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06/08/2004:

"Torture, Bombings & the Press in Colombia"

All Massacres are not Alike
By PHILLIP CRYAN counterpunch.org

From USA Today to the Washington Times, dozens of U.S. newspapers published reports of a May 22 bombing that killed seven people in a dance hall in Apartado, a municipality in the northwestern province of Antioquia, Colombia.

But not a single one of these papers reported on a massacre that killed 11 peasants two days earlier in Tame, a municipality in the northeastern province of Arauca. The only major English-language news of the carnage amounted to 191 words May 25 from London-based Reuters.

The discrepancy in coverage is not because one attack was more brutal than the other. If anything, the Tame massacre warranted the most attention because more people were killed and the bodies showed signs of torture.

The inconsistency likely stems, rather, from who did the killing and where. The military attributed the Apartado bombing to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest guerrilla group.

But the Tame massacre, by all accounts, was carried out by the Colombian government's paramilitary allies. And it occurred just 30 miles from an oil pipeline used by Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum. The United States is sending $100 million a year in military aid earmarked for protecting that pipeline. Last year, Washington stationed 70 U.S. Special Forces troops in the province to train Colombian soldiers for the effort.
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