Posted on 12/01/2003 2:18:42 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Colombian rebels who kidnapped seven foreign backpackers in September have hailed it as a propaganda victory and said they aim to free their remaining five young hostages soon.
"This has been one of the best political operations we have carried out for years in the northern coast of Colombia," said Dairo Martinez, a local commander of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, in an interview with Reuters in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
His face covered by a red-and-black ELN bandanna, Martinez spoke to Reuters on Monday, soon after rebels freed Reinhilt Weigel, who is German, and Spaniard Asier Huegun. Because of the remote location, the interview could not be released until Friday.
The Cuban-inspired rebels kidnapped eight backpackers they snatched at Indian ruins on Sept. 12, and demanded a humanitarian commission investigate what they said was a blockade by far-right gunmen in the Sierra Nevada.
After talks with the government mediated by the Roman Catholic Church, a commission made up of clergy, human rights officials and the United Nations visited the Sierra Nevada last weekend.
The ELN are still holding Englishman Mark Henderson and Israelis Benny Daniel, Ido Guy, Erez Altawil and Orpaz Ohayon.
"To the families of those who are still detained, they should relax. The ELN is extremely responsible, we respect human rights and the moment we get the order, they will be freed," said Martinez.
He said the ELN was happy with the commission's work so far but wanted to see what practical steps are taken to improve the situation in the Sierra Nevada before releasing the other five.
Asked whether the hostages would be freed this year -- as a member of the commission said the rebels had told him -- Martinez responded:
"Our desire ... is that they also obtain their freedom."
The government has called on the 5,000-strong ELN, which is Colombia's second-largest Marxist rebel army and has been fighting for 40 years, to lay down its arms and begin peace talks. Analysts say the organization, which funds itself by kidnapping hundreds of people a year for ransom, is split between a pro-talks faction and those opposed to them.
Try to imagine being an émigré from the Soviet Union, as I am, and keeping company with left-wing Canadian "intellectuals" who think they are oppressed. Picture coming from a society where a myriad of your relatives simply disappeared; where this relative or that family friend died under interrogation and torture for his or her beliefs--or for simply nothing at all. Think about Alexander Solzhenitsyn's account of the tortures that the Stalinist machinery inflicted for the objective of extracting "confessions." These tortures typically included lying a man naked on the floor, forcing his legs apart, and then an interrogator stepping on his testicles, applying increasing pressure until the confession surfaced. Keep in mind that many people even then refused to "confess." Then think about the Soviet secret police raping daughters and sons in front of their fathers and mothers--all for the sake of extracting "confessions."
Now visualize me sitting in a graduate studies lounge in Toronto, listening to my colleagues explain to me that communism "isn't really so bad," that the Soviet Union made some "remarkable achievements" and that Western democratic-capitalism is the most oppressive system of all. At the same time, picture my lecturers having absolutely no respect for a free exchange of ideas on this subject.
Both of my grandfathers were exterminated by Stalinist terror. My father and mother both barely escaped the Gulag. But here I am, with PhD students, being treated to a one-hour discussion about "homophobia" on campus. My colleagues are agonizing about how "Homophobia-Free Zone" pink stickers must be put on every door in the university. "But what if a professor or a teaching assistant refuses to have one put on his door?" one of them asks indignantly. After a few seconds of silence, another answers, "Well, then a committee might just have to be set up where these people will be taken to account." Serious head-nods follow.
Fascinating. Simply fascinating. The great issues of our time.
The "progressive" graduate students having this conversation take tremendous pride in how "cutting-edge" they are. They see themselves as being at the forefront of social progress; they are able to see things that the rest of us simply can't see. That's because they have been blessed with the "progressive" vision--and are thus the self-designated representatives of "the people." Having put themselves above humanity and human history, they believe that it is their ideas, and their ideas alone, for which the world has been waiting ten thousand years.
And that's why the "Homophobia-Free Zone" pink stickers have to be stuck on every door, on every wall in the university. How else are the utopians going to depersonalize and politicize their own personal problems? How else are they going to camouflage their hatred of human individuals in particular, if they can't profess loudly their love of humanity in general? Sacrificing real human flesh and blood on the altar of ideals is no easy task. It takes shrewd strategizing and commitment.
I remember when my family first moved from Russia, my mom was constantly crying. She was separated from her mother and brother--who were also afraid to engage in correspondence because it was too dangerous for them. Sometimes my mom would cry for what seemed like forever. I will never forget, as a nine-year-old, that feeling in my heart when my mom cried like that. My consolations seemed to soothe her slightly, but I understood well that I could not end her grief.
The Soviet system did that to my mother.
And that's why I am not amused by the politics on campus. I am not humoured by endless discussions of how we are all oppressed because we are being "attacked" by Pepsi commercials. "By trying to tell us that we are not cool if we don't drink Pepsi," a graduate student once laboured to explain to me, "the capitalist machinery practises the politics of exclusion. By trying to pretend it offers us choice, it actually negates choice." Brilliant! And there is no debate permitted on this subject. The anti-capitalist theme is simply just drilled into your head.
My mother's father was executed by the Soviet secret police. He did not have the luxury of being oppressed by Pepsi commercials.
One day, when I was nine years old and living in Halifax, my father and I were on our way to church. As we walked near the entrance, I unthinkingly spat on the ground. In a very serious but patient way, my father said to me: "It is okay to spit outside of KGB headquarters, but never in front of a place such as this." I never did it again. I was very wrong that day, because I had ignorantly spat on holy ground.
But there is another environment where it is perfectly appropriate, namely on today's politically correct campus. And there are certain individuals--the most spoiled and self-centred people I have ever met--who remind me of the scum who fostered the Soviet experiment, and who promote the same ideas that gave us the Soviet Gulag, Mao's Cultural Revolution and Pol Pot's killing fields. Working fervently to destroy their own society, they praise other societies--such as the one that caused my mother's ocean of tears. They are our left-wing intellectuals. I spit in their faces.
Jamie Glazov is a Toronto writer with a PhD in history
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