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Colombia in times of intensified war Since the 1970s one of the major focuses of the United States government in Colombia has been the illicit drug business and its concomitant booming economy. In 2000, the introduction of Plan Colombia and its $4.7 billion from the international community to fight the drug trade and "restore Colombia's democracy," would magnify that focus and allow for the pursuit of other discrete international interests. Under Plan Colombia, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton proposed $1.3 billion in military aid to the Colombian military to eradicate illicit drug cultivation. Intended to push into Amazon regions of high civil conflict, where coca crop is abundant and where an otherwise ignored peasant population is governed by the insurgents, the U.S. government stated that they would not "discriminate between who is the drug trafficker and the insurgent." With a population of approximately 22,000, the insurgent movement was now labeled as "narcoguerrilla," conveniently combining the economic war against drugs with the political counter-insurgency war. It would not be shocking if the focus on Colombia is shifted again by the tragic events of Sept. 11, combining the war on terrorism with the counter-insurgency war, as the U.S. government is certain not to discriminate between who is the insurgent and who is the terrorist. Thus far, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), has condemned the Sept. 11th attacks although they consider them a consequence of "the politics of U.S. imperialism." In a letter written to Colombian President Andres Pastrana by the FARC's oldest living leader Manuel Marulanda, the FARC rejected the classifications of "terrorist" and "drug trafficker" used in reference to the insurgent group by the Colombian military and the U.S. government. A document released by the Colombian military's "Human Rights Violations Tracking System" stated that "terrorist attacks" in Colombia maintain a permanent state of anguish amongst citizens which is comparable to the attacks that destroyed the Pentagon and Twin Towers. They later mimicked the U.S. government's mentality by cataloging insurgent groups FARC and ELN with illegal paramilitary forces, United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (AUC). They stated that "not in vain, the FARC, ELN and AUC make up part of the black list of terrorist organizations published by the United States government." In a time of great confusion and fear, citizens of the world flock to newsstands and television sets to try to understand how exactly the war on terrorism will unfold. Journalism and the media are crucial in ensuring informed democratic participation in finding a solution. So what about journalism in Colombia or coverage on Colombia in the U.S.? In the past two decades, journalism has become one of the most dangerous professions in Colombia. Fifty-eight journalists have been assassinated in the past ten years and in the year 2000 alone, seven were killed and approximately 23 were kidnapped, attacked, raped or harassed due to politically charged stories they were covering. The majority of U.S. journalism on Colombia focuses on the atrocities committed by the various insurgent groups and the "persistent drug violence." This is quickly realized if one performs a search of articles on Colombia in major U.S. newspapers. Monitoring organizations such as Amnesty International, however, have found that the paramilitary, in collaboration with the Colombian military, is responsible for 80% of the country's political violence. It is equally rare to encounter articles that cover the Colombian military and their role in the ongoing violence although they are recognized worldwide as having the worst human rights record in the Western Hemisphere. After year's of media images and newspaper articles focused on Colombia's violent conflict, and after a devastating month filled with endless TV images of the twin towers collapsing, capitalist market geared mass media coverage is getting us prepared for war. This seems less like anethical obligation to disseminate information and more like a mechanism to create the fear and hysteria of a war-like atmosphere so as to undermine thoughtful democratic participation and justify the use of extreme force against a struggling country, its people, ecology, and so on. First it was a faceless war on drugs and now it is the faceless war against terrorism. No matter what the U.S. government calls it, a war with no face is a war with no limits, and a war with no limits is a war whose goal is war itself. The faceless enemy exists everywhere and we are always in danger of it. With a growing number of Colombian journalists in exile or working under great fear, and with a distorted representation of Colombia in the U.S., what do people think of Colombia, and are they ready to accept the Colombian insurgent culture as a terrorist culture? As the U.S. reaches out to the world to fight terrorism, my question remains, the war on drugs or the war on terrorism, where does Colombia stand in times of war? -Raquel Cisneros Ramona |
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