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Colombia's continuing hostage pain »

Posted by: SunnyDays 1 month, 2 weeks ago

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For many Colombians, no other recent event comes close. The rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 fellow hostages not only ended a tragic ordeal - it also bloodlessly humiliated the Farc guerrillas with an unprecedented show of military cunning.

Read Full Story at news.bbc.co.uk

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Comments So Far: 38

gbilly08Comment removed: User banned.4 Replies
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  DropkickaLib1 month, 1 week ago
  
  I wish that we were getting all that oil from Iraq.
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    ecotourusa1 month, 1 week ago
    
    the Iraqis could pay us back for this ridiculous war: with their oil. that would make plenty of sense to me. Otherwise, we need to get the hell out.
    no one has mentioned that a couple of the hostages freed were subcontractors down there messing with Columbia's drug crops.
    Again, USA invades other countries. (like we're God's chosen race.) we need to worry about our own problems right here at home, and stay away from trying to dominate other cultures. when will we ever learn? how many more lives will be wasted?
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      hyperbola1 month, 1 week ago
      
      Well, probably the Iraqis should charge us at a reasonable rate for all the Iraqis we have helped murder (say $1,000,000 per Iraqi).
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        DropkickaLib1 month, 1 week ago
        
        What should they charge the terrorists and militias who have murdered the majority of Iraqi civilians?
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skeptic2711 month, 2 weeks ago

Elsewhere in the world, the press reports that the U.S. paid the terrorists 20 million dollars for the release of the hostages. These reports have largely been ignored by the U.S. press.
Is this administration negotiating with and paying ransom to terrorists? Is it now managing our "free" press?
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorblog/102
http://propagandapress.wordpress.com/2008/07/07...
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/04/...
http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2008/07/in...
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/americas...
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  walden31 month, 1 week ago
  
  Excellent point Skeptic. I wonder if this is another Jessica Lynch or Saddam statue being torn down story.
  Here's another less "partisan" link.
  "But quoting "reliable sources", Swiss Radio reported that a ransom was paid of around $20m (Â£10m).
  It said that the US, which had three citizens among those freed, was behind the deal and that "the whole operation afterwards was a set-up."
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/04/bet...
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  libsRfunny1 month, 1 week ago
  
  lol, you liberals love your baseless rumors, don't ya?
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    ecotourusa1 month, 1 week ago
    
    i'm not a liberal.(instead, a registered republican) but, I think many of your comments are baseless...thanks for the humor libs...you're very funny!
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Charlson1 month, 1 week ago

FARC reminds me of an organization that resorts to criminal activities to finance their terrorism. Sort of like selling missiles to Iran and running drugs to finance their War on Contras in Nigaragua. Except one group are rebels and the other, a government.
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  DropkickaLib1 month, 1 week ago
  
  Not an honest comparison. Actually, keeping the Iran-Iraq War brewing for so long was diplomatically brilliant of Reagan as subsequent events have demonstrated. We kept both troublesome countries busy fighting each other for many years. Look what has happened since the war ended. FARC is a Marxist group that relies on the drug trade and kidnapping to raise money. The U.S. government isn't even close.
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    Charlson1 month, 1 week ago
    
    If you do criminal things to achieve your goals you're both criminals.
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      DropkickaLib1 month, 1 week ago
      
      Nothing criminal about balance of power politics.
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        hyperbola1 month, 1 week ago
        
        Not according to international law. Under the standards that America helped establish in the aftermath of WWII, George W. Bush (and Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Abrams, Perle, ...) are all war criminals. If we extend the list to include all the Zioncon propagandists who advocated the war crimes for oil and israel, the world would do us a big favor by trying them all and locking them up for life.
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        DropkickaLib1 month, 1 week ago
        
        All Jews are war criminals...got it. Anyone who supports the continued existence of Isreal is a war criminal...also got that. Get another talking point!
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1-2-Oscar1 month, 1 week ago

Those who commented on this thread seem more interested in voicing their criticisms of the Bush administration and the US in general than in addressing what the article was actually about. The FARC criminals have long used kidnapping and false imprisonment as tactical weapons, seeking to demonize the government , to show the inability of the government to respond effectively, and to intimidate the population of that unfortunate nation.
(cont)
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  1-2-Oscar1 month, 1 week ago
  
  Some Americans, so hostile to their own government that they are willing to excuse the activities of any group which opposes it, have glorified the rebels. The release of these few hostages should be a trigger for us to look at what has really been going on--the FARC have many, many more prisoners. For the most part these are innocent people who have been caught in the middle of someone else's struggle. It is time that the people and the nations of the world unite in condemning these terrorist activities, and insist upon the release of the remaining captives.
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    ecotourusa1 month, 1 week ago
    
    "It is time that the people and the nations of the world unite in condemning these terrorist activities, and insist upon the release of the remaining captives."
    oh...just like saddam having weapons of mass destruction. we had to go over and get involved.
    does columbia have oil to drill? do they need help with infrastructure..we'll send over halliburton. sounds like another plan to justify and pay for with our tax $$$. (vote mccain and obama)
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  walden31 month, 1 week ago
  
  The discussion of the payment of ransom to hostage takers is directly on point.
  This is a chicken and egg problem.
  Why not examine our policy towards Columbia holistically, the same as you always push for us to do with Israel?
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    1-2-Oscar1 month, 1 week ago
    
    I commend you for thinking. You seem to be the only respondent to my comment who has done so.
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  hyperbola1 month, 1 week ago
  
  Well Oscar, that is only part of the story. Columbia has been run by a corrupt oligarchy that victimized average Columbians. When the FARC negotiated a peace with the oligarchy, about 20,000 people were assassinated, including hundreds of trade unionists.
  A Few Words from the FARC
  ... So, what is the FARC (The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia) and why are they traipsing around the jungle with Kalashnikovs instead of engaging in the political process?
  They were part of the process until the right wing death squads started killing their candidates and party bosses and forced them to go underground. As James Petras explains in his article "Homage to Manuel Marulanda":
  
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    hyperbola1 month, 1 week ago
    
    "In the early 1980's, many decided to try the electoral route, signed a 'peace agreement' with the Colombian President, formed an electoral party â;; the Patriotic Union â;; and successfully elected numerous mayors and representatives. They even gained a substantial vote in Presidential elections. .... By 1987 over 5,000 members of the Patriotic Union had been slaughtered by the oligarchy's death squads, including three presidential candidates, a dozen elected congressmen and women and scores of mayors and city councilors. Those who survived fled to the jungles and rejoined the armed struggle or fled into exile."
    The FARC tried politics, signed a "peace agreement" with the government and were butchered anyway. That's the way it works in Columbia. So now they are in the jungle waging war to gain entry into the political system. Is that terrorism?
    
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      hyperbola1 month, 1 week ago
      
      The Columbian government has one of the worst human rights records in the world and much of the repression is facilitated by the billions of dollars they get from the United States via Plan Columbia. Again, James Petras details the effects of US support for the Uribe regime:
      "With an unprecedented degree of US financing and advanced technological support, the newly elected narco-partner and death squad organizer, President Alvaro Uribe took charge of a scorched earth policy to savage the Colombian countryside. Between his election in 2002 and re-election in 2006, over 15,000 peasants, trade unionists, human rights workers, journalists and other critics were murdered.
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        hyperbola1 month, 1 week ago
        
        Entire regions of the countryside were emptied â;; like the US Operation Phoenix in Viet Nam, farmland was poisoned by toxic herbicides. Over 250,000 armed forces and their partners in the paramilitary death squads decimated vast stretches of the Colombian countryside where the FARC exercised hegemony. Scores of US-supplied helicopter gun-ships blasted the jungles in vast search and destroy missions â;; (which had nothing to do with coca production or the shipment of cocaine to the United States). By destroying all popular opposition and organizations throughout the countryside and displacing millions Uribe was able to push the FARC back toward more defensible remote regions."
        Noam Chomsky draws the same conclusions as Petras in this excerpt from his book "Rogue States":
        
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        hyperbola1 month, 1 week ago
        
        "In Colombia, however, the military armed and trained by the United States has not crushed domestic resistance, though it continues to produce its regular annual toll of atrocities. Each year, some 300,000 new refugees are driven from their homes, with a death toll of about 3,000 and many horrible massacres. The great majority of atrocities are attributed to paramilitary forces. These are closely linked to the military, as documented in considerable and shocking detail once again in February 2000 by Human Rights Watch, and in April 2000 by a UN study which reported that the Colombian security forces that are to be greatly strengthened by the Colombia Plan maintain an intimate relationship with death squads, organize paramilitary forces, and either participate in their massacres directly or, by failing to take action, have "undoubtedly enabled the paramilitary groups to achieve their exterminating objectives."
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        hyperbola1 month, 1 week ago
        
        The State Department confirms the picture in its annual human rights reports, which concludes that "security forces actively collaborated with members of paramilitary groups" while "government forces continued to commit numerous, serious abuses, including extrajudicial killings, at a level that was roughly similar to that of 1998," when the report attributed about 80 percent of attributable atrocities to the military and paramilitaries.(Noam Chomsky, "Plan Columbia", from Rogue States, 2000)
        So now we know something about the FARC and the repressive politics called Plan Columbia which is funded by the US with the clear intention of perpetuating a war between a venal oligopoly and disenfranchised workers and farmers. But having searched the 4,253 articles written about the "Miraculous Bentancourt Rescue"; one thing appears to be missing - a few candid comments from someone---ANYONE---who can speak for the FARC.
        
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        hyperbola1 month, 1 week ago
        
        Here's an excerpt from an Interview with FARC Commander Raul Reyes by Garry Leech that fits the bill. Readers can decide for themselves whether they hear something that "rings true" or if it is just revolutionary mumbo-jumbo:
        FARC Commander Raul Reyes: "The goal of revolutionary struggle is peace"
        "When we speak of the New Colombia we are speaking of a Colombia without social, economic or political inequalities; of a Colombia without corruption; with neither paramilitarism or state terrorism; of a Colombia with industrial development; of a worthy Colombia, independent and sovereign; a Colombia where resources are invested in scientific research and technological development; a Colombia where the environment is protected; a Colombia whose wealth is used for the benefit of the population; a Colombia that does not continue privatizing, that does not continue selling the businesses of the State but instead uses these businesses to benefit social programs;
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        hyperbola1 month, 1 week ago
        
        a Colombia with agrarian reform that includes infrastructure for the peasants and that makes it possible for their children to study; an agrarian reform in which a market and the purchase of their products is guaranteed; an agrarian reform in which they can obtain affordable credits from the State; a Colombia with employment; a Colombia with subsidies for the unemployed; a Colombia that guarantees education, healthcare, homes and all that.
        That it is the Colombia that we dream of and that we call the New Colombia...
        But to achieve this is a task for titans, because Colombia has a mafia class and a corrupt murderous ruler. And as long as they continue controlling the destiny of our country it is going to be very difficult for the people to become controllers of their own destinies. This is the reason that the FARC continues its revolutionary struggle.
        
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        hyperbola1 month, 1 week ago
        
        The end of the revolutionary struggle being waged by the FARC is peace. For us, peace is the fundamental thing. We understand that peace is the solution to the problems that affect our people. We understand that peace means that in Colombia we have a true democracy. Not a democracy for the capitalists, but a democracy for the people, who can protest, who can participate, who have the right to live, who have the right to healthcare, to education, who have the right to communication, to electricity, to agrarian reforms, to fight corruption, to not have to kneel before foreign powers, but to be a country free, independent and sovereign with respectful relations with all countries on equal terms. Also, that the weapons of the army not be not used against the people, but just for the defense of our sovereignty and nothing more. To achieve that objective is why we are here in this jungle. And in search of that objective we are willing to continue for as long as is necessary."
        
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        hyperbola1 month, 1 week ago
        
        These are comments that you won't find in the 4,253 articles on Google News, because they stimulate critical thinking and shape hearts and minds. And that's exactly what the corporate propaganda system hopes to avoid.
        http://politics.propeller.com/story/2008/07/09/...
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walden31 month, 1 week ago

Why are we so involved in Columbia in the first place? We have hundreds if not thousands of military advisers/mercenaries in Columbia. We give Columbia Billions in military aid and equipment. Our ineffective intervention creates chaos in Columbia.
Just legalize drugs and finally remove the black from the black market.
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catstevensComment removed: User banned.2 Replies
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  hyperbola1 month, 1 week ago
  
  So you support the paramilitary murderers and narcotraffickers that make up the Columbian government and carry out thousands of asassinations every year for a corrupt oligarchy that preys on average Columbians? Or perhaps american corporate media didn't tell you about that and you are just ignorant?
  Bush, Colombia & Narco-Politics
  George W. Bush's strategy of countering Venezuela's leftist president Hugo ChÃ¡vez by strengthening ties to Colombia's rightist government has been undercut by fresh evidence of high-level drug corruption and human rights violations implicating President Alvaro Uribe's inner circle. McCain wants to continue the corruption.
  http://politics.propeller.com/story/2008/07/03/...
  
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    walden31 month, 1 week ago
    
    How do you get that from Cat's comments? You may be correct factually, I just don't see how Cat's comments warrant your insults.
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Tcaros1 month, 1 week ago

Didn't this hostage release seem timed to McCain's travel? An ex-POW running for President traveling to Columbia to witness prisoners being freed.
Where's all the billiones of dollars going to Iraq being spent- corparations, wall streeters, world bankers.
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THOMNH621 month, 1 week ago

amazing how a hostage rescue in Columbia turns the Bush haters into a frenzy. I love Libscape.
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  Tcaros1 month, 1 week ago
  
  Fox news covered McCain's trip even though most voters didn't seem to care about the publicity stunt.
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  Tcaros1 month, 1 week ago
  
  The likely scenario is that the timing of the release was planned. Someone (covert maybe) payed someone off to release the hostages with timing. The trip down there was supposed to make people feel good- good image for McCain being former POW. There's nothing like world events that seem to "pop up" when you need them.
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