La Patria Boba "The Silly Nation"

Quote by John Pilger on Colombia

2009-04-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

"Across the border in Colombia, the US has made Venezuela's neighbour the Israel of Latin America. Under "Plan Colombia", more than $6bn in arms, planes, special forces, mercenaries and logistics have been showered on some of the most murderous people on earth: the inheritors of Pinochet's Chile and the other juntas that terrorised Latin America for a generation, their various gestapos trained at the School of the Americas in Georgia. "We not only taught them how to torture," a former American trainer told me, "we taught them how to kill, murder, eliminate." That remains true of Colombia, where government-inspired mass terror has been documented by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and many others. In a study of 31,656 extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances between 1996 and 2006, the Colombian Commission of Jurists found that 46 per cent had been murdered by right-wing death squads and 14 per cent by Farc guerrillas. The para militaries were responsible for most of the three million victims of internal displacement. This misery is a product of Plan Colombia's pseudo "war on drugs", whose real purpose has been to eliminate the Farc. To that goal has now been added a war of attrition on the new popular democracies, especially Venezuela."

Colombia: the Sudan of Latin America

2009-02-14T04:34:00.000-08:00

I'm guessing that who ever reads the title will think its absurd to compare Colombia's crisis with that of Sudan. Most people would see Sudan's crisis as more alarming and simply more interesting to follow, the media falls in that category as most media outlets only publish drug related articles on Colombia. But i can't just blame the media for bringing to the public one conflict and not the other.

To start off this short article, i will start by giving you small facts that can be found anywhere on the internet from reliable sources like the UNHR and Amnesty International, or any news or political links. Sudan's total number of refugees and displaced people since 1989 numbers 4 million. That is an alarming cipher, 4 million people displaced in what the media calls ethnic cleansing, but it lacks to say that the main reason is that the Sudanese government is pushing the southerners out of their lands because the southern Sudanese are standing on rich soil which harbors the black gold.

From all the countries in the world not many people would think that Colombia would have any sort of problems, as today we are shown a country free of turmoil with a successful leadership that has managed to cover up all problems. However, Colombia has been in conflict for over 40 years. Since 1989 Colombia has had 4 million people displaced or made refugee, and that number is rising. since 1989 25,000 people has died every year from this conflict, that is aside from natural deaths and other sort of deaths. Since 1987 until today 9,000 union leaders have been killed by private militias or the government, 600 of these union leaders have been killed since 2002. Moreover, since 2002 18,000 people has disappeared under suspicious circumstances, but the government does not comment on it, 3,000 people dissappeared just in 2007. The only problem with this conflict is that nobody has heard of these statistics, people has heard of the war on drugs, but not many people has heard of this massive displacement that has happened not in just one region but all over Colombia for the last 10 years.

you may ask your self how come i haven't heard from this before, this guy is probably fabricating this, but all you have to do is check, UNHR, Amnesty international, the Red cross and any human rights related website.

What most people doesn't know is that behind every conflict there is another country, usually an outsider that has nothing to do with the region, but that has steaks in the area. In Sudan's case the conflict has been raised over and over in the mainstream media and the media doesn't fail to repeatedly state that China is behind the conflict and therefore the conflict must be denounced. Whereas in Colombia, well, i don't really have to tell you why the conflict is not made public because we already know who's back yard that is. But my point is that, where is the condemnation to this bloody conflict that is taking its toll on millions of innocent people that simply wants to get on with their lives?

How long will it take for the Colombian middle classes and upper classes to rise and say no more to the constant massacres and displacement of their poorer brethren? How long will the international media ignore this conflict? How long will the international community ignore this conflict? If this conflict continues there wont be a Colombia that can be likened to Sudan, in the future it will be likened to Haiti or worse to Somalia. Most will say i am exaggerating but most people that can is leaving the country, as either refugees or economic migrants. How long will Colombians and the world put a blind eye to this conflict?

Obama on Colombia

2008-11-06T01:58:00.000-08:00

Inti-Illimani - El pueblo unido jamás será vencido

2008-10-02T15:54:00.000-07:00

Indigenous, Paesants and Hitmen

2008-04-04T20:19:00.000-07:00

The reason for the title is because the three are one and the same,the three have been manipulated by the ruling classes into doing what is best for the elites and foreign interests since the beginning of colonialism in Colombia.

Before the arrival of Columbus to the "new world" the indigenous lived in the Americas in a peaceful manner, some societies were highly advanced, and some lived in simple ways. Their ways of living if you compare them to today's standard of living were more advanced as they did not contribute to the detriment of the earth. However with the arrival of the Europeans to the Americas, the indigenous were almost annihilated, hundreds of millions of indigenous died after the arrival of the European from massacres, viruses and slavery. Those indigenous that survived the massacres and viruses, were not so lucky, they were forced to convert to the foreign religion, and enslaved. The newly arrived Europeans became the elite of the Americas, and the indigenous were forced to work the land for the hungry and ever growing Europeans. Every grain and every spark of gold that left to Europe had a stain of blood. As time passed the indigenous became the peasants of the new world, however, many of these indigenous had very weak bodies and could not resist the harsh conditions that were forced upon them, so the Europeans looked towards Africa for a more strong and lasting labour force. Millions of west Africans were kidnapped and forced into ships that would send them to the Americas to work the land.

The Indigenous and the Africans lived side by side in the Americas working the land, building the cities and guarding the properties for the Europeans, but all that work was in vane because there was no way out from that life, there was no light, it was a living hell. It was a living hell in a land that had enough for everybody yet the land was only to give enough for the rich to waste.

Now i wonder if all this has changed today? Today the indigenous in Colombia are fewer in numbers, there are millions of Africans, yet they are both ignored as if they were invisible.

The life of peasantry has finished for all in Colombia, not because the state has provided a solution to the life of peasants, but because they are being driven out of the lands that they worked on for hundreds of years. They are being killed, raped, threatened, tortured, forgotten, all by a conflict of ideas and land ownership. These people is no longer called "El campesino" but "the displaced" that is their new name, these peasants have been kicked out of their lands by what the state calls an armed conflict. But if it was a conflict who are the parties involved in the conflict? no one knows exactly. There are three groups involved, the armed right wing groups, the state and its defence forces and the left wing groups, but all seem to blame each other for the conflict and its catastrophic results. But i wonder, if people is truly displaced, that would mean that all the lands the 2 million peasants have left behind should be untouched and desolate. But is that so? if those areas that have been evacuated are so dangerous, why are foreign multinationals buying those lands, why are rich families and politicians extending their estates? That is something to think about. I'm not here to talk about what happened to that land, because it is pretty obvious. I'm here to talk about the people that was kicked out of that land, and right now in this moment in time there is still people being kicked out of their lands, and i have to say it bluntly because they are not being kicked out with a red carpet on their feet.

Where do all these people go? where are they? where have they gone? they are living in the borders of Colombia's neighboring countries; sleeping in tents, begging, robbing, being humiliated day by day. And if they are lucky they might get to go to a western nation as UN refugees, but even then they are probably living poorly. Those that can't leave or prove that they have suffered from the war on the people, have to move to the main cities of Colombia. Since most of them didn't even have time to take much from their homes, they have reached the cities with nothing, they have had to settle in all the cities outskirts, in slums that are not recognized by the cities as part of the city they are simply called invasions. This means that people is living in substandard conditions, with no water, electricity or a sewage system. the state has done very little for these people, NGOs have done their part, but it takes more than NGOs to solve this issue. What are these people doing to survive? are there plenty of jobs in the cities? are they welcomed in our cities? NO. So what do they have to do to take the bread and butter to their homes? they have to do things that they would not do if they were living in better conditions. They turn to crime, and crime can be anything, from mugging people, robbing banks, cars, drug trade, join an armed group or be a hit man. How can we judge these people for committing crimes when they are the victims of a far greater crime? Hit mans for example, why are there so many hit mans in Colombia? well its because they probably get more money doing that job than doing a normal job. The problem of that profession is what they do, they are sent to kill people, people they don't know. Its people that they are told are bad or are a menace to society and a threat to the state, and when they do the job they don't realize who the person was until it comes out in the media. They are payed to exterminate people that have prominent roles in society, that one way or another is contributing to society and is on the opposition to the state. But one cannot blame the hit man for doing it because he or she did not know who that person was, it is a crime what they are doing, that is a fact, but they are blind to the reality, they can only think of taking the bread and butter to their homes. Many displaced people are in this situations, they are getting into crime thinking that that is the only way out of poverty and this is creating greater problems. Our leaders are being killed day by day by hit men, and the state only goes out to get the hit men, but is it really the hit men that are killing our leaders? the peasants, the common people is manipulated into believing that it is one group or another, but those groups are also manipulated, and the only entity that can truly stop this is the state. If there was no poverty we would not have hit men, kidnappers, thieves.....Colombians need to learn to recognize and discern from the right and wrong, men and women that want to change the country for the better are being killed or silenced all because their plans for Colombia contradict the oligarchies interest.

The solution to any conflict is not to kill the other but to allow the others to have their say, so far only the oligarchy and foreigners have their say, but what about the colombian people, have they truly had their say?

2008-04-02T22:26:00.000-07:00

I am very concerned about the history of violence against trade unionists in Colombia.
Hillary Clinton

2008-04-02T22:21:00.000-07:00

"I'll also oppose the Colombia Free Trade Agreement if President Bush insists on sending it to Congress because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements. So you can trust me when I say that whatever trade deals we negotiate when I'm President will be good for American workers, and that they'll have strong labor and environmental protections that we'll enforce."
Barack Obama

Colombia-Trade unions in the firing line-part 1 (youtube).

2008-01-09T17:15:00.000-08:00

Is colombia a dictatorship?

2007-12-27T19:40:00.000-08:00

Is Colombia a dictatorship? thats an interesting question that i keep asking my self. South America has had a horrid history of dictatorships and civil wars. Chile, argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and central america, all had a dictatorship at some point in time in the XX century. But Colombia has never had a dictatorship or a dictator, that is good from a realist perspective, its been what neo liberals in colombia call a succesful democracy in a region full of turmoil. Dictatorships as is commonly known happended when the state is in emergency, therefore all the powers of the state are given to one man or group to stabilize disorder. Based on that South America has been in a state of emergency for the last 100 years, but from what? i guess the only problem in south america would be if the people ever rise up to claim real democratic elections and to demand real institutions that would work for the nation, i guess that would be the real reason for an emergency.
Going back to Colombia, Colombia is an interesting situation because it has had plenty of civil wars to boast about, it also has had a "real" democratic system in place since independence in 1810. There has never existed a dictatorship compared to other countries in the region, however the symptoms of a dictatorship are everywhere.
Since the 50s when the ruling parties decided to settle for half of the country for each side there has been little peace because it has meant that only a group high up has access to the wealth of the land. Colombia has had 39 democraticly elected presidents since 1886 There has only been one transitional period which was from 1953 to 1957, the military under Gustavo Rojas Pinilla sat for 4 years until the conservatives and liberal settled their differences in europe so to prevent an ongoing civil war. This settlement was called the national front agreement, both ruling parties agreed to swap leadership every four years and split the spoils of the land equally.
From this settlement the bureaucracy was the only one that benefited, suffering became the daily bread and wine of the peasants. As a result of this ongoing oppression more insurgent groups emerged in the countryside to fight against the oppression and displacement of paesants from their land.
More sinister yet was the emergence of criminal organisations and death squads, all this added weight to the constant suffering of Colombians.
Since the late 1980s about 25,000 people die a year from the result of the conflict, about 1 million people has left the country in search of a more peaceful and economicaly sound country, and over 1 million paesants have been displaced from their lands. The displacement of people is the worse of the results from this conflict, most of the paesants are forced out of their lands, have no where to go therefore migrate to the main cities where they have to build their homes from scratch in shanty towns that haven't got even the basic services for housing.
All this a colombian would say is something they already know, but the problem is that there is nothing much the government has done about it, its a shame that this is happening in a land that is fertile enough to grow any sort of food crops yet the land is raped with the growth of illicit plants.
I still ask, is colombia a dictator ship, for the last 100 years all the leaders that have worried about the state of the nation have been killed, kidnapped or pushed into exile. What democracy would kill its journalists, comedians, kidnap its senators, kill presidential candidates, kill its teachers and union leaders and allow thugs run the country? if we live in a democracy why do political dissidents die by the thousands, why do union leaders get killed so constantly, in democratic countries in europe and north america unionists are looked upon as the protectors of workers rights but in colombia they are seen as devils that fight against the national interest. Is fighting for the peoples rights against the national interest? I dont understand. What democracy allows corruption on election day, what democracy sends on election day the army to scare the people from voting?
What kind of peace do we have now, we have peace under the barrel of the gun, is that really peace, we are calling foreigners to come visit our country because we are more militarized now than ever before, which means we are more "safe" how can we ever solve anything with violence. Violence does not bring peace. Perhaps conditions are better now than 100 years ago, but the fact that we are living in the XXI century a time of globalization says that freedom of speech should be a given right, and that the right to access to better living conditions is a must. There are plenty of more sources that indicate that colombia has the qualities of a dictatorship, the problem is that colombia doesnt not have a dictator, there is no junta or supreme leader, what we have is democratically elected leaders and parties. So who should we blame then, it seems colombias dictatorship is invisible, we cannot identify who or what it is. It is scary to know that we do not know which side or who is truly responsible for our problems, no one can be taken to trial in the future because no one knows anything, the only thing we know is that any one that speaks in favour of progressive ideas, or any one that mocks or criticizes the system is systematically killed, dissappears, and so on.
People is sick of wars, i dont think any person that goes out to vote thinks of choosing a war mogering leader, people wants peace, people just wants to live in tranquility with their family and neighbours. Colombia is just a mere example and reflection of what is happening in the developing world, i hope it is not too late for real change because so far as things are going the snowball keeps growing and growing, and thats aside from the fact that global warming will worsen our situation. Global warming will affect south america, with the speed we are cutting trees in the Amazon we will most likely have a new Sahara desert pretty soon, and what will absorb the CO2 emitions? our kids i guess. Our environment is a reflection of how our politicians are dealing with humanity, if we dont change our politics we won't change our enviroment. Colombians have to stop worrying about the soccer game, the soap opera, the bargains at the nearest shop and all those traps the system puts along the way to distract us from the reality we are living in.

Last night a transvetite was killed (you tube)

2007-12-25T18:09:00.000-08:00

Open Veins and Colombia

2007-11-28T15:42:00.001-08:00

This last few months have been interetsing, Politicians in colombia have been found to have links to terrorist groups and many are in jail or standing at court as it is. Also since the Democrats in the U.S gained the numbers in congress the Free trade agreement between both nations has been rolled back. The democrats say that plan colombia has not been effective and that the Uribe regime needs to be more transparent. This comes as a blow to many in colombia, especially multinational corporations that want to get a tighter grip of colombia and its natural resources.

A free trade agreement cannot be done in colombia until the civil war and corruption finishes. Any agreemnet will only legitimize the ongoing corruption that has existed in the government for decades.

I recently finished reading Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano, there was very little of colombia there, but the whole picture of imperialism and explotation in the whole of south america fits perfectly with what is still happening in Colombia.

Free trade agreements according to what i got from that book, cause more harm than trouble. Although the book does not have a profound political theory it gives a historical account of how free trade agreements have wrecked South America.

The only successful case being chile, but still not so, because the peso is really high but salaries very low, chile is a success because the whole country is privatized and no one has a chance to change or speak against it. Freetrade agreement means to colombia, to further privatize what ever assets the state has, sell off land and natural resources and to provide cheap labor, but in no way does it mean that Colombia is going to be any better.

Reading that book made me understand what South America means to The U.S, Europe and emerging super Powers. It is sad that South America is only seen as a land that needs to be sqeezed to its maximum to satisfy the capitalist societies of the north. Our history and all we know is all a lie, or an invented tradition, to keep us blind to what the truth really is.

The U.S should change its neo-liberal approach not only to colombia but to the rest of south america, otherwise it will oose grip of the region, to emergin countries like China, India and a fast growing E.U. South America should be more independent of how it runs its business, but at the same time be close to the U.S for the simple fact that both continents are in the same location, therefore an ongoing relation ship shold exist in a more equitative way, and this will prevent any foreign power from provoking conflict that will worsen the situation in the region.

Reading Open veins opened my eyes to the real politik and made me believe that there isn't a way out for South Americans. Howver there is still a hope of change, not in the current form but in our future generations, unfortunately climate change and future wars and food shortages will happen around the world and that will change peoples consciousness and lead to a positive change.

I totally recommend Open Veins of Latin America, as an alternative history to what people commonly know as the discovery of america. What i learnt in school about our history looks like a joke in front of this history Galeano speaks of. In fact it makes me feel ashamed and sad to know that South America has been used in such a horrible way. Its not just a left wing book, it is a real history that doesnt hide the reality from the reader, and makes you recapacitate about our past and present.

2007-11-26T19:48:00.001-08:00

colombia held at ransom

2007-09-24T06:20:00.001-07:00

Blame the other

2007-09-01T06:16:00.000-07:00

The other day i received a power point presentation, and it was the craziest propaganda i have ever seen from Colombia. It was attacking the left wing leaders that are taking positions of power in their countries around south america. What i found funny was how each of these leaders were portrayed as having an evil agenda against Colombia. It starts attacking Hugo Chavez, as the main threat to colombia, then Evo moralez with his agenda of legalizing narcotics, and then they also accused the newly elected Rafael Correa as part of the left wing regional conspiracy that is led by Cuba.

What i can't get into my head is how people is really taking this type of propaganda serious, its scary because Colombia has so many issues that it needs to address, and it is now focused on blaming foreigners of their own problems. The government, academics, activists and generally every person that has somethng to say about politics, blames some foreign country for our faults.

The left blames the western powers for interfering in our country, they blame them for all our tragedies, the right blames the left wing radicals for our crisis, every body is pointing fingers at everybody, but we lack to see the reality, and the reality is that we are the probolem.

I guess it is a natural thing for any country, or human to blame others for their own problems and mistakes, but i think there has to be a time when one as an individual and as part of a country have to reflect and look inside and see what our faults are so we can find a real solution.

The right has to stop blaming the left, and the left has to stop blaming the right, we have to stop blaming foreigners, we have to stop blaming the poor, the rich, our neighbors, GOD, in other words we have to stop and think, why are we in this mess?!

Once we do, i think that the crisis will stop, we have to start by considering that no matter on what side of politics we are, the people on the other side are humans also. We have to consider why every body is in the situation they are in, one thing is for sure though, we are all colombians, we are all in the same boat. Just like every person in this world, every body lives in some country or is part of some sort of community, but what is important is how to live in peace in that community. We have to learn to live in peace rather than killing each other to grab more land or material wealth, because at the end the only thing that we truly have is our selves and the company we give to each other while we exist in this earth. What reason is there for me or you or anyone to exist if we are just killing each other, all because we cant share our street, our neighbourhood, city, country or what ever.

Colombia has potential like any other country to move foward, but the problem is that the country is stuck in a never ending cycle of poverty and violence, politicians say the country is growing economically, but they never mention that only few are getting rich, the rest of the country is swimming in poverty. So how can the country ever really grow when there are only a few rich, how can a country grow when the basic freedom of speech is denied to its citizens, how can a country grow when unionism is suppressed, how can a country grow when the lands of the peasants are being taken away? The few that are getting rich might get rich materially but spiritually they are rotting and they know their conscious doesn't let them sleep every night, or enjoy their meals knowing that there is hungry people at the doorstep of their mantions.

Im not suggesting that the rich go out of their way emptying their pockets and give all to the poor, but what im trying to say is that all people should have equal opportunity to live a comfortable life, to have an education, access to health care, reasonable salaries, union representation, people should have all the basic rights that a true democracy has to offer, not the rights the that the oligarchy wants to give to the people.

There should be a greater recognition of the indigenous people of colombian, who are the true land lords of colombia and south america, the African-colombian community should have equal representation and equal access to all commodities offered by the state to the people. Other gender identifying groups should be recognised and allowed to live side by side with the rest of the citizenry without being persecuted, women should be recognized as equal to men and not objectified, our flora and fauna should be taken seriously and protected properly by the state, the state should take serious measures against global warming, a great step to preventing more pollution in the cities is to redestribute the land back to the paesants that are currently living in the cities, that way the cities will be cleared from congestion, people living in very poor conditions cause more pollution than people toiling the land in the country side.

There are many issues the state should take into consideration, but so far it is worried more about how to arm it self better, how to have more control of the masses, and how to sell its lands to foreign companies, its not new not unfamiliar to other countries. Lets just hope that when our governmenets realize the crisis we are its not so late.

colombia (vietnam)

2007-08-07T19:38:00.000-07:00

no title

2007-04-30T03:09:00.000-07:00

I have not written much cause you know the traps society puts everywhere doesn’t allow you to be more dedicated to things that really matter. I was thinking all this months about a conversation I had with my little cousin about what he was learning in school in Colombia. We were talking about the current situation Colombia is in and how it seems as if there was no way out. He told me that his teacher told him that the reason Colombia has been and will always be in chaos is because we haven’t had a Voltaire, Rousseau or a thinker that has developed an ideology or solution to the problems Colombia and south America has. I kept thinking for months about that and the more I thought about it, the more I was pissed off about it.

How can a teacher say things like that to the students, he is telling them then that’s its not worth fighting for a better way to live in Colombia. That shows that the system is constantly brain washing the students, instilling in their minds apathy. How can a teacher even say that Rousseau’s discourse on the foundations of inequality doesn’t apply to Colombia, or Marx ideas of socialism. Maybe the ideas should not be applied identically but the ideas that the European thinkers brought to light about inequality and tyranny are universal. To identify the illness is the first step to cure a system, but it seems that the system in Colombia keeps denying that there is a problem, and it is avoiding a real change.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about a revolution, because I am a pacifist. Isaac Asimov quote on violence best says what I think about it, he said violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. It has been 40 years, even more I would say of violence where groups have been fighting to rule the country, fruitless like any other war that has ever existed in this world. There have only been losers, the losers are the thousands of people that have died for the greed of a few.

When I think of Colombia I have a mixture of feelings, my memories of the beautiful landscapes, the girls, the food, the parties and overall the family and friends left behind, but after those joyful thoughts come the dark reality and that is that for us happiness cannot be constant. Colombia has not been able to see a day of peace, we lie to ourselves by reducing the amounts of casualties of war shown on TV, we hide from the public that the country is becoming poorer, that foreigners are raping our lands, we are polluting the rivers, killing the indigenous populations, we have forgotten the African Colombians, we are ignoring the displaced people, we are ignoring the starving. We can pretend to be happy and try and show the world we are happy and are a good people, but how can we really think we are so good when people is constantly suffering, all this is due to the fact that the state has failed us, at the same time I think the state did not fail, we failed because we continue to allow all these negative things from happening.

I was reading a summary view of the rights of British America by Thomas Jefferson, and there he was asking the British rule at the time, that when his ancestors reached America they reached there by free will, that that way is how they should be treated now, as free people just like his ancestors who were Anglo Saxons living in a “free” society. That reminded me of Colombia and South America, because we arrived as colonizers and as “free people” and now we are living in constant oppression by the tyranny of the few. The majority tills the land while a few live from its profit. I hope that those that are ruling the country think and realize that the people they are exploiting share the same ancestry and same values and culture. Before we arrived to south America the indigenous lived as free people, before we dragged the Africans to the America’s to become slaves they were free, we were all free, but now we are all slaves of the same people that has been sharing this same land with us. I am pretty sure who ever reads this may think I am just ranting none sense, but we are more slaves than before. We are slaves of globalization, privatization, technology, ideologies, religions, our neighbors and our greedy selves.

How can the rich live in peace when they go out in their luxurious cars and when they stop at a light they see kids begging for money, how can the poor live in peace when they are forced by the state to submit themselves to unlawful measures to prevent them from ever leaving the trench of poverty. Its sickening to know that everybody lives in fear, the poor lives in fear of the rich and the rich lives in fear of the poor.

I’m pretty sure that some Colombians are going to say, what a negative person but how can I be happy when I cant walk freely from north to south of my country. How can I feel happy when I know that people doesn’t have a choice to a better life.

There are so many things I want to say about Colombia but I haven’t got much time to say all I have to say, so many things occur there every day. But little by little I will try and give a spill of what’s going on according to how I see it, from my reality.

Slum of Bogota

2006-11-22T05:02:00.000-08:00

upper class in bogota

2006-11-22T04:58:00.000-08:00

Report on the Latin America solidarity conference

2006-11-20T17:26:00.000-08:00

This conference has been a bit different to all the other conferences I have been to, most conferences I have been to revolve around NUS and its hacks. But this one was particularly interesting, especially because it was focused on Latin America, which is where I come from. I thought it was going to be a conference full of lefty kids ranting crazy things, but the whole thing was well organised, they had good speakers explaining the shift in politics that Latin America is going through, and how it is affecting the united states. I went to two lectures and one workshop, this first one was led by a speaker from the Venezuelan embassy, nelson Davila; the title of that session was called Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution achievements and challenges, and the second lecture was Cuba emerging from the especial period, and its leading speaker was Nelida Hernandez from the Cuban consulate. The workshop I went to was about my country Colombia, now I was a bit hesitant because the word left or worse communism is like an evil mantra there.

I won’ t rant about what the lectures were about because I did not take note, and also because I assume that we all know that anybody that is not part of the coalition of the willing is not going to speak good about imperialism and neo-liberalism. Instead I will focus a bit on the workshop which was about Colombia. Now, Colombia is an interesting topic because throughout its history its only successful social uprising was the one to achieve independence in 1810. At the time they only kicked out the Spanish representatives, but the landlords stayed and still today they are the most powerful people in the country.

In the early 20th century there were several social uprisings but all suppressed, the liberal party the second party aside from the conservative one, changed its politics more to the conservative side. This led to a greater war against the peasantry, the army continued to snatch the land from the peasants, claiming it belongs to the state. Many peasants took arms and went to the mountains to fight the state, communism became its sole ideology and for the last 48 years the country has been under an undeclared civil war, a war between classes.

What struck me about the workshop was what they said was going on currently in Colombia. In the workshop I learnt that Colombia was very important to the united states, the reason being that Colombia is in a very strategic geographic position, and also because it has a fertile land and lots of natural resources.

In the political climate change that South America is going through, where more countries are moving more to the left and the people is taking the destiny of their countries into their hands, Colombia has deepened their relations with the empire.
For those that don’t know where Colombia is located it is in the northwest of the southern American continent, bordering to the north west with panama (which once belonged to us but someone bigger took it away from us), to the west is Venezuela, to the south east is brazil, and to the south is Ecuador and Peru, to the north is the Caribbean sea, and to the west is the pacific ocean.

Colombia is right on the Andes mountain range and the land there is very fertile, so as you all know Colombia grows very important products that the empire needs, to keep the masses dumb in their own homeland. And out oil reserves are quite big to the south, so we are important to them, yes!!

The other reason Colombia is so important is because countries like Venezuela, Ecuador, brazil Bolivia and others are sick of being controlled by a bureaucracy that controls everything from their flats in Manhattan. These countries are kicking out the oligarchs and reversing the privatisation of the entire public infrastructure. The United States doesn’t like that because they are loosing money, they knew this was going to happen long before during the Clinton administration, so they had decided to arm Colombia, and they called this usual tactic the plan Colombia. The public version is that plan Colombia is designed to give $7 billion dollars to the Colombian government in weapons and military training to fight drug trade, which is equivalent to US $ 500 million dollars a year, realistically probably more. But the real plan is to arm Colombia, first to get rid of the left wing groups, unionists and other groups that work for the people. And second to get ready to invade Venezuela or any of the countries that are not submitting to their rule in the region. The third and most important reason this plan Colombia is important its because it makes sure that the drug trade is regulated by the united states, something similar to the opium trade back when England used to be an empire.

The weirdest thing I heard in the conference was that the defence department back in 1991 provided a list of Colombians involved in the drug trade in Colombia, and our current president is on the list. That intelligence paper became public in 2004, foreign media made a big fuzz about it, but hey he is smooth, he is in his second term now. What amazes me is that the intelligence community in the United States made these findings and the government ignored that, in fact they are supporting this guy and he is their right hand man in South America. I guess if you do what they dictate you can be absolved from any sin. GOD on earth is surely different from the GOD iof the heaven.

Let me assure you that no all Colombians fulfil the stereo type of being drug lords, but our ruling class does. Out of 40 million souls in Colombia I don’t even think 500,000 people makes up for the ruling class, its probably less, the rest of Colombians and I include myself, we are all battlers, and have no idea what the U.S and out oligarchs are doing to our country. I thank the fact that I am overseas because at least now I know something about my country I never learnt there when I was in high school.

written on october 11th 2006

PLAN COLOMBIA

2006-11-20T03:30:00.000-08:00

genesis

2006-11-14T00:39:00.000-08:00

I decided to set this blog so to allow the English speaking people that are interested in knowing about Colombia have an idea of Colombia. For many people overseas Colombia is a lawless state, which before the war in Afghanistan and the middle-east was one of, if not the most dangerous country in the world. I will try to be as objective as I can about all the topics that i will cover in this blog; since I feel very passionate about some of the topics. I will randomly speak about current issues that affect Colombia, historical events, and the influence the world has on Colombia, and the role that Colombia plays in the “AMERICAN” hemisphere. One of the main reasons I decided to write this blog was because I believe that people overseas have to know the good things and the bad things of Colombia. Freedom of speech, such an important right every human should have in a democratic country, people in Colombia lack that right. I say that people in Colombia does not have freedom of speech with shame, because Colombians and more so politicians tend to claim that Colombia is the oldest democracy at work in south America. The fact is that Colombia is not democratic. And if any anybody says, but that is a lie! As I assume some would say, well take a look at the poor people, which is the majority of the country. While the rich in the cities live comfortably in their expensive flats and mansions, five minutes away there is people living under less than a dollar a day, and what is their argument: oh such is life!
Im not sure if many people will check this site, or if they will like the content of what i will write, but at least the links will be interesting, so have a look.