Congratulations Mr. Lakemfa for this article. No, Latin America did not slip out of the U.S. hands [domination]. The U.S. abandoned Latin America like it abandoned Vietnam, because it lost the war it was carrying there since 1959 with its puppet dictators and its death squads. The puppet regimes of Jorge Echeveria, Rios Mont, Roberto D'Abushon, Anastasio Somoza, Jorge Videla, Alberto Stroener, Augusto Pinochet, and Alberto Fujimory, to name a few, had committed genocide on their people on behalf of the U.S. And as the Greek historian Herodotus said 2.500 years ago, "Tyrannical regimes don't last for ever."

The senseless U.S. killing and disappearances of the so called "leftists and revolutionaries" in Latin America sowed a hatred against the U.S. which, in turn, sifted the population heavily toward socialist leaders. The election of socialist labor leader Luis Da Silva in Brazil was the catalyst, because Brazil is not a banana republic - the typical name for small Latin American countries controlled by the U.S. Brazil is geographically bigger than the continental U.S., and therefore a heavyweight in Latin American affairs. And when the big brother -Brazil- moved to the left, it became a notion of choice like it did in Eastern Europe in the 1950's.

The recent tiff between Colombia and Ecuador about the bombing of FARC's base in Ecuador is about cleaning the remaining "leftists and revolutionaries" by the U.S. using Colombia as a front. Nikos Retsos, retired academic

Wow. This article is Marxist propaganda at it's best. As a person from Ecuador I can tell you that this is a simple story of Narco terrorist money and the friends that it can buy. Including the president of my country. Maybe Africans can relate.

Colombians are lucky to have aleader like Uribe who risks his life every day to fight the cancer of criminal elements and power hungry politicians that are seduced by the false glitter. Uribe will go down in history as a great leader. Colombians, who are our brothers love him. He changed the country and stood up to demons. God bless them. May we be so lucky.

Wow, news travels slow in Lagos, war has been called off thanks to Brasil

Owei Lakemfa clearly has never been to Columbia or the neighboring countries.

I suggest Owei go there before writing a story about it. Your article sounds too propagandist. You should really link to a much more informative site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FARC

Although the FARC originally had honorable goals, they have severely degenerated. Copied straight from wikipedia:

"National and international critics characterize the FARC-EP as terrorist. Critics of the FARC-EP say that the group’s methods have discredited its original goals and ideology. The FARC attacks civilians not involved in the conflict [23] , plants land-mines,[24] recruit underage boys and girls (according to the FARC any child over 11 years old is fit to fight[citation needed]), maintains hostages for ransom and political leverage, some of them for as long as 10 years, and is responsible for the displacement of civilians through conflict."

I believe challen has the facts very wrong!!!! he should be the one to better inform hinself about the historical and current situation in Latin America. First of all, Colombia is what is called "a narco-state" the current government has been proven to have connection to the Paramilitaries who were the first to go to the country side killing and and displacing the rural population. Later, they teamed-up with the Drug Lords. The land which was abandoned due to the repression carried out by the paramilitaries was used as centres of cultuvation and production of cocaine. The army and the paramilitaries benefited from this deal as well as the Colombian political elites. It was later on that the Colombian Revolutionary Forces joined in to get their hands on the spoils of the drug trade to finance the war. Mr. Challen should check more informed sources rather than http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FARC. Colombian sources have shown evidence that even the current president has ralatives who have active links with the paramilitaries and the Narco-political elites. The terror tactics of kidnappings were first used by the paramilitaries with the complicity of the army. There are thousand of displaced rural people living on the streets in Bogota and Medellin. The government has never created or implemented a policy to address that social problem, instead the displaced people have become casualties of the so called "war on terrorism" carrie out by the government. Yes I agree that the original political goals of the FARC have been displaced by curruption within the ranks and files of the movement due to the drug trade. Or have you forgotten that Pablo Escobar initially offer the Colombian government to pay the foreign debt? I would voluteer to send you more information about the current situation in Colombian as well as the historical evidence of the Colombian conflicts... Mr. Awei Lakemfa is dead right on the historical evidence>>> Cheers!!