Colombia hostage letters relay suffering

[Bacchus39]

Source: AP

BOGOTA, Colombia - A satchel of letters carried out of the jungle by two women freed by Colombian rebels details heart-wrenching suffering by their hostages.

The letters catalog the misery of eight captive politicians, police and soldiers who've become pawns in a bitter conflict. Often chained by the neck, they suffer from malaria, tropical parasites, heart ailments and diarrhea so severe that one captive couldn't walk



Mendieta wrote that he is frequently tethered with two fellow captives by chains around their necks. In a Dec. 21 letter, his first communication to his family in five years, he describes surviving two bouts of malaria, current chronic chest pains and being so stricken by tropical ailments that he had to crawl on his hands and knees for five weeks.

"But it's not the physical pain that wounds us, not the chains that we wear around our necks that torment us, nor the incessant ailments that afflict us. It's the mental agony caused by the irrationality of all this. It's the anger produced by the perversity of the bad and the indifference of the good."








Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/colombia_hostages;_ylt=AiGSU5v_Grp.k0R.SINzlGa3IxIF

[Mojorabbit]

1. My best friend's aunt

was captured by militants in the 80's. They treated her well as she was elderly.

[Rydz777]

2. Poignant. I am especially taken by Luis Mendieta's words:

"It's the mental agony caused by the irrationality of all this. It's the anger produced by the perversity of the bad and the indifference of the good."

While he is referring to his captivity by the FARC, these words could apply to so very much in our increasingly irrational world.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Amnesty Internat'l: violence 92% Colombian gov't, 2% FARC

"...cases in which clear evidence of responsibility is available indicates that in 2005 around 49 per cent of human rights abuses against trade unionists were committed by paramilitaries and some 43 per cent directly by the security forces. Just over 2 per cent were attributable to guerrilla forces (primarily the FARC and ELN) and just over 4 per cent to criminally-motivated actions."
--p.5 or "find" 2 percent

http://www.amnesty.org/en/alfresco_asset/26e626d7-a2c0-11dc-8d74-6f45f39984e5/amr230012007en.html

Date: 3 July 2007

-------------------------------

The rightwing paramilitaries in Colombia have very close ties to the Uribe government (Bush's pals)--including the head of the military, the former head of intelligence, and many Uribe office holders (including relatives)--and are also into drug/weapons trafficking, as well as their heinous tortures and murderers of thousands of union organizers, peasant farmers, political leftists, human rights workers and journalists--in the interest of Chiquita, Monsanto, Occidental Petroleum and other global corporate predators.

49% paramilitary + 43 government security forces = 92% of the violence is committed by people who we U.S. tax payers are paying billions and billions of dollars in military and other aid.

This is not to excuse kidnapping, torture and endangerment by FARC (armed leftist guerrillas). I condemn it. And it is not to excuse the murders they have committed, although AI says that these were not likely aimed at innocent persons (like union organizers) but rather at persons colluding with rightwing death squads. Still, I don't condone any such frontier justice, nor violence of any kind.

I just want to provide the context that AP and other war profiteering corporate news monopolies always leave out. There is a REASON for FARC's existence, and it is the brutality and oppression of the Colombian government in cahoots with U.S. military and corporations, never more intense than under the Bush Junta.

And I can't really say what I would do, in that situation, if I saw friends, family, colleagues, chainsawed and their body parts thrown into mass graves, as has been done to union organizers in Colombia. I would hope that I would maintain the peaceful path. But I also know that people can take only so much horror before they want to pick up a gun and fight back.

The leftist movement in other South America countries HAS walked the peaceful path, and have had immense success at peaceful, democratic change for the better, with leftists (majorityists) elected in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Chile, and likely this year in Paraguay--also in Nicaragua and Guatemala. But the Bush Junta and its lapdog corporate press are doing everything they possibly can to undermine this democracy movement, and to topple democratic governments, including demonizing its leaders, and direct intervention and covert and overt ops of various kinds, and including the billions of dollars to Colombia, where rightwing paramilitary plots to assassinate the president of Venezuela and other leaders have been exposed. In addition, recently, the Bushites tried their best to sabotage the hostage negotiations that Hugo Chavez was attempting with the FARC, successfully sabotaged the first large release (early Dec 07), but could not sabotage the second smaller release of two women last week.

Notice Donald Rumsfeld's reference to it in the first paragraph of his op-ed in the Washington Post, 12/1/07, in which he anticipates Chavez's failure and tells the baldfaced lie that Chavez's efforts were not welcome in Colombia. (Uribe invited Chavez to start the negotiation, briefly shut it down, with a lame excuse--under Rumsfeld orders, I'm sure--but later yielded to pressure from the hostages' relatives and the president of France for Chavez to continue.)

Overall, Rumsfeld's op-ed declares war on Venezuela and unnamed countries (Bolivia, Ecuador--the ones with big oil/gas reserves, and leftist governments), promises economic warfare and military intervention, and wants "swift action" by the U.S. in support of "friends and allies" in South America (fascist thugs planning coups). (I think Bolivia will be the first target--government headed by Bolivia's first indigenous president, Evo Morales--already visible signs of Bush-backed destabilization efforts.)

"The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez," by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/1/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html

What is our "retired" Secretary of Defense--known for his disaster in Iraq--doing authoring U.S. policy in South America in the Washington Post? In my opinion, he's laying the groundwork for Oil War II: South America.

Please keep these things in mind--the omitted context--when you read bits like this from AP especially (whose news stories often seem penned by the Bush-purged CIA).

I do not at all mean to downplay the hostages' sufferings. But I know that the civil war in Colombia has been stoked up and prolonged by the Bushites, and they do not care a goddamn about the hostages, who are merely pawns in their horrible war games and greed games. Chavez is trying to expand the hostage negotiations into a larger peace settlement of Colombia's civil war, and the Bushites are trying to stop him, because they profit from war, glory in chaos and carnage, and want those oil fields. There would be no hostages--and the civil war would have been settled long ago--if the U.S. was not propping up the fascist government with billions of our tax dollars.

Who are the tyrants? Who are the "terrorists"? Are we going to accept Rumsfeld's epithets and get dragged into Oil War II? That's where it's going. Or are we going to support the overwhelming desire of the people of South America for peaceful, democratic change, self-determination and social justice? These are the questions we must ask - as we try to restore the power of the people within our own government, and change its warmongering course.

---------------

For alternative information on South America, I recommend: www.venezuelanalysis.com, as a start.

[Bacchus39]

4. trade unionist is not a synonym for Colombian citizen

the passage you posted, and previously posted, clearly states that its 92% of the violence against TRADE UNIONISTS. Violence in Colombia is not limited to this group of people. it is unfortunately more extensive than that. your numbers are misleading at best.

Colombia has already offered a peace settlement the paramilitaries agreed to demobilization, the FARC did not.

contrary to your assertions, I would say, there would be no hostages if there were no FARC, comprendes?

[Peace Patriot]

5. You are right. The AI report is about violence against union organizers.

Sorry, for the mistake. However, it's telling that the overwhelming bulk of the violence against union leaders is perpetrated by the Colombian government and associated rightwing paramilitaries. Why are they killing trade unionists? What has that to do with FARC or the "war on drugs?" I think it tells us what this civil war is really all about--global corporate predators who want slave labor, the Bushites and local fascists who are shoveling money hand over fist out of our federal treasury, and Occidental Petroleum and Exxon Mobile's interest in Colombian and neighboring countries' oil fields.

The interests of union organizers and other leftist political groups often coincide, and include the interests of small peasant farmers, the indigenous, non-union workers, people whose humans rights have been abused, environmentalists, the poor in general, and all the people--the majority--who are oppressed and without representation in fascist government. It is these folks, ordinary people, who have come to power through democratic means in neighboring Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador--where most of the oil is--who live lives of fear and horror in Colombia. And the massive Bushite funding of Colombia's military in intended to prevent them from coming to power--as they should, given their numbers--in Colombia. It is furthermore intended to create a hot bed of fascist plotting against the democratic governments of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, where Colombian paramilitaries are known to be working with local fascist elites, and are already causing trouble in the border areas of Venezuela and in the resource-rich rural provinces of Bolivia. The goal is destabilization and toppling of these governments. And FARC is pretty much irrelevant to these Bushite goals, except as an excuse to pour money into rightwing forces in Colombia, and in so far as FARC controls land that global corporate predators want for oil production, environmentally unsound biofuel production and other purposes--purposes that a leftist (majorityist) government would regulate, tax and/or deny to them if they commit crimes (like Chiquita has clearly done--paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to rightwing hit squads, to eliminate union leaders), or won't behave in socially responsible ways.

This is what the Bushites fear--good government. And this is why they support very bad government. They don't care about FARC's hostages. All they care about is using whatever advantage they can get to profit from us and from other peoples' resources--their oil, their land.

I disagree with your other points. The peace settlement offered no safety for FARC members. The one guerrilla who came in, that I know of, and was elected to the legislature, has to wear body armor and surround himself with guards, to stay alive. The "truth and reconciliation" process was seriously flawed, and left Colombian security and paramilitary forces, who have committed heinous murders, free to continue organizing their criminal syndicates, including drug trafficking and murder. And you and I do not know what it's like to live in the jungle fighting against a brutal, rightwing government for 30 years. They may have felt that not only would there be no security, but that trying to cooperate with this government was a hopeless prospect. I don't know. But I do know that Chavez is trying once again to broker a peace, and that is happening NOW. Do you give up on peace because it hasn't worked before? What do YOU want to see happen? All the FARC members shot--and then the problem is solved? And what of the government security forces and paramilitaries who are still killing non-combatants, and have committed such terrible crimes, and have, in fact, not demobilized?

You know, there was an all day meeting between Chavez and Uribe, a while back, in which Uribe apologized to Chavez for the plots to assassinate Chavez that were hatched in Uribe's military. This is probably what led to the hostage negotiation. This is a dangerous situation--for any peacemaker. Uribe has already stabbed Chavez in the back--on the first hostage release (thus, defeating it). Does Uribe want peace? I tend to doubt it. The Bushites and war are his gravy train. Uribe is caught in the middle of a lot of bad forces. And Chavez knows that he himself has a Bushite target on his back.

We in the progressive community should be encouraging any effort at peace. Rumsfeld clearly doesn't want it--and throws words around like "tyrant" and "terrorist" to JUSTIFY WAR. You don't make peace by calling names. You don't make peace by sabotaging hostage negotiations--which I think Rumsfeld did. And you don't make peace by highlighting one side's crimes, in a civil war, and ignoring the other side's, especially since the other side's are far worse in scale AND purpose. Rumsfeld wants to call everybody a "terrorist" and justify mass slaughter, for his own greedy goals. He as much as calls the elected president of Venezuela a "terrorist," who hasn't hurt anybody. We know this Bushite M.O. Everybody who opposes them is a "terrorist." Max Cleland is a "terrorist." Max Cleland! Do you agree with this crap? You seem only to post things that support Rumsfeld's position--that everybody ought to be killed who stands in the way of oil corporation profits.

[Bacchus39]

6. I would disagree:

1. the civil war is more about local control of the drug trade and local economic interests rather than a global corporate confrontation.

2. you answered your own question from the first paragraph in the first sentence of the second paragraph: Why are they killing trade unionists? What has that to do with FARC...? The interests of union organizers and other leftist political groups often coincide,...

3. from your second paragraph, I see no threat of belligerent action by Colombia against Ven. or Ecuador or any other country.

4. in the first hostage release as you call it, the FARC did not have the child and actually attempted to kidnap him again in order to liberate him. the FARC admitted they did NOT have the boy and even Chavez said the FARC had to explain to the world this development. Of course, there hasn't been a follow up on this matter since its been confirmed that the FARC did NOT have the boy. Since speculation is obviously permitted here, I would suggest the reason the FARC originally proposed a location not far from Bogota to deliver the hostages was in fact because the boy was living, already free, in Bogota.


5. although I am not too concerned about Rumsfeld's article and do not believe he had anything to do with the hostage release, I would agree that labeling Chavez a dictator or tyrant really serves no purpose. He was in fact elected and the people of Venezuela put the brakes on Chavez's power ambitions. this story, of course, continues.

[Peace Patriot]

7. My perspective...

1. Nope. FARC has been blowing up Occidental Petroleum pipelines. OP's and many other corporate interests are very plainly involved. FARC controls a third of Colombia--where the oil is. Corps also want the land for environmentally unsound biofuel production, and for other corporate ag purposes. You are simply wrong that global corporate predator interests are not involved.


2. "Why are they killing trade unionists?" I didn't mean that trade unionists are FARC members. You have badly misinterpreted what I wrote. I was talking about human rights workers, social workers, non-union workers, small peasant farmers, political leftists, the indigenous and environmentalists--none of whom are violent. These are the INNOCENT people whom the rightwing paramilitaries with close ties to the Uribe government are torturing and killing, and often on behalf of global corporate predator corporations like Chiquita (which paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to rightwing death squads to kill union organizers). And because these PEACEFUL activists may have leftist views that coincide with FARC members, does not mean that they deserve to be killed. What it means is that the Colombian government has taken extralegal, illegitimate, violent action to suppress any political forces for social justice, and THAT is why FARC members (not union leaders or any other leftist activists) has taken to armed guerrilla warfare--FARC members see no hope of change by peaceful, democratic means.

Here's what I wrote:

"The interests of union organizers and other leftist political groups often coincide, and include the interests of small peasant farmers, the indigenous, non-union workers, people whose humans rights have been abused, environmentalists, the poor in general, and all the people--the majority--who are oppressed and without representation in fascist government. It is these folks, ordinary people, who have come to power through democratic means in neighboring Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador--where most of the oil is--who live lives of fear and horror in Colombia. And the massive Bushite funding of Colombia's military in intended to prevent them from coming to power--as they should, given their numbers--in Colombia."

How does that justify the killing of trade unionists?


3. You see "no threat of belligerent action by Colombia against Ven. or Ecuador or any other country." I repeat, Uribe had to apologize to Chavez for the assassination plot against Chavez hatched in Uribe's military. And you think that threat doesn't continue? The Bush/U.S. is pouring billions of our tax dollars into a military (Colombia) where assassination and destabilization plots against neighboring countries are being devised! Colombia is a hotbed of fascist plotting. Colombian forces are operating on and over Venezuela's border, creating numerous provocations, and are known to be in collusion with rightwing groups inside Venezuela, and also Bolivia.


4. Uribe more than likely used his bad faith action, in arresting the three FARC hostage negotiators who were in transit to Caracas with the "proof of life" documentation, to locate the child in the Colombian child care system (or else someone in that system ratted him out), and then Uribe claimed that FARC was LYING that they were able to turn the child over to Chavez in the hostage release. That is absurd. Why would they tell such a provable lie to the international community--a lie that could be so easily exposed? Clearly, they had placed the child with a foster family for his safety and welfare, knew where he was, and intended to produce him and turn him over to Chavez--and Uribe preempted that action. And it makes no sense whatsoever that they would lie about it.


5. "I am not too concerned about Rumsfeld's article." Well, you ought to be. Rumsfeld's article seeks to escalate the Bushite and corporate media disinformation campaign against Chavez, and the fascist destabilization efforts in Bolivia, into economic warfare and U.S. military intervention. That is clearly what he is threatening and laying out in that article. He wants the U.S. to "act swiftly" in support of "friends and allies" in South America. And who else do the Bushites have as "friends and allies" in South America except the coup plotters in Venezuela and Bolivia, and the slaughterers of union organizers and other peaceful leftists in Colombia, where plots against neighboring democracies are being hatched.


We obviously have very different perspectives on these events and developments. I trust the Bushites and their ally Colombia NOT AT ALL. I trust Donald Rumsfeld NOT AT ALL. And it's my opinion that you are naive to think that they are not out to cause trouble--and very possibly the major trouble of Oil War II--in South America.