Fist off, I want to thank Kossacks who in the past have recommended one of my diaries (not many, and mere attempts at motivating discussion and providing a different point of view.) Among them: tmo, tikkun, Tuffy, Bob Love, Cecrops Tangaroa, smintheus, marchmoon, roses, Ignacio Magaloni, Steven D, HK, JaciCee, Vereker, joefromdundee, BrooklynJohnny, SarahLee, qw3rty, justCal, PhilK, wu ming, jackspace, RabidNation, mkfarkus, JuliaAnn, rflowers, Deward Hastings, stagemom, Iranaqamuk, One Pissed Off Liberal, maracatu, goldnata. Several others have also pumped up my comments. Thanks to them all.
Second: I want to blatantly pimp out (or pimp up?) my recent diary entitled "Did the US carry out the Ecuador attack?" which may have been lost in the onslaught of electoral diaries of Friday, at the offset of this holiday weekend. The diary is at http://www.dailykos.com/...
[Updated to correct some typos....]
Updates: Sunday, March 23, 2008
Colombia's defense minister confirms Ecuadorian was killed during Colombia's March 1 raid
http://www.iht.com/...
Colombia denies using 500 pd bombs
http://www.nasdaq.com/...
Raid possibly led by DynCorp pilots, from a US military contractor
http://www.mathaba.net/...
UK attorneys say Uribe’s smear of human rights groups endanger them
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
[Diary continues....]
Thirdly (and fourthly, fifthly etc, etc...] I want to provide some updates about the above- mentioned situation.
(1) The Ecuadorian ambassador to Colombia accused the Colombian military of kidnapping citizens of Ecuador, killing them and then dressing them in costumes in order to make them appear as FARC guerrillas. Please note that the Colombian military has been accused in the past of killing peasants and dressing them as guerrillas, in a controversy known as the "false positives."
The comment originated when the corpse of one of the casualties of the Colombian raid, claimed by the Colombian military to be that of a Colombian FARC member, was identified as that of an Ecuadorian citizen. President Correa commented on this that "if confirmed, it would be extremely grave, being the assassination of an Ecuadorian citizen on Ecuadorian soil by foreign troops." Correa added that the re-start of diplomatic relations agreed in the recent conference at Dominican Republic will not take place "until Bogotá stops using unconfirmed information in order to tie the Ecuadorian government with the FARC."
http://www.elespectador.com/...
(2) The story about the many computers found in the FARC encampment (one, according to survivors, four, according to the initial presentation of the Colombian Ambassador to OEA) was put in proper proportion by the Secretary General to OAS (OEA, in Spanish). Indeed, José Miguel Insulza, the Secretary General, questioned the veracity of whatever Raul Reyes wrote in his computer: "Neither Interpol, nor me, nor anybody, can tell whether this information is true. It may be certified that there was no counterfeiting of the materials found, but it cannot be certified that whatever Mr. Reyes says is true... just because Reyes says ‘we gave money to this one...’ doesn’t make it true."
http://diario.elmercurio.com/...
(3) The violence and hate that abounds in the comments section of Colombian newspapers is astounding. Besides the fact that there are many who seem to make a living out of commenting every bit of news, with rabid manicheism of the "if you are not with Uribe you are against Colombia and thus you are a member of FARC and should be dead soon" style, occasionally a ray of light is provided by a commenter with some sense. The other day I was wondering where and when did this people came up with such hate, not only for the left but of anyone who dares oppose or criticize the regime, and I already suspected as much as the comment from El Espectador that I quote next, but could have not make the case with such immediacy and eloquence.
Juan carlos Goicochea de Alba at http://www.elespectador.com/...
"I am not resentful of Uribe or the US... I will tell you.... ever since I was a kid I was the object of torture by Colombian military like my father, who is retired, and who developed war psychosis .... he was at the Marquetalia Operation and that is why he educated me in the HATE [emphasis in original] of communists, little by little I studied and began to understand that a peasant like him, almost illiterate, might have gotten these ferocious ideas of death against other Colombians FROM SOMEWHERE, .... and yes, mister, through much treatment I have overcome the mistreatment and torture of which I was the subject.... and with a little more clarity of mind, I investigated and investigated wherefrom such grave mental deviation like my father’s and of many a Colombian police and military member, whom I have met and gotten to know personally came from, and IT BECAME CLEAR, the matrix of military training, the assemblage of paramilitary groups, the torture, to consider the peasant civilian population as subversive, comes from THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS, a center of gringo training for many years located in Panama, and where many [of the Colombian and Latin American] military were abnegated students.... who were afterwards condemned for torturing, disappearances and genocide, it is obvious that this was the training received by my father and many other Colombian military...."
I leave you with that without any further comment on my part.