Keep your rebels to yourselves
Rafael Correa has requested that Colombia increase the number of troops on the border to prevent the FARC, drugs, and refugees from spilling over into Ecuador. Presumably he added "and tell those troops not to bomb us."
At the same time, the Ecuadorian government announced that it was extending refugee status to 50,000 Colombians until the middle of next year. Ecuador is simply awash in refugees.
These are issues that get lost in the shuffle in most accounts of Colombia. Despite all the fanfare, Colombian political violence is still displacing thousands of people, who feel they have no choice but to flee. Uribe has, of course, scored some very important victories against the FARC, but the general impression we now get is that the war is somehow won.
1 comments:
I concur--the coverage in the English language media in particular seems to operating under the impression that the FARC is done (a dubious proposition, I think) and that FARC="all violence in Colombia", which is demonstrably not the case.
Things are clearly better now than they were a few years ago, but fixed? Sadly, no.
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