Writing from “From somewhere in a country called América,” http://www.NarcoNews.com publisher Al Giordano reports on the escalation of the war in Colombia and its implications for the entire region.
Al Giordano, February 24, 2002
from: http://www.guerrillanews.com
also: http://www.narconews.com
Colombia’s lame duck president Andrés Pastrana began his televised speech Wednesday by seeking the legitimacy that has evaded his presidency. His first words were:
“Fellow Colombians: In October of 1997 nearly 10 million Colombians – in the highest voter turnout in the country’s history – voted for peace, a vote that obligated all the presidential candidates to pursue peace in Colombia through political negotiation.
“In June of 1998, six-and-a-half million votes – also the highest voter turnout for any presidential election – supported my peace project. That’s why, since the first day of my government I have not stopped working to comply with the mission that you gave me: The mission in which democracy trusted in me!”
Pastrana did not mention the October 2000 elections, for good reason. They were held just two months into the implementation of the U.S. military intervention, endorsed by Pastrana, called “Plan Colombia.”
In the October 2000 elections for state governors and legislators – at the time, Narco News was the only English-language news agency to report the results – the voters massively repudiated and rejected Pastrana’s conservative party, which lost every single state election and saw the election of many governors and officials from small independent parties, breaking the lock of a corrupted two-party system.
From that moment on, Pastrana has struggled in vain to regain legitimacy. Wednesday’s televised declaration of war had been planned for a while. It was clear the hour was near when the U.S. government spent $3 million taxpayer dollars on February 3rd, Super Bowl Sunday, to convince the taxpayers, with their own money, to support a war in Colombia. Pastrana and his U.S. commanders were simply waiting for the next political pretext to begin the shooting: In this case, the alleged hijacking and kidnapping of a member of Congress by the rebel FARC; The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Within hours last night, aerial bombardments began upon 85 rural Colombian communities, bases of support for the rebels. More bombing has been announced for this afternoon.
But Colombia is not Afghanistan, and the FARC has more than four decades of survival experience against the Colombian army.
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