The Gold Behind The Green

CNN-IBN, a leading TV channel in India recently carried this story about young children being recruited into the communist guerilla army in Colombia.

Read story and watch video here

As an Indian living in Bogota, I feel compelled to respond to this story.

This video definitely has the dirtiest shade of grey to it, reality usually has that shade. More importantly, this is not an isolated story. Dozens of guerilla groups operate from within the dense jungles of the North and till date, continue to extort, kidnap, pillage, rape and harvest (yes, cocaine). That they are protecting the country from the right-wing, is a fallacy. What started as a genuine ideological rebellion decades ago by the guerillas turned into a seperatist movement and then to a time today .. where their only motive is to instill a fear in the people of Colombia and thus send out a signal to the forces - that they exist. And of course, to flourish their illicit but extremely lucrative harvest. Drug money can fund global wars, maintaining an army uses up their small change.

Coutries around Latin America in general (and El Salvador in specific) have lost their children to similar guerilla movements. Young children are to them what young children are to the world - fearless, idealistic. Not to mention .. physically fit enough to assemble and fire an AK-47 and naive enough to look beyond the mortal view of death.

The 'third wave' guerillas are a menace to Colombia and a menace to mankind. I say mankind because it is said that more than 50% of narco movement across the world can be routed back to guerilla owned plantations in Colombia. They grow the damn Coke, they therefore perpetuate absolutely every crime associated with it.

BUT, this is not the point of my response really. It pains many many Colombians (like it pains some foreigners who live here) that this is the ONLY story the world knows of Colombia.

I've only spent three months here, but I've felt as safe in Colombia as I have in my own country. Come to think of it, any city in India could very easily feel as safe or as dangerous as any other city in the world that you could dream of, or dread!

I know people here whose parents, relatives and friends have been kidnapped and .. killed. Recently, a friend's younger brother was kidnapped .. exactly 6 years after his father was. It has been confirmed that both of them are alive and are being well taken care of, but the family might never seen them again.

Shocking.

Now .. There is a little town in Andhra Pradesh (a state in Southern India) called Nalgonda, where an elaborate seperatist rebellion has been in motion for years. The Naxalites in this town can boast of crimes far more attrocious. I was in Nalgonda when I was 12 years old, and I saw with my very own eyes a man running a constable down and murdering him. A friend of my brother saw his father being shot at and killed in the same town. Women (especially foreigners) feel no safer in Delhi and Mumbai than I do, walking alone through an unguarded Colombian forest. Same danger, different demons.

This is a TINY sample of the India we don't like to talk about.

But it would pain, frustrate and throw us into denial mode if this was the only India that the world knew. Thankfully we have the IT companies, the BSE and Bollywood to account for stories more newsworthy in the international domain.

So, consider this of Colombia ..

1. The President of Colombia, Sr. Alvaro Uribe has single handedly scripted what can possibly be viewed as the most dramatic socio-political turnaround in the history of the world and it's great democracies. This democracy is over 150 years old and has been ridden with corruption and guerilla effected terror. In the last 4 years, he has re-integrated tens of thousands of terrorists into mainstream society, reduced the number of coca hectares by half and given 44 million people a freedom they never knew existed .. the freedom to drive a car 10 hours any direction in the country. He has had his fair share of critics, but I am not aware of an elected head of state who enjoys the support of his country a) from across it's social strata and b) FOR THE RIGHT REASONS. The World could learn from this democracy.

2. The country of Colombia is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. The fact that is has the highest per-capita bio-diversity in the world is more than just a fact. Snow-capped mountain ranges, deserts, beaches, rainforests, volcanoes .. really, its a sight to see! It is a magnificent country and happiness is a way of life here.

Do watch this video before reading further ..



The world could cut this country some slack. Colombians find it really hard to get visas to travel (Indians have it easier in comparison!) and the country is generally perceived as being full of drug addicts and sand & thorn landscapes (think Blow and Mr.&Mrs. Smith, 2 decent movies no doubt.)

It is a beautiful country with a fabulous heritage and history. It's people are amongst the happiest and the most hospitable you will find. In Colombia live some of the hottest women on the planet :) and no, Colombians can't buy cocaine at the local department store (people wonder if Indians were taught the Kamasutra at school)

I come to my point, finally! ...

I don't really intend for this story to highlight what I dislike about my own country or why I think Colombia is so cool. I am proud to be an Indian and want to spend the most part of my productive life there and really, I am in Colombia for only a year.

This story is really an attempt to highlight how people's perceptions of a country, of a culture, of a religion or of an individual are fashioned not by what they know, but by what they don't.