Guillermo González Uribe brought a fresh perspective to America’s war on Iraq, along with a perspective on Colombia’s perpetually bloody internal war, to Grainger Hall Tuesday night.
Columbian journalist Uribe, author of “De Los Ninos de la Guerra” (“The Children of War”) and director and writer for the Colombian magazine Numero, spoke to a multilingual audience Tuesday night. Uribe spoke in Spanish to more than half of the audience, and an interpreter spoke to the remaining audience.
Uribe began his speech talking about the beauty of Colombian biodiversity, invoking images of the mountains, Amazonian forests and coasts of the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea. He further explained the diversity of the Colombians themselves, citing 16 indigenous peoples, more than 6 million black people and 40 million Latinos, whites and mulattos.
Uribe then explained that the clash between the country’s people and environment is being exacerbated by a war that has raged for more than 40 years.
“There are 35,000 violent murders each year … with violence and war growing every day,” Uribe said.
After a brief description of the background leading up to the war, Uribe described the three factions grabbing for power: the national government, through which corruption runs rampant; a paramilitary linked to drug dealers; and the guerillas. Both paramilitary and guerilla fighters receive illegal funds and commit political assassinations.
According to Uribe, the United States has a large hold in the Colombian war, with Colombia the third-largest recipient of military aid from the U.S. government, behind Israel and Egypt.
Even though the might of U.S. military technology is on the side of the Colombian state, children and soldiers are still victims for all factions.
“Children of the poor fight for one side or another,” Uribe said. “The elite and elite’s children do not participate.”
Uribe estimated up to 14,000 children are involved in the war.
“Many in war zones who kill and are killed are children,” Uribe said.
Uribe cited this turmoil to help explain his dissatisfaction with the American government in its participation in the war with Iraq. Uribe believes the United States is no longer a republic, but an empire, and that its empirical conquest started with Iraq. To leave no doubt, he bluntly said the reason behind this war is oil.
He claimed the American political system has one dominant party — the Republican Party — with the Democratic Party just a weak and lesser branch.
Uribe said one cause of this could be the breakdown of responsible media.
“The media has abandoned responsible reporting in submission to ratings … giving one side and half-truths,” he said. He also said the current generation is more dependent on the media in forming opinions than previous generations were.
“I thought it was interesting to hear his viewpoint for the future of his own country and not put it into U.S. interests,” Craig Ficenec said after watching the speech. “I thought the most interesting point was that his country is tired of war, and where the U.S. stands right now is that it is just getting started.”
