cannabisnews.com: Saving Colombia





Saving Colombia
Posted by FoM on April 11, 2000 at 12:44:50 PT
Foreign Affairs By Thomas L. Friedman 
Source: New York Times
I had a chat in Bogotá the other day with a group of government officials and businessmen, and I asked them all one question: When you go outside, how many security guards do you take with you? The answers were: 20, 6, 1, 8, 10, 2, 3, 8 and 5. No surprise. 
Some 3,000 people were kidnapped here last year by guerrillas, and many judges and journalists threatened with chilling messages, such as having funeral wreaths sent to their homes -- with their names on them. This is the terrifying context we have to keep in mind as we consider whether the U.S. Senate should approve the $1.7 billion plan to strengthen Colombia's ability to fight drug traffickers and forge a peace with the guerrillas. There are two ways to think about "Plan Colombia." One way is to get wrapped up in the details -- the helicopters, the training. The other way -- the right way -- is to step back and ask yourself what kind of courage it takes to stay in Colombia right now and be a judge who puts drug lords in jail or a politician who fights for the rule of law -- knowing the criminals have millions in drug money and would kill your kids in a second. It takes real courage, and that's why the people trying to hold this place together deserve our support. Sure, the democratic government of President Andrés Pastrana isn't perfect. But it has a core of decent officials who every day risk their lives by just going to work. Ask yourself if you would have the same courage. I asked Mr. Pastrana why he stays. "This is our country, it's the only country we have to leave to our children," shrugged the president, who was once kidnapped while running for Bogotá mayor. "I believe in this country so much that even after being kidnapped, and even after having my wife's father killed by kidnappers, my wife and I had another baby -- a girl. Look, we've sacrificed the best policemen, the best judges, the best journalists in this country. Whatever you want to write about us, don't write that we are not on the front line in the war on drugs." I asked the head of Colombia's navy, Adm. Sergio García, what it was like to be an officer here. He said it was sort of like being a movie star, with people always trying to get at you, only they don't want your autograph, they want to kill you -- "so even your friends don't want to be in a restaurant with you, and they don't want their kids near your kids." Colombians tell this joke: After God created Colombia, an angel asked God why he gave all the beauty to one country -- rain forests, mountains, oceans, savanna -- and God answered: "Ha! Wait till you see what kind of people I put there!" For years, Colombia's mafia processed cocaine grown from coca in Peru. But as Peru drove the coca growers out, they migrated to the rain forest in Southern Colombia -- one of the largest unbroken expanses of rain forest left on earth, but also a region without much government. The drug mafia is now chopping down the rain forest -- thousands of acres each month -- then laying down herbicides, planting coca, processing it into cocaine in rain forest labs, throwing the chemicals in the rivers, and then flying the drugs out from grass airstrips. Underlying Colombia's drug war is a real 40-year-old social struggle between Marxist guerrillas and right-wing vigilantes (32,000 killings last year). But let's cut the nonsense: Colombia's guerrillas may have started as a romantic movement against an unjust oligarchy -- they may have started as a movement that ate to fight. But today, these guerrillas are fighting to eat -- fighting the government because they make tons of money protecting drug operations in the rain forest. In between the guerrillas and the vigilantes (who also profit from drugs), Colombia's silent majority is held hostage. Yes, Colombians are at fault for having been too tolerant of the early drug lords. And Americans are at fault for their insatiable appetite for cocaine. But here's the bottom line: If we give the Colombian majority the aid it needs to fight the drug Mafia there is a chance -- and it's no sure thing -- that it will be able to forge a domestic peace. If we don't -- and this is a sure thing -- the problem will only get worse, it will spew instability across this region, and the only rain forest your kids will ever see is the Rainforest Cafe. BOGOTÁ, Colombia Published: April 11, 2000Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company Related Articles:For Rebels, It's Not a Drug War http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread5342.shtmlThe Real Reason for US Aid to Colombia http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread5329.shtmlPeople Suffer with Colombia Antidrug Campaignhttp://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread5325.shtmlReferendum Plan Sets Off Furor in Colombia http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread5324.shtmlCannabisNews Articles On Colombia Over 200 Items:http://google.com/search?num=10&q=cannabisnews+colombia+site:www.cannabisnews.com 
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Comment #3 posted by dddd on April 12, 2000 at 01:01:14 PT
nemo
Right on Kaptinemo!
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Comment #2 posted by kaptinemo on April 11, 2000 at 17:09:54 PT:
I stand corrected... but only so much
On re-examining the source of this nonsense, I find it to be none other than FOREIGN AFFAIRS. Which is the primary publication of a very secretive group, indeed. Ever heard that less than one-tenth of one percent of the planet's population owns some 80% of whatever's worth owning? Ever wonder who that tiny fraction was? The descendants of the robber barons. Who formed the Council on Foreign Relations, which prints FOREIGN AFFAIRS. Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Cabinet members, CEOs of major corporations, academicians, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, etc. have all been members. Yet when you look at their biographies, you very rarely ever see any mention of their involvement. I wonder why. These are the real power in this country, and if you want to know where the real direction of the nation is going, read this rag. Then remember how profitable wars can be... when you don't have to fight them, yourself.
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on April 11, 2000 at 16:57:16 PT:
After you, Mr. Friedman
'Yes, Colombians are at fault for having been too tolerant of the early drug lords. And Americans are at fault for their insatiable appetite for cocaine. But here's the bottom line: If we give the Colombian majority the aid it needs to fight the drug Mafia there is a chance -- and it's no sure thing -- that it will be able to forge a domestic peace. If we don't -- and this is a sure thing -- the problem will only get worse, it will spew instability across this region, and the only rain forest your kids will ever see is the Rainforest Cafe.Such touching concern for the ecology by a writer whose newspapers are printed from the pulp of old-growth forests that take hundreds of years to grow back (whereas hemp can replace four times the amount of pulp in just one growing season).I had expected this sooner; the attempt by the present administration to appeal to everyone - or to sucker everyone. It's pretty obvious what this is: a thinly veiled ploy to woo what they normally dismissingly sneer at as 'treehuggers'. No doubt trying to appeal to those young voters of Green persuasion who haven't made the realization of just how callously manipulative politicians are. In short, another attempt at suckerbait. So, our children are now being exhorted to support the Prez's plans for foreign intervention? By waving the ecology flag? To take up arms in defense... of the Andean ecosystem? To take bullets to save the rainforest? And this guy calls himself a journalist? Must be one of Barry's gelded mouthpieces. One one such as that ilk could emit such blather and not be slammed for the sophomoric nonsense it represents.If you are so concerened Mr. Friedman, I have a proposition for you. Here is my old AK I got from someone who didn't need it anymore. And here's my old uniform, my helmet, all the stuff I kept. You'll have to get the ammo from your friend Billy Boy, he of the adulterous, lying, draft-dodging ways (amazing how someone who never wore a uniform for conscientious reasons can be so quick to demand others do what he didn't). I'll even pay for a one way ticket to Bogota. But I'll leave you to find the rainforest yourself; I had enough of hot and steamy to last me a lifetime. 
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