Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia | 
 enlarge | Author: Steven Dudley
Publisher: Routledge
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 229661
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 280
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 0.7
ISBN: 0415933048
Dewey Decimal Number: 986.10635
EAN: 9780415933049
ASIN: 0415933048
Publication Date: January 13, 2006
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Product Description
In Walking Ghosts, Steven Dudley, a journalist who lived in Columbia for five years, expertly chronicles the life and death of the Patriotic Union (UP), the party established by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia's largest guerrilla group. Through stories of the politicians, drug kingpins, revolutionaries, and mercenaries who play key roles in Colombia's civil strife, Dudley maps out the complicated and murderous absurdity that is present-day Colombia, where daily life has devastating consequences: 30,000 murders per year, 75 political assassinations per week, 10 kidnappings a day. As the conflict gets bloodier, international pressure and influence mounts: Worried about the FARC's strength and its role in the drug trade, the United States has sent close to three billion dollars in aid to help the Colombian government fight the FARC.
Steven Dudley seeks to make sense of this complicated conflict by focusing on the stories of key actors in the struggle, from the earliest days to the present. He has seen the civil war up close: dead bodies; paramilitaries; guerrillas; victims; and survivors. He has witnessed political parties grappling for power by any means necessary, and he's spoken to all sides and asked the difficult questions. Fast-paced and informative, with a new afterword by the author, Walking Ghosts presents a window into a conflict likely to shape the politics of this hemisphere for years to come.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 A 5 stars disappointment!!! August 17, 2008
This is a very poorly written account of a topic so crucial for the history and the future of Colombia. The author is biased against the victims of a political genocide a thesis he chose to build on self-contradicting, and in many cases, superficial, almost idiotic, narratives, gossip, cheap propaganda, and a strategically selected "balanced" approach to key events and people.
The author, in a few words, tells us that it was the left's fault that it didn't disarm while it was massacred by the paramilitaries before the state could even guarantee a safe political and electoral environment. And so it is not the drug lords who organized a killing campaign threatened by the UP, it wasn't the psychotic paranoid generals that insulted their heads of state by acting unilaterally and against orders, it wasn't the paramilitaries that started cutting off people with chainsaws before even there was a UP that caused the UP's demise. IT WAS THE LEFT TO BLAME for not cutting their own throats off!
Denial and the recycling of the same mythology for the last 40 years is one of the the reasons why Colombia is stuck in this mud of US-aid, narco-barons, government corruption, occasional genocides, multinational corporate liability, and psychotic narcissistic leaders.
Here is a hint: lessons from Northern Ireland, South Africa, Nepal, Salvador, the PLO, and more have demonstrated that disarmament is not a condition for transition to peace as much as the state's commitment to integrate insurgents in the political process SAFELY. I recommend some serious literature on the topic, such as Militant Nationalism by Cynthia E. Irvin in understanding the dimensions of killing the UP, this horrendous crime against the future of Colombia and the region for decades to come.
Mr. Dudley, please do your homework on peace processes first and then RE-WRITE this book at least so that the enormous work that you have invested in interviewing monstrous criminals such as Baquero, and Landazabal will not go wasted and your contribution will build an understanding and awareness towards a real progress instead of business as usual. I have never read such weight of accusations planted on the very shoulders of the victims themselves of such a significant political crime. Evidently, you have told us everything that you've been told, and presented us everything that you have found, but in exception to that bankrupted theory of placing the gravity of the blame on the victims, you Sir are absent from your own book! And the result of your absence is a caricature of a testament, a patched-up presentation that is confusing and misleading even to the advanced student of modern Colombian political history. In the end all that is left is the overwhelming bad after-taste of bias towards your own initial speculation.
There is a lot of work needed on this material to shape up into a ground braking contribution, but the potential is there. I'd dispose off the "theory" first, study thoroughly the existent theory on insurgency transformation to poiitics, especially from the comparative-theory perspective, and then, even with the existent matterial, I'd give it another try.
 Excellent Story of the UP & Colombia February 10, 2008
I feel that this a very strong series of stories and history of Colombia and of the FARC. Mr. Dudley has accomplished something few could, by interviewing the FARC, the UP, and the Paramilitaries - his interview with Carlos Castano is just incredible.
The Union Patriotica, a political party created by the FARC rebels of Colombia, appeared to be the last, best chance for the FARC to find political space in Colombia and turn their ideas into something positive for Colombia. Unfortunately, what ended up happenning is that the FARC does not seem to care that by not giving up its war against Colombia, that it ensured the mass murder of politicians of the Union Patriotica. It is astounding that the members of Union Patriotica did not consider breaking off from the FARC - it ensured that they were all killed as well. The other astounding fact is of the amnesty for the paramilitary groups: they did the vast majority of the killing and drug trafficking, and also ruined the chance for peace and the UP. Why they linked with drug dealers to destroy Colombia's chance at peace, it seemed it was all about the money. Yet the paramilitaries come off with a very generous deal from the Colombian government.
In any event: this book is a triumph. The FARC went from being justified, modestly popular, or even wildly popular, and the Union Patriotica, its political party, something that could benefit Colombians, to being one of the most disliked, controversial, selfish rebel groups on the planet, with no other plan other than its own military dominance for dominance's sake, and the vast dislocation of millions of Colombians.
Informative, detail oriented accounts June 23, 2004
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
I am on my second reading of the book, and unless you read each page three times, you will need a second reading of the book. There are a tremendous number of characters to keep track of. To his credit, Dudley does reintroduce characters in later chapters as if you've never read about them. It's obvious this book is a rewrite of a masters thesis, but I'm not sure what Dudley was rewriting it into. It feels as if it was supposed to be (and to some extent is) a story of the authors experiences in Colombia and what he was able to reveal about the Colombian political culture. However the chapters seem to be chunks of a thesis with a new title put on and rearranged text to better fit the title. For example, the "Black Vladimir" chapter contains a great deal of information on the character, however so does the rest of the book. Having said that, it is a great overview of the tumultuous 80's in Colombia through detailed accounts. This info is essential to understand current politics in Colombia. Also included is a cursory overview of the pre-1980 colombian political situation as well as the 90's. There is an attempt to cover politics outside of the UP, but it struck me as shallow. The 90's, for example, are glossed over for the most part. I also wish there was more information about the more current situation.
 A Good Account, But . . . June 1, 2004
10 out of 18 found this review helpful
Overall, author Dudley has done right in laying open the running sores of the Colombian civil war to public view, a generally engrossing - and gross - account of chicanery, cynicism, and atrocity.That said, I could not give it more than three stars because of its flawed insistence - in my opinion - of blaming the left for its own destruction in Colombia. At one point he writes of the "startling number of dead" the UP "put in the morgue." Yet the Union Patriotica did not torture, kill, or "disappear" these people, nor force the death squads to do so, and therein lays the book's flawed premise. By his own admission, Colombia has engaged in political violence against dissidents for decades, and its 1980s death squads were willing to kill virtually anyone they disliked. The UP, then, did not have to be cynically betrayed or manipulated by the FARC to earn this lethal attention - it would have come anyway, regardless of any guerrilla politics behind the scenes. The paramilitaries were out to destroy the left, and the center; the guerrilla politics upon which Dudley lavishes so much scrutiny were a secondary factor at best, and in no way confirm the Colombian military's "analysis" or strategy.
A must read for anyone with interest in Latin America May 8, 2004
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
This book is excellent, and that's coming from a jaded college student at the end of the semester. It is extremely readable, especially given that it is historical non-fiction, and very informative. It tells the story of the Union Patriotica, a political party founded by the FARC, a Colombian guerrilla front, by telling specific people's stories to get that aspect of the controversy. For the most part the story is told chronologically, but by changing the point of view about every chapter, Dudley keeps the reader interested. His prose is light enough to be readable without losing information, and by tying in interviews, research, and stories, he justifies his leftist tone and fills many gaps in official dialogues.
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