Review by Choice Review
Hristov (Phd candidate, sociology, York Univ., Canada) portrays Colombia as a country with a democratic facade that obscures a reality of severe human rights abuse and a president tainted by connections with right-wing death squads (i.e., paramilitary organizations) and drug traffickers. She claims that the paramilitary has infiltrated government "at all levels" by financing the campaigns of politicians, manipulating elections, and intimidating and corrupting government authorities. She also implicates the US in Colombia's human rights abuses through its involvement with Colombian military forces in anti-drug and anti-terrorism campaigns. Hristov argues that paramilitary forces often portray themselves as self-defense units against leftist guerrilla violence, but have mainly pursued their own private wealth, often working with large landowners and other powerful groups against the rural poor and against social movements that organize to protest the growing gap between rich and poor. She claims that the only way to promote positive change and create an actual democracy in Colombia is to challenge and transform the neoliberal socioeconomic system that favors the interests of the few against the interests of the many. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. S. L. Rozman Tougaloo College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
