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Terrorist Labeling
"Americans should ignore this ignorant labeling."
Listen
to this Commentary!
By Enrique Rivera
Groups in the Middle East aren’t the only ones being labeled terrorists by the U.S. media and government. President Bush also used the word terrorist to describe rebel armies resisting the Colombian government.
I was watching a news piece on a Spanish language channel – an interview with a 14-year old girl in a Colombian rebel army. She said her parents were executed years ago. She had dedicated herself to fighting against the Colombian government so that no other girl would have to go through what she did.
As a young person, this story caught my attention. Columbia is at war against itself, pitting the government’s army against rebel guerrilla armies for control of land and government.
That’s the same way the U.S. gained independence from England. That war is portrayed as the greatest independence movement and the only acceptable one. But I believe that just like the U.S. and Cuban revolutions, the guerrilla movement in Columbia is just. I think the guerilla armies there are rightly fighting for what they believe in.
Americans should ignore this ignorant labeling, and not just swallow the information being spooned to them about who is and isn’t a terrorist.
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