Colombia marches against rebels

[arcos]

Source: AP

BOGOTA, Colombia - Hundreds of thousands of Colombians wearing white T-shirts marched in their homeland and abroad Monday to demand the country's largest rebel group stop kidnapping people and release those it holds.

The idea of the protests against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, was born less than a month ago on the social networking Web site Facebook, and nearly 100,000 people in 165 cities around the world confirmed their participation.

<snip>

In Colombia's capital, the protest swelled, with long lines of people shouting "Freedom! Freedom!" marching along Bogota's main thoroughfare. Television channels suspended normal programming to broadcast marches around the country, and anchors wore white the T-shirts symbolizing peace. In between reports, the channels aired proof of life videos of hostages who remain captive in the FARC's camps in the jungle.

<snip>

Inside Colombia, the mobilization has exposed deep divisions over how to end the decades-long conflict that preceded the nation's cocaine wars, Latin America's oldest and strongest leftist insurgency.

<snip>

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080204/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/colombia_anti_farc_march;_ylt=AmNWQM3GMSqu2UjuOPxFu5ms0NUE

[Bacchus39]

1. good for Colombia

so when is the pro-FARC counterdemonstration?

[Robbien]

2. It happened at the same time

and they protested the hundreds of prisoners Uribe is holding.

Funny the AP article didn't bother mentioning the counter protest.

[Bacchus39]

3. you must have a link to that I assume

n/t

[Robbien]

4. Sure

Colombians, convened for a day of protests Monday in all cities of the country and abroad, are mobilizing without agreeing on the motives.

The unprecedented protest call by the Colombian government and given wide publicity by mainstream media was to condemn the insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

However, important social sectors reject this, considering it part of the executive's battle against the insurgency, and the leading opposition force PDA (Alternative Democratic) summoned a separate concentration at Bolivar Square in favor of peace and a humanitarian accord.

A similar stance was adopted by CUT (Central Workers Union) and other social groups, so that the protest demonstrate rejection of all types of violence, including the paramilitary and even the public force.

In a 12-point declaration, the PDA executive committee denounced the government's choice, for the population to choose between FARC or President Uribe, as false.

In addition, MOVICE (Movement of Victims of State Crimes) strongly criticized the protest call denouncing it ignores paramilitary crimes and human rights violations by military and police forces.

http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BDBEDB2A3-5B06-4C40-976B-F02EFF4F0A98%7D)&language=EN

[Bacchus39]

5. yeah, whatever. thanks for Cuba's assessment by the way

the march was called to be an anti-FARC march after the hostage release fiasco of a couple of weeks ago. while there were likely manisfestations of anti-violence in general, the organizers explicitely wanted the march to be a rejection of the FARC. and they rejected a more general anti-violence theme because they calculated that the FARC would simply say it wasn't a protest against them really.

[Robbien]

6. Uribe wanted the march to be a pro Uribe march

and wanted to make sure no credit for the release of the last prisoners goes to Venezuela who were the ones who got them released.

Misdirection to save Uribe from the embarrassment.

[Bacchus39]

7. the hostages can be released to anybody can't they???

Chavez was selected because he is sympathetic to them. In fact, he called them a legitimate "people's army". That, is one of the main reasons this march was organized.

"I hope the FARC is listening," said former hostage Clara Rojas, who took part in the march. She was freed last month after nearly six years in captivity.


by the way, the FARC, coincidentally of course, said they would release 3 more prisoners to Chavez or a representative. Colombia has agreed to allow such an arrangement to occur. Its not that Colombia doesn't give credit to Venezuela (who really just has to show up), its the FARC doesn't want to give any credit to Uribe.

[Robbien]

8. But not to Uribe, who interferred and stopped the release of the last hostages

It was to be a prisoner exchange, but it didn't happen because Uribe wanted to embarrass Venezuela so Uribe called a halt to it.

Venezuela prevailed upon FARC to go ahead and release some of their prisoners without getting any of their people back in exchange.

Yes FARC has political prisoners but so does Uribe.

[Bacchus39]

9. no, it was NOT a prisoner exchange

the FARC said they would release three hostages unconditionally. there was never any prisoner exchange programmed.

of course, they didn't even have the small boy and tried to kidnap him back in order to liberate him.

[Robbien]

10. It ended up as an unconditional release

thanks to Venezuela, but it started out as an exchange.

Those three people released would still be in captivity if it were left up to Uribe.

[Bacchus39]

11. nope, the FARC offered to release the hostages, then backed out

attempted to retake the hostage they didn't have, and then conceded once they embarrassed themselves, Hugo, and Oliver Stone.

[Robbien]

12. That is the story Uribe/Bush are going with

I see they have a devoted believer in you.

[Bacchus39]

13. this is the "story" the truth is going with, sorry it doesn't fit your world view

you may want to broaden your scope beyond what the Cuban government says in Prensa Latina.

[Robbien]

14. The Uribe/Bush version of the truth

and I see that in you they have a champion in pushing it.

[Bacchus39]

15. how about this version?

"The FARC announced last month that it would release Gonzalez, Rojas and her son Emmanuel to representatives of Chavez as "amends" for Uribe's decision to end Chavez's mediation mission aimed at brokering a prisoner swap."


http://www.newkerala.com/one.php?action=fullnews&id=11646


as you can plainly see, if you open your eyes, there was no condition on the release of these hostages. the FARC could have released them at any time to anyone. but the FARC wanted to embarrass Uribe. Of course they ended up embarrassing themselves and Chavez.

what's the Prensa Latina version?

[Robbien]

18. Your article clearly states Uribe stopped the prisoner exchange release

It was agreed. A swap was supposed to happen. At the last minute, Uribe said no.

FARC said they would then live up to their end of the bargain and give their prisoners to Venezuela. They did.

Then Uribe arranges a Pro-Uribe parade to hide his embarrassment.

[Judi Lynn]

19. It's a wonder any real news makes it to us at ALL!

From my earlier post:

Has anyone congratulated the oligarchists who post on Chavez threads for their swarming effect when the first attempt to receive the FARC hostages fell through. They forgot to return to comment when the second one succeeded.

No services carrying an interview with the hostages immediately after their return to the world except AP ever mentioned the fact they said specifically that they had walked for days to get to the meeting place, yet had to stop over and over when Uribe's forces, whom Uribe had PROMISED would stay specifically out of the way and allow them to pass in peace, kept bombing the area, and they eventually had to give up altogether, and leave.

Of the stories carried in the U.S., only the AP story contained any reference to this, and it was so diminished it was virtually impossible to note, and buried inside the story:

Chavez responded by freezing contacts with Uribe but still sought to mediate with the FARC. After the two hostages were freed, Chavez pointed to their accounts as proof that Colombia's military had tried to interfere.

Gonzalez, a former lawmaker, has said that on Dec. 31 "military operations indisputably occurred in the zone... which impeded us" from reaching a handover site in the jungle.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-ap-012008-chavez,1,4846377.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Add to that the fact that Uribe had three FARC seized who were attempting to deliver "proof of life" to Chavez, and got the information from them about where the FARC had taken the child for safekeeping, then went there and seized the child Emanuel before the FARC could send people to pick him up for the exchange, and you've got one dirty, lying, cheap, vicious son of a bitching politician our own Defense Department had listed in 1991 as being closely connected to drug lords in Colombia.

U.S. INTELLIGENCE LISTED COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT URIBE AMONG
"IMPORTANT COLOMBIAN NARCO-TRAFFICKERS" IN 1991

Then-Senator "Dedicated to Collaboration with the Medellín Cartel at High Government Levels"
ThConfidential DIA Report Had Uribe Alongside Pablo Escobar, Narco-Assassins

Uribe "Worked for the Medellín Cartel" and was a "Close Personal Friend of Pablo Escobar"

Washington, D.C., 1 August 2004 - Then-Senator and now President Álvaro Uribe Vélez of Colombia was a "close personal friend of Pablo Escobar" who was "dedicated to collaboration with the Medellín cartel at high government levels," according to a 1991 intelligence report from U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officials in Colombia. The document was posted today on the website of the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research group based at George Washington University.

Uribe's inclusion on the list raises new questions about allegations that surfaced during Colombia's 2002 presidential campaign. Candidate Uribe bristled and abruptly terminated an interview in March 2002 when asked by Newsweek reporter Joseph Contreras about his alleged ties to Escobar and his associations with others involved in the drug trade. Uribe accused Contreras of trying to smear his reputation, saying that, "as a politician, I have been honorable and accountable."

The newly-declassified report, dated 23 September 1991, is a numbered list of "the more important Colombian narco-traffickers contracted by the Colombian narcotic cartels for security, transportation, distribution, collection and enforcement of narcotics operations." The document was released by DIA in May 2004 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the Archive in August 2000.

The source of the report was removed by DIA censors, but the detailed, investigative nature of the report -- the list corresponds with a numbered set of photographs that were apparently provided with the original -- suggests it was probably obtained from Colombian or U.S. counternarcotics personnel. The document notes that some of the information in the report was verified "via interfaces with other agencies."

President Uribe -- now a key U.S. partner in the drug war -- "was linked to a business involved in narcotics activities in the United States" and "has worked for the Medellín cartel," the narcotics trafficking organization led by Escobar until he was killed by Colombian government forces in 1993. The report adds that Uribe participated in Escobar's parliamentary campaign and that as senator he had "attacked all forms of the extradition treaty" with the U.S.

More:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB131/index.htm

[Bacchus39]

22. see my post number 9

"the FARC said they would release three hostages unconditionally."

that is precisely what THEY said, and what I was saying. they didn't even have the child but were going to "liberate" him. nice.

the march was a citizen driven event, not a political pro-Uribe march. keep on making up the news.

[fascisthunter]

37. Lol... Nice Catch

yet, spin spin spin is here again

[Judi Lynn]

40. Observe the photo of Uribe attending the pro-Bush parade...

_{George W. Bush} himself could get a tremendous parade all over the country if he had teachers give students permission to skip school for the day to go downtown to a parade, and told employers to let their workers off so they could attend, as well, then backed it all up with the implication you are either WITH _Bush, and attend the march, or you will be seen as AGAINST _Bush in a country where the President has always been close to his death squads who keep the entire country terrified to move!

Even Colombian journalists (the ones who haven't been murdered, who have not fled from Colombia) admit they "self-censor" now in the interest of continuing to live.

Yeah, they're all just wild about their fascist government. That's why this war has raged on for over 40 years.

[Bacchus39]

45. I salute Chavez for instigating this outpouring of emotion in Colombia

if it were not for his idiotic declaration that the FARC is a people's army. I thinkwhat we saw yesterday marching in Colombia and around the world was the real army of the pueblo in Colombia.

and Alvaro Uribe owes a debt of gratitude to Chavez as well, as his popularity has swelled in recent weeks.

[Judi Lynn]

46. What we all saw is evidence of an organized scheme cooked up either in Washington

by one of our Latin Affairs specialists, like Roger Noriega, former aide to rabid racist Senator Jesse Helms, or by one of Uribe's FOUR U.S. PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRMS, one of them the same one used by Hillary Clinton, and then blown all over the place through the right-wing-controlled media which controls almost everything here, and in Colombia, and virtually everywhere else.

Give DU'ers a little credit, if you can manage it. They're not that stupid.

[Bacchus39]

51. how about giving Colombians some credit????

you have no respect for the people of South America. your condescending, paternalistic attitude is amazing. Only surpassed by your ignorance.

Apparently South Americans are incapable of doing anything for themselves without being told or directed from Washington. ONLY a savior like Hugo Chavez can redeem them. Doesn't matter that they are Colombians or Brazilians or Chileans, the ONLY path to salvation is through Hugo Chavez.

"Shit" victories and massive marches be damned, Hugo and only Hugo knows what is best for them.

[Judi Lynn]

55. Nice try. A right-wing country controlled by a man our own Defense Department nailed in a report

in 1991 as being completely connected to Pablo Escobar when Uribe was a Senator, and reported as engaging in legislation which protected drug people from extradition, a man who has been surrounded by the death squad monsters for years, who has been running an administration peopled by officials connected to the death squads, one of them his former intelligence head, Jorge Noguera, who fled the country when it was known internationally he had been involved with fiendish death squad activities, including a plot to assassinate Hugo Chavez, etc., a man who has been on the U.S. taxpayers' gravy train as the THIRD LARGEST FOREIGN AID RECIPIENT in the world throughout his first term as President, going into his unique second term, working on his third, a man whose own FATHER, as per the Defense Department report was also engaged in the illegal drug business, a country living in terror of the actual DEATH SQUADS, who are supported by the government, even having many connections in the Colombian National Assembly, which is well established, themselves people who have their enemies simply murdered when possible, using death squads to do their dirty work, a country in which the journalists have been slaughtered, and chased off, where the remaining ones admit they SELF-CENSOR for their own survival, is a country where people will easily and quickly pour into the streets and dutifully pose for photo ops. You bet. Especially when the schools are told to let the kids all off, and the employers are told to let their workers go for the day, too.

You're not fooling anyone.

Any DU'er who wants to know the truth, don't take my word for it, just jump in there, and start reading everything you can. You will teach yourself the truth. Also, check out Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch which both indicate the death squads (euphemistically called "paramilitaries") are STILL in business, having only gone through the charade of disbanding, for appearance's sake.

It's all right there in the internetS! See for yourself, DU'ers!

[Flanker]

56. Wow let me go celebrate Uribe's popularity!

Yipee!

That said while the strategy has swelled his popularity at home, abroad it is a different story. Most telling was the demonstration in Caracas, one of its mayors heavily promoted this event and only 3k showed up (Even if you discount the protest loving opposition there are 4 million Colombian refugees).

The insult leveled at Kirchner during the Dec swap, the flip-flop on foreign mediation (even if it is only euro, por ahora...), and Sarkozy telling him not to even sneeze in the general direction of the hostage locations have all had an effect in painting Uribe for what he is a rightwing fascist prick. If the cost of that is seeing his polls go from 70 to 80 then it is flexing well spent.

[Judi Lynn]

53. Anyone who believes this crap is either brain-dead or is lying.

This is a good place to place a reminder of the kind of people who run right-wing propaganda programs, good old Cuban "exile" Otto Reich, Reagan and _Bush propagandist/major liar:

Full Court Press | posted April 19, 2001 (May 7, 2001 issue)
Lie to the Media, Get a Job
Eric Alterman

~snip~
Take for example Bush's decision to appoint Otto Reich to head the Latin American office in the State Department. As Peter Kornbluh discusses elsewhere in this issue , Reich's job in the Reagan Administration was simply to lie to (and about) the media. He did it very well. According to Walter Raymond--the CIA propaganda specialist whom William Casey transferred to the National Security Council in order to circumvent the 1947 National Security Act, which restricted CIA involvement in domestic propaganda operations--the purpose of Reich's Office of Public Diplomacy was to "concentrate on gluing black hats on the sandinistas and white hats on the UNO ." Staffed by senior CIA officials with backgrounds in covert operations, military intelligence and psychological warfare, the OPD offered privileges to favored journalists, placed ghostwritten articles over the signatures of contra leaders in leading opinion magazines and on Op-Ed pages, and publicized nasty stories about the Sandinistas, true or not. In its first year, it sent attacks on the Sandinistas to 1,600 college libraries, 520 political science faculties, 122 editorial writers, 107 religious organizations and countless reporters, right-wing lobbyists and members of Congress. It booked advocates for 1,570 lecture and talk-show engagements. In just one week of March 1985, the OPD officers bragged in a memo of having fooled the editors of the Wall Street Journal into publishing an Op-Ed about Nicaragua penned by an unknown professor, having guided an NBC news story on the contras and having written and edited Op-Ed articles to be signed by contra spokesmen, as well as having planted false stories in the media about a visiting Congressman's experiences in Nicaragua.

Among the OPD's lies were stories that portrayed the Sandinistas as virulent anti-Semites, that reported a Soviet shipment of MIG jets to Managua and that purported to reveal that US reporters in Nicaragua were receiving sexual favors--hetero- and homosexual--from Sandinista agents in exchange for pro-Communist reporting. That last lie, published in the July 29, 1985, New York magazine, came directly from Reich.

Perhaps OPD's most important effort was to convince Congress and the media of the contras' democratic bona fides. They did this by pretending that the men handpicked by North as front men were operationally in charge of contra political and military operations. In addition to signing the names of these men to fake Op-Ed articles, Reich and company coached them on how to lie whenever they were asked about being on the US government payroll, as well as about their aims for their US-funded armies. Together with top officials of the State Department, the CIA and the National Security Council, the OPD spent millions to paint civilians as the true leaders of the contras. The United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO), founded in San José, Costa Rica, in June 1985, thanks in large part to the efforts of Oliver North, was designed to manufacture an acceptably "democratic" face for the contra leadership. According to a private 1985 memo by Robert Owen, North's liaison with the contras, the UNO was entirely "a creation of the USG to garner support from Congress." Its leaders were "liars" and "greed and power motivated."

Reporting on Reich's appointment has been decidedly unsensational. The LA Times has ignored it. The New York Times and the Washington Post assigned to the story knowledgeable reporters who covered Central America, but the results reflected the strictures of journalistic objectivity as much as the outrageousness of Reich's activities. Raymond Bonner and Christopher Marquis wrote in the Times that "a government investigation concluded that Mr. Reich's office engaged in prohibited acts of domestic propaganda." (In a backhanded tribute to Bonner's brilliant Central American reporting of the 1980s, Reich called the Times editors with a vicious personal attack on the journalist hoping to get him taken off the story.) Karen DeYoung noted in the Post that the OPD "used what critics called legally questionable means to promote favorable publicity and political support for the U.S.-backed contras in Nicaragua in their war against the Cuba-backed Sandinista government." The Economist was even more generous, insisting that Reich "got marginally caught up in the Iran/contra scandal when his office was accused of engaging in covert propaganda activities to get Americans' support for the Nicaraguan contras." No major paper has yet addressed the issue in an editorial.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010507/alterman

[Flanker]

54. Not to mention the same Claras Rojas he quoted

Specifically stated that the Uribe govt actively stepped up military operations in order to sabotage the Dec release.

I can understand not liking the FARC, or even thinking that peace will not be achieved through negotiation, but the Uribe worshiping really makes me scratch my head, he is a creep wanting to sabotage all forms of peace. (I do not consider exterminating one's enemy to be peace, even if it is quiet afterwards).

[ronnie624]

50. From your linked article:

The two women were part of the 45 high-value hostages the FARC seeks to exchange for hundreds of jailed insurgents through a humanitarian agreement with the government of President Alvaro Uribe.

[Judi Lynn]

20. Uribe killed the exchange. No question about it! Here's something from Mark Weisbrot,

which was posted by DU'er magbana previously:

From: Latin America News Coverage: Half the Story Is Worse Than None

By Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet. Posted February 1, 2008.

Those who follow the commercial media's coverage of Latin America can end up with less understanding than those who ignore it.

~snip~
Missing from US and English-language press coverage were the key events to which Chavez was responding, and indeed the main cause of the current dispute. In the days before last New Year's eve, the Venezuelan government had arranged for the release of high-profile hostages held in the Colombian jungle by the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrilla group. A high-level international team of observers were on hand, including former President Nestor Kirchner of Argentina, Brazil's top presidential foreign policy advisor, and representatives from France, Switzerland, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba and the Red Cross.

The mission failed, and recriminations followed. President Uribe said that the FARC were lying the whole time, that they never had any intention of releasing the hostages because they did not have one of the three that they had promised to deliver (a 3-year old boy who was born in captivity). President Chavez angrily accused Uribe of "dynamiting" the mission. He said that the FARC was in fact ready to release the two hostages that they held, but had to retreat from Colombian military operations. President Uribe maintained that his military, under orders from him, had held to a cease fire in order to allow the release. Who was telling the truth?

When the two hostages, Consuelo Gonzalez and Clara Rojas, were finally released on January 10, Gonzalez - a former Colombian congresswoman -- told this story to the press:

"'On December 21, we began to walk toward the location where they were going to free us and we walked almost 20 days. During that time, we were forced to run several times because the soldiers were very close,' she said. Gonzalez also lamented that on the day that Alvaro Uribe set as a deadline for the release, the Colombian armed forces launched the worst attack on the zone where they were located. 'On the 31st, we realized that there was going to be a very big mobilization and, in the moment that we were ready to be released, there was a huge bombardment and we had to relocate quickly to another place.'"

No English-language reporters questioned the truth of Gonzalez' testimony; it was simply not reported. The one exception was an Associated Press article, where it was buried and barely mentioned, and edited out of most newspapers. By eliminating this vital information, the media prevented readers from knowing that the Colombian government had reneged on its end of the bargain, putting the lives of the hostages at risk in what looked like an attempt to embarrass Chavez and abort the mission.

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/75697

magbana's post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x2047

[Bacchus39]

21. well, they didn't have the child

so who is lying? and the FARC can release the hostages at any time, to any one.

[Flanker]

57. That is incorrect, they cannot release a hostage if the govt bombs their location

so evidently Uribe did nix the Dec swap, as for the child, the FARC really don't have the luxury of a govt level communications network, (heck they might even not have a village type, most likely they rely on couriers due to the liability of electronic coms) So if one of their own defected with the child (as it evidently happened) and the leadership never knew it is not necessarily deception. That said it was mayor incompetence.

Them Releasing the other two women still shows their willingness to improve their image, meaning they are political actors by definition (a narco-terrorist would not give a flip about it and just carry on with their cocaine trade).

[Judi Lynn]

16. US Congressman Mike Michaud in Ottawa With Warnings About Trade Deal With Colombia

Feb 04, 2008 12:10 ET
Media Advisory/Canadian Labour Congress: US Congressman Mike Michaud in Ottawa With Warnings About Trade Deal With Colombia

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Feb. 4, 2008) - A member of the United States Congress, Representative Michael H. (Mike) Michaud, of Maine, will be the guest speaker at a Canadian Labour Congress' luncheon tomorrow in Ottawa. Michaud led the group of US Congress members who, last month, addressed a letter to all Canadian Members of Parliament to warn them that, for the majority in the US Congress "no trade agreement with Colombia is acceptable at this time."
(snip)

"Canadian labour believes that it is time for official Ottawa to hear this important voice from the US Congress, especially since Canada is about to reach its own deal with the compromised government of Colombia," explains Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress who will host the luncheon. "Given Colombia's abysmal human and labour rights record, we think Canadian working families will share Mike Michaud's sense of outrage about entering into a trade deal with Colombia at this time."

For many months, the US Congress has been refusing to consider a trade deal negotiated by the Bush Administration citing murders of labour leaders and activists, corruption issues, unlawful executions by paramilitary death squads and a dismal human rights record.

During his one-day visit to Ottawa, Congressman Michaud will also meet with Ministers, party leaders and MPs from all parties. Mr. Michaud will also attend Question Period.

More:
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=817221

[Judi Lynn]

17. From U.S. Democratic Congressman's statement to the Canadian Parliament:

Letter from US Congress

Parliament of Canada
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
K1A 0A9

Re: Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement

~snip~
It is our understanding that Canada is close to or has concluded negotiations for a bilateral trade agreement with Peru, Colombia and South Korea. We understand that these agreements are similar in many respects to our own. We would like to share some of our concerns regarding the U.S-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. These concerns, we believe, are equally applicable to the Canada-Colombia FTA.

• Labor: Colombia continues to lead the world in the number of murdered trade unionists. In 2007 alone, thirty eight labor activists were murdered. . Of the 2,262 labor activists murdered between 1991 and 2006, almost 400 were killed during the Uribe Administration. And these murders are committed with impunity - 97% remain unsolved. The ILO has also repeatedly criticized both the failure of Colombia to adopt laws consistent with the core labor standards and to enforce what domestic labor laws it does have. The combined result has been a steep decline in union density in the country.
  
  
• Corruption: Several members of Congress and high-ranking officials closely allied with President Alvaro Uribe have been arrested or are under investigation for their links with paramilitaries. In Colombia, paramilitary organizations have been linked to egregious human rights violations, including massacres and narcotrafficking. In October 2007, Mario Uribe, a cousin of President Alvaro Uribe, resigned from the Senate to avoid an inquiry by the Supreme Court into his alleged ties to paramilitaries. The government has already proposed a plan to release these politicians with little or no sanction whatsoever.
  
  
• Demobilization: The government has taken some steps to dismantle the paramilitary structures in Colombia. However, the flawed process has contributed to thousands of former paramilitary members never truly demobilizing and has led to the creation of new and dangerous criminal organizations. Recent reports from the Organization of American States have noted the resurgence of new paramilitary groups.
  
  
• These groups are found throughout the country and, while assuming distinct organizational frameworks, many of them continue the legacy of the paramilitaries, including narcotics trafficking, death threats, and assassinations.
  
  
• Extra-judicial executions: Murders committed by state actors remain a very serious and under-reported problem. The Washington Office on Latin America recently reported that human rights groups in Colombia have collected detailed information on a total of 577 cases of extrajudicial execution between July 1997 and June 2002. The same organizations detailed 955 cases over the last five years, an increase in executions of nearly 66%. From July 2006 to June 2007, extra-judicial executions have taken place in nearly all of Colombia's departments.

More:
http://canadianlabour.ca/index.php/colombia_projects/1318

[Texano78704]

23. The only things left out

Were President Uribe's ties to paramilitary groups and how the Uribe administration played fast and loose with data regarding reduction of violent crime.

[Judi Lynn]

24. Well, they also forgot to mention members of Uribe's family are connect to the death squads,

as well as members of his cabinet.

The fact that our own Defense Department has a report on him in 1991 as being connnected to Pablo Escobar should get a lot more attention, shouldn't it?

People IN Colombia have known this a long time, including people who have fled Colombia because they no longer find it a decent place to live.

[AngryAmish]

36. It seems that Colombia has been an indecent place to live for a long time

I'm reading "Killing Pablo" right now. Colombia seems built for political violence. The state is built purposefully weak. Wealthy landowners have had death squads for a long time. La Violencia in the middle of last century was a horror, as well as the 80s and 90s when Escobar declared war on the state.

(I should also point out that my entire knowledge of Colombia comes from this one book, so if the book is biased, so am I).

[Judi Lynn]

39. That book will be really useful. Should be excellent. Here's a photo of how it all ended.

This is a painting by celebrated Colombian painter, Fernando Botero.

Here's part #1 of 10 segments of the story of "Killing Pablo" I'm going to watch later, myself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbfdtXuf_CI

Looks like you can get the other segments at the site, too.

There's a great documentary on one of the cable channels, like "Discovery" or the "History Channel" or other, concerning Pablo Escobar, as well, which is well worth looking for, later on. I learned U.S. special forces were also involved in hunting down this guy, which was some time ago. Who knew?

[AngryAmish]

41. I saw that documentary some years ago

CIA, DEA and Delta Force were all used to get Pablo. IIRC, there are rumors that a Delta Force sniper fired the actual shot that killed him.

This guy blew up airliners to get at his enemies. He was threatening a bombing campaign in the US. Pablo Escobar was a mad dog who needed killing.

[Judi Lynn]

43. Glad you saw it. It was a real eye-opener, for sure. n/t

[AlphaCentauri]

48. From a February 2, 2003 Chomsky speech

In 1999, Turkey relinquished this position to Colombia. The reason is
that in Turkey, US-backed state terror had largely succeeded, while in
Colombia it had not. Colombia had the worst human rights record in
the Western hemisphere in the 1990s and was by far the leading
recipient of US arms and military training, and now leads the world.
It also leads the world by other measures, for example, murder of
labor activists: more than half of those killed worldwide in the last
decade were in Colombia. Close to 1/2 million people were driven from
their land last year, a new record. The displaced population is now
estimated at 2.7 million. Political killings have risen to 20 a day;
5 years ago it was half that.


I visited Cauca in southern Colombia, which had the worst human rights
record in the country in 2001, quite an achievement. There I listened
to hours of testimony by peasants who were driven from their lands by
chemical warfare - called "fumigation" under the pretext of a US-run
"drug war" that few take seriously and that would be obscene if that
were the intent. Their lives and lands are destroyed, children are
dying, they suffer from sickness and wounds. Peasant agriculture is
based on a rich tradition of knowledge and experience gained over many
centuries, in much of the world passed on from mother to daughter.
Though a remarkable human achievement, it is very fragile, and can be
destroyed forever in a single generation. Also being destroyed is
some of the richest biodiversity in the world, similar to neighboring
regions of Brazil. Campesinos, indigenous people, Afro-Colombians can
join the millions in rotting slums and camps. With the people gone,
multinationals can come in to strip the mountains for coal and to
extract oil and other resources, and to convert what is left of the
land to monocrop agroexport using laboratory-produced seeds in an
environment shorn of its treasures and variety.

[Judi Lynn]

49. It's a vision from hell. Drummond Coal has already destroyed the land in the manner described,.

AFTER the Colombians who lived in the area were slaughtered and whatever survivors were driven off to live in a desert-like environment, with NO WAY of supporting themselves.





There's blood on their coal.

Suing Multinationals Over Murder
Wednesday, Aug. 01, 2007 By KEN STIER

The known facts of the Drummond case as outlined in the complaint are disturbing enough. For months union leaders pleaded with company executives for more security against lawless right-wing paramilitaries operating in the northern Cesar province, where the 25,000-acre mine — from which Drummond exports 25 million tons of coal a year, with an estimated value of $700 million — is located. One key request that was refused was to allow workers to sleep on the premises. Once outside company property, miners were vulnerable to the paramilitaries, who are believed responsible for most of the 900 extra-judicial killings taking place every year in the country's continuing, decades-long civil war. And just as Drummond's local union chapter was involved in heated negotiations over wages and and compensation for workers killed in a mining accident, pamphlets appeared on Drummond property denouncing the union as a "guerrilla union" — regarded by the workers as a virtual death sentence to its leaders.

On March 12, 2001, as company buses ferried miners to the nearby village where they were staying, waiting paramilitaries stopped the bus carrying union president Valmore Lacarno and vice president Victor Orcasita. They boarded the bus, Lacarno was taken off and promptly shot in the head in full view of fellow miners. Orcasita was bundled off, reappearing hours later with a lacerated chest, smashed teeth and a bullet in his brain. The next miner to step forward as leader, Gustavo Soler, met a similar fate several months later.

It was a harrowing tale, but the jury did not think there was sufficient evidence linking Drummond with the murders. The plaintiffs concede this was "understandable" but only because the jury was not able to hear the testimony of four key witnesses. Two of them, Rafael Garcia and Alberto Visbal, a former paramilitary himself, claim to have attended a meeting at which they saw money passed from the president of Drummond's local subsidiary to a representative of paramilitary commanders for monthly "taxes," or to pay for the assassinations, a charge that Drummond has vehemently denied. Of course, nothing is that simple in Colombia; one of the witnesses, Garcia, a former IT director in Colombia's version of the FBI, currently is serving a 24-year prison term for erasing data on drug traffickers.

More:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1648903,00.html

[robcon]

25. Colombians in huge Farc protest

Source: BBC

Hundreds of thousands of Colombians have poured onto the streets of Bogota to protest against Marxist Farc rebels.

The protesters waved flags and wore T-shirts with the slogan: "No more kidnapping, no more lies, no more deaths, no more Farc."

Some estimates put the number of people protesting in Bogota at between 500,000 and two million.

Thousands more protested elsewhere in Colombia, and in close to 100 other cities around the world.



Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7225824.stm

---

FARC is scum.

[Bacchus39]

26. Largest March in Colombia's history

pic from El Tiempo, Story from Washington Post



Anti-FARC Rallies Held Worldwide

In front, from left, Juan Manuel Gonzalez, Elizabeth Ortado and Beatrice Estupinan sing the Colombian national anthem at a protest in the District. (By Lois Raimondo -- The Washington Post)


CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 4 -- Millions of protesters fanned out across Colombia on Monday, expressing fury over guerrilla atrocities in a long civil conflict and demanding the liberation of hundreds of hostages held in clandestine jungle camps.

Thousands more people joined in protests worldwide, with rallies staged here in neighboring Venezuela, as well as in Washington, New York and dozens of other cities as far away as Paris and Sydney.

It all began as the brainchild of a small group of young Colombian professionals who used Facebook, the social networking Web site, to generate protest against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The FARC, as the four-decade-old guerrilla group is known, holds nearly 800 captives, including three Americans.

In recent weeks, outrage against the FARC has mushroomed, with the issue of kidnappings by the group dominating public discourse in Colombia and in Venezuela, where the populist government of President Hugo Chávez has injected itself into hostage dramas.

Chávez has harshly criticized Colombia's president, Álvaro Uribe, for being bellicose. He also has called the FARC a liberation movement that should not be classified as a terrorist group, even though it has long been labeled as such by the European Union and the United States.

Though Chávez's ideological kinship with the FARC permitted him to negotiate with the group and win the freedom of two hostages last month, his recent remarks touched off a diplomatic dispute with Uribe and angered many in Colombia, where the guerrillas have little public support. In the aftermath, Uribe's popularity rating has escalated to 80 percent -- his highest after more than five years in office -- and many Colombians, including politicians from the leftist Democratic Pole party, have united in condemning the FARC.

"We cannot stay quiet for one more minute," said the Rev. Jose E. Hoyos, a Colombian-born Catholic priest from Falls Church, Va., whose older brother was shot execution-style by the FARC last year after being kidnapped.

[dipsydoodle]

28. In other news

the Spice Girls have cancelled the rest of their world tour.

[Bacchus39]

29. actually the march is a hoax

to disguise the real objective which is march all the way to Venezuela kidnap Chavez and exchange him for the 700 hostages the FARC are holding. This is the invasion that Chavez has predicted coming to light.

[Robbien]

27. Duplicate. Old news

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3168958

[robcon]

30. Old news??? It happened YESTERDAY, and was reported today.

Gee, could your attempted thread-killer be any more obvious?

[AngryAmish]

31. I reading "Killing Pablo" right now

Columbia is one f'd up country and has been for decades.

[Bacchus39]

32. I wouldn't know about Columbia, but Colombia is a fantastic country

with alot of problems unfortunately.

[AlphaCentauri]

47. I may recommend you the book -Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar-

It has many answers to why the poor people of Colombia side with a drug lord and not with their government. Uribe knows what Escobar was doing for the poor.

[Bacchus39]

33. here a couple more pics from yesterday's anti-FARC (and friends) march

in Cali




damn, look at this from Medellin. too bad the pic is so small


http://www.elmundo.com/sitioweb/images/ediciones/Martes_5_2_2008/Martes_5_2_2008@@A1--F1.jpg

[Bacchus39]

34. more pics to show the massive country wide opposition to the FARC

quite impressive actually. this wasn't just in Bogota. It was nationwide.

Barranquilla




its fun being anti-FARC!



Cartagena

[Bacchus39]

35. from Caracas with love

Nice touch!!!


http://www.eluniversal.com.co/

[rayofreason]

38. The people have spoken.

Let's see who listens.

[Judi Lynn]

42. Only the fascist idiots scattered around the world, seriously loathed

by human beings who have all been raised to be better people than that.

[rayofreason]

52. Do I correctly interpret your post...

..to state that "Only the fascist idiots scattered around the world, seriously loathed by human beings who have all been raised to be better people than that." are the only ones who listened to the millions of Columbians who self-organized, then marched in city after city to denounce the violence of the FARC and to call to end of that organization and its quest for violent seizure of government, and in fact that anyone who did listen to the people of Columbia is a "fascist idiot"?

If you have another plausible interpretation to your post, please offer it. Anyone who would hold such an opinion should look in a mirror to see the real fascist idiot.

[Flanker]

58. I have absolutely no sympathy for those that protested

People that matter: Every single hostage family member rejected it, the milktoast leftwing party rejected it, Piedad Cordoba rejected it, and peace seaking NGO's rejected it.

The only one supporting it with some cache has been Claras Rojas.

The world does not work on pure intentions, this was a rally to give political capital to Alvaro Uribe in order to kick the civil war into high gear: a fascist enabling rally. even if 99% of the participants were ignorant of its true intention (I don't buy it though, most of them were very likely pro-paras and pro-Uribe like so MANY upper class Gran Colombians)

[Bacchus39]

44. yeah, it was beautiful.

n/t