Editorial on Colombia Ignores Poor’s Plight
The rosy picture of Colombia in your Sept. 29 editorial (“Colombia Deserves a Hand”) is a perspective in line with that of the country’s wealthy elite. By referring to the right-wing paramilitaries only as an afterthought, the editorial misses the core of Colombia’s problems. A visit to rural Colombia makes clear that the paramilitaries, the government armed forces and the current central government continue to cooperate in repression. Forced disappearances and displacement continue at a high level.
Displacement is not a byproduct of the war in Colombia. A publication of Colombia’s defense ministry acknowledged that the purpose of the paramilitaries was to drive farmers off their land. Wealthy landowners, including drug barons, then take over the land. That process continues.
The guerrilla war ebbs and flows. But the war of the wealthy against the poor is constant.
Patrick Bonner
South Gate
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