Monday, January 17, 2005

There are soooo many depressing articles about Latin America all the time that it's not often that you find something positive. Well, here's an analysis of Columbia's progress towards a more stable, democractic country that's one of the more hopeful articles I've read in a while:

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20050115-100346-1051r.htm
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1 comment:

Huck said...

I have got to admit that any column written by Oliver North that reflects a "hope" for Latin America is met with skepticism and even a bit of hostility on my part. The irony of this kind of talk coming from Oliver North is also stunning.

Let us remember that Oliver North was Ronald Reagan's front man for the illegal and clandestine Iran-Contra scandal, in which the U.S. policy was one of destabilizing Central America in order to weaken and bring down the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Oliver North praises Colombian President Alvaro Uribe as a great leader who is bringing a modicum of stability to a country plagued with ideological violence, yet he himself was one of the principal causes of massive instability, economic devastation, and state-sponsored atrocities against innocent civilians all in the name of a misplaced (in my humble opinion) anti-Communist foreign policy agenda.

I find it extremely hypocritical that North praises Uribe for supposedly taking on the paramilitary anti-communist "terrorists" in Colombia, when there is absolutely no question that he himself helped to train and fund just these kinds of para-military, right-wing death squads in the Central American crisis of the 1980s.

But there is one thing about your post that I can most definitely agree with, and that is the basic tendency when reporting on Latin America (regardless of the source) to over-hype and sensationalize the negative. There IS much in the region that is positive, and, dare I say, even normal and routine. And that often gets overlooked, which is why any reporting on the region that emphasizes a "hopeful" attitude is a good, regardless of the character of the person who says it.

Fri Jan 21, 10:31:00 PM

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