Chavez sends in gunboats to appeal to nationalist sentiment
- Thread starter Fullyplumped
- Start date
Fullyplumped
in a personal capacity
Are you suggesting that hostage taking is legitimate?
Fullyplumped
in a personal capacity
It is just a pleasure to use a bit of irony. Forgive me.
I'm not offering any support to any regime, and I am educating myself quickly, partly thanks to the repsonses to my original comments, for which much thanks.
I make it a rule not to bother how my language sounds to others. I also have a principle that it is sometimes useful to dispense with complexities and drill down to the essentials - horrible government and horrible terrorists. But the horrible government is capable of change and has a certain accountability while the horrible terrorists just seem to keep on being horrible. What is the difference between FARC and, say, the Lord's Resistance Army?
Col_Buendia
sort code
Again, I'd have to say that based on your acknowledged lack of experience of the Colombian situation, your assertions don't stand up to scrutiny. In what sense has the "horrible government" proved itself capable of change?
In fact, if you look at what has been the most topical political football of late in Colombia, the question of a prisoner exchange between the FARC and the government, the rebels have released 6 hostages in the past few weeks, while the govt has maintained its intransigence. I would suggest that your presumption that the Colombian govt can change (or that it can show itself accountable - you haven't answered my question about the Union Patriotica) is fatally unfounded.
So I'd be keen to know what you think about the UP example that I mentioned, and whether it complicates your notion of Colombian accountability. As for the LRA, I don't know the first thing about them, so I can't answer your question. That's why I didn't start a thread on them
disownedspirit
New Member
but at the moment there is a big international effort to free the hostages taken by the FARC, including the ex presidential candidate Ingrid betancourt. these efforts , have lead to the release of a number of hostages over the last few weeks. As the group of rebels were in another country at the time they were attacked (and in talks with ecudors govt according to the papers this morning) it seems clear to me that they were not about to attack any targets any time soon and killing the Farcs foreign minister seems a really good way of halting these hostage releases.
gorski
customised free radical
Thanx for this: Chomsky is always refreshing and novel, at the very least when it comes to the US foreign policy!!!
Fullyplumped
in a personal capacity
You asked "Or what position would you take, for example, on the history of the Union Patriotica? " and complained because I didn't answer. The reason I didn't answer was that I have no idea what the Union Patriotica is or was other than a quick reading in Wikipedia and so take no position at all other than to deplore the horribleness of it all. The Lord's Resistance Army is a murderous insurgency in Uganda, and seems to me to have much in common with FARC, which is why I referred to it.Again, I'd have to say that based on your acknowledged lack of experience of the Colombian situation, your assertions don't stand up to scrutiny. In what sense has the "horrible government" proved itself capable of change? In fact, if you look at what has been the most topical political football of late in Colombia, the question of a prisoner exchange between the FARC and the government, the rebels have released 6 hostages in the past few weeks, while the govt has maintained its intransigence. I would suggest that your presumption that the Colombian govt can change (or that it can show itself accountable - you haven't answered my question about the Union Patriotica) is fatally unfounded. So I'd be keen to know what you think about the UP example that I mentioned, and whether it complicates your notion of Colombian accountability. As for the LRA, I don't know the first thing about them, so I can't answer your question. That's why I didn't start a thread on them
The horrible Colombian government is capable of change in the sense that all horrible governments are capable of change. This horrible Colombian government seems to be somewhat accountable in that it was elected under the most democratic conditions possible in such a country.
I think it is good that the elected but still horrible Colombian government is being intransigent in the face of terrorist demands to secure release of hostages. I would expect my horrible UK government to be similarly intransigent and would hope that the horrible Colombians are no less so.
Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
African rebel movements are really not comparable to their Latin American opposite numbers, given the different social structures in which they operate.
As for the LRA, it signed a permanent ceasefire with the Ugandan government recently:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7260798.stm
This seems to be holding, and given that they were a bunch of out-and-out crazies (or at least that's always been my impression) if it holds permanently it'll be a good example of how Jaw-Jaw is better than War-War.
As for the LRA, it signed a permanent ceasefire with the Ugandan government recently:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7260798.stm
This seems to be holding, and given that they were a bunch of out-and-out crazies (or at least that's always been my impression) if it holds permanently it'll be a good example of how Jaw-Jaw is better than War-War.
Fullyplumped
in a personal capacity
Excellent news from Uganda. This is the only realistic way in which these conflicts end. But as we saw in N Ireland, there is a time for intransigence too.
Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
When was that then?
'cause the only examples of state intransigence in NI that I can think of off the top of my head made a bad situation worse.
Col_Buendia
sort code
Fullyplumped, I think you've crossed the line into silliness! It's a shame cos it's a complex situation in Colombia, one which causes an enormous amount of suffering and which perhaps requires a little more analytical nous than describing it all as "horrible" 
Again it's a shame you think that Colombia's recent past counts as "the most democratic conditions possible". The example of the UP, i.e. the extermination of an entire political party at the cost of some 3,000 lives should surely trouble this blithe assertion.
Again it's a shame you think that Colombia's recent past counts as "the most democratic conditions possible". The example of the UP, i.e. the extermination of an entire political party at the cost of some 3,000 lives should surely trouble this blithe assertion.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Hmmm, FARC and the ELN were originally constituted from the legitimate left-wing opposition in Colombia, an opposition which was progressively closed down and criminalised by the rightist (US-backed) robber-baron govts who then allowed para-military (well, I say para-military, but I actually mean military in mufti in many cases) formations to start a reign of terror aimed at scaring the masses away from dangerous socialist ideology.
Of course, the Colombian power elite and their US puppet masters wouldn't actually give a fuck about FARC if FARC's territory didn't sit over a rather large oil basin.
Oh, and there's not really any comparison between FARC and the LRA. One is still the legitimate political representative of millions of Colombians while the other is/was a murderous religion-based personality cult.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Fullyplumped, I think you've crossed the line into silliness! It's a shame cos it's a complex situation in Colombia, one which causes an enormous amount of suffering and which perhaps requires a little more analytical nous than describing it all as "horrible"
Again it's a shame you think that Colombia's recent past counts as "the most democratic conditions possible". The example of the UP, i.e. the extermination of an entire political party at the cost of some 3,000 lives should surely trouble this blithe assertion.
Yep. It's also hardly "democratic" when an outside agency can interfere willy-nilly in any peace negotiations, as the US did when Pastrana and FARC looked like actually getting down to business.
poster342002
PROPER leftwing socialist
Not a fan of FARC, but how risible to see the Colombian regime go snivelling to the International Criminal Court to call for Chavez to be prosecuted.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7277313.stm
Just what we'd expect from that rightwing, US-arselicking regime.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7277313.stm
Just what we'd expect from that rightwing, US-arselicking regime.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
The "we found it on a laptop" thing? Balls. If they'd stopped at one issue it might have been more believable but they just _had_ to go on with the "dirty bomb" thing, didn't they? Honestly, some departments need a bit more propaganda training.
david dissadent
New Member
When has the American government ever not given a shit about leftist armed movements in South\ Centeral America.Of course, the Colombian power elite and their US puppet masters wouldn't actually give a fuck about FARC if FARC's territory didn't sit over a rather large oil basin.
rekil
to menny cranks
I wouldn't put it past them to invent a scandal to match the time a couple of years ago when a laptop belonging to one of the leaders of the AUC was found to have information on 550 murders and links with government figures. There's an investigation and whatnot but it'll probably come to next to nothing given how rotten the whole state is.
purves grundy
ambient clown remix
I haven't been keeping up with what's going on, but I'm fucked if I can see how this situation amounts to genocide, even under the ICC's relatively wide definition of the crime. Border incursions and state disputes like this are classic civil International Court of Justice territory. It saddens me to see states parties trying to politicise the ICC like this, ffs. And how equally sad yet predictable it is that the US should support this effort on the part f COlombia whilst at the same time continuing to deny the legitimacy of the ICC.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
There is no credibility to what they're saying and if I didn't know any better, I'd say that they learned this trick from the US. What I find odd about their bizarre allegations is that they want to get the ICC to prosecute Chavez for "genocide".
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
IIRC, FARC doesn't deal in the cocaine trade per se, it imposes a "stamp duty" on raw coca, whereas the rightist paramilitaries have long had links with the Medellin and Cali cartels. Although the US's DEA and the successive Colombian govts have accused FARC of narco-trafficking, they've never been able to produce credible evidence, so the "drugs money" funding tag is tenuous (especially given their preference for kidnapping oil execs and garnering large ransoms).
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Why do they do so, though?
Because they know that leftist movements, of whatever stripe, won't be amenable to the US sucking up their resources.
The specifics of Plan Colombia make it plain that if it weren't for the conviction that there's a large untapped oil reserve residing under FARC territory, then the plan itself would be of a much smaller scale, and largely aimed at carrying on the mostly-useless defoliation programme.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
We have to remember that when FARC first became active in the early 60's, Kennedy was in the White House and the Cold War was in full swing. The National Front governments that have existed since the 50's were part of a plan to prevent the communists from ever enjoying any electoral success (as well as bringing La Violencia to an end).
Now the whole mess has been rebranded under the aegis of the "War on Drugs" and while the right wing militias have built up their power bases and engaged in narco-trafficking, the left bears the brunt of the government's actions.
Now the whole mess has been rebranded under the aegis of the "War on Drugs" and while the right wing militias have built up their power bases and engaged in narco-trafficking, the left bears the brunt of the government's actions.
chilango
Ha! Ha! Armageddon
They're also syaing that there is a FARC cell (or cells) at the university here. Allowing them to speculate on links with the Mexican guerilla groups the EPR and the ERPI (and, unconvincingly with the Zapatistas)
Link (in Spanish)
Link (in Spanish)
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
The National Front government has really plumbed the depths this time. 
david dissadent
New Member
Columbian oil is a pip squeek even by South American standards. It is also in quite hilly country which tends to make the fields small and broken expensive to reach.
"Unexplored riches" of oil in old oil producing countries tend to be bollox.
With about 1.5Gbarrals of proven reserve and a post peak production of 540 00 bbd I'd not really think that Columbian oil was anything more than a bit of icing on the bog standard supression of any leftist activity in the Western Hemesphere they could type of activity from the US. Occams razor and all that.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Ah, the auld "they're all as bad as each other" schtick. It doesn't wash.
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