(and more than likely in Colombian opinion polls), that makes the true wishes of the Colombian majority unknowable. Bushites often cite opinion polls showing that Uribe is popular--but what are those opinion polls worth, if the poor, workers, peasants and the political left fear that they or their loved ones may get a bullet through the head for speaking freely or voting the wrong way.
-------
"Cepeda pointed out to IPS that since the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, went into force in July 2002, elections have been held in Colombia 'in which mechanisms of armed pressure and territorial control were used, which can be linked to crimes against humanity.'" (emphasis added) (Iván Cepeda is the spokesman for the Movement of Victims of State Crimes-MOVICE.)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43696 -------
This article also lays out the way that Uribe and political cohorts are trying to subvert the Supreme Court, which is charged with the duty of investigating the crimes of sitting public officials (and is doing its duty). The Uribe relatives and allies in the legislature simply resign their offices, when the Supreme Court gets the goods on them, and thereby come under the jurisdiction of the public prosecutor (former Uribe minister), who dismisses the case. Uribe & co. are also apparently engaged in clandestine activities to smear the Supreme Court justices.
It has a distinctly Bushite smell to it, doesn't it?
Both of these countries--Colombia and the U.S.--have become "banana republics," in which the rich and the brutal do whatever they goddamm please, with impunity. They own the government which protects them--and if any honest official or citizen raises his/her voice against them, they get destroyed, one way or another-- directly by assassination; by whisper campaigns, spying, blackmail, planted evidence and character assassination in the media; or--if they are elected officials--by Diebold (here) or threats of violence against voters and political activists (there and here).
It is mindboggling that Bushites can get away with calling Hugo Chavez a "dictator," when the facts are simply overwhelming that he isn't--and that, in truth, he has done more for democracy in South America than any leader in its history. Yet, with these horrendous crimes--torture, murder of thousands--and vast corruption (drug trafficking, land theft, cronyism, election fraud, bribery, lawlessness)--going on in Colombia, perpetrated
by the government and its drug lord death squads, they tout Uribe as a hero of democracy and freedom! Mindboggling is the word for the Uribe apologists and Chavez haters.
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Factual note: Amnesty International attributes 92% of the murders of union leaders to the Colombian military (about half) and its closely associated rightwing paramilitary death squads (the other half), with the FARC leftist guerrillas responsible for only 2%. (The remaining 6% is not politically related.)
This article's paragraphs on similar stats (all political murders--not just of union leaders) is somewhat confusing (or awkwardly worded):
"In Colombia’s decades-long civil war, appalling human rights crimes are committed by all sides: the leftist guerrillas who took up arms in 1964, the security forces and the far-right paramilitary militias.
"But the latter, whose leaders are drug traffickers or have ties to the drug trade, are blamed by the United Nations for 80 percent of all killings, while the insurgents are held responsible for 12 percent and the security forces are blamed for the rest."http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43696---
First of all, what it doesn't make clear is that the leaders of "far-right paramilitary militias" who are "drug traffickers," and who are responsible for 80% of the political murders,
are government forces--unofficial, but closely tied in. That is the very thing that the Colombian Supreme Court, the ICC and human rights groups have been investigating; it is generally what the 70 Uribe-connected legislators have been accused of (or have been prosecuted and jailed for). It is the central allegation of the entire scandal: that the government not only protects, but utilizes, death squads.
The article becomes confusing when it starts talking about drug trafficking. The government is not only protecting and utilizing death squads, it is
also closely tied to the drug lords (whose death squads are among those being used for political purposes). Uribe himself was the go-to guy for the Medellin cartel, in his early career; he is now the go-to guy for the Bush Cartel--their point man in their schemes to grab Venezuela's and Ecuador's oil, among other things--and, unknown, but probable, a key funneler (or protector) of profits from the drug (and also weapons) trade to various Bushite billionaires and fascist causes. To dismiss 80% of the death squad murders as merely criminal--connected to drug traffickers--is a serious distortion of the meaning of these stats. The article doesn't do this deliberately, in my opinion--it's just a problem of murky writing.
If you read these UN stats correctly, the figures line up better with AI stats (on murders of union leaders). 80% of the political murders are committed by the
government's death squads (who are also drug traffickers) PLUS 8% directly committed by government security forces: total 88% of the political murders are covertly, or overtly, committed by the government, and 12% by the FARC. (AI says 92% by the government; 2% by the FARC--for murders of union leaders.) (AI also adds the caveat that those 2% of union murders committed by FARC were more than likely persons colluding with government forces--meaning that FARC wouldn't likely kill honest union leaders, which makes sense, since the FARC is a leftist organization.)
This is a
civil war of more than 40 years running. As the article says, atrocities have been committed by both sides. Only one side, however, has $6 BILLION in U.S./Bush military aid! That aid--those bullets, those guns, those rockets, those jeeps, those helicopters and all that support (uniforms, salaries, surveillance equipment)--is being used to protect, to direct, and no doubt to directly support closely associated rightwing paramilitary death squads and drug lords. The Colombian government is not only not doing anything to stop this rightwing reign of terror, it is riddled, from top to bottom, with people who are
benefiting from both the death squads and cocaine traffic.
Another mindboggler: Our criminal AG had the nerve, the other day, to complain of
Venezuela not doing enough to stop
Colombian drug trafficking! Venezuela has told the U.S. "war on drugs" assholes to get the fuck out of their country. So has Bolivia and Ecuador. Venezuela actually has a good record on drug interdiction, because they go after the criminal syndicates and big stashes, not the little street dealers or users. And all three countries have the SANE policy that small-scale coca leaf production by campesinos--who also grow food--and who provide the highly nutritious leaf, locally, for chewing and tea (an ancient indigenous medicine, essential for survival in the Andes)--should not be criminalised. The stupid and insane U.S. "war on drugs" does not make this important distinction, and uses toxic pesticides on
all coca leaf farms, thus poisoning small peasant farmers' food crops, animals, and
children, and driving them from their lands, in the millions, to free the land first for BIG, criminal cocaine production, and then for Monsanto!
Venezuela is not doing enough to stop
Colombian drug trafficking = Venezuela is actually effective at stopping big-time drug trafficking, and doesn't buy into the vast corruption, and failure, of the U.S. "war on drugs."
Key to Bushite policy: Whatever they say, the opposite is true.
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