NP sounds like Vietnam

[Doug Millison]

[...speaking of media representations, or lack thereof, of war, as we 
see in GR...]

                                 FAIR-L
                     Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
                Media analysis, critiques and news reports


ACTION ALERT:
New York Times Covering for Colombian Death Squads

February 9, 2001

The human rights situation in Colombia is in a state of "alarming
degradation," according to United Nations human rights observers (Associated
Press, 1/20/01), but you won't learn about it in the New York Times.

According to a joint report from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch
and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), "political violence has
markedly increased" since the first installment of the U.S.'s $1.3 billion
Plan Colombia aid package was dispersed in August, with the average number
of deaths from combat and political violence rising to 14 per day ("Colombia
Human Rights Certification II", 1/01).

There were at least 27 massacres in the month of January alone, claiming the
lives of as many as 200 civilians. The killings are overwhelmingly the work
of right-wing paramilitaries with close ties to the Colombian military, such
as the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

Despite the dramatic nature of the attacks and the U.S.'s heavy financial
involvement in the war, the New York Times did not report on a single
massacre during the month of January. The findings of the human rights
groups' "Certification" report, including its recommendation that the U.S.
cease military funding to Colombia, also went unmentioned.

Far from documenting the recent wave of paramilitary terror, the Times has
told precisely the opposite story. Juan Forero's January 22 dispatch from
the city of Barrancabermeja, headlined "Paramilitaries Adjust Attack
Strategies," gave a highly distorted version of events.

Forero claims that "the militia members are killing fewer people than the
rebels, who have responded to the threat in neighborhoods they long
controlled with a furious assault on those they accuse of supporting the
paramilitaries," and that the New Granada battalion of the Colombian
military "is sending specially trained urban commandos into the
neighborhoods to restore order."

The notion that the rebels in Barrancabermeja have been responsible for more
killings than the paramilitaries contradicts all available evidence. A
recent dispatch from Inter Press Service (1/15/01) reported that "one of the
top complaints of human rights groups in the [Barrancabermeja] area is that
a leading cause of violence is the attitude of the armed forces, which have
facilitated-- by inaction or omission-- the advance of the paramilitaries,
who are responsible for 80 percent of the massacres perpetrated in and
around the city, according to several reports."

In fact, less than a month before Forero's dispatch, an article (12/26/00)
on the New York Times' own op-ed page by Senator Paul Wellstone, who had
just returned from a visit to the town, reported that "this year so far,
violence in Barranca has killed at least 410 people. According to local
human rights groups, most of those killed were the victims of right-wing
paramilitary death squads."

Nationwide, Human Rights Watch reported that "paramilitary groups are
considered responsible for at least 78 percent of the human rights
violations recorded in the six months from October 1999" (annual report,
2001).

Some historical perspective is needed, too: Members of the New Granada
battalion were implicated in a grisly massacre in Barrancabermeja on May 16,
1998. It is alleged that nine soldiers waved paramilitary vehicles through
an army checkpoint in advance of and after the attack on civilians (see
Washington Post, 8/13/98; Amnesty International, 5/99). That sort of
relationship between the military and paramilitaries is at the center of the
objections raised by countless human rights groups to the U.S. aid to
Colombia.

"Instead of mass killings," Forero's January 22 article reported, "the
paramilitaries have, for the most part, been selectively killing rebels.
Instead of terrorizing residents, the paramilitaries are paying handsomely
to rent houses in battleground neighborhoods, as well as for supplies and
information that can be used against the rebels."

The assertion that the paramilitaries are "selectively" killing rebels flies
in the face of all credible evidence from journalists and human rights
observers in Colombia. About two weeks before Forero's article was printed,
paramilitaries were suspected of killing 20 civilians in northern Colombia
in a matter of days, including eight in Barrancabermeja  (Agence France
Presse, 1/10/01).

Forero's claim that the death squads are renting houses instead of
terrorizing residents is also dubious. In a January 26 action alert, Amnesty
International reported a January 20 paramilitary raid in Barrancabermeja.
The death squads "reportedly held the local population at gunpoint and told
them:  'We have come to stay. We are creating employment... and anyone who
doesn't want to work for us, simply won't be forced to,  but will be
killed.'" The reported raid took place one day before Forero wrote his
article. Other human rights monitors have reported similar threats against
trade unionists and other civilians.

The Times' distortions come in the midst of an almost surreal silence about
Colombia from much of the mainstream press. None of the network news
broadcasts did a single story on the war in the month of January, though
ABC's Peter Jennings did find time for a light-hearted piece about the
"crazy" hijinks of a British man who was kidnapped by guerrillas while
visiting Colombia in search of rare orchids (ABC World News Tonight,
2/8/01).

Not all media outlets have done such a poor job of informing the public. The
Washington Post, for instance, ran an excellent account (1/28/01) of the
AUC's January 17 massacre of two dozen civillians at Chengue, interviewing
survivors who had fled the village. The Post raised important questions the
New York Times has chosen to ignore, such as why the Colombian security
forces took no action to prevent a massacre they had been warned about, and
why their intelligence apparatus was apparently unable to either intercept
radio traffic in the area (a tactic they have used against the guerrillas)
or respond to the massacre in a timely fashion.

Readers of the New York Times, however, would be hard-pressed to know that
anything had happened at all.


ACTION: Call on the New York Times to investigate stories of paramilitary
massacres. Encourage the Washington Post to print more of its in-depth
reporting on the situation. Given the level of U.S. military aid dedicated
to Colombia, American citizens deserve a full accounting of the human rights
situation there.

CONTACT:
New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036-3959
mailto:nytnews at nytimes.com
Toll free comment line: 1-888-NYT-NEWS


Washington Post
Foreign Desk
mailto:foreign at washpost.com


Read the Washington Post's "Chronicle of a Massacre Foretold" at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56760-2001Jan27.html

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