Colombia: Media Has It Wrong Again
Oread Daily | 31.07.2002 20:15
WELL, NOT EXACTLY
Newspaper and other media around the world are reporting today that between 500 and 1200 farm workers have reportedly been taken hostage by Colombia's largest leftist rebel group from a town in Meta. The information is all coming from a local radio station and their information is all from one local witness. What is interesting is that humanitarian groups and Meta residents say they know nothing of a mass kidnapping.
On the other hand, an open letter today from the "Farmers Association of Arauca" (Arauca is the department which sits along the border with Venezuela reads), . "The human rights situation in the region has deteriorated significantly – underlined the letter – due to the intensification of the paramilitary ‘offensive’ against the local population and the absolute absence of the State. In 10 months the victims have been 400. The situation has however visibly deteriorated particularly in the past month and the farmer communities have been forced to assist the most ferocious crimes perpetrated in the zone". The Association letter states that just in the Cravo Norte area at least 18 people have been reported missing and that their families have received no news of them for weeks. Further, the Association says that journalists have abandoned the area after receiving death threats and the media silenced since the June 28th murder of the owner and director of the ‘Meridiano 70’ broadcast. But, folks, they ain’t blaming leftists. They say it is the paramilitaries associated with the government who are responsible. The Association also says that the paramilitaries have set up road blocks everywhere, both in rural and urban zones, turning Arauca into one of the most militarized city’s of the nation. The residents define the situation as "State terrorism" against civilians and for this reason have called on the government to intervene promptly and for the institution of an international observation commission to investigate the reports of human rights violations in the region.
And in fact, the number of people being forcibly disappeared in Colombia each year is rapidly increasing and according to a local human rights organization state sponsored forces, both official and unofficial, are responsible for over 99% of the cases. New statistics released by the Colombian Association of the Families of the Detained and Disappeared – known as ASFADDES – show that last year some 1,283 people were taken away and have not been seen since. ASFADDES says that three of these people were disappeared by rebel groups while the remainder of the cases can be blamed predominantly on paramilitary and other state agents such as the army and police. The statistics ASFADDES released show that between 1994 and 2001 there were 3,413 forced disappearances in Colombia. Gladys Avila, national coordinator of ASFADDES, explained that ASFADDES has no way of knowing the true number of cases as their statistics only include those instances in which the family or friends of the victim denounce the crime, and that on many occasions, because of fear of reprisals, people stay silent. Avila herself lost her brother Eduardo when he disappeared off a street in Bogotá on April 20th 1993.
Regarding the problem of forced displacement the "Colombian Commission of Jurists" announced that the numbers now being forced from their land in Colombia had increased to approximately 1,000 people per day. Experts say that the phenomenon is largely caused by counterinsurgency strategies – devised by the Pentagon in Vietnam and now implemented in Colombia – that call for people to be forcibly shifted from rural areas in an attempt to deprive guerrilla organizations of civilian support networks in the countryside.
Sources: MISNA, Anncol (Colombia), The Mercury (Australia)
The Oread Daily provides daily (Monday-Friday) progressive, left, anti-racist, anarchist, commie, activist, environmental, Marxist, revolutionary, etc. news and information from around the US and around the world. The Oread Daily was a mimeographed sheet that came out first in the summer of 1970 in Lawrence, Kansas. It was irreverent, radical, spicy, revolutionary et. al. Now, three decades later it returns. To view the entire Oread Daily, please visit:
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Newspaper and other media around the world are reporting today that between 500 and 1200 farm workers have reportedly been taken hostage by Colombia's largest leftist rebel group from a town in Meta. The information is all coming from a local radio station and their information is all from one local witness. What is interesting is that humanitarian groups and Meta residents say they know nothing of a mass kidnapping.
On the other hand, an open letter today from the "Farmers Association of Arauca" (Arauca is the department which sits along the border with Venezuela reads), . "The human rights situation in the region has deteriorated significantly – underlined the letter – due to the intensification of the paramilitary ‘offensive’ against the local population and the absolute absence of the State. In 10 months the victims have been 400. The situation has however visibly deteriorated particularly in the past month and the farmer communities have been forced to assist the most ferocious crimes perpetrated in the zone". The Association letter states that just in the Cravo Norte area at least 18 people have been reported missing and that their families have received no news of them for weeks. Further, the Association says that journalists have abandoned the area after receiving death threats and the media silenced since the June 28th murder of the owner and director of the ‘Meridiano 70’ broadcast. But, folks, they ain’t blaming leftists. They say it is the paramilitaries associated with the government who are responsible. The Association also says that the paramilitaries have set up road blocks everywhere, both in rural and urban zones, turning Arauca into one of the most militarized city’s of the nation. The residents define the situation as "State terrorism" against civilians and for this reason have called on the government to intervene promptly and for the institution of an international observation commission to investigate the reports of human rights violations in the region.
And in fact, the number of people being forcibly disappeared in Colombia each year is rapidly increasing and according to a local human rights organization state sponsored forces, both official and unofficial, are responsible for over 99% of the cases. New statistics released by the Colombian Association of the Families of the Detained and Disappeared – known as ASFADDES – show that last year some 1,283 people were taken away and have not been seen since. ASFADDES says that three of these people were disappeared by rebel groups while the remainder of the cases can be blamed predominantly on paramilitary and other state agents such as the army and police. The statistics ASFADDES released show that between 1994 and 2001 there were 3,413 forced disappearances in Colombia. Gladys Avila, national coordinator of ASFADDES, explained that ASFADDES has no way of knowing the true number of cases as their statistics only include those instances in which the family or friends of the victim denounce the crime, and that on many occasions, because of fear of reprisals, people stay silent. Avila herself lost her brother Eduardo when he disappeared off a street in Bogotá on April 20th 1993.
Regarding the problem of forced displacement the "Colombian Commission of Jurists" announced that the numbers now being forced from their land in Colombia had increased to approximately 1,000 people per day. Experts say that the phenomenon is largely caused by counterinsurgency strategies – devised by the Pentagon in Vietnam and now implemented in Colombia – that call for people to be forcibly shifted from rural areas in an attempt to deprive guerrilla organizations of civilian support networks in the countryside.
Sources: MISNA, Anncol (Colombia), The Mercury (Australia)
The Oread Daily provides daily (Monday-Friday) progressive, left, anti-racist, anarchist, commie, activist, environmental, Marxist, revolutionary, etc. news and information from around the US and around the world. The Oread Daily was a mimeographed sheet that came out first in the summer of 1970 in Lawrence, Kansas. It was irreverent, radical, spicy, revolutionary et. al. Now, three decades later it returns. To view the entire Oread Daily, please visit:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OreadDaily
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