Contradictions between right-wing assertions and fact are such fun, especially when they’re blatant. Check out, for example, the gulf between this assertion…
President Alvaro Uribe said Friday that Colombia’s institutions are now free of infiltration and corruption by right-wing militias blamed for some of the nation’s worst human rights abuses.
In a nationally televised address, Uribe said his government has “overcome paramilitarism.”
“Today paramilitarism no longer exists because combat against leftist rebels is now, in practice, the exclusive work of our democratic institutions,” Uribe declared in the speech to Congress marking Colombia’s independence day.
…and this fact:
A group of jailed right-wing Colombian paramilitary leaders have indefinitely pulled out of the peace process.
They are protesting against a recent Supreme Court decision to try them as common criminals, rather than for political crimes.
As part of the country’s controversial justice and peace law, they were entitled to special treatment.
[…]
Some 31,000 paramilitaries demobilized under a 2003 peace pact with Uribe’s government, though an associated scandal has questioned its integrity.
Looks like paramilitarism is not so “overcome” after all. Those guys are the shit that will hit the fan the instant they leave jail. And you know what happens when shit hits a fan, don’t you?
And I wouldn’t be so sure the institutions of Colombia are clean now–need I remind you all of the connections between the president’s own cousin, a senator, and the paramilitaries? Or those between the brother of the foreign minister and the paramilitaries? Not to mention the direct ties between the president himself and the paramilitaries? That’s the scandal.
Frankly, I don’t think Colombia will see an end to paramilitarism until two things happen: a leftist is elected, and everyone in his government is clean of all subversive ties. That ain’t the case with Double-Talkin’ Alvaro!
And this is who Harpo wants to forge free trade agreements with? Ugh. Why not just openly take up with a mafia don?
Isn’t it amazing how the capitalist media covers for the Colombian oligarchy.
Clearly the paras are tied to the military and the state, and they have terrorized the population to the point to where center to center right politicians are the only viable competitors in the country.
Obviously, terrorizing unions, left journalists, and indigenous people is all good fun for the capitalists and their media.
I was actually suprised that the Democrats did not support the trade agreement with Colombia. Guess that this is a limit to how far that part of the business party can sell out one of its major constituents–the larger labor unions.
I doubt that a leftist will be elected in Colombia–the oligarchs simply have too much power, and they are connected with the military.
Look for Colombia to devolve into a base from which the US and Latin American elites try to attack socialism in South America.
Yeah, I’m surprised too that the Dems actually showed a little backbone here. I would have expected only a few of the really progressive ones, like Kucinich, to stand up, but it seems they’re all in agreement! Maybe Chiquita Banana isn’t donating to their campaigns.
And I sadly fear you’re right about leftists not standing a chance; the reign of terror has gone too long. I hope I’m wrong about this, and that Colombia is about to “bottom out”, in AA parlance; then, it’s on to a political 12-step program. In which, of course, they start by admitting to being powerless over the addiction to State Dept. money.
Or maybe there will be a breakthrough in the guerrilla fighting, and a political arm of the FARC will take parliament with an overwhelming majority and sweep all this para-political and CIA trash out onto the scrap heap, just as Chavez supporters did with the Adecos and Copeyanos. Wouldn’t that be something?
Ah well, a girl can dream.