Overview

Garry Leech, independent journalist and editor of Colombia Journal, has spent the last eight years working in the most remote and dangerous regions of Colombia. Unlike other Western journalists who never leave Bogotá and adhere to the government’s line about what’s happening in the country, Leech seeks the unofficial story about what life is like for the Colombian people who are living in conflict zones. Leech’s compelling memoir, Beyond Bogotá: Diary of a Drug War Journalist, is framed around the11 hours he was held captive by the FARC, Colombia’s largest leftist guerrilla insurgency, in August of 2006.

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9780807061459

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In this remarkable saga, Garry Leech conveys brilliantly and with vivid insight the magical qualities of this rich and tortured land, and the struggles and torment of its people . . . inspiring in their courage and dedication in the face of terror from within and from outside. Leech shows how our insatiable greed and easy resort to violence play no small part.--Noam Chomsky@lt;br@gt;@lt;br@gt; Garry Leech belongs in the company of a handful of war correspondents--Patrick Cockburn, Robert Fisk, Christian Parenti--who have been risking life and limb to bring to light the catastrophic human and environmental consequences of U.S. foreign policy. In prose that is clear, calm, and vivid, Leech relates the harrowing experience of being kidnapped by the largest rebel group in America's forgotten war in Colombia. @lt;i@gt;Beyond Bogota@lt;/i@gt; is thus an extraordinary portrait of grace under pressure-not only of the author himself, but of ordinary Colombians fighting for social justice and a

In this remarkable saga, Garry Leech conveys brilliantly and with vivid insight the magical qualities of this rich and tortured land, and the struggles and torment of its people . . . inspiring in their courage and dedication in the face of terror from within and from outside. Leech shows how our insatiable greed and easy resort to violence play no small part.--Noam Chomsky <br> Garry Leech belongs in the company of a handful of war correspondents--Patrick Cockburn, Robert Fisk, Christian Parenti--who have been risking life and limb to bring to light the catastrophic human and environmental consequences of U.S. foreign policy. In prose that is clear, calm, and vivid, Leech relates the harrowing experience of being kidnapped by the largest rebel group in America's forgotten war in Colombia. Beyond Bogota is thus an extraordinary portrait of grace under pressure-not only of the author himself, but of ordinary Colombians fighting for social justice and a

Eye-opening look at the drug war in Colombia, which involves lots of American troops and money.Canadian journalist Leech (Political Science/Cape Breton Univ.; Crude Interventions: The United States, Oil, and the New World (Dis)Order, 2006, etc.) has been working the drug-war beat since 2000, and he takes the war part of the description seriously, investigating the little-visited corners of Colombia where few gringo reporters dare wander. The framework of this narrative is an 11-hour period that Leech spent in captivity after venturing in search of a story into a drug-producing district that is contiguous with La Macarena National Park, and that the government had just sprayed with particularly harmful pesticides, even though the park contains many civilians and villages. The story is important, he writes, because the fumigations mark an escalation in the war on drugs, since it is the first time the Colombian government has succumbed to pressure from the Bush administration to spray coca crops cultivated in one of the country's biologically diverse national parks. Entering on the heels of a devastating spraying, Leech was thought to be a spy or narc. Fortunately, his time in captivity was less than harrowing, even if it had its rough moments. His imprisonment affords him a frame by which to hang a larger story of how the drug war is conducted (corruptly, of course), how it relates to the encompassing war between the government in the city and Marxist guerrillas on the outskirts, and how the production of coca articulates with the local economy - indeed, keeping many of those country people from starving. Leech writes critically of those in power but admiringly of ordinary Colombians, whom he depicts as generous to a fault, suffering in a war that the United States is sure to lose. The author also looks at how the game of foreign correspondence is played, often in the shadows, often working with spies and counterspies.Excellent reportage - highly recommended for would-be journalists as well as those interested in geopolitics. (Kirkus Reviews)

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