I found the article about Medellin heartening, uplifting and inspiring. But while I read and rejoiced, a little nagging voice kept asking how this jives with Uribe's repressive government and the current drive to pass a Free Trade Agreement during a lame duck session. What's good for business and tourism isn't always good for people. Uribe has the worst record in Latin America for unionist killings. To bring down those numbers, family members of unionists have now been targeted instead. It looks good on paper but the reality is even more harsh.

Likewise, "economic gains" aren't always gains in self-sufficiency. In other countries like Peru, when the economic gains were broken down, they were shown to create more disparity between relatively well-off urban dwellers at the expense of indigenous highland residents. The rural poor create the "new wealth" through farming and mining, which is exported for money, which is used by the city-resident landowners to buy services and imported goods. The cycle is one that first suctions up the real wealth - food and goods - from the poor, sells them to the highest global bidder, and trickles the money back down. But it never reaches those who created it in the first place.

In Colombia also, indigenous communities are being brutally evicted from lands they hold title to, which is given to "rehabilitate" ex-paramilitaries on palm oil plantations. This increases economic growth and gives those who've committed violent atrocities some "green" retraining growing biofuels. After they've done one last job...

If Medellin is able to do all this without interference from the government, the cynic in me says that it serves their interest. While the rest of Latin America is "the most exciting place in the world," as Chomsky begins his recent article, I wonder if Medellin is Disneyland South - a show piece built on exploitation, cranking out "a small world after all" a little too shrilly.

Tereza at retrometro.com