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David Sangurima, Program Officer sangu@harvard.edu
LASPAU: Academic and Professional Programs for the Americas
Harvard University * 25 Mount Auburn St. Cambridge, MA 02138-6095 USA
Tel: 617-495-0530 * Fax: 617-495-8990 * Peacenet: sangu@igc.apc.org
*** http://www.harvard.edu/LASPAU ***
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 17:41:58 +0000
From: Mario A. Murillo <mmcompa@igc.apc.org>
**
Mario A. Murillo is Director of Public Affairs Programming at WBAI
Pacifica Radio in New York City, and a co-founder of the Colombia
Multimedia Project, a grassroots organization forging links betw een
independent media makers in Colombia and the United States.
If you wish to respond, contact: mmcompa@igc.apc.org
**
Decertification of Colombia is a Distraction from the Real Issues
By Mario Alfonso Murillo
The decertification of Colombia as a country cooperating with the United
States in the so-called war on drugs generated interesting albeit
predictable responses from the Colombian community. Perhaps it was
inevitable that Colombian journalists, community leaders, and politicians
would react with indignation and anger after President Clinton's decision.
Afterall, the decertification of Colombia w ould eventually lead to an end
to U.S. aid and put in danger future loan packages from international
lending institutions like the World Bank and the IMF.
The voices of protest ranged from President Ernesto Samper, who called it
an "act of intervention from a foreign power", to a local Colombian
journalist, who was concerned about being considered a "pariah" in the
eyes of the United States after this latest attack against Colombia's
image.
It's understandable why Colombians are sensitive to false images, given
the stereotype of the "narcotrafficker" which has been perpetuated by the
corporate media. I'll never forget the time I was ask ed by an editor at
an all-news radio station where I was once working where I was from. When
I told him my mother was Puerto Rican and my father was Colombian, the
joker blurted the question "Does th at mean you are too lazy to sell
cocaine?" Although he said it in jest, it pointed to the way people - in
this case an educated journalist making decisions about how the station
would cover news stor ies - perceive certain groups of people
Despite the justifiable concern about biased images and how they influence
perceptions, I must call to question those sectors in Colombia and in the
U.S. Colombian community who use the decertificat ion of Colombia as a
nationalist rallying cry based on the need to defend Colombia's image in
the United States, or in the name of protecting Colombia's sovereignty
against a foreign power.
For elite politicians, mainstream journalists, and community leaders here
to raise these issues at this time is almost laughable. Where were the
shouts of protest against U.S. intervention as Washing ton poured millions
of dollars of military assistance into Colombia, the majority of which was
used by the Colombian police and military against popular organizations
and civilian opposition groups i n the name of a war against narco and
guerilla terror? Where were the journalists, politicians, and community
activists when U.S. special forces were constructing military bases in
Colombian territor y without any consultation with the Colombian congress?
Who has spoken out against the hundreds of Colombian soldiers trained in
counterinsurgency courses at the United States Army School of the Amer
icas in Fort Benning, Georgia, many of whom have been accused of some of
the most egregious human rights violations in all the hemisphere? To speak
out now in defense of national sovereignty is noth ing but political
opportunism of the worst kind.
Colombia finds itself in the midst of the worst political crisis in its
history, a crisis which not only threatens the political life of a
president and many members of Congress, but also raises prof ound
questions about the legitimacy of a system which for too long has been
controlled by the same political and economic interests who are now crying
out against U.S. intervention. While the focus o f Colombia's collective
attention has been on whether or not Samper's 1994 Presidential campaign
received $6.1-million in illegal contributions from the Cali cocaine
cartel, hardly a word has been me ntioned about how other major
"legitimate" forces have influenced the direction of the Colombian
political-economic system for generations.
It is an ailing system which has been challenged for years by many sectors
within Colombia through different means - from the legal form of mass
protest and social organizing, to the often chastised and perhaps
currently misdirected armed struggle which in a way can be accused of
benefitting from the system it is purportedly fighting against. This
conflict has kept the country in a state of war throughout the second half
of the 20th Century. It has created a climate of fear which has been
portrayed in the U.S. media primarily as a drug trade-generated terror,
overlooking the state-sponsor ed violence which for so many years has been
supported by the United States.
Nevertheless, as the current crisis unfolds, and ex-campaign managers and
treasurers toss around accusation after accusation, followed by a
predictable response from the accused, the fundamental issu e of how to
resolve this long-standing conflict - this state of war - has been
completely and permanently brushed aside by the dominant sector of
Colombian society. The main victim of the current pol itical crisis is not
President Samper's integrity but the peace process itself, the call to
bring justice to Colombia once and for all.
"As the crisis developed, President Samper began to ally himself with the
most reactionary sectors of Colombia, abandoning altogether some of the
positive steps towards peace which he had taken early on in his
presidency," said Fernando Hernandez, President of the Human Rights
Commission of the Colombian House of Representatives, and member of the
Executive of the Socialist Renovation Movement.
In focussing all attention on decertification and its impact on the
political crisis, Colombians have once again lost sight of the importance
of achieving peace in Colombia as a major step towards re structuring
Colombian society.
A recent article in el Diario/La Prensa examined the dirty wars of the
1970s-1980s in Latin America. It exlpored how countries throughout the
region are trying to reconcile their past experiences as military
dictatorships with their present "democratic" reality; how governments and
civilians from Guatemala to Chile, Brazil to Honduras, Argentina to El
Salvador, are attempting to come to lay out the truth about the "dirty
war" period in their respective countries.
What bothered me about the article and about most discussions relating to
Latin American "dirty wars" is, as usual, Colombia was not mentioned once.
The image of Colombian democracy which has been su ccessfully promoted by
the Colombian government at home and abroad, has led Colombians to forget
if not outright deny that Colombia has lived through a dirty war itself, a
dirty war waged against opp osition parties, labour organizers, peasants,
indians, human rights groups and other popular sectors.
"We are now waging a campaign to waken the national collective memory
about the years of dirty war that we have been living in Colombia," said
Ivan Cepeda, founder of the Manuela Cepeda Vargas Memori al Foundation,
named after his father, a Colombian Senator of the Communist Party who was
slain in 1994 in the streets of Bogota. "This dirty war resulted in the
deaths of thousands of members of the opposition party Patriotic Union,
including two Presidential candidates. If in Argentina and Chile national
reconciliation requires an awareness of the past, why do we in Colombia
expect to achieve peace if we continue to negate that this genocide ever
happened?"
This dirty war, justified in the name of a counter narcotics and/or
counter insurgency campaign, has been supported directly and indirectly by
the United States, with little protest from those elite Colombians
concerned now about Yankee intervention.
The decertification of Colombia is at best a hypocritical political
maneuver by a President currying favour of a conservative electorate in a
campaign year, and at worst a condescending public spanki ng of a
clientelistic government which doesn't warrant the respect or the support
of its citizens. Instead of dwelling on it, we should focus on how the
political and economic elite of both countries have hidden behind images
of a justifiable drug war while ignoring the majority of the people's
unified call for peace and justice in Colombia.
-EOF