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Food for thought!!

Submitted February 16, 2005 - 5:20 pm by Paul Silvester
Benjamin, Once again you have argued your corner in a manner that has given me much food for thought. That is exactly what I expect/hope to get from Narco News or The Narcosphere, food for thought!! Thank you. Sadly I still argue that food was missing, at least for me, from the article that inspired my original comments.

Two issues though. When I was comparing the guerillas and the paramilitaries it was no so much on a statistical basis, more a humanitarian one. To a family, their childs or fathers etc death is a tragedy whether it is part of the 15% or part of the 75%. Are you going to look them in the face and say, don't worry it's not so bad, your son was one of the 15%??? I consider that there are NOT degrees of terror tactics, if you fight using violence and terror I will class you all in the same camp, whether you kill 1 or 1000 people!!

I agree that the AUC are involved with drugs too, but I do not agree that the FARC and ELN are only marginally involved. They are all up to their armpits in the stuff. However, I have always been under the impression that the AUC also receive tangible support from more official channels too. Not just a nod and a wink to carry on regardless. Many seem to consider that there are real ties between the army and the AUC who can operate outside international law in a way the army cannot.

Tourism is NOT the answer it is ONE of the answers. Many countries exist entirely on tourism and maybe you have even vacacioned in one of them, I don't know. So why is tourism in Colombia something to describe as;  

"This is, of course, what the richest people everywhere want every country to be competing with each other on: who can lay flatter while international corporations decide who to walk on and who to rape."

A little extreme I think, what about eco-tourism?? Tourism supports many lives wordwide (including India and to a huge extent Brazil, not so much Venezuela now since Chavez??) and without it many cultures would be suffering incredibly. Why should Colombia waste one of it's most valuable assets whilst Equador, Peru, Brazil etc gain so much from it. Surely investment and employment is the first step and if tourism brings it, where is the problem?? First a job, any job, then fight about the wages and conditions. To have no job has got to be worse surely?? Maybe that is not straight out of Marx or Engels but it's realistic in 2005. However hard that may be to stomach!!

On another note I have just read that Chavez and Uribe have met and resolved their problems. Chavez is quoted as saying "We have decided to turn the page" http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&am p;sid=aUPggTABuWfk&refer=latin_america

Chavez is thought highly of amongst the contributors here. I would be interested in how people perceive this??

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