Terror case collapses against Colombian

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Terror case collapses against Colombian
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department's terrorism case against a Colombian rebel leader ended with a mistrial Tuesday after prosecutors failed to persuade jurors that Ricardo Palmera provided material support to terrorists.

Palmera, who is better known by his nom de guerre, Simon Trinidad, was convicted Monday of helping keep three Americans hostage for years in the Colombian jungle. But jurors were deadlocked on whether Palmera provided material support to terrorists or was directly responsible for the hostage-taking.

After jurors said they remained deadlocked Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth declared a mistrial on the remaining charges.

Palmera is a senior member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The force of about 12,000 fighters has battled the Colombian government for four decades and the U.S. government considers it a terrorist organization and a drug cartel.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070710/ap_on_go_ot/colombia_rebel_trial;_ylt=A9G_RzqQz5NGGbIASQCyFz4D

[High Plains]

1. "Three American hostages"

Funny, I would have called those captured mercenaries POWs.

They were flying a plane spraying poison on coca fields (and whatever else is nearby) when they were shot down, if I recall correctly. Tough luck, guys.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Absolutely right. It's the "whatever else is nearby" which has been

devastating the lives of helpless Colombian citizens. These mercenaries are hardly wandering holy men, for sure!





withered peanut crop



In this pepper field, the farmer placed a white flag
to keep the pilots from spraying his licit crops.
Nonetheless, his peppers were sprayed and destroyed.



This stream was sprayed in violation of Colombian law.







In violation of Colombian law, the fumigation has destroyed
animal pastures and fish ponds. The Roundup sold in the US
explicitly warns against spraying into water or anywhere animals
may feed. The "Roundup Ultra" used in Colombia is even stronger
and deadlier than what is sold in the US.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Thanks for the photos, Judi Lynn (always worth a thousand words, or

Bacchus39's 12-word "hit and run" posts).

If you had seen your mother or father, or other family members, or neighbors, or union leaders, or local teachers or elders, chainsawed by Uribe's fascist paramilitaries, and their parts thrown into mass graves, or you had seen your corn crop or your animals or your kids sprayed by Super-Roundup, time and again, to drive you from your land and into urban squalor, where you are lucky to get some slave labor job of 14 hour a day, 7 days a week, repetitive misery at pittance wages, you, too, might be tempted to take up arms. I've often thought about these armed FARC leftists, and what must drive them into exile in the jungle, for what has to be a very hard life. Most people wouldn't choose this. Who wants to be hunted? Who wants to live hand to mouth fighting the well-armed (supported by billions in US tax dollars) Colombian military and their spinoffs, the rightwing paramilitaries who torture and chainsaw their captives? No doubt some have bad motives. No doubt some have become corrupt and uncaring, living a life of armed rebellion. But desperation and rage at what they've seen, of rightwing horror and oppression, more than likely motivates most FARC guerrillas. They are dinosaurs, like their rightwing paramilitary counterparts, and like the Bushite/Uribe murderous "war on drugs". Violence breed violence. In only rare cases has violence resulted in BETTER conditions. And the rest of Latin American has learned this lesson, and are creating a leftist revolution peacefully through democratic institutions (--with leftist governments elected in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile and Nicaragua, and strong leftist movements in Peru, Paraguay and Mexico, likely to win future elections). But it is nevertheless understandable what may drive young people in particular into violent revolution. Also, it has been well documented by human rights groups and unions that the bulk of the deaths in the Colombian civil war (in the 80% range) have been caused by the rightwing paramilitaries and the rightwing government, not by FARC. And the death toll isn't the whole toll. The "war on drug" devastation to small peasant farmers, including DNA damage to people and animals, ruination of farmland and water sources, and the dislocation of tens of thousands of poor people driven from rural areas (so their lands can be taken over by the big drug lords who are protected by the government, and by Monsanto and Chiquita Banana and Drummond, and by Bush "free trade" biofuel producers) are a huge additional impact of Bush/US military aid to Colombia.

That child's drawing that Judi Lynn posted above says it all. Children don't lie. The U.S. brings death and devastation. Torture, murder and the poisoning of everything is a our name. That helicopter and that airplane dropping toxic pesticides on all living things were paid for by the U.S. of A.

[badgervan]

5. Ah, Yes....

and another continent hates our guts now. What is Gonzo's Justice Department now - 0 for 600 or so? Nice job, bushies.

[Bacchus39]

3. tough luck for Trinidad too on his conviction

talk about a mercenary.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Congress Should Reject Trade Agreement With Colombia

Congress Should Reject Trade Agreement With Colombia
Posted July 11, 2007 | 01:23 PM (EST)


~snip~
The word "paramilitary" is a euphemism. In the 1980s, when the Reagan administration was supporting the mass murder of tens of thousands of civilians in countries like Guatemala and El Salvador, these organizations were called "death squads."
(snip)

One of the most sinister revelations has been the government's role in the murder of trade unionists, which continues despite the incomplete demobilization. Last year 72 trade unionists were killed, making Colombia the most dangerous place in the world by far for a union activist. According to witnesses co-operating with the Colombian Attorney General's office, the government's intelligence services provided names and security details of union activists to the death squads. The former chief of the intelligence service - who managed Uribe's 2002 presidential campaign in the state of Magdalena - has been arrested and charged with conspiring with the death squads to kill union leaders and others.

Over the past three decades the United States has greatly expanded trade with -- and moved factories to -- countries where workers have limited rights to form unions or bargain collectively. One of the main purposes of such commercial agreements as the NAFTA and the WTO has been to reduce wages here by throwing US workers into competition with their much lower-paid counterparts throughout the world. Partly as a result of these policies, the average real wage in the United States has hardly moved over the last 30 years, despite productivity increases every year. These "free trade" agreements have therefore become increasingly unpopular, and this issue helped tip the balance of Congress to the Democrats in the 2006 election.

These agreements have also lost popularity in Latin America, where the governments of Ecuador and Bolivia - accountable to their voters - cannot sign the kind of agreement that Colombia and Peru are willing to accept. All four countries currently have access to US markets under the ATPDEA (Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act). But some Republicans in Congress have been threatening that duty-free access in order to punish Ecuador and Bolivia for not signing a "free trade" agreement, and for not being sufficiently subservient to foreign investors. This kind of bullying will not force these governments to ignore their electoral mandates and will only increase resentment against the United States in the region.

Congress should stop using the ATPDEA preferences as a political weapon against Ecuador and Bolivia, and reject the agreements with Colombia and Peru. Approving the Colombian agreement would send an especially chilling message to the world that Washington is seeking access to cheap and repressed labor - and doesn't care how much violence is used to terrorize workers into submission.
(snip/)

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/needtoknow/2007/07/congress_should_reject_trade_a.html