From: "Chris Adams" <cadams@acucobol.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 02:37:47 +0800
To: "jimbell@pacifier.com>
Subject: Re: Internet plug pulled on Colombia's guerrillas
Message-ID: <199609301422.HAA28798@acucobol.acucobol.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Fri, 27 Sep 1996 14:33:42 -0800, jim bell wrote:

>>The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which
>>has periodically paralyzed half the country with road blocks,
>>found its route to the information superhighway barred. 
>>
>>The Communist insurgents, who rose up in arms in 1964,
>>embraced new technology last year in their fight to overthrow the
>>government by launching a home page on the Internet. 
>
>I couldn't resist smiling when I read this.  Not that I want their access 
>cut; quite the opposite.  But it is REALLY reassuring to see the authorities 
>behave in exactly the fashion you expect them to!  Attempting to cut off 
>dissenting political voices IRL is de rigeur; now, this shows that they 
>believe "threat" to the government posed by allowing others to voice 
>contrary opinions on the 'net is real.

It's particularly funny when you consider that the main justification for
suppression is that insurgents (or rebels or freedom fighters or ...) kill
people. Something along the lines of "We don't suppress unpopular views;
we're just protecting our citizens".   Now, it seems to me that that having a
web page is a decidely non-lethal thing. <g>  OTOH, it's probably more
effective at getting the outside world to find out what's happening.  Draw
your own conclusions.

# Chris Adams <cadams@acucobol.com>
# <adamsc@io-online.com> |  http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp