Hopes that ongoing peace talks in Cuba were about to bring Colombia’s half-century civil war to an end seem to be fading fast, after FARC rebels killed 19 soldiers in two regions and captured a former US Marine.
Now Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos says that he is sending the army to launch a “strong offensive” against FARC to prove that they have the military forces to continue to fight the war.
US Ambassador Michael McKinley says that the captured American, Kevin Sutay, is not active military and entered Colombia’s military hot zone as a “private citizen,” urging rebels to release him. FARC described Sutay as a “mercenary.”
The Red Cross is in talks with FARC about securing Sutay’s release, but the bizarre circumstances of his capture, he was found wandering alone in a rebel-filled jungle in the nation’s southeast, are likely to fuel a lot of speculation.
The US has been eagerly backing Colombia against FARC, and while indications are that Sutay was not a member of the US force deployed to Colombia, his capture certainly complicates matters.
What a fool. And not only for going into a FARC stronghold but also for believing that his survival skills would be useful everywhere.
The problem in Colombia is that the rich hardly pay any tax at all. President Uribe paid 0.40 %, less than ½ % in tax and he has a lot of land. President Santos and his friends don't pay more than Uribe. As a Colombian told me: Tienen que ser doctores por ser tan tramposos-they've got to be lawyers to cheat that much. Both Uribe and Santos are lawyers. But that's the big problem in Colombia: The rich hardly pay anything.
What's the tax rate for the average Colombian? And on the poor? Regressive taxation is obviously an additional injustice on top of the injustice of any taxation at all.