[Marxism] Betancourt's halo [SIC] under spotlight

[nchamah miller]

The conversations centred on Ingrid Betancourt and the three
“contractors” who could to all extents and purposes be members of a
secret  Jesuit sect or other powerful political/civilian organizations
is missing the point.  Yes, Betancourt has her eyes on the presidency
of  Colombia, and always has had.  Actually she ended up being a
hostage because as a presidential candidate she had made up her mind
that she would enter territories controlled by the insurgency despite
being warned not to enter these spaces.  And,  contrary to all warning
she decided to travel there in the company of her assistant Clara
Rojas.

Once captured Ingrid, her crew and posse continued her presidential
campaign and worked to have her name remain on the ballot, but in
order to do so they used Clara Rojas' name who they entered as running
mate.  This was an astute move on the part of Betancourt because Clara
Rojas comes from a family of homestead holders who had moved to the
city on account of the violence and assured coverage among members of
the liberal party who were disaffected with the lack of action by the
Government to get political prisoners of the insurgency liberated.  It
is hard to know to what degree Clara was consulted on this but my
guess is that she was not because her actions once released have been
those putting some distance between herself and Ingrid.

Recall that both women were released the same day although the press
completely has disregarded Rojas.   Perhaps this is due to the fact
that Rojas had a son with a guerrillero and has a different account of
her captivity.

The fact that Betancourt has managed to become the centre of
attention, which is quite in line with her political ambitions, has
not fooled anyone in Colombia.  There is also no doubt that her
fortitude allowed her to make the best of exceptional circumstances,
but she was not alone in doing so, and the fact that the other
captives have strong criticisms against her proves that even in these
circumstances she was playing the centre against the sides. Also
Betancourt denounced the Americans as  being members of the CIA so
that she could get better treatment from the guerrillas and this is
an  action which is hard for her to justify, and which exposes her as
a pragmatist who now changes political sides again and as focuses  her
sights on the Presidency of Colombia and vies a Nobel prize for peace.

For those interested in the circumstances and consequences of
political prisoners in the jungle of Colombia the accounts of Clara
Rojas and the Governor of Meta Alan Jara, (recently released
unilaterally by the FARC) and whose account  greatly contradict some
of the statements made by Betancourt  and the three American
“contractors”.

nchamah


On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 4:52 AM, Ruthless Critic of All that Exists
<ok.president+nbsy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 3:43 AM,  <Jscotlive at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> Attempting to explain the lack of advance or success of the FARC as a
>> consequence of tactics is to miss the point that they are acting in a position  of
>> weakness not strength. Material conditions of struggle determine actions, not
>> the other way around.
>
> This is vulgar, reductive materialism. Material conditions do
> constrain the field of choices, but they are never "deterministic" in
> the sense you think they are, as if humans were zombies without any
> agency, dancing to the puppet strings pulled by "material forces".
>
> Using your logic, every poor strategic choice that leftists make,
> could be retrospectively explained away as somehow inevitable and
> materially "determined". This is verily the "materialism of fools".
>
> ________________________________________________
> YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> Send list submissions to: Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu
> Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/nchamah%40gmail.com
>