by Garry Leech
An article by Juan Forero published last week in the Washington Post reflects the approach commonly used by most mainstream media correspondents covering the war on drugs and the armed conflict in Colombia. This modus operandi involves a journalist briefly visiting a rural region—often on a press junket organized by the Colombian government or U.S. embassy—and being spoon-fed a story by the authorities. Inevitably, the official perspective dominates the resulting article, which ends up being little more than a public relations piece promoting the policies of the U.S. and Colombian governments.
Forero’s article about a recent shift in strategy in the U.S. war on drugs in Colombia clearly fits this pattern. As a result, his findings contrast dramatically to those revealed in my recent investigation of the same counternarcotics project in eastern Colombia.
In his article Colombian Farmers Get Broad Incentives to Forgo Coca Crops, Forero describes how the U.S.-backed Colombian government has launched a pilot project in the department of Meta that seeks to shift efforts to eradicate coca away from failed aerial fumigations and towards manual eradication as part of a more comprehensive approach that includes establishing a permanent state presence in areas long-neglected by the national government. It is an approach that critics of Plan Colombia have been demanding for many years. However, Forero’s portrayal of the new strategy is seriously flawed due to his over-reliance on official sources.
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