Spot on

This from http://www.wsws.org/ a top left wing counter balance the the MSM lie machine - a propo the Betancourt liberation/ransom pay off, "Nor, it should be noted, have the many hundreds of political prisoners languishing in Colombian jails or abducted by the right-wing paramilitary organizations that are intimately tied to the government and the armed forces, received any similar attention. Their social backgrounds are generally quite dissimilar from that of the French-educated Ingrid Betancourt, the daughter of a former government minister and product of the Colombian oligarchy."

One of the many irritating features of this story is just that. Thousands of civil right activists, trades unionists and dissenters that have been rotting in jail unjustly held in inhumane conditions continue to be ignored in this orgy of self-congratualtion and empty spectacle. The hurrahdom should boost Sarko's opinion poll ratings by a point or two for a while but it has left the whole politico-media machine looking desperate and fake.

The wsws article reamarks,

"Between 2002 and 2007, human rights groups documented the extrajudicial killing of nearly 1,000 civilians by the country’s military, as well as another 3,500 murders and disappearances carried out by the right-wing paramilitary units—routinely operating with military support. It was in December 2002 that the Colombian government concluded a ceasefire agreement with the paramilitaries, essentially exonerating them for their crimes, which accounted for the bulk of civilian casualties in the country’s protracted civil war. Nonetheless, the assassinations and massacres have continued."

Think about that next time you see Sarko, Betancourt and Vilepan [sic] kneeling and thanking god.