Violence in Colombia does not depend on ethnic or religious hatreds. There is no Milosevic-like figure driving the country to destruction and most Colombians under the political rule of the government or the guerrillas have little interest in defending either. There is little chance that Colombia's guerrilla-government struggle will spill over its borders. Handelman argues that the "link between narcotics smugglers and political groups" is at the root of the current crisis. But that tie is merely a symptom. Beginning more than a decade ago, U.S. policy in Colombia and in Latin America made privatizations of business and open economies the core of its hemispheric policy. [continues 189 words]
In his analysis of the escalation of violence in Colombia and Canada's interest in that crisis, Stephen Handelman misses the essence of the problem (Drugs and politics are a lethal mix in Colombia, Opinion page, Aug. 3). In asking us to contemplate a "Balkanization of Colombia," he draws us away from the three key factors that have transformed persistent low-intensity civil war since the late 1940s into the nation's worst crisis of the century - -- neo-liberal economic policies, their impact on Colombian society and the associated breakdown of the boundaries that separated legal business from the illicit drug trade and organized crime more generally. [continues 304 words]
