IN SEARCH OF ANTANAS MOKUS September 9, 2010
Posted by rogerhollander in Colombia, Latin America.Tags: antanas mokus, Colombia, colombia government, colombia liberal, colombia poitics, gerard coffey, green party, juan manuel santos, roger hollander, sergio fajardo
add a comment
In Search of Antanas MokusPosted on September 9, 2010 by Gerard Coffey
http://lalineadefuego.wordpress.com/
The light is green but no-one is moving
Gerard Coffey. Quito 09 September 2010
I was recently in Colombia. I like Bogotá. It’s a big city that seems to have everything. Lots of places to drink good coffee, people who actually want to help you, a mass transit system that seems to function, most of the time. Besides, Colombia is the land of deserts. Heaven for the sweet toothed. But apart from personal vices[i], the visit had other highlights. It was the country’s bicentenary (20th July) as well the period between the Presidential elections and the inauguration of Juan Manuel Santos as the country’s new head of state (August 9th). An interesting time. Not least because of the massive march held by the regime’s opponents the day after the official celebrations[ii] and the friction between Venezuela and Colombia resulting from still President Alvaro Uribe’s accusations that the neighbouring country was sheltering terrorists, more commonly known as the FARC.
Although the visit was not work related, I did have a goal: to interview Antanas Mokus, the Green Party Candidate who lost the Presidential election, but was supported by more than a quarter of Colombian voters, i.e. those that did actually vote[iii]. Despite the loss, there was a sense at the time that something important was happening. The Mokus Green Party campaign was different, a breath of clean air. It offered some sort of hope for a country plagued by the decades of internal violence, drugs and corruption. It could make things happen.
But I was never able to find Sr. Mokus or, what seemed far more surprising, the Green Party. I looked everywhere, I tried all the phone numbers and e-mail addresses I could find, I even found a man who gave me two telephone numbers he said would help, on the condition that I didn’t mention his name. That turned out to be less of a problem than I imagined: neither of the numbers was ever answered. I once even thought I had found the head office. Two people, a local vendor and a security guard assured me that it was close by, just around the corner. And I found it. They were right. It was the party headquarters, of the Polo Democrático. A friend finally suggested that his brother, who apparently lived behind Mokus’ house, was willing to go and knock on his door. But apart from the invasion of privacy issue, by then it was too late. It was time to go back to Quito. So I contented myself with a few books I had bought, and the experiences the stay had brought.
With hindsight
Two months later the whole episode seems more curious than anything else. The world has moved on. Santos has installed a massive majority in the Colombian Congress, appears to have reunited the Liberal Party, has been making comforting noises internationally, heads a government more technocratic than ideological, especially when compared to the previous regime, and has distanced himself from his predecessor. Santos is his own man. And Alvaro Uribe? Well, he appears to have disappeared. Off the map. Into the special house/fortress designed for him in a military sector of the city.
With time the search for Antanas Mokus and the Green Party also seems less puzzling. I’m no longer surprised that I couldn’t locate either. As I now realise, the Green Party doesn’t exist. Never did exist. It was an electoral apparatus. That is not to say that the objectives of the people that participated in, ran, and supported the Mokus- Fajardo campaign were a sham. Far from it. The movement embodied a great deal of sincerity and hope, as well as counting on heavy weight political backers such as Luis Garzón and Enrique Peñalosa, both ex mayors of Bogotá and, of course, on the vice presidential candidate, Sergio Fajardo, himself a popular ex mayor of Medellin. But there was never any infrastructure. And I can’t help asking myself what would have happened if Mokus had won. Perhaps the voters asked themselves the same question.
Perhaps everything would have been taken in stride. After all neither Mokus nor Garzón is a political neophyte. Perhaps if he had won, everything would have seemed normal enough. Perhaps the worst thing, at least in institutional, party political terms, was to lose. If the head of foam that surrounded the campaign in the first round had gone flat by the second, the beer itself has now drained from the glass. The party, such as it is, appears to be in a state of paralysis. Fajardo has gone, dissociating himself from the group after complaining of being treated with a lack of seriousness. The campaign, he has said, lost momentum when he also lost it, after falling from his appropriately green bicycle and fracturing his hip. The statement has the taste of sour grapes, but it does seem evident that he and his group do not fit into whatever plans the party might have.
For the moment at least, those plans are a matter of guesswork. The papers are full reports painting Mokus as a mayoralty candidate for Bogotá in 2011, or on the other hand that, he is not a candidate, that his wife, Adriana Córdoba is a mayoralty candidate, or that she is not a candidate, that Gustavo Petro, the presidential candidate for the Polo Democrático, and one of the few losers that came out smelling of roses, has been invited to join the Greens now that the smell of flowers has become too rich for the other members of the Polo, or, that he has not signaled a desire to join, or that he supports the mayoralty candidature of Mokus’ wife, of course, should she actually be a candidate. In practice the only solid evidence of movement is the appointment of Garzón as Party President and spokesperson.
A lot of the sense of confusion and loss of direction could be press manipulation, not of the facts, but rather what is printed and what is not. The mainstream media in Colombia is heavily Santified and in large part falls under the influence of his family, and Juan Manuel is probably not too keen to see the Green Party and its people pick up an opposition mantle that is presently lying over a puddle in the road. It all seems such a shame, such a deception. Perhaps Mokus is right when he says that decisions must be timely but not hasty. Perhaps under Garzón the Party will be able to shake off the slightly Wizard of Ozzish image it has recently acquired. Perhaps by the time of the municipal elections in 2011 the Greens will be able to take on the role that so many hoped they would. Perhaps I won’t have to write any more articles like this. That would be nice.
A final anecdote: one that in other circumstances might be considered hilarious, but in the present situation strikes a somewhat sadder, although quite telling, note. The writer cum political analyst Daniel Samper Pizano, brother of ex President Samper and columnist for El Tiempo, tells that Antanas Mokus was to have attended a recent international meeting of Green Parties in Europe, but unpacked his bags on learning that most of them were full of environmentalists and left wingers.[iv]
[i] And without wanting to ignore in any way the very serious problems of poverty and violence the city suffers from.
[ii] Judging from the banners most of the marchers were from rural areas and while no literature or information was available about the organizers, or the demands, the mere size of the march, and its open hostility to Santos/Uribe was impressive. The march must have been at least ten thousand strong, but did not receive major coverage. El Tiempo mainly commented on accusations of damage created by the marchers, although this observer saw no violence. The march was in fact heavily patrolled by its own marshals.
[iii] The election was marked by extremely high levels abstention. In the first round only 42.9% voted, while in the second 44.41%. However, this is not a record. For example, when Ernesto Samper was elected in 1994 only 34% of the voting population found their way to the booth.
[iv] Daniel Samper Pizano Los verdes: biches y extraviados El Tiempo Jueves 04 de septiembre 2010
Georgetown University Welcomes Colombia’s Ex-Pres. Uribe September 7, 2010
Posted by rogerhollander in Colombia, Education, Human Rights, Latin America, Religion.Tags: Colombia, Colombia civilian killings, Colombia common grave, colombia congress, colombia human rights, colombia paramilitaries, colombia unions, Colombian disappeared, Colombian military, georgetown, georgetown university, gu, jesuit, john dear, la macarena, roger hollander, school americas, soa, uribe
1 comment so far
Next week on September 14th, thirteen friends and I will stand trial at the Nevada State Courthouse along the Las Vegas strip. Our infraction? Daring to walk on to Creech Air Force Base, headquartered in the Nevada desert, last year on Holy Thursday. We entered the premises to prayerfully call for an end to the U.S. drone fighter bombers.
Alas, our call was rejected, and after a tense stand-off with soldiers at the gate, the police arrived and arrested, handcuffed, chained, booked and held us in the Las Vegas jail for the night. Then in March, the government pressed charges against us, hoping to set an example of us and stop others from protesting our “drones.” So the struggle goes on.
Meantime, while preparing for trial, I received news of the latest church scandal, this brought on by the Jesuits themselves. Georgetown University has offered the former president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, a dictator with blood on his hands, a teaching post at its Walsh School of Foreign Service as its “Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership.” He begins work tomorrow.
Apparently, neither the university president nor the faculty nor the Jesuits have been apprised that lawyers are working to bring charges against him at the Hague for human rights violations. Indeed, GU, an ostensibly Christian university, might just as well have invited Marcos, or Somoza or Liberia’s Charles Taylor to teach. Seems to me, inviting Uribe shows how stone deaf GU is to the times. More, it is a complete betrayal of the Gospel of Jesus. The Jesuit mission is summed up this way: “to promote the faith that does justice.” Hiring Uribe shows how much, here in the U.S., the Jesuit mission has become bankrupt. At Georgetown, it’s “the faith that does injustice and makes war.”
I shouldn’t be surprised. Georgetown in particular has a long history of supporting U.S. warmaking. It has taken millions from the Pentagon, trained thousands of young Catholics how to kill (in its ROTC program), hired Henry Kissinger, welcomed the person who ordered the assassination of Romero, and supported warmakers from the Shah of Iran to Ronald Reagan.
My friends and I have a long history too–of speaking out. When I lived and worked at GU in the early 1980s, setting up the “D.C. Schools Project,” ROTC drilled right under my window in the Jesuit community, so I took my case to the university president himself, then Tim Healy, and exchanged a few heated words with him about GU’s collaboration with the U.S. war machine—a discussion he took none too kindly to. He responded by pulling strings to have me dismissed from the Jesuits. (Providentially, I was spared.)
So there’s history between us, the university and I. Still, I’m shocked. After years of campaigning to close the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, which these days predominantly trains Colombia’s military officers and soldiers who then participate with paramilitary death squads in killing and torturing tens of thousands of poor people in the last few years alone, I would expect the president, faculty, and Jesuits of Georgetown to know better.
“We are looking forward to having President Uribe join our university community,” GU President John DeGioia said recently in a statement. “Having such a distinguished world leader at Georgetown will further the important work of students and faculty engaging in important global issues.”
Is this his idea of a world leader? With so many heroes of peace and nonviolence to invite—from Archbishop Tutu to Mairead Maguire, or leaders here at home such as Kathy Kelly and Jim Wallis—I’m stunned that he can look forward to the arrival of one of the world’s most notorious mass murderers. Is this the kind of global leadership Georgetown teaches?
“President Uribe will bring a truly unique perspective to discussions of global affairs at Georgetown,” said Carol Lancaster, dean of the Walsh School of Foreign Service. “We are thrilled that he has identified Georgetown as a place where he will share his knowledge and interface with Washington, and I know that our students at the School of Foreign Service will benefit greatly from his presence.”
Friends and I have urged Georgetown’s leaders to disinvite Uribe, and have also begun a campaign to protest his presence. I personally asked Dean Lancaster on the phone to do everything she can to prevent Uribe’s arrival. To my chagrin, most everyone I speak with at Georgetown seems to know little about Colombia or Uribe, and refers to the State Department’s respect for him.
I say this without hyperbole—that should have been their first warning.
We all need to learn about Uribe’s 8-year tenure in Colombia, his corruption, the human-rights violations he sponsored, the widespread impunity—all with the backing of the Bush Administration. Human Rights Watch recently issued an open letter listing some of the human rights violations of the Uribe administration:
• More than 4 million Colombians (out of a population of about 45 million) have been forced to flee their homes, giving Colombia the second-largest population of internally displaced persons in the world after Sudan.
• More than 70 members of the Colombian Congress are under criminal investigation or have been convicted for allegedly collaborating with the paramilitaries. Nearly all these congresspersons are members of President Uribe’s coalition in Congress, and the Uribe administration repeatedly undermined the investigations and discredited the Supreme Court justices who started them.
• Colombia has the highest rate of killings of trade unionists in the world.
• A clandestine gravesite of 2,000 non-identified bodies was recently discovered directly beside a military base in La Macarena, in central Colombia. When the news became public, Uribe flew to the Macarena and said publicly that accusing the armed forces of human rights abuses was a tactic used by the guerrilla. These comments put the lives of those victims who spoke at the event in grave danger.
• Starting in 2008, reports came out that the Colombian military was luring poor young men from their homes with promises of employment, then killing them and presenting them as combat casualties. The practice not only served to stack battle statistics, but also financially benefited the soldiers involved, as Uribe’s government had, since 2005, awarded monetary and vacation bonuses for each insurgent killed. Human rights groups cite 3,000 or more “false positives.”
Georgetown’s appointment of Uribe is “shameful,” Jesuit theologian Jon Sobrino said last week in El Salvador. “Uribe is a symbol of the worst that has happened in the tragic conflict in Colombia. There is a great deal of blood involved here, a very great deal. ”
“Does this appointment reflect the mission and the Catholic and Jesuit identity of Georgetown?” Fr. Dean Brackley, a Jesuit professor at the UCA in El Salvador, writes. “This will, literally, cause scandal. The U.S. Congress has held up passage of the trade agreement with Colombia because it is a place where the government, under Uribe, has consistently failed to defend labor unionists from death squads. Uribe is widely accused of having had direct links to the paramilitary groups who have massacred countless innocents. Whether or not those charges are true, he has irresponsibly and cruelly accused human rights activists in Colombia of collusion with ‘Communist terrorists,’ endangering their lives.”
A few years ago, I traveled to Colombia to see for myself. There I learned about the U.S.-backed war against the poor waged by Uribe under the guise of a “war on drugs.” I learned how the repressive Colombian government, under the democratically elected but dictatorial President Uribe, a drug benefactor and close friend of George W. Bush, killed some ten thousand people a year, leaving 200,000 dead in the last twenty years. This war isn’t about drugs but about expropriating Colombia’s rich land and natural resources, from the indigenous people to the U.S. and multinational corporations.
“I write to you with great concern regarding the fact that Georgetown, our Jesuit University, has hired the outgoing president of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe, as a professor. I am constantly receiving messages from individuals and groups who have suffered enormously during his term as president. They are protesting and questioning the mind-set of our Society, or its lack of ethical judgment in making a decision of this kind.
It is possible that decision makers at Georgetown have received positive appraisals from Colombians in high political or economic positions, but it is difficult to ignore, at least, the intense moral disagreements aroused by his government and the investigations and sanctions imposed by international organizations that try to protect human dignity. The mere fact that, during his political career, while he was governor of Antioquia Province (1995-1997) he founded and protected so many paramilitary groups, known euphemistically as “Convivir” (“Live Together”), who murdered and “disappeared” thousands of people and displaced multitudes, committing many other atrocities, that alone would imply a need for moral censure before entrusting him with any responsibility in the future.
But not only did he continue to sponsor those paramilitary groups, but he defended them and he perfected them into a new pattern of legalized para-militarism, including networks of informants, networks of collaborators, and the new class of private security companies that involve some millions of civilians in military activities related to the internal armed conflict, while at the same time he was lying to the international community with a phony demobilization of the paramilitaries.
In addition, the scandalous practice of “false positives” took place during his administration. The practice consists in murdering civilians, usually farmers, and after killing them, dressing them as combatants in order to justify their deaths. That is the way he tried to demonstrate faked military victories over the rebels and also to eliminate the activists in social movements that work for justice.
The corruption during his administration was more than scandalous, not just because of the presence of drug traffickers in public positions but also because the Congress and many government offices were occupied by criminals. Today more than a hundred members of Congress are involved in criminal proceedings, all of them President Uribe’s closest supporters.
The purchase of consciences in order to manipulate the judicial apparatus was disgraceful. It ended up destroying, at the deepest level, the moral conscience of the country. Another disgrace was the corrupt manner in which the Ministers closest to him manipulated agricultural policy in order to favor the very rich with public money, meanwhile impeding and stigmatizing social projects. The corruption of his sons, who enriched themselves by using the advantages of power, scandalized the whole country at one time.
In addition, he used the security agency that was directly under his control (the Department of Administrative Security) to spy on the courts, on opposition politicians, and on social and human rights movements, by means of clandestine telephone tapping. The corrupt machinations he used to obtain his re-election as President in 2006 were sordid in the extreme, with the result that ministers and close collaborators have gone to jail.
He manipulated the coordination between the Army and the paramilitary groups that resulted in 14,000 extrajudicial executions during his term of office. His strategies of impunity for those who, through the government or the “para-government,” committed crimes against humanity will go down in history for their brazenness.
The decision by the Jesuits at Georgetown to offer a professorship to Álvaro Uribe is not only deeply offensive to those Colombians who still maintain moral principles, but also places at high risk the ethical development of the young people who attend our university in Washington. Where are the ethics of the Society of Jesus?”
I urge people everywhere to call or write Georgetown University’s president and protest Uribe’s presence on campus, and to push Georgetown to cut its ties with dictators, warmakers and the Pentagon. For further information, visit the School of the Americas website at www.soaw.org and the Colombia Support Network at www.colombiasupport.net.
As I head to Las Vegas for trial, I grieve that our struggle to end war and injustice is so often stymied by the church itself, and in this case, my own religious order. But I’m heartened by the reaction of so many people, and the organizing that has sprung up around this scandal. I hope someday Georgetown University, and every Jesuit and Catholic institution, will become a school of justice, nonviolence, and human rights.
John Dear is a Jesuit priest, peace activist, and author of twenty five books on peace and nonviolence. His latest book, Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings (Orbis), is now available, as well as John Dear On Peace: An Introduction to His Life and Work by Patricia Normile. John’s other recent books include, A Persistent Peace (his autobiography, from Loyola Press), and Put Down Your Sword, (Eerdmans) a collection of essays on nonviolence. He writes a weekly column for the National Catholic Reporter at www.ncronline.org. To follow the trial of the Creech 14, go to www.vcnv.org. To contribute to Catholic Relief Services’ “Fr. John Dear Haiti Fund,” go to: http://donate.crs.org/goto/fatherjohn. For further information, or to schedule a lecture or retreat on Gospel Nonviolence, go to www.johndear.org.
Keep Colombian Ex-President Alvaro Uribe out of Georgetown and send him packing to La Picota prison in Colombia! September 2, 2010
Posted by rogerhollander in Colombia, Human Rights, Latin America.Tags: Alvaro Uribe, Colombia, Colombia Civil War, colombia paramilitaries, Colombian government, Colombian military, georgetown university, human rights, Latin America, roger hollander
3 comments
U.S. and Colombia
Take Action Here 
Georgetown University has recently announced that former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe will be named a “distinguished scholar in the practice of global leadership,” and will soon begin giving seminars at the university’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS). Uribe has said it is a “great honor” for him, and that his “greatest wish and happiness is to contribute in the continuous emergence of future leaders.”
Uribe’s 8-year tenure in Colombia was rife with corruption, human rights violations and widespread impunity. In a letter in June to the White House, Human Rights Watch expressed “serious concerns” about the Uribe administration’s record on and commitment to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.
|
For more information on Uribe and human rights violations, click here. Students, community activists and religious leaders have already spoken out against the university’s decision, and will be planning actions of protest for this fall. Take action NOW, by signing this letter to Georgetown University President, Mr. John J. DeGioia. |
The Circle Opens Out: New Evidence on Criminality in Colombian Regime May 26, 2010
Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, Colombia, Latin America.Tags: Canada, canada colombia, canada free trade, canada government, canada politics, Colombia, colombia corruption, colombia das, colombia free trade, colombia scandal, colombia spying, Colombian government, Free Trade, free trade agreement, gerard keddy, human rights, Latin America, roger hollander, uribe
1 comment so far
 |
 |
 |
| Written by Manuel Rozental |
| Tuesday, 25 May 2010 12:42 |
|
“The Circle is Closing” is the title of the report just released by Colombian magazine Semana [i]. It refers to how indeed the circle is closing on the Presidential Palace in Colombia, where the headquarters of a “criminal enterprise” involving Colombia’s secret services (DAS), function under the direct orders of President Alvaro Uribe and his advisors. This latest report provides evidence, not only of involvement, but direction, orders and full control from the Presidential Palace and the President’s closest friends and advisors of illegal and criminal operations. This criminal machinery has no parallel in history and a lot is to be unveiled yet. The Government and the President initially denied, then expressed concern and finally indignation at the accusations and against the evidence. The testimonies and documents provided and exposed in this report (and added to the already abundant existing proof) are conclusive. From Colombia’s top office and higher post, a criminal state structure has been established (it is still in place and being covered up). This structure is dedicated to spying, defamation, corruption, intimidation, threats, assassinations, disappearances and much more. Those affected by these actions include Supreme Court magistrates, human rights lawyers, members of parliament, political opposition leaders, academics, journalists, union members, indigenous, afro-Colombian, women, peasant leaders and advisors and many civilians and community members. Aurelio Suarez described these criminal activities as a “fraction of what the CIA-Nixon-Watergate scandal involved.”[i] All of this comes under the direction of Colombia’s presidential palace and the highest people in power. The evidence against those involved makes it impossible for President Uribe to keep maintaining that he did not know. The circle is indeed closing. But this is only the DAS scandal. Then there are the thousands of assassinations known as “false positives;” the abuse and the misuse of the judicial system to attack civilians and democratic social and political leaders; the corruption of the largest and most notorious government initiatives, where funds for the poor and social sectors are systematically transferred to drug lords, paramilitaries, wealthy industrialists and entrepreneurs and friends of the President and his ministers; the buying of votes in Congress to obtain constitutional reform; and the approval of many legislative acts, including FTAs, to benefit a few at the expense the many in open violation of the Colombian Constitution and all international treaties, agreements and charters of rights and freedoms. Add to that the assassination of key witnesses; the payback of favours to the Government with land, government posts and jobs and funds; the massive and illegal accumulation of resources; the illegal assignment of contracts to the President’s relatives, including his two sons. In all of this, the mainstream media is complicit in these facts by covering them up: the farce of the paramilitary disarmament, whereby massive amounts of capital from the drug trade have been laundered; brutally acquired land legalized; crimes against humanity, including systematic cannibalism, massacres, mass graves and more to be discovered, have been minimally exposed and mostly ignored. When key witnesses and paramilitary commanders have begun to expose their involvement and cooperation with governments and transnational corporations, they have been extradited abroad and silenced. Meanwhile, paramilitary aggression continues and is worsening through threats and assassinations throughout the Colombian territory. Over the ground laid by previous Governments in coordination with their national and transnational counterparts, during the last 8 years, the Colombian Government has dedicated its every effort to transforming the Colombian State into a criminal enterprise. The structure of the Colombian regime is rotten. It is a State against its obligations, against the Colombian people, against the Colombian economy, against nature, against humanity. All this is known even while those in power maintain control of the State. If “democratic security” and “Investor Trust,” the hallmark policies of this government, were to be removed, expelled from the structure of the Colombian regime, and if the required legal proceedings and investigations were allowed to advance as they should, one cannot begin to imagine the horror and perversity revealed to be at the core of this model regime, designed “hand in glove” for -and most likely by- major foreign government and corporate counterparts. If Colombians are victims of this regime, indeed of this State, one has to ask who the beneficiaries are. The answer has to be sought. This is an International Criminal Legal issue. Amongst many other facts that require volumes to be exposed, Colombia is the largest recipient of US military aid and cooperation in the continent. The Colombian regime is the closest ally of transnational corporate interests (pharmaceutical, tourism, mining, oil, agribusiness, food, energy, biopiracy, infrastructure projects such as dams, the arms trade and almost anyone involved in anything and everything from the legal and illegal organized global crime networks). Through FTAs, the Colombian regime has delivered national sovereignty, freedoms, resources, labour, nature and more to foreign interests at an intolerable expense for Colombians. Investors are attracted to put money into the Colombian economy for guaranteed profit in exchange for absolutely nothing for the Colombian population: No jobs, no transfer of technologies, no profit for the Colombian economy. The Colombian criminal regime promised Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on November 21 2008, to deliver 50% of Colombian territory to mining and other transnational corporate interests [iii]. Every crime of the Colombian State revolves around corporate profit. Silencing, spying, intimidating, murdering, buying out, dispossessing, destroying individuals and collectives who defend their rights and the well-being of Colombians and of the national territory, by the Colombian regime, benefits corporate interests and guarantees what is known as Free Trade Agreements. There are mass graves for profit. There are massacres for profit. There is a war for profit. There are more than 4 million people forcibly displaced for profit. Colombia’s rural areas are being transformed into concentration and confinement camps for profit. There is a dirty war for profit. There is a war on drugs and a war on terrorism as a pretext for profit. A Colombian war machine has been built to attack neighbouring countries and generate terror and instability throughout the continent for profit. There is a lying propaganda machine that hides and promotes all this and much more for profit. There are politicians, journalists, academics, intellectuals, lawyers and an army of planners, promoters and accomplices of this model of terror, policies and propaganda for export and for profit. Without any doubt, justice has yet to begin to establish some judicial facts: 1. The charges for criminal and political involvement and responsibility of Colombian President Uribe and of his Government, high officials and State Institutions in criminal activities that range from corruption to crimes against humanity and everything in between. 2. The charges and criminal involvement of those funding, arming, supporting, covering-up and reaping the benefits of this regime both within and mostly outside of Colombia. Nothing of this magnitude and reach could be happening without the knowledge, complicity and indeed, direction of people and powers above the Colombian President. Isolating this abscess as was done with Noriega (Panama) or Fujimori (Peru) or Saddam Hussein (Iraq), will just not do. No one can believe that the military and intelligence advisors, the embassies, the corporate headquarters, the governments, functionaries, politicians, ministers, members of parliament and others did not know and or participate. As the circle closes in on the Colombian government, it should also open out, surrounding those who have arrogantly denied these facts, attacked as “ideologically motivated,” “against trade,” and supportive of “terrorists” any witnesses or indeed anyone opposing deals with a criminal regime for criminal intent. The circle must include those who have (on record!) insisted on stating loudly and firmly that the Colombian regime, its policies and Free Trade with this criminal State, are for the benefit and wellbeing of Colombians; those who are extracting and plan to extract resources, labour and wealth, taking advantage of a country subdued under terror with the aid of a criminal enterprise placed in power for their interest and at the expense of Colombian people; those in Europe, the U.S and Canada (and elsewhere), who have distorted the truth to promote the exploitation, bloodshed and pillage of Colombia for profit. These people support and promote this state of affairs. On the other hand, we do not speak from statistics. It is our pain that speaks out, that which these people try to silence and disrespect. We have friends, relatives, communities, suffering, exploited, exiled or dead while you tell us we are being impoverished, displaced and murdered for ideological reasons. No, we are not. It has all been truth. It has all been for profit. The mechanisms of horror, policy and propaganda for profit are in place, and you know it. You have been there when they were being implemented. Were you part of their design? You are there now. When we tell you once again the truth, you call us liars even while more and more evidence is coming out. We will not forgive or forget when you will say “I didn’t know”. You know. You are against us and for those who gain from our suffering. As all this has been known, the attacks have increased against those of us who have exposed facts against the regime and against its transnational counterparts: intimidation, threats, media distortions, unwillingness to respect and recognize the truth. All this and more can be observed, for example, throughout the proceedings of the Canadian Government and within the Canadian Parliament and its Standing Committee on International Trade (CIIT), under the leadership of Conservative and Liberal Members of Parliament. They are ratifying an FTA with Colombia at the very time that all the evidence of the criminal regime is being exposed. In fact, the entire process in Parliament is a strategy to validate the lies of those whose crimes are being exposed now. Agents of the criminal Government and corporate beneficiaries of these actions are invited to speak and treated respectfully, while victims are insulted. The more the Liberals and Conservatives know, the more they rush to promote an agreement based on terror for profit, and the more they attack those who expose the truth and the victims of this criminal regime. We want trade. We want it for the benefit of Canadians and Colombians. But trade cannot continue to mean the inevitable exploitation of the many, the psychotic and outrageous destruction of life and Mother Earth for the profit of a few who act as though they have a right to own the planet and our destinies. As the circle closes in on the Colombian President and State, it only begins to open out on those who have made it possible for this regime to carry out its crimes and those who reap the benefits of murder, exploitation and theft. Given the judicial facts known and those that need to be exposed, the Colombian regime has to be dismantled, the rotten structure replaced, truth and justice must be established and all involved and responsible removed and punished. If Canada ratifies a FTA, like the Conservatives, if Mr. Brison, Mr. Ignatieff, Mr. Rae, Mr. Silva and rest of the Liberals insist on carrying on with their business under these conditions, their words and actions will provide further evidence (on record!) to their involvement and complicity with what can only be described as a fascist transnational criminal regime for profit. Up until now, the rhetoric to embellish horror is being imposed on the truth, through a system for the system. Liberal Members of Parliament, only you and your gullible accomplices can believe your own lies, while the truth accumulates in mass graves, destruction, dispossession and pain. The circle has closed in and is opening out to close in again on those who now, like Uribe and his Government before, have lied and are lying to cover-up and commit their crimes for profit. No CCFTA. Yes to trade with justice, for life. [i] Semana, “Se cierra el círculo,” May 15, 2010, http://www.semana.com/noticias-nacion/cierra-circulo/138929.aspx. [ii] Aurelio Suárez, “Sobre Chuza-DAS y toda suerte de crímenes y delitos,” May 11, 2010, http://www.moir.org.co/Sobre-Chuza-DAS-y-toda-suerte-de.html. [iii] República de Colombia, “Declaración y rueda de prensa del Presidente Álvaro Uribe durante la firma del Tratado de Libre Comerio Colombia-Canadá” (Presidencia de la República de Colombia, November 21, 2008), http://web.presidencia.gov.co/sp/2008/noviembre/21/19212008_i.html. |
Conservative Attempt to Silence Witnesses on Canada-
Colombia Free Trade Must Be Rejected, Says the Council of
Canadians
OTTAWA – May 26 – Three motions (below) by Conservative MP Gerald Keddy to stop hearing from witnesses and rush through clause-by-clause consideration of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement must be rejected during an in-camera meeting of the international trade committee on Thursday , says the Council of Canadians.
“The Conservatives and Liberals are clearly uncomfortable hearing witness after witness state that Canada should not sign a free trade agreement with Colombia without first ordering an independent assessment of the deal on human rights,” says Stuart Trew, trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians. “It’s an inconvenient truth about this deal that it will likely make a bad situation worse in Colombia and do little for the Canadian economy. Voting for Keddy’s motions on Thursday would be a transparent attempt to sweep that truth under the rug.”
Mr. Keddy does a further injustice to democracy by proposing that MPs only get five seconds to consider each clause in the Colombia agreement, and the decision to move Thursday’s meeting in-camera is also surprising, and a sign perhaps that the Conservatives are feeling the public pressure. The Council of Canadians has organized “Tweet-Ins” in English and most recently in Spanish during the last three trade committee meetings to give real-time updates on committee proceedings and MP comments to people who cannot be there in person. The first Tweet-In on May 11 reached tens of thousands of people and made the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement the second most popular topic of discussion on Twitter.
There is near unanimous support among Canadian labour, development, ecumenical and social justice organizations that the Colombia free trade deal should wait until a human rights impact assessment can be carried out. A Liberal proposal from trade critic Scott Brison, which resulted in an as yet unspecific amendment to the agreement requiring some form of annual human rights reports post-ratification, is seen with skepticism because of comments from Colombian trade officials that the Colombian government would perform its own assessments.
“When the Liberals voted in the House of Commons last month to end second reading debate on the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement, sending it to committee, it was on the explicit condition that a ‘comprehensive’ and ‘in depth’ study be carried out of the agreement’s human rights implications,” says Trew. “The only choice of all opposition parties on Thursday is to reject Keddy’s motions and to hear from all remaining witnesses.”
–
MOTIONS FOR VOTE ON THURSDAY, MAY 27
Notice of Motions – Gerald Keddy, MP Date: May 25, 2010
Motion #1 That the Committee hear no more testimonies regarding its study of Bill C-2 and that it conclude clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill on Tuesday, June 1 2010; and that by no later than 5:30 p.m. of June 1st, all remaining questions in relation to the clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill be put to a vote without further debate.
Motion #2 That regarding the Committee’s clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-2 each member will take no longer than 5 seconds to vote on each clause and amendment; and if the 5 seconds limit is exceeded the member will be deemed to have abstained.
Motion #3 That all proposed amendments to the bill must be tabled with the clerk of the committee 24 hours in advance of the meeting in which the proposed amendments will be moved; and that the chair of the committee, at his discretion, be allowed to group similar amendments to be considered at the same time.
Notice of Motion – Peter Julian, MP 2010-05-25
That the Committee provide sufficient time during the committee’s scheduled meetings of May 27, June 1rst, June 3rd , June 8th and June 10th , to hear the testimony of the organizations and persons who have written to the Committee to date, requesting to appear as witnesses at the Bill C-2 hearings, which include, AFRODES (Charo Mina Rojas), Justicia y Paz (Danilo Rueda), Dr. Penelope Simons (University of Ottawa), National Union of Public and General Employees (James Clancy), CLC (Sheila Katz), AFL-CIO (Jeff Vogt), National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC – Luis Fernando Arias Secretary General), OPSEU (Smokey Thomas & Yhony Munoz), Mingas-FTA (Natalia Fajardo), la Chiva Collective (Manual Rozental), Gary Leech (Independent Journalist, NS), NOMADESC (Berenice Celeyta), Union of the Ombudsman’s office (Maria Eva Villate, President, Human Rights Lawyer), Congressman Mike Michaud, Escuela Nacional Sindical (ENS), National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), Central Unitaria De Trahabadores de Colombia, CODHES (Jorge Rohas, President) and that the committee close off hearings on Bill C-2 and proceed to clause by clause review after having heard these witnesses.
US Bases in Colombia Rattle the Region March 19, 2010
Posted by rogerhollander in Colombia, Foreign Policy, Latin America, War.Tags: benjamin dangl, Colombia, correa, foreign policy, hillary clinton, human rights, Latin America, latin america politics, military bases, plan colombia, roger hollander, uribe, us bases
add a comment
On the shores of the Magdalena River, in a lush green valley dotted with cattle ranches and farms, sits the Palanquero military base, an outpost equipped with Colombia’s longest runway, housing for 2,000 troops, a theater, a supermarket, and a casino.
Palanquero is at the heart of a ten-year, renewable military agreement signed between the United States and Colombia on October 30, 2009, which gives Washington access to seven military bases in the country. Though officials from the U.S. and Colombian governments contend the agreement is aimed at fighting narcotraffickers and guerrillas within Colombian borders, a U.S. Air Force document states the deal offers a “unique opportunity” for “conducting full spectrum operations” in the region against various threats, including “anti-U.S. governments.”
The Pentagon sought access to the bases in Colombia after Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa canceled the lease for the U.S. military base in Manta, Ecuador. The U.S. capability in Colombia will now be greater than at Manta, which worries human rights advocates in Colombia and left-leaning governments throughout the region.
“The main purpose of expanding these bases is to take strategic control of Latin America,” opposition senator Jorge Enrique Robledo of the Polo Democrático Alternativo told me over the phone from Bogotá.
Every president in South America outside of Colombia is against the bases agreement, with Hugo Chávez of neighboring Venezuela being the most critical. Chávez said that by signing the deal the United States was blowing “winds of war” over the region, and that the bases were “a threat against us.”
“Colombia decided to hand over its sovereignty to the United States,” said Chávez in a televised meeting with government ministers. “Colombia today is no longer a sovereign country. . . . It is a kind of colony.” The Venezuelan president responded by deploying troops to the border in what has become an increasingly tense battle of words and flexing of military muscle.
Correa in neighboring Ecuador said the new bases agreement “constitutes a grave danger for peace in Latin America.”
Colombian President Alvaró Uribe dismissed critics and said the increased U.S. collaboration was necessary to curtail violence in the country. Uribe told The Washington Post, “We are not talking about a political game; we are talking about a threat that has spilled blood in Colombian society.”
But plans for the expansion of the bases show that the intent is to prepare for war and intimidate the region, likely spilling more blood in the process.
The Palanquero base, the largest of the seven in the agreement, will be expanding with $46 million in U.S. taxpayers’ money. Palanquero is already big enough to house 100 planes, and its 10,000-foot runway allows three planes to take off at once. It can accommodate enormous C-17 planes, which can carry large numbers of troops for distances that span the hemisphere without needing to refuel.
The intent of the base, according to U.S. Air Force documents, “is to leverage existing infrastructure to the maximum extent possible, improve the U.S. ability to respond rapidly to crisis, and assure regional access and presence at minimum cost. . . . Palanquero will provide joint use capability to the U.S. Army, Air Force, Marines, and U.S. Interagency aircraft and personnel.”
The United States and Colombia may also see the bases as a way to cultivate ties with other militaries.
“The bases will be used to strengthen the military training of soldiers from other countries,” says John Lindsay-Poland, the co-director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean Program. “There is already third-country training in Colombia, and what the Colombia government says now is that this agreement will strengthen that.”
“This deal is a threat to the new governments that have emerged,” says Enrique Daza, the director of the Hemispheric Social Alliance, currently based in Bogotá. These new governments are “demanding sovereignty, autonomy, and independence in the region, and this bases agreement collides directly” with that, he says.
The Obama Administration, with the new agreement, is further collaborating with the Colombian military in spite of that institution’s grave human rights abuses in recent years.
In a July 2009 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senators Patrick Leahy and Christopher Dodd wrote: “What are the implications of further deepening our relationship with the Colombian military at a time of growing revelations about the widespread falsos positivos (“false positives”) scandal, in which the Colombian military recruited many hundreds (some estimates are as high as 1,600) of boys and young men for jobs in the countryside that did not exist and then summarily executed them to earn bonuses and vacation days?”
The military base agreement needs to be understood in the context of two other U.S. initiatives in Colombia.
First, Plan Colombia, which began under President Clinton, committed billions of dollars ostensibly to fight the war on drugs but also to fighting the guerrillas, intensifying the country’s already brutal conflict in rural areas. This has led to increasing displacement of people from areas that are strategically important for mining multinationals.
Second, the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement, which was signed in 2006, could pry open the country to more U.S. corporate exploitation. But it has been met with opposition in the United States, delaying its ratification. Daza says the signing of the bases deal is part of “a military strategy that complements the push for the free trade agreement.” The trade accord will serve “transnational corporate investments,” and these investments, he says, “are sustained by a military relationship.”
Opposition to the military bases agreement is vocal in Colombia. In a column written in July 2009, Senator Robledo denounced it, saying, “There is no law that allows bases of this type in Colombia.” One struggle, Robledo said, is on the legal and political front. The other is among social movements in Colombia and beyond. “It is important to organize a type of democratic citizens’ movement, a national campaign against these foreign bases, as well as a continental social alliance that promotes the denunciation of this agreement,” he says.
Daza is working with Mingas, a cross-border solidarity organization consisting of activists in Colombia, Canada, and the United States. Mingas wrote a letter to Obama, condemning the President’s decision to go forward with the deal on the bases. “At the Summit of the Americas in April 2009 you promised to foster a ‘new sense of partnership’ between the United States and the rest of the Western Hemisphere,” the letter states. “But your Administration has yet to address the grave concerns expressed by national leaders throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean regarding the U.S.-Colombia military base agreement.”
By signing this bases agreement, and by equivocating over the coup in Honduras, Obama has sent ominous signals to Latin America.
“Obama has not renounced the policies of Bush,” Robledo says. “Speaking in economic and military terms, on the fundamental issues, the similarities between Bush and Obama are bigger than the differences. Obama has not produced a change.”
© 2010 The Progressive
Conservatives Revive Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement March 12, 2010
Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, Colombia, Latin America.Tags: Amnesty International, Canada, Colombia, colombia labor, daw, dawn paley, democracy, Free Trade, human rights, labour, Michael Ignatieff, roger hollander, Stephen Harper
add a comment
Deal tabled as assassinations and displacement continue
Source: The Media Co-o
| Written by Dawn Paley |
| Thursday, 11 March 2010 14:39 |
The Conservatives tabled the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement in Parliament yesterday, reviving a deal many thought better left for dead.
Renewed interest in the deal comes weeks after an Amnesty International report found Indigenous peoples in Colombia are at risk of being exterminated by state forces, right wing paramilitary groups and guerrilla organizations.
But Canadian officials are ignoring Amnesty’s report, focusing instead on economic aspects of the deal.
“International trade is critical to our economic recovery,” said Minister of International Trade Peter Van Loan in a press release. “As we move beyond stimulus spending and diversify opportunities for Canadian business abroad, this free trade agreement will help Canadians prosper,” he said.
Van Loan’s comments come though there is little data supporting the notion that economic benefits will flow to Canadians as the result of an FTA with Colombia.
The Canada-Colombia deal will open market access for certain Canadian commodities, flooding the Colombian market with Canadian wheat, barley and other grains. The key provisions of the deal relate to the security of Canadian investments in the mining and oil and gas sector.
The agreement, which was being fast-tracked in parliament as Bill C-23, was sidelined when Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued parliament. Critics of the Canada-Colombia FTA are urging Micheal Ignatieff, the leader of the official opposition, to vote against the deal, now dubbed C-2, in parliament.
“Ignatieff has only one choice if he truly cares about human rights and democracy, and that’s to keep the Colombia free trade agreement off the parliamentary agenda until a human rights impact assessment can be carried out,” said Stuart Trew, the trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians.
Unfortunatly, the Liberals have wavered in their opposition to the deal, straying from an election promise by former leader Stépane Dion that they wouldn’t sign off on the deal until the human rights situation in Colombia improved.
“Far from creating a legitimate economy, as Liberal MPs have been suggesting in defence of the Colombia free trade agreement, the deal before Parliament would increase the chances that Canadian companies invested in agriculture, mining and resource extraction in sensitive areas will be doing business with murderers, drug traffickers and arms smugglers,” said Trew in a press release.
News of the tabling of the agreement comes together with the newest gruesome figures relating to murders of union members last year. Colombia’s National Labour School reports that 45 unionists were killed in 2009.
“In the face of these serious, ongoing abuses it is unacceptable that Ottawa would even be talking to the Colombian government, let alone fast-tracking an agreement,” said Paul Moist, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, in a press release.
In February, Amnesty spokesperson Kathy Price said the situation of Indigenous peoples in Colombia is nothing short of an emergency. At least 114 Indigenous people were murdered last year, while thousands more were subject to threats, abuse, torture and displacement.
U.S. Military Documents Show Colombia Base Agreement Poses Threat to Region November 7, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Colombia, Latin America.Tags: Colombia, colombia air bases, colombia bases, colombia military, foreign policy, gary leech, hillary clinton, Latin America, Latin America military, palenquero, plan colombia, roger hollander, u.s.-colombia
add a comment
|
|||||||||||
South America to Slam US-Colombia Base Deal August 25, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Colombia, Latin America, Venezuela.Tags: alan garcia, Alvaro Uribe, Colombia, colombia military, hillary clinton, Hugo Chavez, Latin America, latin america politics, lula da silva, plan colombia, south america, U.S. imperialism, u.s. military bases, UNASUR, Venezuela
1 comment so far
SAO PAULO – South American presidents are expected to slam a US plan to use military bases in Colombia when they gather for a summit in Argentina at the end of the week specifically to discuss the issue.
The anti-US leaders of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia have already vociferously criticized the announcement that Washington wanted to expand its military presence in Colombia to access seven bases.
![[Colombians fill up a motorbike with smuggled gasoline in Cucuta, Colombia, on the border with Venezuela. In Venezuela the price of oil is 50 times cheaper than in Colombia, and due to the crisis between both countries, Colombians started smuggling along the border. Venezuela will not renew a recently-expired deal that provided Colombia gasoline at cut-rate prices. (AFP photo)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/columbia-2.jpg "columbia-2.jpg")
Colombians fill up a motorbike with smuggled gasoline in Cucuta, Colombia, on the border with Venezuela. In Venezuela the price of oil is 50 times cheaper than in Colombia, and due to the crisis between both countries, Colombians started smuggling along the border. Venezuela will not renew a recently-expired deal that provided Colombia gasoline at cut-rate prices. (AFP photo)The more moderate presidents heading up Brazil, Chile and Argentina have likewise expressed concern at the decision, first announced last month by Bogota.
The Union of South American Nations (Unasur) summit in the Argentine ski resort of Bariloche on Friday is to examine claims by Venezuela President Hugo Chavez that the increased US deployment could be used to invade his country.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is to attend, after having snubbed the previous Unasur meeting in Ecuador early this month because of regional friction over the deal.
Ahead of that last meeting, Uribe embarked on a tour of South America to speak to leaders one-on-one about the bases deal, but failed to win any support except from Peruvian President Alan Garcia.
US officials say that, while the deal on the bases was finalized this month, the agreement with Colombia has yet been signed.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she expected to ink the accord soon.
She also insisted that the beefed-up US military presence was exclusively aimed at “narco-traffickers, terrorists, and other illegal armed groups in Colombia.”
But Chavez on Sunday charged that “they are turning all of Colombia into a (US) base.”
He said in his weekly broadcast he had a document that showed the US military intended to operate unhindered “in strategic areas” — which he interpreted as including the Orinoco Delta in eastern Venezuela and Brazil’s northern Amazon basin.
The US aim was to “dominate South America and act freely across the continent,” he alleged.
Brazil’s defense minister, Nelson Jobim, was to travel to Colombia on Tuesday to talk over the bases decision with his counterpart, Gabriel Silva Lujan.
On Monday, he met with Ecuadorian Defense Minister Javier Ponce. Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim also met with Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Fander Falconi.
Falconi said Colombia had requested that several agenda items be discussed in conjunction with the bases issue at Friday’s summit, including other military deals in South America.
That latter point could touch on Venezuela’s recent purchases of billions of dollars of Russian weaponry, including sophisticated fighter jets and tanks, and Brazil’s deal with France to buy five submarines, one of which will be outfitted as a nuclear-powered vessel. Brazil is also poised to buy 36 new fighter aircraft from France, the United States or Sweden.
“There are no off-limit subjects at the meeting,” Falconi said.
“We think that all aspects linked to security in the region need to be tackled by the presidents. It’s not about accusing anybody, only holding transparent dialogue with the aim of strengthening regional unity,” he said.
Unasur groups Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guayana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Last week, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged US President Barack Obama to attend a Unasur summit to hear the grievances.
Obama said only he would “look at possibilities” and would next meet with Lula on September 24-25, at a G20 summit in Pittsburgh, in the US state of Pennsylvania.
Under a current cap exercised by the US Congress, the number of US citizens deployed to bases in Colombia cannot exceed 800 uniformed and 600 civilian personnel.
The US daily The Washington Post claimed in an editorial on Monday that Chavez was stirring up trouble over the bases to distract attention from his alleged support of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a rebel organization deemed a “terrorist” group by Washington.
The newspaper, which has good sources in US defense and political circles, asserted that giving the US military access to seven bases in Colombia was an “unremarkable” expansion of existing US operations in the country.
© 2009 Agence France Presse
Observations on Latin America August 8, 2009
Posted by rogerhollander in Colombia, Foreign Policy, Honduras, Mexico, Right Wing, Venezuela.Tags: bachelet, colombia bases, foreign policy, hillary clinton, Honduras, honduras coup, Hugo Chavez, james jones, Latin America, latin america government, latin america politics, Lula, Mexico, mexico politics, miguel tinker salas, military bases, obama administration, plan colombia, plan merida, right wing, roger hollander, u.s. imperialsim, u.s. military bases, UNASUR, uribe, Venezuela, zelaya
1 comment so far
The recent events in Honduras are not isolated, but rather part of a conservative counterattack taking shape in Latin America. For some time, the right has been rebuilding in Latin America; hosting conferences, sharing experiences, refining their message, working with the media, and building ties with allies in the United States. This is not the lunatic rightwing fringe, but rather the mainstream right with powerful allies in the middle class that used to consider themselves center, but have been frightened by recent left electoral victories and the rise of social movements. With Obama in the White House and Clinton in the State Department they have now decided to act. Bush/Cheney and company did not give them any coverage and had become of little use to them. A “liberal” in the White House gives conservative forces the kind of coverage they had hoped for. It is no coincidence that Venezuelan opposition commentators applauded the naming of Clinton to the State Department, claiming that they now had an ally in the administration. The old cold-warrior axiom that the best antidote against the left is a liberal government in Washington gains new meaning under Obama with Clinton at the State Department.
Coup leaders in Honduras and their allies continue to play for time. Washington’s continuing vacillation is allowing them to exhaust this option, but so are right-wing governments in Colombia, Mexico, Panama and Peru. After all, this coup is not just about Honduras but also about leftwing success in Latin America, of which Honduras was the weakest link. It is increasingly becoming obvious that there is no scenario under which elites in Honduras will accept Zelaya back. I do not think that they have a plan “B” on this matter and this speaks to the kind of advice they are getting from forces in the U.S. and the region. If Zelaya comes back, the Supreme Court, the Congress, the military and the church all lose credibility and it opens the door for the social and political movements in Honduras to push for radical change that conservative forces would find more difficult to resist.
But Honduras is only part of the equation. Colombia’s decision to accept as many as 7 new U.S. military bases (3 airbases, including Palanquero, 2 army bases, and 2 naval bases one on the Pacific and one on the Caribbean), dramatically expands the U.S. military’s role in the country and throughout the region. The Pentagon has been eyeing the airbase at Palanquero with its complex infrastructure and extensive runway for some time. This is a very troubling sign that will alter the balance of forces in the region, and speaks volumes about how the Obama administration plans to respond to change in Latin America. A possible base on the Caribbean coast of Colombia would also offer the recently reactivated U.S. Fourth Fleet, a convenient harbor on the South American mainland. In short, Venezuela would be literally encircled. However, Venezuela is not the only objective. It also places the Brazilian Amazon and all its resources within striking distance of the U.S. military, as well as the much sought after Guarani watershed. After public criticism from Bachelet of Chile, Lula of Brazil and Chávez of Venezuela, Uribe refused to attend the August 10 meeting of UNASUR, the South American Union, where he would be expected to explain the presence of the U.S. bases. The meeting of the UNASUR security council was scheduled to take up the issue of the bases and Bolivia’s suggestion for a unified South American response to drug trafficking. Instead, Uribe has launched his own personal diplomacy traveling to 7 different countries in the region to explain his actions. In addition, Obama’s National Security Advisor James Jones is in Brazil trying to justify the U.S. position on the bases.
The recent media war launched by Uribe against Ecuador and Correa, once again claiming financing of the FARC, and the more recent offensive against Venezuela concerning 30 year old Swedish missiles, that, like the Reyes computers, cannot be independently verified, have filled the airwaves in Venezuela, Colombia and the region. The current Colombian media campaign was preceded by Washington’s own efforts to condemn Venezuela for supposed non-compliance in the war against drug trafficking. In addition, Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, also traveled throughout Latin America in July claiming that Venezuela is a destabilizing force in the region and in the Middle East.
Lost in all this is the fact that Uribe is still considering a third term in office and his party has indicated it will push for a constitutional reform. So conflicts with Ecuador and Venezuela serve to silence critics in Colombia and keep Uribe’s electoral competitors at bay. All we need now is for Uribe to ask the Interpol to verify the missiles’ origins and Interpol director Ron Noble to give another press conference in Bogota. Déjà vu all over again!
The right and its allies in the U.S. are also emboldened by the electoral victory in Panama and the very real prospects of leftist defeats this year in Chile and even Uruguay. Obviously they are also encouraged by the humiliating defeat of the Fernández / Kirchners in Argentina. These developments could begin to redraw the political map of the region. Correa of Ecuador has already expressed concern about being the target of a coup and Bolivia will undoubtedly come under intense pressure as they are also preparing for an election later this year.
All this is occurring with an increased U.S. military commitment in Mexico with Plan Mérida which seeks to build on the lessons of Colombia: maintain in power a president whose economic and social policies are highly unpopular, but who relies on conflict, in this case the so-called war on the drug cartels, to maintain popularity. Parts of Mexico are literally under siege, including Michoacán, Ciudad Juarez, and Tijuana. The backdrop for this is a divided left; the PRD was the biggest loser in recent midterm elections, and social movements remains localized and unable to mount a national challenge.
None of these developments are forgone conclusions, but they nonetheless speak to the fact that conservative forces in Latin America and their allies in the U.S. are mounting a concerted counter offensive that could increase the potential for conflict in the region.
Fluent in both Spanish and English, Professor Miguel Tinker Salas is often asked by the national and international media to provide analysis on political issues confronting Mexico, Venezuela, and Latin America. He has been interviewed by CNN, CNN Spanish, ESPN, the PBS New Hour, the Associated Press, Reuters, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Univisión, Telemundo, and many other radio, television and print media outlets. His expertise includes: US-Latin American Relations, contemporary Venezuelan politics, oil policy, Mexican Politics, Mexican border issues, Immigration, and Latinos/as in the United States. He is often asked to speak on college campuses and community events on the important issue facing Latin America and Latinos/as in the US.
Victory for Justice for Colombia! November 10, 2010
Posted by rogerhollander in Colombia, Human Rights, Latin America.Tags: Colombia, colombia paramilitaries, drummond, georgetown, georgetown university, Latin America, roger hollander, soa, soa watch, uribe
1 comment so far
Georgetown Students Serve Uribe Subpoena to Speak Under Oath About Paramilitary Ties
former SOA Watch Prisoner of Conscience (serving 6 months in a federal prison in 2003) and current Georgetown law student Charity Ryerson served Álvaro Uribe with a subpoena, directing him to testify under oath in a case against Drummond Mining Company.
Last week, students at Georgetown University in Washington, DC succeeded in serving Colombia’s ex-president Álvaro Uribe with a subpoena to testify about paramilitary ties in Colombia. The Adios Uribe Coalition has campaigned since September to get Georgetown to drop Uribe as a ‘Distinguished Scholar’. Following a rally at Georgetown’s Red Square of over 100 students, teacher and activists,
The importance of this action cannot be overstated. Uribe will have to talk about his knowledge of paramilitary collusion with the transnational Drummond and with the Colombian Armed Forces. Drummond is being sued by close to 500 families of victims of paramilitary terror, who claim that the coal company worked with the Colombian paramilitaries to murder, torture and disappear their loved ones. Augusto Jiménez, the president of Drummond in Colombia, is a distant relative of Álvaro Uribe.
Under the regime of Álvaro Uribe, close to 35,000 Colombians were killed, with thousands being presented as guerrilla fighters killed in combat. He has been accused of wiretapping his political opponents, attacking social movements and many in his party have been tied to the paramilitary infrastructure. While the Jesuits have been outspoken defenders of the poor and the marginalized in Latin America, Georgetown University continues to try to clean the image of Uribe by employing him as an academic. SOA Watch remembers the thousands of disappeared, displaced and massacred in Colombia and across the Américas, and calls on Georgetown to drop Uribe.
Colombia, ¡PRESENTE!
Stand up for justice: SOAW.org/take-action/november-vigil