As Steve Rendall explained here last week,the recent Washington Post editorial (“Colombia Proves Again That Venezuela Is Harboring FARC Terrorists”) doesn’t really back up its argument that there is some sort of Venezuelan conspiracy to aid the Colombia rebel group FARC. “That Venezuela is backing a terrorist movement against a neighboring democratic government has been beyond dispute since at least 2008,” the Post claimed–though there is most certainly a dispute about that evidence.
On Saturday (7/31/10), the Post printed an article by Latin America correspondent Juan Forero, which took a look at this controversy.What’s most notable is that he doesn’t reach the same conclusion about the Colombian evidence as the Post‘s editorial page does; he even unhelpfully notes that FARC members “frequently cross frontiers,” which might suggest that their supposed presence on Venezuelan territory does not necessarily indicate support from the Venezuelan government.
I understand the difference between an editorial and a news report. But is it the Post‘s position that its reporters must stick to the facts, while the editorial page can say whatever it wants? There’s some history to suggest this is the case, but some clarification from the paper would be welcome.
It very much feels like Reagan-era policy in Latin America is starting all over again.
U.S. Troop movements and actions within the past year:
Paraguay, a major base in Panama, military co-ops with Brazil, overthrowing a democratically elected government in Honduras, the MASSIVE amount of troops and artillery just sent to Costa Rica – 7,000 Marines, 200 helicopters, 46 Warships, and a handful of fighter jets…all to fight the “drug trade”. This is on top of full control of 7 military bases in Colombia near the Venezuelan boarder, not to mention accepting blind allegations by Colombia (whose president/s are very friendly to the U.S.) that Ven. is harboring “terrorists” that are ironically based…IN COLOMBIA!. http://www.cfr.org/publication/9272/farc_eln.html
With all this troop activity the US is on the verge of invading Venezuela and overthrowing another democratically elected government (for the second time in Ven. this decade). It is the responsibility of all of us to do what we can to bring to light the abuses we cause worldwide.
The Impact of the SOA in Colombia:The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and the U.S. Office on Colombia released a groundbreaking report entitled Military Assistance and Human Rights: Colombia, U.S. Accountability, and Global Implications,which exposes serious problems with the implementation of U.S. foreign military training. Once again, detailed research continues to uncover the connections between SOA/ WHINSEC graduates and instructors with extrajudicial killings and other serious human rights violations. http://www.soaw.org/about-the-soawhinsec/colombia/3470-the-impact-of-the-soa-in-colombia
I think we’ve seen what the white supremacist ObamaReich thinks of Latino/as and Blacks. Witness Haiti, as Obama cackled into the night sky, twisting the military knife deep into country after its earthquake. Witness the State Department forcing a general to recant his testimony before Congress, when he said that President Chavez wasn’t aiding terrorism or drug trading… and now that same general swears up and down Chavez is behind it all. Evil capitalist, imperialist, racist media for an evil capitalist, imperialist, racist country.
Last I heard there were demonstrators at the capitol with signs saying U.S. OUT OF COLOMBIA. Father Roy B is there with them. Remember that the SOAW will be happening Nov. 18-21 this year. But why wait? Call your legislators and the White House and tell them to pull the funding for the terrorist camp and send the South Americans to peace colleges to study nonviolence and mediation. Something useful. See you at Ft. Benning in November!
Looks like Michael in his posts above hit the home run bu exposing the facts behind the facade. Obama gave a wonderful speech to the Latin American world (when was it, back in April of 2009?). Our neighbors to the South, though sensibly even-keeled in their response, was hopeful Obama was serious about changing the U.S. dynamic with Central and South America. Not long afterward, the Honduran coup, deftly handled by SOA graduates, overthrew yet another democratically elected government in order to put another government in place more friendly to the corporate and neo-liberal policies of the elite in both countries. It is business as usual, as we shall see when Obama pushed a Free Trade Agreement with Columbia, the nation whose death squads kill union and social justice organizers and is now the base for stemming social change in Latin America. It is the same old song sung by the same old profiteers for the same old reason: greed. Obama has been the perfect face for a continuation of an American foreign policy that serves the moneyed interests and not the millions of workers who remain under the thumb of capital’s interests.
should say “pushes” not “pushed”. No way to edit.