The daily press coverage of violent events says a lot about the realities we endure in Colombia, but more about ourselves as citizens and, of course, about the attitude of the mass media and its journalists.
For this reason, Colombia overwhelms, wearies, harasses, disturbs, distresses…
In the last few days, journalism has recorded, in several cities of the country, the finding of human parts scattered in rubbish bags; dismembered bodies thrown into dirty dustbins that also say a lot about our human condition.
Also, acts of corruption which shame no one and which little outrage the bulk of society: they stole the money for peace, it has been said for some time now, and few have been outraged. When we turn the page, we read that a public work was poorly done: a bridge fell down; a recently finished road collapsed; and roads that exist on maps in any Planning Office, are just dirt tracks, or there is simply no trace that allows us to think that they existed or will exist one day.
Meanwhile, grotesque images of a drunken congressman urinating hate on police officers go viral. Hours later, in a theatrical act, the same Macho Cabrío, sober and with no signs of having urinated, offers an apology, while journalists interested in using their position of power to attack the political coalition that governs, rage against the alcoholic and whoremonger, in a moralising exercise as fleeting and ephemeral as the scandal itself.
Another event will come along that will be even more spectacular and degrading. And this one has arrived, on behalf of justice.
The Prosecutor’s Office, with surprising efficiency, reports that the daughter of the ex-senator and fugitive from justice, Aída Merlano, will be sentenced for the crime of aiding and abetting a fugitive from the evidence presented in 2019, when she blew up at the “custodians” of the INPEC (Colombian penitentiary institute).
The daughter, Aída Victoria Merlano, using her social media, publicly exposed her plight.
The silence of the same Prosecutor’s Office regarding the politician, Alex Char, denounced by the former congresswoman for electoral corruption and sexual violence, is enormous, overwhelming and contemptuous of justice. Its vulgar politicisation is blatantly clear.
It is also reported, with less drama, that the Attorney General’s Office will once again request the preclusion of the criminal proceedings involving the former president of the Republic, Alvaro Uribe, which is already under number 1087985. The former investigating and prosecuting body is now acting as the public defender of the landowner, who the Supreme Court of Justice found responsible for committing the crimes of procedural fraud and witness tampering.
The facts recorded above, including the journalists who selectively make some facts newsworthy, while others are thrown into almost the same bin in which human heads, arms and legs have been appearing, are tied to the mafia ethos that Colombia has accepted as natural.
And although nothing in Colombia surprises anymore, there is still time for indignation, even if it leads us to confirm that, indeed, this country overwhelms, tires, burdens, harasses and sickens us.
*Germán Ayala Osorio: Social communicator, journalist and political scientist, author of the blog La otra tribuna.
(Translated by Rene Phelvin – Email: renephelvin@gmail.com) – Photos: PxHere & Pixabay
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