|
May 7, 2007 Washington Post is Way Out of Line on Colombia’s “Supposed” Human Rights Crisis by Garry Leech According to a May 6 editorial by the Washington Post, Colombia does not have a serious human rights problem. In the editorial, titled “Assault on an Ally,” the Post ridiculed the recent claim by Human Rights Watch that “today Colombia presents the worst human rights and humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere,” suggesting instead that Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti deserve that label. The editorial later ludicrously and irresponsibly referred to the human rights situation in Colombia as a “supposed human rights ‘crisis’,” insinuating that it is merely a fabrication of House Democrats and the left. But how can the killing of more labor leaders in Colombia than in the rest of the world not constitute a human rights crisis? How can the massacre of five Awá indigenous leaders last year not constitute a human rights crisis? And how can having the second largest internally displaced population in the world, behind only the Sudan, not constitute a human rights crisis? While the editorial correctly pointed out that murders and kidnapping have declined under Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe, it conveniently neglected to mention other human rights categories that don’t reflect positively on the Colombian leader. In 2006 Colombia again led the world with 72 union leaders killed, an increase over the previous year. Most of the unionists were murdered by right-wing paramilitaries supposedly demobilized under President Uribe’s peace initiative. In reality, the “demobilization” process has more closely resembled a “restructuring” as mid-level paramilitary leaders have simply established new militias. According to the Colombian NGO Indepaz, more than 43 new paramilitary groups have been formed in 22 of Colombia’s 32 provinces over the past couple of years. While labor leaders are being slaughtered for challenging the “free trade” regime lauded in the Post’s editorial, indigenous peoples are being massacred simply for living in regions in which leftist guerrillas are active. In August 2006, five indigenous Awá leaders were massacred in the town of Ataquer in southern Colombia. They and 1,700 other Awá had already been forcibly displaced from their lands by the Colombian army as part of President Uribe’s security strategy. And evidence suggests that it was Colombian soldiers who perpetrated the massacre of the five indigenous leaders. Meanwhile, the size of Colombia’s internally displaced population, now totaling more than three million, has increased dramatically in recent years. In 2005, more than 300,000 Colombians were forced off their lands and for many, as was the case with the indigenous Awá, it was the US-backed Colombian army that made them refugees. While tens of thousands of Colombians have been displaced as a result of counter-insurgency operations, thousands more have been forced from their homes in order to make resource-rich lands available for exploitation by multinational corporations under the mantra of “free trade.” The Washington Post’s editorial referred to President Uribe’s recent 80 percent approval rating as evidence of the Colombian leader’s widespread popularity. But the poll numbers resulted from telephone surveys conducted in Colombia’s four largest cities. While this is the normal methodology for polling in Colombia, it only captures the opinion of the sector of the population that has most benefited from the reductions in murders and kidnappings under Uribe. Most of the displacement, massacres, disappearances and other ongoing human rights abuses occur in the Colombian countryside. Therefore, such polls do not reflect the opinion of those living in the regions of the country where government-sponsored human rights violations are rampant. It is inexcusable and irresponsible for the Washington Post to flippantly dismiss the serious human rights situation in Colombia by labeling it a “supposed human rights ‘crisis’” and by suggesting that Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti are worse. There is no denying the serious human rights dilemma that currently exists in Haiti, but Venezuela and Cuba pale in comparison to Colombia. And while there are concerns in Cuba related to freedom of expression, people are not being massacred for organizing and voicing their political opinions. By denying the seriousness of Colombia’s human rights situation
under President Uribe, the Washington Post has become an
apologist in the vein of the right-wingers who denied that gross
violations of human rights were occurring under Augusto Pinochet
and other Latin American dictators during the 1970s and 1980s. At
the very least, the Washington Post owes a sincere apology
to the thousands of Colombians who have been victims of human rights
abuses perpetrated by the Colombian military and its paramilitary
allies under the government of President Uribe.
|
|||