The Narco News Bulletin
"The
Name of Our Country is América"
--
Simón Bolívar
Today's
Press Briefing
October 30, 2000
Narco News Congratulates
Floro Tunubalá, a leader against "Plan Colombia,"
elected yesterday as governor of the state of Cauca in Colombia,
the first Native American elected as governor in Colombian history.
Colombian
Voters Reject the US-Imposed "Plan Colombia"
The Party's Over
for Pastrana
His Conservative
Party Loses in all 30 State Elections in Yesterday's Historic
Vote
The big losers in yesterday's state and municipal
elections in Colombia were that nation's president Andrés
Pastrana -- whose party lost all 30 state governorships -- and
the US officials who imposed the $1.3 billion dollar "Plan
Colombia" military intervention.
The Colombian people,
in yesterday's historic vote, soundly rejected Plan Colombia,
as new parties and coalitions surged forward to take half the
nation's states from both leading political parties -- Conservative
and Liberal -- in a nation that for 40 years has had a US-style
two-party system.
The wind from below howls...
The
Party's Over
Civil Society, that concept branded upon the
global psyche in 1994 by Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos in Chiapas,
Mexico, has stepped forward in Colombia to assert itself against
the two political parties that have dominated that nation for
four decades.
What will probably not
be noted in the US press is the main difference between Colombia's
1997 state and municipal elections and those held on Sunday,
October 29, 2000.
In 1997, the guerrilla
movement boycotted the elections. This year, they announced they
would not interfere. And the right-wing fell into the abyss of
the ballot box.
A hidden loser in this
election are US Media like the Miami Herald, who consistently
claimed that the guerrilla has support from only "three
to five percent" of Colombians.
How they will explain
yesterday's vote is predictable: that a candidate linked to the
guerrilla lost in one township. This will be intended to draw
a curtain around the victories by Plan Colombia opponents throughout
the nation yesterday. The US press has become so damn predictable
we can tell you today how they will spin it tomorrow. Maybe by
saying it today, we will have some impact on the news tomorrow.
What did happen in yesterday's
elections in Colombia?
The daily El Espectador
of Bogotá reports:
The steep fall of the
Conservative Party (interpreted by some analysts as a punishment
against the government of President Pastrana), the rise of an
indigenous candidate to the Governorship of Cauca, the arrival
of a shoe-shine man on the city council of Bogotá, the
protest of the independent vote in the Colombian capital and
the punishment of the liberal party in Antioquia, are the most
significant aspects in yesterday's regional and local elections.
Also on the front page:
the advance of the Liberal Party in the entire country and success
of Antanas Mockus as the mayor of Bogotá... The forward
movement by the armed guerrilla, that dominated the pre-election
seasons, and did not interfere except in a couple of episodes.
Among other reasons, because the guerrilla didn't want to keep
voters in some regions from the polls because they back its interests.
The exact results of the
advance that the actors in the conflict (guerrilla and paramilitaries)
could have had in the ballot boxes in local and regional elections
is still unknown. Many analysts warn that their control might
extend to more than half of the country.
Or the report from today's
daily El Tiempo of Bogotá:
Conservativism:
the Great Loser in the Elections
The
main loser in these elections was the Conservative Party
The
Independents are those who won the most terrain.
Coalitions
are becoming more and more necessary.
By Tiempo editor
Alexánder Terrerros B.
Three basic lessons come
from yesterday's elections. The resurgence of the Liberal Party
in Conservative bastions, the position of the Independent sectors,
and the practical disappearance of the Conservative Party in
the political management of the great capitals and states....
And more from El Espectador:
Added to all of this is
the election of the Indigenous Governor of Cauca, Floro Tunubalá,
whose platform of governing is notable in its critique of "Plan
Colombia" and in favor of manual (not chemical) erradication
of illicit crops. The entire South of the country could generate
a contradictory dynamic, between the plans of the President,
the insurgency and paramilitarism, and platforms of the new governors.
In any case, war and peace
are newly in play in the future of local democracy, but an eventual
humanitarian agreement can positively change the luck of the
regions.
In sum: President Andrés
Pastrana has lost all legitimacy in Colombia, because he sold
out to Washington.
His position before the
guerrilla was weakened considerably yesterday. And, although
under-armed, the guerrilla, in the first weeks of Plan Colombia
has won more military battles than it has lost, and the Armed
Forces have suffered more casualties than the guerrilla.
A negotiated peace is
the only way out.
The Colombian people,
yesterday, rejected the policy of drug war militarization pushed
by Washington and accepted by Pastrana.
The majority of Colombians
have cast their votes: No to Plan Colombia.
Meanwhile, the political
left surged in yesterday's municipal elections in Brazil.
The US-imposed drug war,
for its hypocrisy, its damage to the environment, to human rights,
to democracy, is losing ground in Our América every day.
The Narco News Bulletin salutes the People of Colombia
for their wisdom in rejecting the politics of conquest embodied
by Pastrana and his support of Plan Colombia.
Narco
News Sports Page
Meanwhile, two Presidents
who have not been rejected by their people, played baseball...
Venezuela
President Hugo Chávez and Cuban President Fidel Castro
Practice Diplomacy on the Diamond
There is something
happening here...
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