Colombia’s Forgotten Refugees
Particularly in media coverage, attention is only given to the most spectacular cases. Even though there are cases in which that spectacularity seems unethical, there are dramas that remain unnoticed, because they are simply not as dramatic, or perhaps because within the contest for attention, there are only so many bad news that can be attended. I have chosen this week’s article http://colombiajournal.org/colombia3.htm because it portrays how during the high of internal displacement, most of the media attention was given to the State sponsored violence in Kosovo and East Timor, whereas the almost 1.7 million displaced people that have left the ongoing conflict remained aloof from media coverage.
According to the article “The number of Colombians displaced by the war between the Colombian army and leftist guerrillas far exceeds the number of refugees in East Timor. It even exceeds the number of Kosovar Albanians forced to flee Serb repression. And yet, in spite of the fact that Colombian refugees currently constitute the third largest displaced population in the world, behind only the Sudanese and Angolans, their plight receives little attention from the mainstream media.”
The issue is not so much a contest of attention. The issue is more why some conflicts are seen with different eyes. Is it because the geo-political reality in which the conflicts occur? Is it because there are first, second and third types of human rights? Or is it because prior and above human rights, there are economic interests which take precedence over humanitarian concerns and only where there are economic profits to be gained can the flag of human rights be properly advanced?
hollmanlozano 
I think that part of it is indeed based on economic interest. Mostly, however, I would be inclined to say that it is because of Euro-centered ethnocentric bias. To the Western World (the self-appointed pinnacle of civilization), what happens in Europe takes precedent over what happens in “less developped” places, such as Latin America. That would certainly explain why news stories coming from there are so incomplete, and how little we hear about things such as this wave of Columbian refugees.
I tried to view the article that you read, but the link didn’t work, but regardless I was surprised to find out that Colombian refugees are among the 3rd highest in population in the world. As you said they never seem to gain any media attention and I also wonder why that is. Your idea about if there may be different “Classes” of human rights issues was really interesting too – I would hate to think that some human rights issues in the world are considered “more pressing” or more worthy of attention than others, but perhaps in the eyes of the media that is true? I’ve heard the saying before “if it bleeds, it leads”… maybe in someone’s opinion there just isn’t enough “blood”?