by Adriaan Alsema May 26, 2021

Public support for Colombia’s mass media has plummeted as they persistently contradict citizen reporting, a poll confirmed.

According to pollster Invamer, public approval of the news media dropped from 41% to 31% since ongoing anti-government protests began on April 28.

The approval of “the media” in Colombia has been dropping for a decade, but plummeted in May after a wave of social media reports on police brutality was blatantly contradicted by mass media.

Colombians become their own reporters

While citizens reported extreme violence by the security forces on social media, Colombia’s mass media almost exclusively reported on incidents of vandalism by “protesters.”

On some days, citizens were literally begging the international community for help while media were replicating a government conspiracy theory that the largely peaceful protests would be coordinated by guerrilla groups.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombia-turns-on-media-amid-barrage-of-lies-and-propaganda/

Moments after delivering his Battle of Pichincha address in Loja in 1981, President Jaime Roldós died in a plane crash.
Did the CIA assassinate him?
May 23, 2021 | 15 comments



León Roldós (left) was appointed vice president a few days after his brother, Jaime Roldós, died in a
1981 plane crash. Osvaldo Hurtado Larrea (center) carries Jaime Roldós’ coffin.

By Sylvan Hardy

Those who knew him remember his May 24, 1981 speech commemorating the Battle of Pichincha and Ecuador’s independence from Spain as being one of President Jaime Roldós’ most passionate. He said Ecuador should not become involved in “inconsequential entanglements”, a reference to pressure by the U.S. to oppose leftist insurgencies in Latin America. Instead, he said the country must pick its battles wisely, as it did in 1822, and should pursue a “humanist” agenda to improve the lives of its citizens.

Within a hour of the speech, Roldós and his wife Martha Bucaram were dead as their airplane exploded in mid-air, crashing into Huairapungo Mountain, 15 kilometers from Loja.

Did the U.S. government play a role in the tragedy? Was his death an assassination aimed eliminating Latin American governments not in lockstep with the U.S. Cold War strategy of fighting communism? More than seven years after Ecuador’s former attorney general Galo Chiriboga opened an investigation to determine the cause of the explosion that killed Roldós, there is no definitive answer.



Jaime Roldos and his wife Martha shortly before they boarded the presidential aircraft on
May 24, 1881, in Loja.

A CIA document released in 2014 reveals that Ecuador, like other South American countries, was part in the U.S.-backed Operation Condor plan from the 1970s to the mid-1980s. The U.S. State Department document said the plan was intended to maintain Latin America as the “backyard for the U.S.”

The document states that Ecuador, then under a military dictatorship, became part of Operation Condor in 1978, joining the dictatorships of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in endorsing state-sponsored terror to control what was perceived to be the threat of communism and to “eliminate subversive sectors of society.”

More:
https://cuencahighlife.com/ecuador-investigates-the-death-of-president-jaime-roldos-attorney-general-says-that-it-could-be-tied-to-the-cias-operation-condor/

by Adriaan Alsema May 10, 2021

Colombia’s mass media and the Cali Police Department tried to cover up an attempted massacre of native Colombians by far-right supporters of President Ivan Duque.

At least eight indigenous protesters were injured on Sunday when heavily armed supporters of the increasingly authoritarian president indiscriminately opened fire on the buses they were driving.

The armed residents from an upscale neighborhood in the south of Cali received help from at least one policeman while preparing the massacre, according to video footage.

In order to cover up the attempted massacre, Cali Police chief Juan Carlos Rodriguez falsely accused the victims of incinerating two vehicle and falsely claimed that some were carrying firearms.

La FM director journalist Luis Carlos Velez subsequently reported that locals blamed native Colombians for breaking into their housing complex and vandalized vehicles.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombia-trying-to-cover-up-attempted-indigenous-massacre/

The Zarzur family and their servants. (Image: Soho)

by Adriaan Alsema May 23, 2021

Deeply-rooted racism of the white elite in Colombia’s third largest city Cali poses a genocide risk for local black community, according to a study.

Cali found itself in the spotlight during ongoing anti-government protests because of extreme violence that human rights NGO CODHES attributed to racist policing and an armed white elite.

The city has a long history of institutionalized racism and white supremacy that has its origin in the city’s leading role in Colombia’s exploitation of slaves in sugar plantations of the Valle del Cauca province.

The recent surge of violence against Cali’s black community “runs the risk of becoming a genocide” unless measures are taken, according to CODHES.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/white-supremacy-in-colombia-part-4-racist-calis-genocide-risk/

In Ecuador, indigenous women lead a march to the capital, to demand an end to the pillaging of their land

Gabriela Ruiz Agila
22 May 2021, 12.00am





On 26 March, Ecuador’s ombudsman (or “people’s defender”) Freddy Carrión visited Pastaza, the country’s largest province, and paid homage to the resilience of Amazonian women. María Taant, a leader of the Shuar indigenous people, sang a song invoking the great anaconda of the Amazon jungle. Hours later, she would be dead, a tragic road accident that left the Amazonian women’s movement bereft while also demanding they continue the struggle to defend their territory.

In memory of María Taant, we remember the march from Puyo to Quito on 8 March 2018, when María Taant and her companions delivered the Mandate of Amazonian Women to the government of Lenín Moreno. It read: "we demand the deletion of the contracts and/or agreements and concessions granted by the Ecuadorian government to oil and mining companies in the south-central Amazon."

For five days, the women kept vigil in the Plaza Grande, Quito’s central public square. Their struggle and persistence now resonates around the world. One of them, Nemonte Nenquim, led the Waorani people’s battle to protect 500,000 acres of rain forest from oil extraction. Her grassroots activism won the prestigious Goldman environmental prize for 2020 and a place on the New York Times’s 100 most influential people list.

The events of March 2018 were transformative. The women of the Amazon – from the Kichwa, Shuar, Achuar, Shiwiar, Waorani, Sapara and Mestizo peoples – had gathered to tell a story of negotiation and struggle, as they sought to redefine their place in the family and in wider society. For many years, they had been cultivating knowledge and resistance in their territories and communities.



Source: Shuar People. 13 March 2018. Maria Taant sings to give heart to the women of the Amazon, gathered in the Plaza Grande in Quito

Taant was prepared for the struggle. Eleven days before leaving for Quito, she fasted, visited the waterfall, dreamed and spoke to her ancestors. Widowed seven years before the march to Quito, she was raising four children – a daughter and three sons – on her own. At 25 she had been chosen by the Shuar elders to be a healer. At 47, she did not dream of shields as male warriors do, but of women walking, painting the great anaconda, talking and laughing. She dreamt the resistance. She saw it all clearly: a gruelling journey followed by hours of waiting. "It will be hard for them to listen to us," she told her gathered sisters.

More:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/struggle-women-amazon-ecuador-en/

May 21, 2021


The governments of Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador are taking steps to restore and preserve the Qhapaq Ñam Andean Inca route and promote local tourism in the region.



Qhapaq Ñam in the Peruvian Andes.

Qhapaq Ñam was the backbone of the Inca Empire’s political and economic power. It served as an extensive Inca communication, trade and defense network of roads and associated structures, covering an area of more than 30,000 square kilometres.

During the last days of the empire, it connected Cusco with Cuenca, which was being built to be the northern Inca capital.

Since 2014, Qhapaq Ñam has been considered a UNESCO World Heritage site. Its development and preservation is not only important for historic reasons, but for the Andean countries’ tourism industry and culture. Peruvian Minister of Culture and Tourism, Wilma Alanoca, confirmed the proposal of a project in the area that is expected to benefit 15 local communities along the route.

More:
https://cuencahighlife.com/ecuador-peru-bolivia-preserving-incan-qhapaq-nam-route-promoting-local-tourism/

Colombian Police Crack Down On Protests With Long-Range Weapons

In Caucasia, dozens of children, pregnant women, and elderly people had to take refuge from police brutality in a school for hours.

Colombians on Wednesday denounced that the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) cracked down on peaceful protests with long and short-range weapons.

Videos posted on social networks show agents shooting at farmers in Bucaramanga. According to witnesses, at least 25 protesters were wounded.

In Caucasia, dozens of children, pregnant women, and elderly people had to take refuge from police brutality in La Normal school for hours. Social organizations denounced that at least 10 people were injured during the clashes.

More:
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Colombian-Police-Crack-Down-On-Protests-With-Long-range-Weapons-20210520-0001.html

20 May 2021, 18:23 UTC

In light of verified visual evidence by Amnesty International that United States weapons and equipment are being misused to commit human rights violations against protesters in Colombia, the human rights organization is calling on Secretary of State Blinken to immediately cease the direct or indirect supply, sale, or transfer of equipment used for repression such as small arms, shotguns, and related ammunition; less-lethal equipment, such as tear gas, riot control projectiles and launchers; armored vehicles, dual-use surveillance technologies, training, and any other technical or financial assistance.

“The United States role in fueling ceaseless cycles of violence committed against the people of Colombia is outrageous,” said Philippe Nassif, the advocacy director at Amnesty International USA. “The United States government has been an agonizing party to the killing, disappearances, sexual violence and other torture, and horrendous repression of dozens of mostly peaceful demonstrations.

“A suspension of weapons must remain in place until the Colombian security forces fully comply with international law and standards on the use of force, abuses are independently and impartially investigated, and there is full accountability for all human rights violations that have been committed by the Colombian authorities, with support from the United States. Secretary Blinken has the power to stop the fear and terror that Colombian protesters are enduring, and he must do so immediately.”

The United States role in fueling ceaseless cycles of violence committed against the people of Colombia is outrageous

Philippe Nassif, the advocacy director at Amnesty International USA

More:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/05/estados-unidos-armas-usadas-para-reprimir-protestas-colombia/

With a pencil and a notebook, Peruvian artist Edilberto Jiménez walks the streets of Lima and cities in the Andes mountains collecting stories and images about the coronavirus health crisis that has devastated Peru

By FRANKLIN BRICEÑO Associated Press
May 20, 2021, 11:37 PM
• 3 min read



The Associated Press
Edilberto Jimenez poses with one of his drawings at his home in San Juan de Lurigancho, on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, Thursday, May 20, 2021. Jimenez compiled in a book his interpretation of the sufferings that Peruvians have endured during the COVID pandemic that has caused a deepening economic crisis and has killed more than 66,000 people in the Andean country. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

LIMA, Peru -- With a pencil and a notebook, artist Edilberto Jiménez walks the streets of Lima and cities in the Andes mountains collecting stories and images about the coronavirus health crisis that has devastated Peru.

Later, in his workshop, he completes the scenes while reading newspapers or watching television news about the pandemic that has killed tens of thousands of people in his South American homeland.

“It’s like a war with an invisible enemy,” Jiménez says of COVID-19.

“Each drawing tells a story that had an impact on me,” says the artist, who drew 750 sketches and selected 100 of them for a book called “New Coronavirus and Good Government."

His title plays off that of another book — “New Chronicle and Good Government,” a 1615 work by Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala containing 400 drawings and 1,200 pages recounting the suffering of Indigenous peoples at the hands of the Spaniards.

More:
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/artist-publishes-100-drawings-perus-covid-19-pandemic-77820122

Dharna Noor
Today 12:00PM

Plastic producers have tried to make us think that individuals can solve pollution by improving our recycling and shopping habits. A new study makes it clear why that’s their tactic. Just 20 companies are responsible for more than half of the world’s trashed single-use plastic.

The Plastic Waste Makers Index, published Tuesday by the Australian foundation Minderoo, is a comprehensive account of the companies manufacturing plastic that goes into disposable products. It shows that energy giants and chemical conglomerates are among the 20 companies that created 55% of global plastic waste. Expanding the view just a bit further, the report also shows that just 100 businesses account for more than 90% of trashed plastic.

The top contributor to throwaway plastics, the report found, is Exxon. In 2019, it contributed 5.9 million metric tons of plastic that got thrown away. In close second and third were the world’s two largest chemical companies, U.S.-based Dow and China’s Sinopec. They created 5.5 million metric tons and 5.3 million metric tons of the stuff respectively.

The research also showed that recycled plastic account for just 2% of the world’s disposable plastics. The vast majority are made from virgin materials, meaning new fossil fuels were extracted to create them.

More:
https://earther.gizmodo.com/just-20-companies-create-55-of-plastic-waste-1846925916?utm_source=earther_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2021-05-19