New
Latin
America
Drug
War
Site
Pulls
No
Punches
4/28/00
When Al Giordano left the United States in 1997, he was a veteran reporter fed up with the state of American mass media. After years in the business, including a five-year stint as a radio talk show host in Massachusetts and three years as a political reporter for the Boston Phoenix, he packed his bags and moved South. For two years he learned Spanish and picked up a few indigenous languages. He read the papers. He met with Latin American writers who dare to speak the truth about the devastation the drug war has wrought on their countries -- voices that are threatened daily by their own governments and others, but are utterly muted north of the Border. "Latin American journalists have restored my faith in journalism to a great degree," Giordano, speaking from an undisclosed location in Latin America, told The Week Online. Now Giordano is giving North Americans a chance to see their own faith restored. On April 18 he launched NarcoNews.com, a web site devoted to truth-telling about a subject about which most of us, even the better informed among us, are relatively ignorant. With translations of Latin American news articles, Giordano and his all-volunteer staff offer a glimpse of the perspective of the people who live with the consequences of the US-backed international drug policies. "The Narco News Bulletin was formed because the US public is so badly informed, not only on drug policy, but on a whole host of Latin American issues," Giordano said. "This is largely the US media's fault. Here in Latin America, where the corruption and violence is very pronounced, there are journalists out there every day. We want North American readers to get an idea of what's going on on the front lines of the drug war." If you're a faithful reader of this publication, you've already heard that there is a burgeoning drug reform movement in Latin America. We got that story from Giordano. Some stories even The Week Online didn't bring you, courtesy of the first issue of Narco News:
Narco News also produces original news and regular features. The current issue's "Narco of the Month" is US Army Colonel James Hiett, former commander of anti-narcotics operations in Colombia and present defendant in a drug trafficking case. Giordano won't tell who next month's lucky winner will be. "There are several promising candidates," he said. For the sake of balance, and perhaps to offer a glimmer of hope, each issue will also offer a hero of the month. April's heroes are the environmentalists Rudolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera Garcia. Next month, the site will feature a map of Colombia and a detailed, point by point description of US military plans for that country. Overall, Giordano hopes Narco News will help pave the way out of what he calls the "double discourse" forced upon Latin Americans who know very well the disastrous effects of US-backed policies, but are nevertheless coerced into publicly supporting them. This is one of the great hypocrisies of US rhetoric about protecting democracies south of its border, he said. "What kind of democracy is there if governments aren't allowed to pick their own policies? Let Latin Americans speak for themselves." Read The Narco News Bulletin at http://www.narconews.com.
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