last301. - Human Rights in Colombia…. Use or no Use?
Well…. Here it goes, my first post related to the topic at hand, human rights discussion for LAST 301. First of all, I’m going to start by saying that I would like the focus of my work in this blog during the next four months be primarily on Colombia if possible. This will have to be approved by the instructor. Jon is that OK? Please comment on that.
A little bit about myself: I was born and raised in the beautiful country of Colombia in South America during the 1980’s and 1990’s, and as you can probably be aware of, this was (and still is) a period of extreme violence for this nation that traces far back into the late 1940's (For a chronology of events,click here). The question that will be addressed in this space over the next few months then, is whether human rights in Colombia are of any use, especially if they continue to be violated every single day in Colombia by armed right-wing paramilitaries, left-wing guerrillas and even the current government of Alvaro Uribe itself, which seems not to be enforcing or supporting human rights efforts in the country as they should be. As a side note, it is noticeable from my point of view that nobody seems to care about this issue enough, not even the tranquil and well established Colombian elites who have the power and influence to make a stand to all this irregularities. For information on recent developments over this statement about government negligence over the human rights issue, please visit: Amnesty International USA and this CBS article.
Personally I am very eager over the subject matter and this first post serves only as an introduction on what is yet to come as the research goes on. Please comment, your feedback is very much appreciated.
Bye for now,
Andres
Tags: last301
2 comments:
Seems like we're both in the same boat, wanting to focus on Colombia for this course. Soy Colombiana de Corazon, but in reality, I'm just a wannabe who has traveled there and is currently working closely with youth groups there. I think we could certainly discuss a number of things on each other's blogs.
I agree that there seems to be little sense in having rights in Colombia when they are violated every day, and the government does little to prevent that, or 'better' yet, seems to play a praticipatory role at times in human rights violations.
The worst part for me to know is that people can't even seem to be able to speak out about these violations. So whose rights are these if not everyone has them? Who decides what the rights are and when they are violated if violations are ignored anyway?
A far as I know (which may not be much!) It is true that Coca production fuels much of the civil conflict within Colombia. Not only by the different groups directly involved within the country but let us not forget the invlovement from our neighbors to the south. The US has, to this date, given the Colombian gov't the third largest amount of aid funds (Egypt and Afganistan I believe come before) to combat the war on drugs in Colombia, something like 3 billion. With this type of funding the Gov't is able to make large attacks on rural areas, where coca plantations are situated. Not only violently but as well by other means such as dust cropting (spraying chemicals by plane throughout to kill the plants) What is little of their concern is the peasant farmers, who are directly or indirectly involved in Coca. In order to protect their areas the FARC retaliate by attacking important figures and buildings with in the major cities, this again affects citizens directly or indirectly involved. It seems that very few have concerns for rights as their vicious conflicts over coca continue, and until this war, which is fought on a number of levels and sides, subsides it is the poor individuals and their human rights that will suffer.
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