The recent massacre of 34 workers at a cocaine producing ranch by what certainly appears to be the FARC only underscores the suffering going in that country and how the avergae person has become a pawn in the brutal game between the leftist and rightist terrorists:
Gen. Carlos Alberto Ospina, Colombia's armed forces chief, said the killings were provoked by a dispute between rebels and paramilitary gunmen over control over coca production, and the profits it brings when it is converted in clandestine labs to cocaine.The United Nations' human rights office in Bogota described the killing "as a war crime, since the culprits carried out a premeditated murder of totally defenseless civilians."
Interior Minister Sabas Pretelt said government forces were pursuing the killers.
"I hope ... they understand they can't keep committing these atrocities," Pretelt said.
Although Uribe decides it's time to lay into Amnesty International for not commenting yet:
Uribe lashed out at Amnesty International for not denouncing the killings. Uribe has had bitter relations with international human rights groups, accusing them of being sympathetic to the rebels."You know what makes me sad?," Uribe said Wednesday during a military ceremony. "That so far I haven't heard anything from Amnesty International ... Amnesty International stays silent, the same group that abuses its good name to go and accuse Colombian government forces (of committing abuses)."
The human rights group said it has not denounced the killings because it does not know all the facts, but it will condemn the massacres if the government reports prove true.
"We don't rely too much on the government because often times they don't have all the information or manipulate it," Eric Olson, Americas director for Amnesty International USA, told The Associated Press from Washington. "We like to do our own verification."
He's simply wrong for saying that AI stays silent on the FARC: 373 hits on the AIUSA web page.
Perhaps Uribe should focus more on resolving this problem:
Seven times as many Colombians fled their war-torn country and requested asylum abroad last year as in 1999, despite government reports that guerrilla violence is easing, a U.N. agency said on Wednesday.The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said 29,000 Colombians requested political asylum last year, compared with 4,060 in 1999. The figures were part of a UNHCR study distributed to reporters in Bogota.
The biggest group of Colombian refugees, 11,388 people, crossed the porous 370-mile (590-km) jungle border with Ecuador in 2003 to request asylum.
Another 4,661 sought safe haven in the United States, which has poured more than $2 billion in mostly military aid into Colombia's fight against Marxist rebels and the world's largest cocaine industry.
One wonders if some of the best and brightest of Colombia's citizens are saying "enough!"
I'll be back on Friday unless someone really annoys me.
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