peasants into the mountains and into
indigenous territories. Tensions exploded recently with sixteen people killed
in clashes between settlers and indigenous people.

San Vincente Del Caguan, Colombia, a week after the declarations of the COICA
conference, the FARC released the following statement on globalization and
the phony US drug war.

With the unfolding of capitalism to its ultimate consequences in its
imperialist stage, globalization is sinking the majority of the world's
people into misery. Many people in agrarian economies opt for the cultivation
of coca, opium poppies and marijuana as the only way to survive.  The profits
realized by these peasants are minimal. Rather, those who really enrich
themselves are the middle men who transport and commercialize these drugs to
the developed countries countries, especially the US.

The police who are supposed to fight the drug trade are easy prey for
corruption since their ethical principles succumb to any bribe larger than
$50. Governments, businessmen, athletes, artists, ranchers, military
officers, bankers and politicians of every variety accept huge sums of drug
money.

Capitalism has sickened the morality of the world by causing an increased
demand for narcotics at the same time that the imperialist powers prohibit
the drug commerce. Since demand for drugs is so high and the dollars leaving
the US are so voluminous, they elevate the desperate peasant farmers who
grow drugs to the status of a strategic enemy and a grave threat to national
security. The US forgets its own free market principles that supply is a
function of demand.

Drug use and the narcotics trade are a phenomenon of globalized capitalism
and of the Yankees - not a problem caused by the FARC-EP! Since the US uses
the existence of the drug trade as the pretext for its criminal activity
against the Colombian people, we call upon the US to legalize the
consumption of narcotics. In that way, the huge profits produced by the
illegality of the drug business would be reduced, consumption could be
controlled and those with drug dependence could receive treatment.

The leaders of the northern imperialist power should abandon their two-faced
morality and make a real contribution to humanity by addressing the drug
problems in the developed countries. They should not forget that the Roman
Empire perished because of its arrogance and immorality.


A BLACK HOLE OF LIES: THE MEDIA AND COLOMBIA :
The US WAR-ON-THE-EARTH Moves to the Most Biologically Diverse Region on
Earth: Colombia and the Amazon Headwaters.

by Jason Marti
words: 767

"The conscience of Colombia is being murdered!"
-- Eduardo Cifuentes, speaking on the plight of human rights workers who are
   disappeared daily by right wing paramilitaries in northern Colombia.

The bombing of Colombia began last year, but only now are the bombs striking
their targets. The reason that the peace talks have failed has nothing to do
with the guerrillas or a few kidnappings. The bombing of "The Peace" began
when US President Clinton released 100's of millions of dollars in military
aid to Colombia despite his acknowledgment that the Colombian government had
failed to improve its human rights record.

The Colombian armed forces are run by drug dealers and war criminals
masquerading as professional - US Trained - soldiers. Not a single country,
indigenous group or military association has backed the US "Plan [for war in]
Colombia." The European Parliament voted 479 to 1 to condemn US policies in
Latin America. EU countries have worked hard to keep the peace talks alive.

US-made dumb bombs are now blasting the jungle hideouts of the FARC-EP (300
sorties in the last 6 days).But it was the US-backed death squad "smart"
bombs which doomed the chance for peace. These death squad smart bombs are
the product of the greed of the Colombian wealthy and the US School of the
Americas - the greatest terrorist training camp around. The paramilitary
death squads of the AUC are the secret weapons in this dirty war that has
lasted nearly 40 years.

On April 14, 2001, US General Peter Pace told the House Armed
Services Committee that the paramilitaries were the most serious threat to
Colombian democracy. That October the US listed the AUC as a terrorist
organization. But no steps towards arresting or restraining the right wing
death squads have been taken. They still control large areas of Colombia
through terror and intimidation.

Where was the US outrage and concern for human rights when just before
Christmas of 2000 the AUC entered the working class neighborhoods of
Barrancabernja and massacred 53 people (nearly a thousand civilians have
been massacred in the region in the last two years). How do the Colombian
media and the world keep the impression alive that the guerrilla forces of
the FARC-EP are the violent ones? The UN and human rights groups repeatedly
decry the terror killings of the death squads of the AUC who together with
the Colombian army are responsible for 80% of civilian casualties. People
are killed by the guerrillas but rarely in the indiscriminate or terror
inspired way that the death squads use - even chainsaw massacres. More union
activists are killed in Colombia than in the whole world combined. They are
killed by the Colombian Military and their death squad allies. The New York
Times and most papers totally ignore the plight of the ELN, unionists,
teachers and the vast majority of the innocent victims who die at the hand
of US allies in Colombia.

This terror has a purpose: "Given the speed with which paramilitaries are
extending their terror and gaining control of densely populated territories,
Carlos Castano - the head of the AUC - may see his political ambition to
elect the ultra-right leader of his choice become a distinct possibility.-
The first democratically elected Fascist Dictatorship in Latin American
backed up by mafia funding and support. (Ana Carrigan, In These Times
Magazine)"

Castano moved his forces into northern Colombia with three objectives: the
annihilation of the ELN (Colombia's second largest guerrilla group); the
scuttling of peace talks and the political control of the region. He has
been largely successful. The peace talks with the ELN never materialized
because Castano killed so many of them and then occupied most of their
territory including the area that the government had proposed to make a safe
haven for the ELN. The Colombian military and the death squads also rampaged
around the FARC-EP safe haven. The Colombian Airforce illegally overflew the
zone and the death squads entered it many times. Yet the guerrillas are
blamed for the failure of the peace negotiations.

In southern Colombia, Castano's candidate for President, Alvaro Uribe Velez,
promotes his hardline stance as the herbicide spraying clears long enough
for the military to add some more toxic materials (bombs) to the endangered
habitats of the jungle. Uribe is the leading candidate in the May elections.

"When we talk about Liberation whether through violence or non-violence, we
are groping in the dark. How can we expect young people to renounce armed
struggle unless we offer them something strong and effective in exchange -
something that can achieve concrete results?" - Don Helder Camarra, Bishop
of Rio de Janeiro.

by Jason Marti
bolivarno@hotmail.com