one thing i can't get passed is the USA's (and sadly the EU and Britain's) 100% love of Colombia as a "beacon of democracy" in south America. That's because Colombia are the only thing close to a subservient Latin fascist state left. Not like those uppity brown people in every other latin state.
There's solid evidence that the Department of Security in Colombia orchestrates assassinations and intimidation of dissident journalists, including making death threats against their young children, neo-nazis publish "hit lists" of university professors (including some assassinated), then it's the professors who get investigated by the government. one scholar got arrested as a terrorist and has been held without charge for 4 years because he wrote an article critical of the government and it got reposted on a "pro-rebel website".
There's a massive scandal with the army kidnapping and killing young people and dressing them up as rebels to claim bonuses for combat kills, about 1500 deaths in recent years are being investigated, but the government of colombia claims they killed 20,000 "rebels" per year from 2002-2008, but there are only about 30000 rebels in the country., so the "false positive" scandal could be much greater - the highest ranking army officer was revealed to have personally overseen some of it. The UN found a 2000 body mass grave outside an army base a few years ago, with men and women and they're assumed to be union members as well as villagers protesting industrial developments.
On top of that, the government gave an "amnesty" to the right-wing paramilitaries who used to go around chainsawing people's kids in half as a warning not to rebel against the government - before you had even considered it. 100's of para's confessed to 1000's of murders and not a single one got jail time. Most of the paras are still active.
In 2008 Colombia bombed the rebel's peace negotiation team who were across the Ecuador border - claiming that the rebels there had launched attacks - Ecuadorian soldiers found the dead rebels in bed in their pyjamas. Colombia then claimed to have computers from the site (they sent commandos) and within 24 hours of the raid they claimed to have specific data from the computers that Ecuador and Venezuela were plotting to overthrow the Colombian government. Nevermind that there were 600GBs of files, and Colombian intelligence JUST SOMEHOW found EVERY incriminating piece of text within a few hours.
Ecuador protested the surprise bombing and commando incursion and murder of people within their territory. Bush, Obama and Hillary Clinton all chided Ecuador for not "being supportive" of Colombia's "self-defense". Venezuela threatened war with Colombia if they attacked Ecuador, and
was labelled the aggressor by Hilary. Colombia continued beating the wardrums (Ecuador and Venezuela were once part of Gran Colombia, remember) until Brazil, Chile and Argentina made it clear that they'd be on the Ecuador/Venezuela side. Meanwhile USA was 100% on the side of Colombia and in NO WAY helped to avert a war.
Yeah, so that "stabilizing' USA and Colombia pushing for continental war, against those "destabilizing" countries like Ecuador and Venezuela, who just don't "get" that you're just supposed to lie there and take it from Colombia's bombs because they're a US ally.
... and that's just SOME of what's going on.And with all that, USA, EU, and the UK constantly refer to Colombia as the leading force for stability, democracy and journalistic freedom in South America. What a joke.
I can't take them seriously on any other country until they stop supporting murderous evil bastards. In this respect, Clinton was the best of the recent lot. He actually threatened sanctions on Colombia if they didn't clean up their act - And that was BEFORE all the stuff i put in the spoilers. Bush and Obama are both giving the fascists in Colombia a free pass whilst they conduct the biggest genocide there since the 1950's (the 1950's "La violenca" was a famous time when the Colombian government killed 20,000 people per year - Uribe's regime matched that - according to figures they BOAST about)
In 2007, colombia had a 26% increase in cocaine production and bolivia had a 5% increase - the Bush administration knew how to "remedy" both increases - a "free trade" deal for Colombia, but "sanctions" for Bolivia. Ironically, the new Bolivian government of Evo Morales had DOUBLED the amount of cocaine they seized that year, whilst there was no improvement from Colombia at all. Kinda makes you wonder about US priorities, almost like they're PUNISHING countries which start to interdict drugs. Similarly, the Chavez administration in Venezuela massively increased the amount of drugs they seize compared to previous governments, and are also constantly accused of not "playing ball" on enforcement, whilst in Afghanistan in 2001, the Taliban orchestrated a 90% drop in Opium production before Bush decided to invade. After America's conquest, Opium production returned to "normal".