This type of marches never before could be carried out against the paramilitary groups with this magnitude, not because the people didn’t want it, just the opposite, because the paramilitaries are constituted as the absolute executioners against the conscience and the freedom of expression, as “Establishment Creature”. Now, in spite of having Colombia a government of “Hand-right “, the country have an significant evolution, for capturing, accusing, judging, condemning and imprisoning to the corrupts involved with them. The Colombian people requesting to the FARC for they abandons its disproportioning protagonist mediatic as “People’s Army” and they demential Human rights violations, for to find the true solutions. For nothing it is a secret that the the business of the drug traffic feeds the monster of the war, sustaining over the existence of the guerrillas, contra-guerrillas, paramilitary and all its suppliers of weapons and services.

En Español:
El pueblo Colombiano les ha dicho a las FARC, al Presidente Uribe y al Mundo que queremos la Paz. Con la desviación de los recursos bélicos en esta dirección, es posible reformar nuestra sociedad.
Este es un primer paso, luego seguirán los otros factores de des-estabilización…

Este tipo de marchas nunca antes se pudo realizar contra los grupos paramilitares con esta magnitud, no por porque el pueblo no lo deseara, todo lo contrario, porque los paramilitares se costituyeron como los verdugos absolutos contra la conciencia y la libertad de expresión, como un “Engendro” dentro del “Establecimiento”. Ahora, a pesar de tener Colombia un gobierno de “Derecha”, el país a evolucionado significativamente capturando, acusando, juzgando, condenando y encarcelando a los corruptos involucrados con ellos. El Pueblo Colombiano le esta pidiendo a las FARC que abandone su desproporcionando protagonismo mediático como “Ejercito del Pueblo” y su demencial violación de los derechos Humanos, para que se sume a la busqueda de las verdaderas soluciones. Para nadie es un secreto que el el negocio del narcotrafico alimenta al monstruo de la guerra, sosteniéndose sobre la existencia de la guerrilla, la contraguerrilla, los paramilitares y todos sus proveedores de armas y servicios.

Nicolás Zea P. http://fotozea.blogspot.com/

You look at the ground situation as reported by the media and it seems dismal; however, you talk to returning U.S. troops and they have a lot of positive comments to make about the U.S. presence in Iraq. There are groups in Iraq (Shite & Kurdish) that are extremely grateful to have Saddam out. I have read that many prefer the current situation then to the one they lived in under his rule. Will the Middle East as a whole be a better place as a result of all this? Will Saddam’s ouster and the new Iraq establishment become a catalyst for the ouster of other supressive regimes? Only time will tell. Nothing happens overnight so we have to view this from a long-term perspective to really gauge the overall effects of this invasion. On the flip-side, the whole country could spiral down into chaos and all hell could break loose in the region. Even if it all turns out for the better, does the end justify the means?

This debate could go on and on, and the truth is that there are winners and losers in all this. You’ll find people that welcomed the invasion and those that don’t.

I am going to reserve my opinion on this event until some time passes, so that I can actually gauge the end result and whether it was worth it.

I come from a country where there is tons of money so of course I wouldn’t take bin Laden’s claim that he wants to lay down his arms seriously and he’s not the type who would make it. I don’t need him to lay down his arms or ‘reconcile,’ I just need to see him dead and that’s all I’ll take.

But Colombia was almost entirely on its own, all alone, no one helping them much, US aid puny and pathetic, and all HRW ever did was criticize them. They were desperate for some wedge to leverage peace. Colombia’s solution was a tactical one, to disarm as many as possible they could so that they could at least take on the ones who were least interested in peace. It’s easier to take on a smaller single enemy than three big enemies. And as I said before, monsters like M-19 got such amnesties, totally undeservedly, but it was seen as the best solution of the time. I don’t like it of course, but this is what Colombians decided as they did with disarming the paras. That latter decision left FARC isolated with the remaining choice to disarm or continue to murder, maim, corrupt and terrorize. They still prefer the latter.

Most paras I’ve met are low class dirtbags with no interest in defending the ruling class – they were gang types looking for ways of protecting themselves from the onslaught of Marxist terrorists who were shooting at them in their bedrooms and streets, and kidnapping them in their barrios and shantytowns. They were a highly reactionary group, but it’s fair to say that had there been no FARC, there would be no paras. FARC started it. FARC is the one that wants to overthrow the government and install a Pol Pot-style communal regime in the country with no respect for the individual. They’re the only remaining enemy.

Do you honestly believe that things could be for the better in the Middle East than they are now?

But that goes far beyond Colombia or Uribe alone.

It’s not like there is an objective and universal set of rules that determines what is “political” and what isn’t…something which all countries and states must be forced to accept and apply at all times. It doesn’t really work like that in practice.

There is at best only judicial and historical precedent, which is what has been applied so far in Colombia itself.

Uribe’s administration has tried to go against that precedent, more or less, by wanting to recognize the paramilitaries as political criminals. However, judicial authorities have disagreed with this, so the point is mostly moot at this time.

It’s also true that, for the most part, previous governments either didn’t explicitly recognize the political status of the different guerrilla groups at all, or only did so during negotiations.

Jailed guerrillas have been “political criminals” before the law, because the crime of “rebellion” can be considered to be political, but in practice their organizations didn’t necessarily get an explicit recognition outside of negotiation attempts.

But it accomplishes something…you need a concerted effort or else it doesn’t work. You don’t go to battle with half your troops trying to figure out whether or not it’s the right thing to do (extreme example).

Bush’s approach did work, he changed the reality of the situation in the Middle East. Whether or not he changed it for the better, we have yet to see.

I am not saying that we have to be hawkish or dovish, but that we have to get on the SAME page quickly or else we’ll make no progress and in another 40 years others will be having the same debate.

My point is not that AUC have a political status, but rather, that the Uribe administration has denied it to the FARC but want it for paramilitaries. That is a double standard. You point that the state will give it to any group (citing the ELN as an example). But I think there is a twisted logic behind the state there: they will give ELN or the FARC the political status if they demobolize or negociate peace. In other words, they will give them that status not cause they deserve it (whatever their human records may be), but because it is a political move. The label is given at the political convinience of the goverment, it doesn´t respond to a reality.

About the Palace of Justice, I am not saying the M-19 has no responsability for what happened there. I am pointing that the event of its burning was caused more probably by the army, and not by the M-19. And that in the official account of what happened there, that official account defended by Uribe and right wing sycophants, the state did nothing wrong, nor acted criminally, when all the evidence points to the contrary.

But even so, for the record, the current government has also said that it could recognize such a status during peace negotiations with the guerrillas (including the ELN, which has only entered “exploratory” talks thus far). Previous administrations have also given political recognition to FARC and ELN, so it’s not too hard to see that happening again.

As for the Palace of Justice, while it may (may, I repeat) be that the military may have started the fire, not to mention participated in other abuses and disappearances (which seems to be clearer), that hardly means the M-19 had no responsibility at all, even though I don’t really share most of Camilla’s opinions and descriptions.

So a terrorist, in your right wing Reagan “we-don´t-negociate-with-terrorists” rethoic, is fine if he or she disarms? So if Osama Bin Laden sends a letter to the white house saying “I dissarm”, that is fine with you? I don´t think so. I think you are using the M-19 as an excuse (by the way, read the investigations. It was THE COLOMBIAN ARMY that most probably incinirated the supreme court building). And of course, you never ever explained why a terrorist made by ex mafia gangs, landowners, that brutally masacred entire towns and displaced millions of peasants from their lands, can have the status of political (What political idea was the AUC defending, aside the interests of landowners, mafias and the colombian state?) and the FARC are denied it at the same time? Again, you are a right winger, and being so, you are just anoither straighfaced cynic hypocrite

“Colombia’s a conservative country in its outlook by nature. In that context, a “facebook” demo like this makes perfect sense.”

I don’t think Facebook or other modern forms of communication through the internet is exclusively “conservative”, but…

“Still, since I consider the AUC and their allies and the cartels to be even worse enemies of a civil, peaceful Colombia than the FARC, I’d argue that the demo should include protests against these last two groups as well; they are, after all, co-responsable with the FARC, in the lawlessness that challenges what can and will be (I hope) one of the greatest countries in Latin America.”

It’s harder for me to reach that conclusion about who is the “worst” enemy, if you put it that way…so I’d leave that point alone for now.

But while I’d support a more general protest…what is wrong with having a separate protest against each party?

There have been plenty of (usually smaller and less publicized, admittedly) anti-paramilitary, anti-government or even anti-Uribe marches, where the crimes of the FARC are notoriously absent. Nobody would even think of mentioning them.

And I think there’s no problem with that, at the end of the day.

If someone crashed one of those marches by saying that FARC’s crimes aren’t being mentioned, that person would probably be….”not very well received”, to sum things up. It’s only when anti-FARC marches are being considered that the issue of “inclusiveness” moves to the center of the debate.

It really worked for the Bush administration, too, didn’t it? Sheesh.

Still, since I consider the AUC and their allies and the cartels to be even worse enemies of a civil, peaceful Colombia than the FARC, I’d argue that the demo should include protests against these last two groups as well; they are, after all, co-responsable with the FARC, in the lawlessness that challenges what can and will be (I hope) one of the greatest countries in Latin America.

Since you are such a hawk and anti-apeaser with terrorists…why I never hear your crying voice raised against the peace process with paramilitaries, and the soft 8 year sentences – not counting benefits for confesions- this people are going to recieve (including the demand of the colombian goverment to give them “political status”)? Why is that straightforward hypocresy is the credo of the right?

That “with us or against us” rhetoric is absolutely poisonous, but I fear Colombians will be hearing a lot more of it between now and the fourth.