domingo, 30 de agosto de 2009
Landmines in Colombia
Cheap and lethal
Aug 27th 2009 | BOQUERÓN
From The Economist print edition
The FARC flouts the Ottawa treaty
A SINGLE footpath connects the tiny village of Boquerón, in Colombia’s Antioquia department, to the nearest town, but for more than four years few have dared tread it. Over that period 15 civilians, including three children, and 45 soldiers have been injured by scores of home-made landmines laid along some three miles (5.5 kilometres) of the trail by the leftist guerrillas of the FARC. Across 60% of Colombia’s municipal districts this gruesome story is repeated. Since 2000 more than 7,000 people have fallen victim to landmines, according to the Ministry of Defence. Most of them were planted by the FARC and some by a second guerrilla group or right-wing paramilitary gangs.
The problem is getting worse. In an intercepted e-mail, Alfonso Cano, the FARC’s commander, last year ordered his fighters to sow more mine fields to halt army offensives “since we know it’s the only factor that stops and intimidates them.” This is borne out by testimony from FARC deserters
Most of the victims are indeed soldiers. Half of the army’s battlefield injuries are caused by mines. Four years ago army doctors treated 15 landmine casualties each month; now that figure is 43. Many lose limbs. The mines are made cheaply from fertiliser, syringes and building materials and can be detonated by pressure devices such as tripwires, or by remote control using radio frequencies or mobile-phone signals. The FARC perfected their manufacture after receiving training from former members of the IRA, according to General Freddy Padilla, the armed forces’ commander.
Luis Fernando Garrido, a FARC deserter, says that the mines are not deliberately aimed at civilians. But he adds that mines will be planted on civilian footpaths or roads when these are used by troops. They are also used to protect coca crops from government eradicators. The army has set up six demining platoons, but these are not keeping pace with the problem. The government is considering contracting out some mine-clearing to civilian groups next year.
Colombia is a signatory to the Ottawa treaty banning landmines. In November it will host the treaty’s second review conference. But the FARC recognises no such moral and humanitarian constraints on its war against Colombia’s armed forces and its democracy. It is sowing Colombia with a lethal problem that will take decades to clear.
Minas quiebra pata en Colombia
BARATO Y LETAL
Las FARC desechan tratado de Ottawa
En un pequeño camino que conecta a la pequeña provincia de El Boquerón (Antioquia) con su población más cercana, han salido 15 civiles heridos, incluidos tres niños y 45 soldados también heridos por las minas quiebra pata de fabricación casera. Este es un problema que lleva 4 años pero en todo Colombia es algo que ocurre hace mucho tiempo.
Según el Ministerio de Defensa, desde el año 2000 hasta acá, mas de 7.000 personas han caído victimas de estas minas terrestres, las cuales han sido plantadas en su gran mayoría por las FARC o también han sido plantadas por grupos paramilitares.
El problema crece cada día más, ya que en un mail interceptado a Alfonso Cano, el comandante de la guerrilla, se evidencia la intención de plantar mas minas, ya que este es el único factor que detiene al ejército.
La mitad de las heridas causadas en la guerra en Colombia, son gracias a estas minas, las cuales son fabricadas con fertilizantes, jeringas y materiales de construcción. Las minas explotan por presión o por activación automática por medio de un celular.
El general de las fuerzas militares de Colombia, Freddy Padilla, afirma que las FARC perfeccionaron esta técnica después de que la banda terrorista española IRA entrenó a la guerrilla.
El congreso de Ottawa es el encargado de la prohibición de la plantación de este tipo de minas, pero mirando las cifras que muestran las fuerzas armadas y el gobierno, se podría decir que este letal problema va a poder ser erradicado pero en decadas.
Cheap and lethal
Aug 27th 2009 | BOQUERÓN
From The Economist print edition
The FARC flouts the Ottawa treaty
A SINGLE footpath connects the tiny village of Boquerón, in Colombia’s Antioquia department, to the nearest town, but for more than four years few have dared tread it. Over that period 15 civilians, including three children, and 45 soldiers have been injured by scores of home-made landmines laid along some three miles (5.5 kilometres) of the trail by the leftist guerrillas of the FARC. Across 60% of Colombia’s municipal districts this gruesome story is repeated. Since 2000 more than 7,000 people have fallen victim to landmines, according to the Ministry of Defence. Most of them were planted by the FARC and some by a second guerrilla group or right-wing paramilitary gangs.
The problem is getting worse. In an intercepted e-mail, Alfonso Cano, the FARC’s commander, last year ordered his fighters to sow more mine fields to halt army offensives “since we know it’s the only factor that stops and intimidates them.” This is borne out by testimony from FARC deserters
Most of the victims are indeed soldiers. Half of the army’s battlefield injuries are caused by mines. Four years ago army doctors treated 15 landmine casualties each month; now that figure is 43. Many lose limbs. The mines are made cheaply from fertiliser, syringes and building materials and can be detonated by pressure devices such as tripwires, or by remote control using radio frequencies or mobile-phone signals. The FARC perfected their manufacture after receiving training from former members of the IRA, according to General Freddy Padilla, the armed forces’ commander.
Luis Fernando Garrido, a FARC deserter, says that the mines are not deliberately aimed at civilians. But he adds that mines will be planted on civilian footpaths or roads when these are used by troops. They are also used to protect coca crops from government eradicators. The army has set up six demining platoons, but these are not keeping pace with the problem. The government is considering contracting out some mine-clearing to civilian groups next year.
Colombia is a signatory to the Ottawa treaty banning landmines. In November it will host the treaty’s second review conference. But the FARC recognises no such moral and humanitarian constraints on its war against Colombia’s armed forces and its democracy. It is sowing Colombia with a lethal problem that will take decades to clear.
Minas quiebra pata en Colombia
BARATO Y LETAL
Las FARC desechan tratado de Ottawa
En un pequeño camino que conecta a la pequeña provincia de El Boquerón (Antioquia) con su población más cercana, han salido 15 civiles heridos, incluidos tres niños y 45 soldados también heridos por las minas quiebra pata de fabricación casera. Este es un problema que lleva 4 años pero en todo Colombia es algo que ocurre hace mucho tiempo.
Según el Ministerio de Defensa, desde el año 2000 hasta acá, mas de 7.000 personas han caído victimas de estas minas terrestres, las cuales han sido plantadas en su gran mayoría por las FARC o también han sido plantadas por grupos paramilitares.
El problema crece cada día más, ya que en un mail interceptado a Alfonso Cano, el comandante de la guerrilla, se evidencia la intención de plantar mas minas, ya que este es el único factor que detiene al ejército.
La mitad de las heridas causadas en la guerra en Colombia, son gracias a estas minas, las cuales son fabricadas con fertilizantes, jeringas y materiales de construcción. Las minas explotan por presión o por activación automática por medio de un celular.
El general de las fuerzas militares de Colombia, Freddy Padilla, afirma que las FARC perfeccionaron esta técnica después de que la banda terrorista española IRA entrenó a la guerrilla.
El congreso de Ottawa es el encargado de la prohibición de la plantación de este tipo de minas, pero mirando las cifras que muestran las fuerzas armadas y el gobierno, se podría decir que este letal problema va a poder ser erradicado pero en decadas.
Political will is scarcer than food
A national shame
Aug 27th 2009 | JOCOTÁN
From The Economist print edition
Not Africa, this is Guatemala
IT IS hardly one of Latin America’s poorest countries, but according to Unicef almost half of Guatemala’s children are chronically malnourished—the sixth-worst performance in the world. In parts of rural Guatemala, where the population is overwhelmingly of Mayan descent, the incidence of child malnutrition reaches 80%. A diet of little more than tortillas does permanent damage.
This chronic problem has become acute. Higher world prices for food have coincided with a recession-induced fall in money sent back from Guatemalans working in the United States (remittances equal 12% of Guatemala’s GDP). Drought in eastern Guatemala has made things worse still. Many families can scarcely afford beans, an important source of protein, and must sell eggs from their hens rather than feed them to their children.
The government and aid donors are providing emergency food supplies for 300,000 people scattered in some 700 villages. Up to 400,000 more may need help. In Jocotán, in the east, rehabilitation centres have admitted dozens of children who are so malnourished that their black hair has turned blond, their faces are chubby from fluid build-up as their organs fail, the veins in their legs become a visible black spider-web and their face muscles are too weak to smile.
What makes this even more distressing is that Guatemala is rich enough to prevent it. Other Latin American countries, such as Bolivia, Peru and Brazil, have reduced child hunger. Yet according to Unicef, the incidence of stunting—a common indicator of chronic malnutrition—in Guatemala is twice what it is in Haiti, where income per head is only a quarter as high. Stunting is not genetic: a study by the World Bank found that Mayans in southern Mexico are taller than those over the border.
That points to a failure of government in Guatemala. The Mayan population were the main victims of a long-running civil war between military dictatorships and left-wing guerrillas. Although democracy came, and eventually peace, social conditions have been slow to improve. Income inequality remains extreme, even by Latin American standards. Two-thirds of the rural population remains poor. Guatemala came second to bottom of a new index measuring inequality of opportunity in Latin America published by the World Bank last year. Whereas Guatemala City has shiny shopping malls, gated mansions and trendy restaurants, many indigenous Guatemalans scratch an inadequate living as sharecropping subsistence farmers. “These people were totally abandoned in the mountains with no infrastructure, no education, no health,” says Rafael Espada, the vice-president.
Much research shows that children who are undernourished tend to suffer from learning difficulties and end up poorer. So proper feeding is the first step in breaking the cycle of poverty. But schooling is vital too. Guatemala lags behind in educating girls in particular. As a result, mothers may not prepare corn-soya feeding supplements correctly, and may share them among all their children rather than favouring the malnourished.
The government fails to collect enough taxes from wealthier Guatemalans to provide good schools and health care for the majority, let alone the kind of targeted cash-transfer programme that has helped to cut poverty in Mexico, Brazil and elsewhere in the region. But urban Guatemalans are more worried about rampant crime, much of it by drug gangs. The government, like its predecessor, is full of good intentions. But several attempts at tax reform over the past decade have foundered in the face of entrenched political resistance. So malnutrition looks set to continue in a country in which it ought to be a cause of national shame.
martes, 18 de agosto de 2009
Recomendado De la Feria del libro!
“El poder y El delirio” de Enrique Krauze
Este libro cuenta de forma ensayística la historia y la evolución del pueblo venezolano, planteándolo desde dos puntos que plantea el autor, primero hablando acerca de Hugo Chavéz , quién es éste personaje para su país, y según sus acciones por qué camino ha llevado a su pueblo y bajo qué regímenes. Lo explica a partir de crónicas entrevistas, análisis, reflexión histórica, entre otros.
Este libro se escogió ya que es un libro que analiza desde puntos de vista muy interesantes la política y la sociedad venezolana, lo que permite aclarar y dar hipótesis acerca del conflicto actual que se está desatando entre Venezuela y Colombia. Se convierte en una herramienta del ciudadano latinoamericano para comprender las ideas y en general al gobierno venezolano a través de los ojos de Hugo Chávez.
Este libro cuenta de forma ensayística la historia y la evolución del pueblo venezolano, planteándolo desde dos puntos que plantea el autor, primero hablando acerca de Hugo Chavéz , quién es éste personaje para su país, y según sus acciones por qué camino ha llevado a su pueblo y bajo qué regímenes. Lo explica a partir de crónicas entrevistas, análisis, reflexión histórica, entre otros.
Este libro se escogió ya que es un libro que analiza desde puntos de vista muy interesantes la política y la sociedad venezolana, lo que permite aclarar y dar hipótesis acerca del conflicto actual que se está desatando entre Venezuela y Colombia. Se convierte en una herramienta del ciudadano latinoamericano para comprender las ideas y en general al gobierno venezolano a través de los ojos de Hugo Chávez.
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