Thousands marched through the streets of Colombia's capital and another city on Thursday, protesting a planned trade agreement with the United States which they fear would worsen unemployment in Colombia.
Anti-free trade protests held in Colombia
Thursday, September 22, 2005
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Thousands marched through the streets of Colombia's capital and another city on Thursday, protesting a planned trade agreement with the United States which they fear would worsen unemployment in Colombia.
As trade negotiators from Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and the United States met for a new round of talks in the resort city of Cartagena on Colombia's Caribbean coast, some 5,000 people marched toward the city's convention center where the talks were held, but police kept them away from the venue. No violence was reported.
About as many protesters, including opposition lawmakers, students and government workers, took to the streets of the capital, Bogota, also protesting the planned deal.
"This is a democratic and peaceful exercise to demonstrate our concerns over the loss of jobs due to a free trade deal," Carlos Rodriguez, a protest organizer and president of Colombia's umbrella trade union, CUT, told The Associated Press.
Negotiations for the free trade began in May 2004, but differences over agriculture and intellectual property have delayed the treaty's signing. Andean growers of sugar cane, rice, corn, potatoes and cotton say they won't be able to compete against heavily subsidized U.S. goods.
Rodriguez estimated that in Colombia alone some 250,000 jobs would be lost if a free trade deal is signed, most of them in the agriculture sector. Colombia's jobless rate is currently 12 percent, and 60 percent of the country lives below the poverty line.
The three Andean nations already enjoy duty-free access to U.S. markets, selling thousands of products like asparagus, cut flowers and clothing. But those breaks -- given to help reduce economic dependence on drug production and trafficking -- expire next year.
Colombian officials say they hope to sign the free trade deal in October or November. Each country would then need to ratify the treaty.
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LUCIANO was 47 years old. He leaves 4 children and his partner Ledys Mendoza. He had worked for 20 years at NESTLÉ - Cicolac in Valledupar. He was sacked from there 22 October 2002, for a supposed cease of [work]activities that was declared illegal by the Ministry of Social Protection. There is a demand for comrade Luciano Romero?s reinstatement in process through the First Labour Court of the Valledupar Circuit. The demand is against NESTLE DE COLOMBIA S.A., CICOLAC LTDA. and DAIRY PARTENS AMERICAS MANOFACTURING COLOMBIA LTDA. "DPA COLOMBIA LIMITADA".
LUCIANO was an outstanding leader of SINALTRAINAL and currently was our representative on the Foundation Committee of Solidarity with Political Prisoners [Fundación Comité de Solidaridad con los Presos Políticos -
[FCSPP] from where he carried out activities of solidarity and humanitarian assistance for the detainees. on different occasions. From the end of 2004 he stayed several months in Gijón, Spain in a protection and solidarity programme; and he had returned to Colombia at the beginning of this year.
We repudiate this horrendous murder that adds LUCIANO ENRIQUE ROMERO MOLINA to the interminable list of assassinated union leaders in Colombia, [carried out] within the strategy of State Terrorism and through the
persecution unleashed by the corporations to exterminate the trade union movement.
We condemn once again the government of Álvaro Uribe Vélez and his deceitful "peace process" with the paramilitary groups, which as we see continue massacring the unarmed population, with their crimes protected by total impunity thanks to the "Justice and Peace Law".
Please write to the following :
Álvaro Uribe Vélez
Presidente de la República de Colombia
auribe@presidencia.gov.co; dh@presidencia.gov.co
Vicepresidente Francisco Santos
fsantos@presidencia.gov.co
Dr. Carlos Franco,
Director del Programa Presidencial de Derechos
Humanos y de Derecho Internacional Humanitario.
cefranco@presidencia.gov.co
Fiscal General de la Nación
Dr. Mario Iguarán Arana
contacto@fiscalia.gov.co; denuncie@fiscalia.gov.co;
webmaster@fiscalia.gov.co
Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos
cidhoea@oas.org
Con copia a
sinaltrainal@sinaltrainal.org
Colombia Support Network
P.O. Box 1505
Madison, WI 53701-1505
phone: (608) 257-8753
fax: (608) 255-6621
e-mail: csn@igc.org
http://www.colombiasupport.net
SN SECURITY WATCH (12/08/05) - The Bush administration appears keen on lending financial support to Colombia's controversial efforts to disarm right-wing paramilitaries.
Washington's initiative could, however, come up against opposition in the US Congress from lawmakers who accuse Colombia of being too lenient with paramilitaries that traffic in cocaine and heroin to fund their operations, while committing egregious human rights violations along the way.
For decades, the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia(AUC) have battled with left-wing rebel groups in a war that kills an estimated 3,500 a year. Now, the Colombian government is offering the AUC paramilitaries amnesty or short prison sentences in return for laying down their arms, and hopes to disarm the group's 15,000 remaining combatants by the end of next year.
So far, Colombia says it has disarmed some 8,000 AUC fighters since 2003, when disarmament talks began.
Now it appears that the US Justice Department has cleared the way for Washington to help Colombia with the disarmament measures, after having poured over the legal ramifications for more than a year, Reuters news agency reported this week, citing unnamed Bush administration and congressional sources.
According to the US Justice Department, the sticking point was a US law strictly forbidding the granting of federal funds to any group considered a terrorist organization.
The US State Department put the AUC on its list of terrorist organizations in 2001.
But Justice Department officials determined after a lengthy review that aid could legally flow to Colombia for paramilitary disarmament as long as certain conditions were met, namely a firm commitment to lay down their arms once and for all.
Just how much additional money Colombia will receive, if any, remains to be seen as the US Congress is out of session for the remainder of the month and President George Bush is spending the majority of his time on his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
If a recent meeting in Crawford between Bush and his Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe, is any indication, the US appears willing to trust Colombia to its own devices to disarm the paramilitaries - no matter what the means.
"Our two nations are working together to fight drug trafficking and terrorism, and to promote security, democracy, and the rule of law throughout the Americas," said Bush.
Comments also out of the State Department this month would seem to indicate that the Bush administration is ready to write yet another check for Colombia, the largest recipient of US aid outside the Middle East.
The US already has provided Colombia with some US$4 billion in aid since 2000 for drug eradication and its fight against the Marxist rebels.
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said last week that Colombia's paramilitary disarmament initiative, known as the "Peace and Justice Law", has been instrumental in lowering the levels of violence in the country.
"Colombia's Justice and Peace Law establishes a mechanism that, if implemented vigorously, will help dismantle the criminal structures of demobilized illegal armed groups, provide for peace with justice and permit continued extradition," said Burns.
Critics of the Peace and Justice Law both in Colombia and abroad say it allows the majority of AUC leaders and fighters to go free even though many of them have been accused of orchestrating countless deaths over the years. The initiative, says its detractors, allows the paramilitaries to take with them the spoils of their war including money earned trafficking drugs.
"The government's failure to conduct the demobilization in a serious manner is helping paramilitary leaders launder their wealth and legitimize their political power," Jose Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director of Human Rights Watch told ISN Security Watch. "It is evident this process is rotten to the core."
Burns conceded that the paramilitary disarmament may seem soft to the outside observer, but he maintains that it is up to Colombia to determine the means to bring peace to the country.
"Some have argued that the law is not tough enough on members of paramilitary forces," he said. "Ultimately, however, the balance between peace and justice is a decision for Colombians to make for themselves."
]]>On Aug. 4, President Bush received at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, his most unconditional ally in Latin America, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
One of the principal topics of this meeting was deciding how the United States would provide funds to Colombia ostensibly to help the country reincorporate members of the extreme-right paramilitary group, the Colombian Self-Defense Forces (known as AUC), back into civilian life.
This group is on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist organizations. The paramilitaries were responsible for the murders of thousands of Colombian civilians over the last two decades.
Their so-called demobilization is to occur within the context of a Colombian law called the Law of Justice and Peace. At first glance it seems like a magnificent idea to convert armed men into civilian security guards. But a look at the specific provisions reveals how bad this idea is.
The Law of Justice and Peace drastically limits the time for investigating horrible crimes that the paramilitaries committed. (Once a person is charged, the government has only 60 days to bring the case.) Nor does the law demand that those who are being demobilized come clean on their activities.
What's more, the law calls for sentences of at most five years, which is not proportional to the seriousness of those crimes. Other loopholes would lead some who have committed terrible crimes to serve no prison time at all.
The Law of Justice and Peace turns traditional human-rights law on its head.
The paramilitaries have committed atrocious crimes, and they continue to traffic in drugs, which are their main source of income.
They use these ill-gotten gains to exercise political and economic control over entire regions as well as to terrorize the populace.
The United States should not support this process.
Cecilia Zarate-Laun is co-founder and program director of the Colombia Support Network in Madison, Wis.
16-Aug-05
BOGOTA, Colombia - Suspected rebels killed two Catholic priests Monday, ambushing their car with gunfire and explosives as they drove down a country road in northeast Colombia, police said.
Two laborers in the vehicle were also killed in the attack near Teorama, 260 miles northeast of Bogota, Norte de Santander state police chief Gen. Hipolito Herrera told RCN television.
Herrera blamed the attack on Colombia's main rebel group, the 13,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Monsignor Fabian Marulanda, secretary-general of the church's policy-making Episcopal Conference, said it is unclear why the priests' vehicle was attacked. He said one possibility is that the FARC mistakenly believed the vehicle was carrying paramilitaries, which are far-right militia groups that fight against the rebels.
But it's also possible, Marulanda said, that the priests were specifically targeted and were lured to the area by the rebels.
"Naturally, the incident causes us great pain," Marulanda told reporters.
The Catholic Church has played an active role in mediation efforts during Colombia's war, which pits the FARC and another leftist rebel group against right-wing paramilitary factions and government forces.
But the clergy's peace efforts have come at a heavy price. An archbishop, a bishop, more than 50 priests and three nuns have been killed by suspected rebels or paramilitary fighters over the past 20 years, according government figures.
Colombia Support Network
PO Box 1505, Madison, WI 53701
June 26, 2005
Purpose
By act of Congress, renewal of United Sates aid to Colombia ($700 million per year to the Colombian government, mostly in military aid) depends on their meeting conditions on human rights. This report presents the information we have gathered and the basis for our recommendations, which appear at the end of this report.
Apartado, in northeastern Colombia (map), is the sister community of Dane County, Wisconsin, our home. Our delegation from the Colombia Support Network (John Gibson, Eunice Gibson, Norman Stockwell, Conrad Weiffenbach, and Cecilia Zarate Laun) visited Colombia from April 16 to 26, 2005.The visit was supported with letters from Wisconsin Senators Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, and Wisconsin Secretary of State Douglas LaFollette, sent in advance to people in the agencies with which we wished to meet. We met with people in Apartado, in the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado, and in the offices of a large number of government and non-government organizations in Medellin and Bogota.
We offer this information to the United States Congress, Department of State, and other concerned groups and individuals wishing for information to guide their discussions on human rights in Colombia.
This electronic report contains significant parts that are accessed via hyperlinks to the CSN website, where they are hidden files. The linked documents contain essential information from our investigation, supporting the conclusions and recommendations presented at the end of these pages.
To recap events briefly, On February 21, 2005, Luis Eduardo Guerra-Guerra, one of the founders and leaders of the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado, was murdered in an area near the Mulatos River. Three children and four other adults were also murdered in this massacre. Paramilitary checkpoints present in prior years on the road between San Jose and Apartado have been removed, but there are now checkpoints of the Colombian Police and Army. A police station (link to photo) was put within the village of San Jose, against the wishes of the peace community, which observes a non-violent resistance to the armed conflict. In response to the placing of the Police station in the village of San Jose, the Peace Community has abandoned their village, moving to a new site a few km away, where they are living in a new settlement, for which construction has begun
The background of events in this region of Colombia is comprehensively summarized in a Background section of this report. A list (spreadsheet from the community) of 500 violations of human rights, including other massacres that the people of San Jose de Apartado have suffered, is also presented. San Jose’s website (in Spanish) offers more recent information. San Jose represents the experience (website with comprehensive listing of human rights violations in Colombia, in Spanish) of many rural communities in Colombia: the aggression toward them is systematic.
The culpability of the armed forces in the most serious of human rights violations has been acknowledged by the Colombian Procuraduria, which in May 2005 issued a decision (document in Spanish) that disciplinary action will be taken against units of the Army and Police that were in command of the region in which San Jose de Apartado is located in the years 2000 to 2002, for their responsibility in the same types of violations of human rights then in San Jose, including massacres. Please see the Background document and list of violations from the community for details on those violations.
US aid must not support the Colombian Police and Army in such behavior.
We expect that similar action from the Procuraduria will result in due time following the massacre of February 2005, which they are now investigating.
But whether the sanctions against those responsible in the military will be effective remains to be seen. Often in the past such sanctions have not been so.
]]>By Justicia y Paz
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez opened negotiations with the country's right-wing paramilitaries almost as soon as he took office in August 2002. The paramilitaries -- currently grouped in a national federation called the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) -- have been responsible for the majority of murders and forced displacements of civilians in Colombia's tragic armed conflict for many years. Over 3 million Colombians have been uprooted from their homes and communities -- "displaced" -- since 1985, and tens of thousands more have been murdered. The paramilitaries' signature terror methods include slow torture, dismemberment, and the use of chainsaws. When guerrilla groups participated in the formation of new political parties in the 1980s as part of an attempt to resolve the decades-old war between the government and guerrillas, paramilitaries exterminated over 3,000 members of these new parties.
]]>WASHINGTON, June 10, 2005 — Colombia is a country of extreme news, as evidenced by just one day's headlines: 17 military killed in a guerrilla ambush; U.S. soldiers caught smuggling cocaine out of the country; 19 of Bogotá's 20 deputy mayors fired by the mayor while most of them were under investigation on allegations of corruption. Too many stories to cover, all of them surprising, intriguing and hard to follow. Trails are sometimes treacherous and can become dangerous in the least likely places.
So far in 2005, two reporters have been killed. Maybe it was for what they published, maybe not. Hernando Marné Sánchez Roldán, 62, covered weddings, baptisms, celebrations and the like for El País, one of Colombia's major dailies. On February 19th he was going to Tuluá, a town about 450 kilometers or 300 miles southwest of Bogotá, when a hit-man fired several shots, killing him almost immediately. According to Colombia's Foundation for the Freedom of the Press (FLIP), it is unclear why someone would want to kill a social photographer. But as El País reported, by that date a war between the two main drug lords of the region had already left 43 homicides officially recorded in Tuluá for the year.
]]>In what will be a landmark human rights case in the UK, the farmers allege that the pipeline destroyed their land and forced them into destitution.
A British law firm representing the farmers has written to BP, accusing the company of benefiting from harassment and intimidation meted out by Colombian paramilitaries employed by the government to guard the pipeline."
]]>Geov Parrish
June 23, 2005
Amidst the disaster that is Iraq, the Pentagon has been fighting a smaller but no less ugly war. Next week, Congress will decide whether to continue sending military aid to Colombia, a country with one of the worst human rights records in the western hemisphere.
The focus of the aid is Plan Colombia, a five-year-old plan that has poured billions of U.S. dollars into drug crop fumigation and military aid. The plan expires this year, and needs Congressional approval to continue. It's a rare opportunity to impact U.S. warmaking -- yet, in part because of the subsequent, problematic invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, there has been virtually no U.S. media attention on what our tax dollars are assisting in Colombia.
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