Simon Trinidad Captured

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by JCG
Doesn't stop you or a lot of people from critizing the "collateral damage" of US military actions, so I don't see why the FARC should be given a free pass. And that's far from the "only" case, and you know that, not even the most recent one...are they all supposed to be "accidents"?

Actually, I tend not to criticize specifics, since civilian casualties will happen, unless they are blatent. I'm more critical of the methodolgy.

A couple of words:

1.Fernandinho

2.Laboratories.

Being in FARC territory doesn't make them FARC property.

Which are far from their only targets. But it probably doesn't matter as long as you're not in their potential sights.

Uhm, since I was the first person who brought it up, your point is asinine.

Urban bombings which kill indiscriminately, but I suppose that's just another case of "collateral damage" for some....

See my above comment.

Totally Fraternal Allies which have of course never hurt one another...even if HRW and AI disagree.

Even allies can fight. They aren't merely co-belligerents, given the high level of cross contaimination and cooperation. The fact that they sometimes fight has more to do with internal politics than the government turning a new leaf.

"Which have never, ever driven peasants out of their land" and must be allowed to everything since they have "good intentions" that completely overrule any possible criticism.......but Bush must also have had perfectly "good intentions" in Iraq....

You really do have a penchant for putting words in people's mouths.

1. There are plenty of "paras" that have been formed and operate without such assistance.

Irrelevent.

Just as there are plenty of Colombian army soldiers that have never given such assistance.

Again irrelevent. The Columbian army is also riddled with FARC supporters. It doesn't mean that, over all, the role of the military in Columbia is not a severely repressive and brutal one.

But I guess it's better to just generalize and equate all of them in one big mass, eh?

It seems to work for you, doesn't it.

2. You act as if there was never any combat between the government and the paras, or that they can be conveniently ignored.

I never claimed it didn't happen. I just don't happen to think it's significant, given that most of the time the military is aiding them.

Yes, only "nominally".... so everything is fake and worthless and nothing ever changes not a single tiny bit

I haven't seen much significant change in Columbia, no. The last President tried something exceptional, but given that he couldn't keep the military under control, did it make any difference? I'd have to say no. You're gonna have to make a case for things getting better if you want me to believe it.

so it's better to just scrap & burn everything down to ashes and put up a "DEMOCRATIC BOLIVARIAN PEOPLE'S REPUPLIC OF COLOMBIA" headed by a GREAT LEADER......

It can't be much worse than things are now, and probably would be much better if history in Latin America is any guide, which it is.

[Chilean President™]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Because I have no idea on how it is spelled in English

no problem
sorry for this small threadjack, but where you from Spiffor? I always though you were French.

Chilean President: They don't know how to spell correctly.... Nah, it's just that they're more used to seeing the name spelled like it's used in "British Columbia" and so on. It's still wrong though, Colombia is the official English term.

Well I saw a few times the name of Chile writen as "Chili" in english. although probably they were trying to write it as in French...

So, what does analyst says about this in Colombia. Do they spect more terrorist attacks or the beginig of peace negotiations?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by yaroslav
Are you miximg paramilitares' barbarities and goverments' barbarities? The colombia's goverment is far away from having clean hands, but among the worsts govs in the world... I doubt so.

Let see what HRW says:

"Paramilitary groups allied within the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC) commit massacres, selective killings, and death threats. These groups operate with the tolerance and often support of units within Colombia's military. There are numerous and credible reports of joint military-paramilitary operations and the sharing of intelligence and propaganda. Throughout Colombia, paramilitaries continue to move uniformed and heavily armed troops unhindered past military installations.

Local officials, human rights groups, the public advocate's office, and even some police detachments regularly inform the appropriate authorities about credible threats by paramilitaries. Yet only rarely do military forces take effective action to stop paramilitary advances. While massacres, traditionally used by paramilitaries to spread terror, were less numerous in 2002 than in past years, the decrease appears to reflect a change in paramilitary tactics rather than a diminution in overall violence. Witnesses have described to Human Rights Watch how paramilitaries seized large groups of people, then killed individuals separately to avoid the incidents being recorded as massacres.

You say that the amount of control is ... barely at all. But you blame the goverment for the aid that the barely-controled military has given to the paramilitares.

Your quote supports my assertion that the government and the paras work together. If you are going to try and disprove me, using that quote isn't helping you.

IMHO he is wrong. The govt, democratically elected by the people, while not white-wash itself, it better that then terrorist paras and guerrillas.

Question, what good is a democratically elected government that can't stop the military and police from massacres and extra-judicial killings? Answer, no good at all. If the government can't run the state, then it isn't really a government, is it? It's just an elected debating society. All real power in Columbia rests with the military and the police, both of whom are effectively beyond government control.

It's funny how the statisitics show masacres and kidnappings are down massively, mainly because the AUC has changed tactics. Hmmm, that must mean that the majority of the violence is done by . . . the FARC?!? It would seem to me that the 5,000 member paras (of whom the AUC is only one group) do far more damage to Colubmia than the three times larger FARC.

Columbian fun fact, the paras were started by Pablo Escobar. This, JCG, most likely accounts for government-para clashes. Despite being allied against the leftists, the government stil does some anti-drug work, which will bring it into conflict with the paras which are run by the drug lords.

[yaroslav]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by yaroslav
Are you miximg paramilitares' barbarities and goverments' barbarities? The colombia's goverment is far away from having clean hands, but among the worsts govs in the world... I doubt so.

Let see what HRW says:

"Paramilitary groups allied within the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC) commit massacres, selective killings, and death threats. These groups operate with the tolerance and often support of units within Colombia's military. There are numerous and credible reports of joint military-paramilitary operations and the sharing of intelligence and propaganda. Throughout Colombia, paramilitaries continue to move uniformed and heavily armed troops unhindered past military installations.

Local officials, human rights groups, the public advocate's office, and even some police detachments regularly inform the appropriate authorities about credible threats by paramilitaries. Yet only rarely do military forces take effective action to stop paramilitary advances. While massacres, traditionally used by paramilitaries to spread terror, were less numerous in 2002 than in past years, the decrease appears to reflect a change in paramilitary tactics rather than a diminution in overall violence. Witnesses have described to Human Rights Watch how paramilitaries seized large groups of people, then killed individuals separately to avoid the incidents being recorded as massacres.

You say that the amount of control is ... barely at all. But you blame the goverment for the aid that the barely-controled military has given to the paramilitares.

Your quote supports my assertion that the government and the paras work together. If you are going to try and disprove me, using that quote isn't helping you.

The HRW quote provides a link between military and paras. I believe that this link exists regretabilly, but they are not the same institution, so I wonder if the figures you've provided us with are accurate or not. And the military is barelly controlled by the govt in your opinion, so then is no govt' fault, isn't it?

IMHO he is wrong. The govt, democratically elected by the people, while not white-wash itself, it better that then terrorist paras and guerrillas.

Question, what good is a democratically elected government that can't stop the military and police from massacres and extra-judicial killings? Answer, no good at all. If the government can't run the state, then it isn't really a government, is it? It's just an elected debating society. All real power in Columbia rests with the military and the police, both of whom are effectively beyond government control.

It's funny how the statisitics show masacres and kidnappings are down massively, mainly because the AUC has changed tactics. Hmmm, that must mean that the majority of the violence is done by . . . the FARC?!? It would seem to me that the 5,000 member paras (of whom the AUC is only one group) do far more damage to Colubmia than the three times larger FARC.

Columbian fun fact, the paras were started by Pablo Escobar. This, JCG, most likely accounts for government-para clashes. Despite being allied against the leftists, the government stil does some anti-drug work, which will bring it into conflict with the paras which are run by the drug lords.

It's a goverment with problems about the control of (some elements of) the military. Just as many south-american govts. But that doesn't make them a govt as worst as Sadam or one of the worst goverments in the world.

And about your commentaries, AI says that the biggest part of kidnnappings are from the guerrillas' side. For the massacres I've no figures, but I think that a google search could provide us with them...

So let's summarize and see what we agree in and what we don't agree in, if you don't mind.

There are three players in this conflict

1) The state
2) The paras
3) The guerillas

There are alleged links between 1 and 2, specially between some elements of the military and some paras. This is to be corrected.

2 is clearly terrorist, drug-controlled (I suppose we agree on this).

3 is a bunch of criminals who kill people (I'm not including drug-control because we disagree on that ... BTW, what about the link I asked you? I don't want to urge you but I hope you'll understand that a thing that goes against anything I've read I needs a source to be believed).

It's about 1 that we don't agree. I say that there are links between the military and the paras, but that they are not the same thing. Do you think they are the same thing? The HRW's quote that I provided you with make differences between paras and military, although sometimes they work toghether But the point is that many sources separates paras and AI...

BTW - do you want me to search for a link about the FARC and the ELN being the main responsibles for the kiddnapping?

[JCG]

Chilean President: A strong FARC retaliation is expected.

[QUOTE] Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Being in FARC territory doesn't make them FARC property.

Yet they still have fallen while protecting them, and have cooperated closely in the processing/shipment of drugs with this captured Brazilian drug lord and surely others still at large.

Uhm, since I was the first person who brought it up, your point is asinine.

Maybe so, just had to "flesh it out" a bit.

The fact that they sometimes fight has more to do with internal politics than the government turning a new leaf.

Just your interpretation, just as valid as mine (or anyone else's). Don't see much basis for limiting every action against them to "internal politics" myself.

You really do have a penchant for putting words in people's mouths.

Happens quite easily when the thread isn't in a very "friendly" mood, so to speak, after all. Doesn't justify it, but that's the explanation.

Again irrelevent. The Columbian army is also riddled with FARC supporters. It doesn't mean that, over all, the role of the military in Columbia is not a severely repressive and brutal one.

..If one were to fully equate the actions of paramilitaries with those of the army.

It seems to work for you, doesn't it.

Actually, I don't see the FARC/trade unions/peasants etc. as "one big evil mass", nor have I typed anything to that effect, so it doesn't really apply.

In any case, my errors wouldn't justify yours, nor vice versa, even if, like I said above, that does happen sometimes in this thread....

I never claimed it didn't happen. I just don't happen to think it's significant, given that most of the time the military is aiding them.

I didn't know there could even be estimations of such a thing....it is quite clearly accepted that most of the time the military isn't fighting them, but that isn't equivalent to actively "aiding them" most of the time, as you say.

I haven't seen much significant change in Columbia, no. The last President tried something exceptional, but given that he couldn't keep the military under control, did it make any difference? I'd have to say no. You're gonna have to make a case for things getting better if you want me to believe it.

So you think that the peace process failed because Pastrana "couldn't keep the military under control"?

As far as "making a case"...for a start, how about

a)The Referendum was defeated.

b)Leftists and independents have been elected and taken charge as leaders in Bogotá and plenty of important regional positions, as of January 1 2004. None of them is dead yet (the same can't be said for all the candidates that were killed/threatened/kidnapped by FARC during the electoral campaign season itself).

c)Uribe's neoliberal ambitious economic policies have been severely limited by both congress and the constitutional courts, as was the Referendum itself and the same may also happen to the anti-terror and alternative justice bill.

d)There is growing pressure against the government for it to conclude a prisioner exchange with the FARC. Even if it doesn't happen in the short term, it is increasingly seen as a necessity.

e)The statistics I've quoted in the other posts (and others), which have been accepted even by union and human rights groups critical of the government.

f)There are still "peace feelers" with the ELN (one of their jailed leaders was freed quite a few weeks ago) and they haven't broken off contacts.

It can't be much worse than things are now, and probably would be much better if history in Latin America is any guide, which it is.

We must be reading totally different history books then.

[Tripledoc]

First of all the FARC are not drugdealers. They simply tax the drugs production. Naturally from a supply side economists point of view would decrase production. What it in reality does is that it increases production, because as the farmers have to pass some of the profit to the FARC they will naturally produce more in order to keep the profit equilibrium, much like the taxes paid to the Papacy in the middleages actually increased agricultural produce.

Secondly, as has been pointed out by Cheqitz who is the only one informed here as usual, the civil war in Columbia has existed since 1948. It sprung from a disagreement over social and economic policies between the liberals and the conservatives. The liberals became disaffected by the the conservatives' lack of will to compromise, and turned Communist. The FARC is the armed wing of the Columbian communist party. Similarly the conservatives turned to ever more radical methods.

Clearly the spectre of communism in America's backyard is a clear and present danger to the stability and order of the United States itself. In fact the development in Columbia shows that a situation of grave political inaction and hostility between the liberal and conservative side, can be radicalized. Considering that Columbia is also Catholic, and that this religion actually condones violence for the sake of justice, this is a dangerous development if the conditions for it were to spread northwards. One has only to think of the vast amount of immigrants to the United States from Central and South America. In fact it has been projected that at some point the majority of Americans will be Hispanics. It is therefore imperative for the United States, or rather the moneyed class there, to stamp out the last vestiges of the communist idea in South America. This is done through direct military intervention, financial support, coups, and propaganda. The stated goal of eradicating the drug trade is only a cover. In fact the drugtrade is only important insofar it will not be interrupted. As we have seen in Afghanistan, that country was invaded because the Taliban regime there were in fact striking down on the opium production creating an undersupply to the Western markets. This of course would have consequences for the stability of the Western regimes, since an absence of cheap drugs would make it hard to satisfy the craving of the population. Alos with mind numbing drugs the more sensitive citizens are able to held in check. Especially the young who might rebel, were they able to see through the charade. Now the drug trade in Afghanistan has risen sharply, and opimum trade is flowing as never before insuring stability and internal peace in the West.

And one more thing. The part of the atrocites atributed to the AUC is actually 80 percent. In the recent years the para military numbers have risen sharply to over 8000.
It seems to me that the government of Columbia have don't have their priorities straight. Actually it is more likely that this is part pf a plan.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
Cheqitz who is the only one informed here as usual,

You realize that the way you wrote this, it leaves you out also.

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


You realize that the way you wrote this, it leaves you out also.

I admit that I knew very little of the specifics and complexities, but I had an overall intuitive understanding of the situation, which has only been strengthened.

Reading the thread I'll admit that JCG is informed on the subject too.

However I still have a problem with the fact democracy can be used as an excuse for all manner of crimes. And the fact that the paras have not killed enough liberals in municipal elections is not proof of the democratic credentials of the current regime. After all you might end up with a situation where every opposition to the last man will have to be assasinated before people will consider Columbia un-democratic (?!?)

[JCG]

First of all the FARC are not drugdealers. They simply tax the drugs production.

'Course there's been evidence to the contrary. That's just their side of the story, bypassing the "two words" above (and many more to that effect).

Secondly, as has been pointed out by Cheqitz who is the only one informed here as usual,

Informed? Certainly. Not going to deny he's informed (though I think I know too well the webpages he's usually quoting/paraphrasing from...just with a different mindset). Just not "the only one".

the civil war in Columbia has existed since 1948. It sprung from a disagreement over social and economic policies between the liberals and the conservatives.

There are many theories/schools of thought/etc. regarding the exact dates and causes, so that's as good as pretty much any of them.

The liberals became disaffected by the the conservatives' lack of will to compromise, and turned Communist. The FARC is the armed wing of the Columbian communist party. Similarly the conservatives turned to ever more radical methods.

Good for a wikipedia entry, but then again those just give an overall & sketchy picture of the situation. The dates of all those events are "stickied" together artificially (precisely through the lack of dates, to be more exact) and unrealistically.

Clearly the spectre of communism in America's backyard is a clear and present danger to the stability and order of the United States itself.

Kind of hard to not care.

Considering that Columbia is also Catholic, and that this religion actually condones violence for the sake of justice, this is a dangerous development if the conditions for it were to spread northwards.

I'm agnostic, but I don't really see the need for religion bashing here.

And one more thing. The part of the atrocites atributed to the AUC is actually 80 percent.

You can round it up all the way if you prefer, as that's just an estimate anyways.

In the recent years the para military numbers have risen sharply to over 8000.

Less than the 20,000 plus guerrillas still.

Actually it is more likely that this is part pf a plan.

Not another "vast (US-)rightwing conspiracy theory" again....I skipped that part on purpose before, as you can see.

I admit that I knew very little of the specifics and complexities, but I had an overall intuitive understanding of the situation, which has only been strengthened.

Yet that's precisely what is important, when it comes down to determining the strength of your arguments.

Reading the thread I'll admit that JCG is informed on the subject too.

Plenty of people are informed on the subject, even if they disagree with you/me/anyone else.

However I still have a problem with the fact democracy can be used as an excuse for all manner of crimes.

And I still have a problem with the fact that Communism or "The Revolution" can be used as an excuse for all manner of crimes.

And the fact that the paras have not killed enough liberals in municipal elections is not proof of the democratic credentials of the current regime.

It is when you consider that's one of the main accusations put forth by your side of the debate....and it's the FARC which is doing such killing, ironically enough.

After all you might end up with a situation where every opposition to the last man will have to be assasinated before people will consider Columbia un-democratic (?!?)

That's a wee bit ridiculous, of course....but it's kind of hard to accuse someone of being un-democratic when, just to give 1 example, leftist opposition figures aren't falling left and right but actually manage to get elected as mayor and councilmen of the capital city of Bogotá, and have also caused government initiatives to go down the drain instead of being automatically approved.

That didn't happen in Batista's Cuba nor in a ton of other places.

[Sikander]

Death to the commies!

[Tripledoc]

JCG. Now you are simply being a sophist.

And I don't think it is a 'vast conspiracy' as you say. It is simply how I think policies are being decided upon in Washington. I have no problem with an anti-communist agenda. After all the rich have to employ whatever means at their disposal to defend themsleves. It would be foolish to think that they would simply give all their wealth and power up without at least providing for a modicum of resistance. However I don't appreciate the sense of moral superiority they seek to inflict on me.

[Shi Huangdi]

Didn't Colombia recently elect a hard line right-wing government to deal with the insurgency? FARC ought to ttry accomplish its aims politically. Yes, the situtation may be bad, but there is a civil war there and those often are rather brutal..

[Dr Strangelove]

IIRC Columbia is a minor grower of cocoa, but due to its position between the major growing areas in Bolivia and Peru and the major markets in the US and Europe, has become the leading processor and distributor of cocaine.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Sikander
Death to the commies!

[Chilean President™]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
IIRC Columbia is a minor grower of cocoa, but due to its position between the major growing areas in Bolivia and Peru and the major markets in the US and Europe, has become the leading processor and distributor of cocaine.

Exactly!
Bolivia have the biggest cocaine-farms in the continent. And more than that, those cocaine farmers have huge political power. they even provoked the destitution of former President Gozalo Sanchez de Lozada... actually they provoked a huge bloody riot of over 2 months which lead to the president's destitution.

In the northern border of Chile, the Carabineros (the police force) have huge anti drug division to patrol the frontier. Some stupid people are saying that with the construction of a big wall, like the one Israel is constructing, all the illegal inmigration and cocaine traffic will end... dummies..


BTW, today is my birthday and I want a birthday thread plus a Post Count Boost.. is that possible?