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View Full Version : The Sewers of Colombia: Social Cleansing by land-owners.


Flying Purple People Eater
15th January 2013, 00:53
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4koXeZvAfg

Not a particularly new documentary, but it was still interesting to watch, in a disturbing sort of way. Are the FARC at all involved in these 'death squads' they talk about in the video?
Leftsolidarity
15th January 2013, 01:28
Wow I actually just watched this the other day (part of my strange obsession with documentaries) and really really enjoyed it. As far as I know FARC is not involved with these death squads. Those are right-wing paramilitaries that the Columbian government backs and FARC fights both the death squads and the government.
Os Cangaceiros
15th January 2013, 02:33
Usually when the "death squads" are discussed in Colombia's context, they're refering not to the left-wing guerrilla organizations (not to say that such organizations are angels or anything...) but rather to the groups that some drug traffickers and landowners and other powerful groups within Colombia funded to try and protect their economic interests. Like the "Death to Kidnappers" group, for example.

AFAIK their main purpose was to try and deal with the problem of non-combatant support for causes that some powerful forces within the Colombian state didn't like, kind of like the role of the UVF in Northern Ireland (or maybe that's a bad comparison, I don't know). I don't think that the death squads really went after the guerrilla organizations that much.
skitty
15th January 2013, 03:28
Someone who had been there told me, as Os C. said, that the paramilitary groups mostly focused on doing the dirty work that the government forces could deny involvement in. If you were an activist, union member, peasant farmer etc. they would intimidate or disappear you. In 2007 Chiquita pled guilty to paying 1.7 million dollars to the paras and also made their docks available for unloading and storage of 3,000 AK's and 5 million rounds of ammo. Blood bananas...
Art Vandelay
15th January 2013, 04:25
Yeah its pretty sad seeing this. The fact that issues like these are so little discussed in the 1st world is pretty disheartening.