It is extremely unfortunate that people opt to use the inhumane weapon of terrorism as their instrument to expose their hatred and resistance towards a respected government. History is enough evidence to reveal that terrorism does not accomplish anything. It may ignite talks between a government and its opposition, but in the end the final result is death among death.
 
On the night of Feb. 7, a bomb that contained 350 pounds of explosives, exploded at a private club in Bogotá. Thiry-three people perished and 170 were wounded, but reports indicate that death toll will definitely rise as soon as they remove the debris that is assumed to be burying innocent individuals. What makes this tragedy worse is that teenagers and children were victims of this barbarous act.
 
A recent issue of the Wall Street Journal noted an editorial in a Colombian newspaper stating that the bombing in an urban area of Bogotá was “the harshest blow delivered to the social, economic and political heart of the country.” The editorial also states that in its own proportions, Colombia just experienced their Sept.11 attacks.
 
Obviously, the attacks were a response to Colombia’s recently elected President Alvaro Uribe’s intense campaign to eliminate the guerilla forces that conduct terrorist activity.
 
Journalists from the Los Angeles Times were freed after 11 days of captivity. The notion of kidnapping journalists is common in Colombia, however what made this story different was that they were foreign journalists, an American photographer and a British native photographer.
 
Tt states that the commander of the guerilla group that kidnapped the journalists freed them as a gesture of “respect to the press and liberty of all human beings.” How ironic are the commander’s words?  Only in the year 2000, 11 journalists were killed because of their profession, and several others were kidnapped and then released under the condition that they would flee Colombia or else suffer the punishment of death. The deaths are orchestrated by various types of bombs or by bullets.
 
Bush constantly reiterates that we are in a state of war versus the evils of terrorism. However, does the war on terrorism entail terrorism that exists in Colombia, Russia and northern Spain? Or does Bush specifically refer to the terrorism that is administered by Muslim groups such as Al-Qaeda.
 
Presently, Colombia is experiencing a civil war between the guerillas, paramilitary groups, military and drug cartels. Terrorism appears to be the favorite weapon of drug cartels and guerilla groups such in Columbia. The causes of the war are abundant, and many factors lie into why this war continues and the difficulty in establishing peace among the groups that are participating in this civil war that has lasted four decades.
 
I say this with shame, but right now Colombia is considered one of the most dangerous places live. In addition, it is the most dangerous place to work as a journalist. Yet oddly enough, Colombia has found a way to maintain one of the longest-standing democratic political systems in Latin America. But a portion of the democracy has been lost due to the constant terrorism that occurs in Colombia. People in Colombia are being censored because of fear of losing their lives, and to cause more harm to this terrible situation, the terrorism is spilling onto innocent people that are force to endure the vicious behavior of guerilla-terrorist groups.
 
Oscar Montealegre is a journalism major at Cal State Long Beach. He can be reached at oscarmonte80@hotmail.com.

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