A Land of Many Contrasts. posted by Richard Seymour

Chavez wins yet another election: gasps, shudders, concerns, worries about what the 'strongman' will do next? The media are terrified of him, you know! Uribe wins another election: advances, peace, really fantastic, economy doing well, why do you know he's a workaholic?

And a passage like this can slip past the viewer without anyone realising the significance of it: "Official figures say that the government disarmed and disbanded 26,000 right-wing militia last year." Nothing in the article would alert you to the sinister side of this: "And, with the help of billions of dollars from the United States, a huge campaign is underway to eliminate the coca leaf crop from which cocaine is made." That is, the Colombian government is claiming that it has "disarmed and disbanded" its far right paramilitaries, the ones responsible for the vast preponderance of murders and kidnappings in Colombia, while receiving funds to destroy peasants' livelihoods by spraying defoliants on agricultural land. You wouldn't gather from this that the Andean production of coca is a tradition that has nothing to do with cocaine at any rate. It wouldn't, at any rate, occur to readers to wonder if Colombian peasants should have to be starved and driven to ruin simply to disrupt a supply of cocaine to American yuppies. No mention of the fact that the bulk of the funds are in any case going to police and government paramilitaries. You certainly wouldn't gather that the paramilitaries have 'penetrated' the government's intelligence services. No mention of Uribe's links with paramilitaries. No mention of British military aid to the Colombian state and paramilitaries.

The contrast is striking: Chavez, who cannot be accused of running death squads and murdering his own people, or sanctioning the kidnapping of trade unionists or anything of the kind, is demonised or mocked as a buffoon; Uribe is lionised, heroically idealised, so that every sun in the known universe shines directly out of his gloriole.

On a related matter, Bolivia's government has started the process of redistributing land. Not much, but it's a start. Already the landowning class are threatening to form 'self-defense' groups to protect their estates. But isn't this exactly what happened in Colombia? The landlords formed militias to defend their privileges and frustrate a growing leftist movement? Didn't these militias then merge with the state security forces and launch a horrendous campaign of murder? Didn't they subject the electoralist Patriotic Front to a torrent of murder, kidnapping and intimidation? Haven't they, in alliance with the state, broken every peace deal available to them, and isn't this the reason why the Farc continues its military campaign (regardless of what you think of their tactics)? And, if Bolivia is engulfed in a vicious civil war, if the government is overthrown in a coup or simply voted out after a spell of terror, to be replaced by another bought Chamorro, will anyone media outlet manage to notice that the local ruling class is being backed by the American empire to destroy the working class and peasant opposition? Could BBC Breakfast fit that in a five minute news slot, do you think?