Caracas, Venezuela – 60 international observers of the Venezuelan election were stuck at the airport December 8, for a flight to Mexico. The flight kept getting delayed and delayed. After six hours of waiting, people were sleeping on the floors, tables and couches. Then the head of Conviasa’s national flights spoke to the observers in the airport and said that Venezuela asked Colombia permission to have observers fly over Colombia to return home. Colombia approved it. Two hours before the flight was going to leave, they denied the flight route. He said, “This has happened many times. They do this to try to control us.” He told us that this is part of blockade and is a form of oppression, and that they suffer under these attacks every day. “As observers, you should show the world the oppression and how the blockade affects us.”
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following declaration demanding the release of Ricardo Palmera (Simon Trinidad). Freedom Road Socialist Organization is one of the signers.
The National Prison Movement (Movimiento Nacional Carcelario) and other prisoner rights groups called a demonstration in Colombian prisons on March 21, to protest the lack of protection against the COVID-19 virus and the general lack of decent healthcare in the Colombian prisons. Twelve Colombian prisons answered the call for a ‘cacerolazo,’ a protest where one bangs on pots and pans to make enough noise so that the protest is heard.
In a video released on August 29, 2019, Iván Márquez, former lead peace negotiator for the FARC-EP in the peace talks in Havana, Cuba, announced that a sector of the FARC party (name of the successor party to the FARC-EP that was founded after the signing of the peace agreement in 2016) were returning to the armed struggle under the banner of the revolutionary guerrilla organization the FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia- Ejército del Pueblo). Iván Márquez read the FARC-EP’s new manifesto dressed in military fatigues surrounded by armed companions, including the famous FARC-EP commanders El Paisa and Jesús Santrich. The manifesto was read by Márquez with large, colorful FARC-EP banners in the background, and was filmed in the Inírida forest that is in a remote area of Colombia that borders both Brazil and Venezuela.
Jesús Santrich, ex-negociador por la paz de las FARC-EP, poeta, pintor, músico, y una voz popular para la paz ha sido re-encarcelado con el uso de un cargo por drogas inventado que proviene de la corte del Distrito Sur de Nueva York. Los cargos son ampliamente percibidos como un intento por el gobierno de los Estados Unidos, en colaboración con sectores de la oligarquía colombiana, para descarrilar el acuerdo de paz entre las FARC-EP y el gobierno colombiano.
Jesus Santrich, former peace negotiator for the FARC-EP, poet, painter, musician and a popular voice for peace, has been re-arrested on a trumped-up drug charge out of the Southern District of New York. The charges are largely seen as an attempt by the United States, in league with sectors of the Colombian oligarchy, to derail the peace accord between the FARC-EP and the Colombian government.
¡Lucha y Resiste! está circulando el siguiente artículo de Julián Sobogal, que apareció en Semanario Voz, el periódico del Partido Comunista Colombiano.
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following article by Julian Sobogal, that appeared in Semanario Voz, the newspaper of the Colombian Communist Party. It was translated by Fight Back! staff.
Washington DC – The Colombian political prisoner Anyaibe Rojas Valderrama, also known as Sonia, was finally released from her 17-year prison sentence on August 18.
Washington DC – The Colombian political prisoner Anyaibe Rojas Valderrama, also known as Sonia, was finally released from her 17-year prison sentence on August 18.
Miami, FL- Around 30 people, largely from the small but well-organized group Progressive Colombians Miami, gathered at the Torch of Friendship in Miami to take part in an international day of action called for by Colombia Humana. The August 7 Day of Action denounced the ongoing right-wing violence in Colombia that is being committed against former guerillas, progressives, human-rights activists, unionists, and farmers by government-supported paramilitaries. Hundreds have died since the supposed peace-deal was signed by now former-president Santos two years ago.
Milwaukee, WI – On August 4, an attempt to assassinate Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was carried out in Caracas. During a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the Bolivarian National Guard, two drones strapped with explosives flew towards the stage and exploded. While Maduro was unharmed, seven soldiers were wounded.
Minneapolis, MN – On August 7, international solidarity and immigrant rights activists protested during rush hour in front of the Federal Building in downtown Minneapolis as a part of an international day of protest to draw attention to the escalating violations of the Colombian peace accords. The peace accords, signed in 2016, are an attempt to end a 52-year civil war in Colombia. The MN protest was one of 83 solidarity protests in 17 countries.
Tucson, AZ – On July 16, Colombian paramilitaries with possible connections to the government murdered six social movement leaders. Two of those murdered were union leaders affiliated with the country’s largest union, FENSUAGRO, which organizes agricultural workers. They were brutally beaten to death with rocks. One of them was nearly decapitated and barely recognizable to family. These murders mark an escalation of violence against the left in Colombia since the election of Ivan Duque on June 17, as the political killings have averaged more than one a day. Ivan Duque is the protege of ex-Colombian President Uribe, who oversaw some of the worst state human rights abuses in the war against the FARC.
La Organización Socialista del Camino para la Libertad (FRSO) exige la libertad inmediata de el negociador de la paz colombiano Jesús Santrich, quien está bajo arresto por una solicitud de extradición de los E.E.U.U.
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) calls for the immediate release of Colombian peace negotiator Jesús Santrich, who is under arrest pursuant to an extradition request from the U.S.
New York, New York – On Nov. 16, approximately 30 activists picketed to demand justice for the hundreds of activists, campesinos and community organizers who have been murdered by the Colombian government. In October alone there have been 23 deaths.
Fight Back! interviewed John Lugo on Oct. 6. Lugo, originally from Colombia, is a long-time resident of New Haven, Connecticut where he is a community and immigrant rights organizer, helping many, many people from all over the world. He recently returned to Bogota where he saw the results of the ongoing Colombian peace process, and observed the launch event of a new and progressive political party.
