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<font size=3><b>Another Front in the Conflict: Colombian Government's
Propaganda vs. Indigenous Media Perspectives <br>
</b>Written by Mario A. Murillo <br><br>
<a href="http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1532/1/" eudora="autourl">
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1532/1/<br>
</a>Monday, 20 October 2008 <br><br>
Bogotá, Colombia-A week into the Indigenous and Popular Mobilizations in
Cauca (and the rest of Colombia), and it is fair to say that the
propaganda war is well underway. And so far, it looks like the government
of Alvaro Uribe is winning.<br><br>
On Friday, the President held another press conference stating that they
had “clear evidence” that the mass popular protest in Cauca was being
controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC. The
Commander of the National Police, General Óscar Naranjo, stated
unequivocally that the Sixth Front of FARC was behind the disturbances.
And at the Palacio Nariño, the Minister of Social Protection, Diego
Palacio, stated, with a straight face, “the government continues to
respect social protest and mobilization, as long as it is for civil
causes,” adding that the sugar cane workers strike and the indigenous
mobilizations of the past few days contain the presence of “destabilizing
forces.”<br><br>
These words are echoing throughout the media as I write this, and will
undoubtedly go on for hours on the radio and TV broadcasts, as well as
the websites of RCN and Caracol, the two mega-giants of Colombia’s
mass-commercial media. The government’s claims are also among the top
stories in the front-page of El Tiempo, and other major national and
regional newspapers, and it has almost become conventional wisdom in the
last few days because of the capacity of the Uribe Administration to set
the agenda, present its arguments to domestic journalists with
indignation and authority, and come off as the victim once
again.<br><br>
And the indigenous movement’s demands for justice are set aside as they
face off against the Colombian Army and Police in La Maria, while their
leaders are forced to deny the charges directed against them by those in
authority. Who do you believe?<br><br>
Looking over the last few days of news coverage on some of the major news
sources, the imbalance of perspectives is unbelievable. On Friday alone,
I scoured through over 25 news articles and dispatches on the websites of
RCN, Caracol, El Tiempo, El Liberal and Noticias Uno, the first three
being the media of record in the country, with a massive reach that is
unchallenged, the latter two representing a local newspaper from southern
Colombia, and an independent, national news channel that provides some of
the most comprehensive investigative reporting in all of Colombia.
Naturally, many other media are covering the developments in the south,
and it will take some time to filter through it all.<br><br>
What was most telling of this brief scan of these news media outlets was
the wide array of sources that were cited providing the government’s
perspective, and the very few voices that were cited providing that of
the indigenous movement. President Uribe, General Naranjo, Minister
Palacio, as well as the director of the DAS, Colombia’s equivalent of the
FBI, María del Pilar Hurtado, were quoted repeatedly throughout the
sample, stating again and again how they have exposed this nefarious plan
to topple the Uribe government, manifested in both the sugar cane workers
strike and the indigenous protests.<br><br>
Hurtado was quoted in one report in El Tiempo saying that “the cane
workers strike in Valle del Cauca and Cauca contained the participation
of foreigners who were looking to destabilize the government,” without
providing any names or other evidence. The accusations about the FARC’s
role in the indigenous protests appeared in 19 of the 25 articles I
collected in this limited period, with at least ten not even presenting
the indigenous community’s response (I should point out that as I was
going through these news articles, I had Caracol Radio turned on in my
desk, and over a period of about two hours, the same correspondent
reporting from the Presidential Press conference came on at least four
times, with dramatic soundbites from the President and Minister
Palacio).<br><br>
No doubt, the government’s message was getting out through its
communication channels.<br><br>
On the other hand, the sources used from the indigenous movement were
very limited. The one voice that was heard/quoted again and again was
that of Daniel Piñacué, a Nasa leader from Belalcázar, in Tierradentro,
Cauca, who has a long history in the indigenous movement, but who was not
one of the principal organizers of the mobilization. He was quoted in
several of the articles in this small sample, stating “that the
mobilization will continue,” and that “we will continue to respect the
authorities, while they provoke us.” On several occasions he denied the
accusations about FARC infiltration in the movement, but only after the
case was already made by several of the above-mentioned government
officials.<br><br>
On several reports from RCN Radio we heard the voice of Daniel Piñacué’s
brother, Jesus, one of the most visible indigenous personalities in the
country, having served on the Senate for several terms. Only in one
report, notably on Noticias UNO, did a voice representing the Association
of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca, ACIN, come through in the
coverage, a significant oversight given that ACIN was one of the main
organizations behind the protest. They and CRIC, the Regional Indigenous
Council of Cauca, have been putting out communiqués and reports for weeks
about the march, and have been calling on the government to meet with
them to discuss their demands, but to no avail.<br><br>
Meanwhile, the entire narrative contained within the press coverage of
the past several days remained stuck on the battles unfolding on the Pan
American highway, and who was to blame for the violence. Television
images have shown the army and police using gunfire, which in a sense
refutes the government’s claims that no live fire has been used on the
protesters. But again, commanders on the ground have been given top
priority, presented as the voice of reason against a horde of indigenous
protesters running wild.<br><br>
The coverage has been fundamentally about the violence, while the
underlying reasons for the mobilization have been relegated to the trash
bin of history. The concerns and demands of the popular movement were
made completely irrelevant. It is difficult to imagine that the media
workers covering this story are not even partially aware of the issues
the communities are raising in the protests, but in some of the coverage
the ignorance comes across loud and clear. For example, in one report in
El Tiempo, which to its credit was about the International Federation of
Human Rights’ criticism of Uribe’s handling of the protests, the author
states: “The Indians initiated the encounter last week in commemoration
of 516 years since the discovery of America, what they call the
displacement.”<br><br>
Nowhere in the piece, or in any other articles I tracked in this sample,
were the five points being put forth by the indigenous movement
mentioned, even in passing. If even a fraction of the movement’s
fundamental concerns were made known to the public in the reporting, and
the fact that their main purpose for the mobilization was to start a
dialogue with the government about these concerns, the repressive
response from the government to the protests probably would have been a
lot clearer – and indeed much more intolerable- for the average
viewer.<br><br>
The movement is not remaining silent, but very few media are really
paying close attention to what they’re saying. If one were to read from
the missive the “Popular Minga” released on Thursday, their arguments are
pretty clear and make perfect sense within the current context. For
example, in response to the constant accusations that FARC is behind the
movement, they write: “Let us be clear: If there are Indians involved in
the insurgency, or any other armed group, it is a personal decision of
theirs that goes against our organizational and community
process.”<br><br>
The communiqués and the actions of the movement have always taken a
position of autonomy vis a vis the guerillas. The ACIN and CRIC have
publicly denounced FARC for its incursions into its territories.
Nevertheless, the Uribe government continues to make the unsubstantiated
link in an attempt to avoid any dialogue with the communities. This fact
does not come through in any of the coverage whatsoever, leaving the
audience in a permanent state of being misinformed.<br><br>
Taking it a step further, the indigenous movement is always trying to
make the point about the “dark forces” behind the current regime,
something that the news media consistently overlook. The same government
that accuses the movement of being manipulated by FARC is in many ways
illegitimate in the eyes of the popular movement, as they expressed
clearly in their missive released on Thursday. Perhaps one day we will
see the news media echo these claims as often as they present the charges
of the government against the movement:<br><br>
“The majority of the members of Congress that support the government of
President Uribe, those legislators who have elaborated and approved the
laws that displace us of our rights and our liberties, occupy their
official spaces with the backing of paramilitary groups, and are involved
in the Para-politics scandal currently under investigation. Neither they
nor the laws they have approved have any degree of legitimacy.”<br><br>
The reasons for the protests, which are based on a profound critique, not
only of the current government but of the entire system itself, are not
elaborated on in the media coverage for the obvious reason that it goes
against the interests of those same media, and the political class they
serve. <br><br>
A lot has been written about how the commercial mass information and
cultural industries continue to perpetuate profound myths about Colombian
democracy and society. This is done on several levels, most prominently
in the way reporters, editors, commentators and the like accept the
institutional definitions provided by official sources to frame the
so-called fringes of society. For generations, this marginalization has
also been manifest in the way state institutions have limited the spaces
whereby these dissenting community voices may be heard, although
precisely because of the years of organizing around media and democracy,
this latter approach has been curtailed considerably. Colombia, despite
its very fragile democratic institutions, has a long tradition of
community, citizen's based media projects that consistently challenge the
corporate media.<br><br>
The indigenous communities currently mobilizing throughout the country
around five basic points have their own media channels, and are utilizing
them extensively as the current crisis unfolds. There are 26 indigenous
radio stations around the country licensed as public interests
broadcasters, plus a constellation of other smaller, low-power community
stations broadcasting to local indigenous communities.<br><br>
In the department of Cauca, the indigenous media are perhaps the most
effective and well organized, particularly that of the ACIN, whose
communication network includes one public interest station in Santander
de Quilichao, two community stations – one in Toribio and the other in
Jambaló – a smaller, low-power station in Canoas, plus a video production
team and an elaborate website
(<a href="http://www.nasa_acin.org/">www.nasa_acin.org</a>). The National
Indigenous Organization of Colombia, ONIC, also has its own website,
which includes a virtual radio station, Achi Bedea, which for the last
several days has been streaming the voices of indigenous activists from
every region of the country.<br><br>
These and other indigenous media outlets are linked to the broader
network of national, alternative media, such as IndyMedia-Colombia, SICO,
SIPAZ, La Red de Prensa Alternativa del Sur del País, among many others.
They have been working feverishly in the last week to present an
alternative narrative to the corporate media.<br><br>
In many respects, they have been successful in gathering support on an
international level, and getting NGOs and other human rights groups to
pay attention. I would argue they have not been as successful in getting
progressive and independent media outlets in the U.S. to pay attention.
Unlike developments in Oaxaca a few years ago, which received
considerable coverage by the independent media movement up north, this
latest struggle in Colombia is barely on the radar screen of media such
as Democracy Now!, Pacifica Radio and Alter-Net, media that are
completely caught up with the presidential campaign in the U.S. In this
regard, the alternative media movement and the social sectors they
represent here in Colombia has a long way to go in terms of penetrating
the agenda of like-minded folks in the U.S.<br><br>
The bigger question at the moment is whether or not the indigenous
community and alternative radio stations and media networks in Colombia
can counter-act the damaging effects of the mainstream media’s
overwhelming tendency to give an unfiltered voice to the official
authorities, especially on radio and on television news. It is part of a
pattern that has gone on for many years in the Colombian news media that
is not easy to break.<br><br>
When it comes to coverage and representation of indigenous communities,
the tendency of the mass communication media has been consistent: they
either ignore the communities by making them invisible, clump them all
together in a process of homogenization, thereby negating their diversity
and complexity, or present them as nothing more than passive actors, the
poor, defenseless victims of an unjust system – “el pobre indio.” There
is also the more benevolent yet equally harmful tendency of celebrating
their exotic-ness, embracing the novelty of their different forms of
dressing, their spiritual and healing practices, or their internal
justice system, without really understanding the significance of
each.<br><br>
Meanwhile, when the communities take matters into their own hands in acts
of massive protest and mobilization, as they are currently doing, the
dominant media usually represent these situations as acts of criminality,
emphasizing their tendency to break the law–block highways, occupy
territory “illegally,” etc.–as a way to address their grievances. The
unsubstantiated association with “dark forces of terror,” meaning the
FARC guerillas, becomes the accepted message that is very difficult to
refute for the people directly involved in the confrontations.<br><br>
These faulty patterns of media coverage leave the audience with the
perennial question, why would people behave like this if they can employ
the legitimate instruments of the democratic system to promote their
interests and seek redress from the dominant society? I’ve heard it
repeated by many people here in Colombia, even those one would normally
consider to be enlightened: “Those Indians in Cauca are always looking
for trouble, and they constantly want more.”<br><br>
The current backlash against indigenous organizations that are on the
upswing under the Uribe administration has made it much more difficult
for the movement to put forward its message of social transformation
through peaceful means to the broader public, especially through
mainstream channels. This is connected to the fact that, with very few
exceptions, the Colombian mass media rarely if ever represent the complex
organizational structures of indigenous communities, characterized by
deliberative consensus building, grassroots participation, and leadership
accountability.<br><br>
All of this should not be surprising, given the institutional structures
that have for decades characterized the Colombian media, structures
specifically put in place by very powerful private and state interests
who are naturally threatened by the kinds of issues being raised by the
communities and their allies in the popular movement. I’ll have more on
this in a future post.<br><br>
Mario A. Murillo is associate professor of Communication at Hofstra
University in New York, and the author of Colombia and the United States:
War, Unrest and Destabilization. He is currently living in Colombia,
finishing a book about the indigenous movement and its uses of community
media. <br>
<br><br>
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