George Will on the Columbia Free Trade Agreement:

Addressing one particular issue:

... Obama ... says Colombia has not done enough to protect its trade unionists.

Colombia's unions, however, document that the number of murders of their members has sharply declined. Edward Schumacher-Matos, visiting professor of Latin American studies at Harvard, notes that "it was far safer to be in a union than to be an ordinary citizen in Colombia last year": The murder rate of unionists was less than one-eighth the murder rate of Colombians generally.

So, if murders have "sharply declined" and are less than the overall rate of a country with right-wing militias and a rebellion, there no cause for concern.


posted by Quiddity at 4/08/2008 03:43:00 AM