Free Alex Saab! A Conversation with Camila Saab, wife of Venezuelan diplomat kidnapped by Biden Administration

Saab has played an important role in allowing Venezuela to bypass economic sanctions imposed by the U.S., which is attempting to destabilize the Maduro government. Saab’s business acumen and clever tactics are part what allows Venezuela to obtain chemicals and minerals needed for material inputs, equipment and replacement parts for a productive and growing economy. The Venezuelan economy is set to grow rapidly this year after two troublesome years caused by U.S. sanctions and the COVID pandemic.

Despite intimidating U.S. Navy patrols, ships from Iran with much needed oil-refining chemicals and machine parts are arriving at Venezuelan ports. Oil production is back online and reached historic highs in December. Many economists are predicting stabilization, and new growth of over 7% for Venezuela in 2022.

The AFGJ Webinar is co-sponsored by over two dozen groups including United Anti War Committee (UNAC), the Committee to Stop FBI Repression (CSFR) and the Solidarity Committee of the Americas of Women Against Military Madness.

Tom Burke, speaking for the CSFR said, “We denounce this sham trial of Alex Saab as an outrageous act of aggression against the sovereign Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. This U.S. kidnapping of a Venezuelan diplomat shows the U.S. empire’s efforts to harass and sanction Venezuela knows no bounds. We will expose these court proceedings to the world.”

Activists in Florida are rallying outside the Miami courthouse during Alex Saab’s next hearing on February 16. Help send a message to the Biden administration: “Free Alex Saab!”

#TucsonAZ #AntiwarMovement #PeoplesStruggles #PoliticalPrisoners #AllianceForGlobalJustice #PoliticalRepression #AlexSaab #BolivarianRepublicOfVenezuela

Alliance for Global Justice volunteer, Raquel Mogollón, was in attendance at the trial of political prisoner Liliany Obando Aug. 4 in Bogotá, Colombia. Based on her eyewitness report, the hearing revealed manipulation of evidence behind the charges being brought against Obando.

Obando is a sociologist, independent film maker and unionist who was arrested the very week she released a report on the assassination of more than 1500 members of FENSUAGRO, the largest organization of farmers and farm workers in Colombia. She was arrested on the basis of evidence the government claims was found in computers belonging to Commander Raúl Reyes, of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP).

Prosecutors maintain that Obando was raising money for the FARC-EP via her position as Director of International Relations for FENSUAGRO. However, money she raised in tours abroad is easily traceable and shown to have gone directly to the union. The other charge Obando faces is ‘rebellion,’ a charge frequently used to intimidate and silence members of the political opposition.

Commander Reyes was killed when the Colombian Air Force bombed his camp, across the border in Ecuador. The camp was working out details for the release of four FARC-EP-held prisoners of war. According to Colombian Senator Píedad Córdoba, this was an attack on the peace process itself.

Córdoba has been the main negotiator securing a series of prisoner releases by the guerrillas. She told Mexico’s La Jornada newspaper: “Almost no knows this. But the reason that Uribe and Santos took the decision to bomb the camp of Raúl Reyes…was to ruin the negotiation that was advancing significantly in the U.S. to free Ingrid Betancourt and the three Americans….What followed is history – the attacks…cost the lives of 26 persons, among them four Mexican civilians. The international community rapidly pardoned Uribe. The hostages were liberated in a military operation a few months later. And the possibility of a political exit to the military conflict went up in smoke once again.”

The Colombian government claims that it recovered two computers belonging to Reyes that somehow survived the bombing. The international police agency INTERPOL has said that the evidence was not handled according to accepted norms and could not be authenticated. INTERPOL received the computers more than a week after they had been in the custody of Colombian authorities. Police Captain Ronald Hayden Coy Ortiz was the first authority to officially access the computers and headed up the initial investigation. In a previous court appearance, Coy admitted that during the time he had the computers, that he saw no emails, only Word files (which are known to be easily manipulated). Charges against Obando have been brought on the basis of alleged emails contained on the computer.

The hearing on August 4 was a chance to hear more from Captain Coy. According to Mogollón, Coy was asked repeatedly about the proper “chain of custody.” Evidence is supposed to be handled according to strict rules, with no gaps regarding its whereabouts or access. However, throughout the initial handling, there were irregularities. For instance, bodies from the scene of the bombing arrived in Bogotá well in advance of the computers, with no explanation of the delay.

Questioning not only by Obando’s attorney, Eduardo Matyas, but also by the judge, revealed that there was a three-day gap during which access was undertaken by Coy and other investigative police, as well as the unaccounted hours during which the computers were supposedly in transit to Bogotá. Coy admitted that he and investigators accessed the files without permission from the proper authorities and that details of the procedures were not documented. Coy defended his decision to independently open the computers on the basis that the evidence was of the “highest national security.” It was not explained how decisions concerning the ‘highest national security’ were to be best made by a police captain using irregular procedures without consulting superiors. When asked by Matyas if he had the expertise to open these computers without authorization, Coy admitted he didn’t.

Global Justice volunteer Mogollón says, “The judge took a very harsh tone with the officer. He asked Coy, why, if he had no expertise, he didn’t document the chain of custody. Coy responded that there was ‘…no room to write the info down – it's a very small space, just a little square.’ The judge responded, ‘I don't want to hear about the very small space! Couldn't you have gotten another piece of paper?' Coy responded, ‘I don't know....we just didn't....I'm sorry.’”

Obando is one of 14 persons originally implicated in what is called the ‘farc-política,’ an effort taken by the outgoing Uribe administration to intimidate political opposition members by tying them to the FARC-EP on the basis of discredited evidence allegedly ‘uncovered’ from the Reyes computers. As former Minister of Defense, it was incoming President Santos who ordered the attacks on the prisoner release negotiation camp. So far, all the initial investigations related to the farc-politica have been thrown out of court – except Obando’s. Based on the evidence of star witness Captain Coy, it is difficult to see on what basis Obando’s case will continue.

On Aug. 8, Obando will have completed two years of incarceration, enduring a long and drawn out court case still in its preliminary stages. Not long after her arrest, Colombian military officers, including the commander of the Colombian army, were implicated in the extrajudicial executions of hundreds of young Colombians. These youths were dressed up in guerrilla clothing after they were murdered and claimed as enemy combatants killed in battle. The implicated officers were let out of jail on a technicality because their trial process was not begun within 90 days of their initial charges. That same technicality alone should qualify Obando for release from jail. But it’s been two years and counting.

If trials are based on the credibility of evidence and witnesses, then many observers are speculating that Coy’s testimony can only add weight to those national and international allies calling for Obando’s release.

On Aug. 6, Mogollón was able to obtain a short visit with Obando at the Buen Pastor National Women’s Penitentiary. Asked for a statement about the hearing, Obando said,

“We feel that the hearing was very positive and that, finally, the public is learning that these files were manipulated illegally and without any authorization. Even INTERPOL agreed that the Ministry of Defense later gave them unauthorized copies, some of which were also improperly released to the public without any verification of their veracity. This is just another example of the witch hunt called the farc-politica.”

#BogotáColombia #Bogotá #Colombia #PoliticalPrisoners #FENSUAGRO #AllianceForGlobalJustice #Americas

I am a Co-Coordinator for the Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ). Changing U.S. policy toward Colombia is a major concern of ours, especially since Colombia is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in Latin America. During the last ten years, the rate of military aid has doubled. U.S. support for war and repression also includes non-military aid. For example, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded tens of millions of dollars in grants to paramilitary owners of African Palm plantations. Additionally, U.S. Bureau of Prisons advice for restructuring of Colombia's maximum-security institutions has actually increased the inhumane conditions, especially those affecting the political prisoners. AFGJ's work centers on advocacy for Colombian farmers, political prisoners and students.

I often receive notices about threats against our Colombian partners, but this one was especially chilling. In a disturbing excerpt, the letter reads:

Today is a very important day since we are initiating the plan of extermination against those persons who have been inviting and organizing the presence of communists, within the University…. This is not a game, already you are identified and targeted, this time you may not hide, meet together and make our work harder, we assure you that this year there will be no grades for any of you, no one is secure not even outside of Barranquilla….

This was the latest in a series of such threats against student activists. Among those targeted are Victoria Cañas Gonzales, leader of the University of the Atlantic's Federation of University Students (or FEU, by its Spanish initials), and Henry Molina Garcia, a student representative in the university's Superior Council. In fact, Molina was detained and tortured by investigative police and then threatened with death if he spoke out about what happened. Victoria Cañas was taken hostage at one point by unidentified assailants and interrogated for several hours before being released with a warning to cease her political activities.

One might expect that the University's response would be to call for an investigation and take steps to assure the safety of these young activists. Instead, the school's Rector, Ana Sofía Mesa De Cuervo, has accused seven students and one university vendor of a host of crimes, including “terrorism” and “inciting panic”. She went so far as to publish personal details, including home addresses, in a widely distributed campus publication. Three of these students, including Molina, Cañas and Fernando Miguel Martes Ortega, were among the students listed in the death threat quoted earlier. Listing such personal details under these circumstances is tantamount to aiding and abetting paramilitary violence and murder.

In fact, this publication follows several actions by the university and the state that have added to the student's fears of reprisals. These include investigations for charges of “rebellion,” a catch-all, political charge used to jail members of the political opposition; and a declaration in 2008 by DAS (Colombia's version of the FBI and Homeland Security combined) that Federation of University Students constitutes an arm of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). This is a common accusation used to intimidate activists, and it is often leveled against journalists and even peace negotiators who cover or negotiate the release of prisoners held by the guerrillas.

What are the crimes the students are being accused of? The Rector claims that during a protest against financial cuts, they destroyed security cameras, set up a roadblock with burning tires, damaged university equipment, and threw water balloons at a university event. In a report to the Attorney General's office in Barranquilla, the persons carrying out these actions are described as “hooded.” This could be anybody. It is common for protesters to wear handkerchiefs to cover their faces, in order to protect their identities from police and military death squads. While death squads threaten to murder students on campus, the official focus is on punishing student protests. Outrageous! It seems the students need to protest more, not less.

Several other pieces of evidence are described, including video recordings and photographs, however none of these are conclusive. They include photos, for instance, of Molina and other student organizers talking on cell phones, smiling, meeting together before the protest and so on. These show the student organizers busy preparing for the mass march and protest, not committing any crimes. Nothing links them to the more militant acts that other students or protesters commonly do in Colombia where repression is heavy.

The threats and repression being carried out against the students of the University of the Atlantic are not isolated phenomena. For instance, false information and fake Facebook accounts have recently appeared from the city of Medellin spuriously linking student leaders to the FARC and the Clandestine Communist Party. These fabrications were followed by a new proposal by Colombian President Álvaro Uribe to pay 1,000 students in Medellin $50 a month to act as informers for the Colombian Armed Forces. According to Defense Minister Gabriel Silva, Colombia already has a network of 2.2 million civilian informers, including 3,000 informers already paid a monthly fee of $50. This is the largest such network in the Americas and represents just under 5% of the entire population. In other words, one in every 20 Colombians is an informant. U.S. tax money helps pay for these spy networks.

The gravity of this situation is best illustrated by the increase in arbitrary arrests of student and labor activists and members of the political opposition. Such arrests are based on false evidence fabricated by the Colombian Armed Forces and paid testimony from informants. Between 1992 and 2002, there were 2,000 illegal arrests that were thrown out of court for lack of evidence. Since President Uribe took office, that number has grown considerably. According to Colombia's Permanent Committee for Human Rights, between 2002 and 2006 alone, there were 7,500 such arrests and the pace has not abated. Persons arrested usually serve one to three years before having their cases dismissed. Based on my own visits with Colombian political prisoners, a high percentage of those arrested are students.

Another development regarding student activists is the January 22 announcement by the Colombian Attorney General's Office that ESMAD (the Spanish initials for the National Police Anti-Disturbance Mobile Squad) was responsible for the death of Johnny Silva Aranguren on September 22, 2005. Silva, a 21-year-old student at the University of Valle in Cali, was a participant in a demonstration against a Free Trade Agreement with the United States. At 2pm that day, students and professors had started a blockade of one of the university's streets. After nightfall, around 7pm, and after a suspicious failure of streetlights, ESMAD agents attacked the demonstration with tear gas and live ammunition. Other participants were able to run, but Silva was unable due to a congenital defect. He was shot in the neck. Demonstrators took him to a hospital, where he died soon after.

Cali Police Commander Jesús Antonio Gómez Méndez declared that the police had not entered the campus and that Silva had not been shot by police officers. However, video evidence showed otherwise. There were also testimonies from people who overheard on police radio airwaves that the cutting of the lights had been prearranged. ESMAD had not secured the legal requirements to enter the campus nor to use live ammunition against the crowd. When the evidence was produced to show that Gomez had lied, the response of President Uribe was to announce that there is nowhere in Colombia that the police and military are not allowed to go.

So far no penalties have been assessed against any of the officers involved in this assault. There is a more than 95% rate of impunity for military and paramilitary political assassinations. We can only hope that this will be an exception to the rule, and justice will be served.

The issue of immunity is driven home by another development affecting Colombian youth: the failure of the government to punish those already found responsible for the “false positive” scandal. This scandal involves the proven murders of some 1,700 mostly young people, executed by the Colombian military and dressed in the garb of guerrillas so they could be falsely claimed as enemy combatants slain in battle. Most of these were not university students, but youth unable to pursue higher education because of a lack of resources and public funding. This scandal was a result of the U.S. encouraging incentives and rewards for soldiers and officers who kill guerrillas. More so, it comes out of attempts to inflate numbers of those killed in battle in order to feign success for the U.S. government's Plan Colombia – a strategy of military victory versus the pursuit of a peace process. Those fired for this scandal include three generals and the commander of the Colombian Army.

On January 20, Colombian Senator Gloria Inés Ramírez Ríos made the following statement:

In effect, over recent months 31 members of the military charged with 'false positives' have been set free due to the fact that the 90 days set down in the law had transpired without the Public Prosecutor having brought them to trial. In an equivalent situation we find another group of 23 soldiers who, with no change to the application of the law, were also set free.

When we, as U.S. citizens, look at the repression daily endured by Colombian students and youth – and the impunity for those who threaten their lives – it angers us to realize that war and repression in Colombia is made in the USA, funded with our tax dollars and given an official seal of approval. Our response must be to demand the US government stop funding war in Colombia and support negotiations for a just peace. One way to begin is to contact the Alliance for Global Justice to receive alerts about Colombia and other Latin American struggles by writing to info@afgj.org.

Meanwhile, the student activists of the University of the Atlantic have written us asking that international allies join them in making the following demands:

• That the Colombian Attorney General's office investigate University of Atlántico Rector Ana Sofía Mesa de Cuervos for violations fundamental rights, including the right to life and personal security for the students HENRY MOLINA GARCIA, JOSE PEREZ ARIZA, JOSE TOMAS ORTEGA MOYA, VICTORIA CAÑAS GONZALEZ, FABIAN ENRIQUE ESCOBAR DURAN, FERNANDO MIGUEL MARTES ORTEGA, CRISTOBAL COLON MARIN and the university vendor, HENRY BARRIOS DIAZ.
• That the Colombian Attorney General's office omit the present accusations against the students made by the University of the Atlantic for insufficient evidence and because the accusations represent an attack on the right to social protest.
• That Ana Sofía Mesa de Cuervo be immediately removed from her position for abuse of her office and political persecution of students groups and activists from the opposition.
• That the Colombian Public Defender's office take action, including providing accompaniment, to protect the aforementioned students, as well as the organizations they represent, including FEU (the Federation of University Students), JUCO (the Young Communist League) and ACEU (the Association of Colombian University Students).

In support of these demands, the students have made the following petition:

We make a call to the national and international human rights organizations, the academic and university community, that they back this denunciation and send their communications of support and demands to the following authorities of the Colombian State:

Presidential Program for Human Rights

Director Carlos Franco.

E-mail: cefranco@presidencia.gov.co

Asesor Fernando Ibarra.

E-mail: fibarra@presidencia.gov.co

Justice System of Colombia

E-mail: denuncias@fiscalia.gov.co y contacto@fiscalia.gov.co

Attorney General

ALEJANDRO ORDÓÑEZ MALDONADO

Email: cap@procuraduria.gov.co, quejas@procuraduria.gov.co, webmaster@procuraduria.gov.co

National Public Defender

VOLMAR ANTONIO PÉREZ ORTIZ

E-mail: secretaria_privada@hotmail.com ; agenda@agenda.gov.co

ANA SOFÍA MESA DE CUERVO

Rector of the University of the Atlantic

E-mail: rector@uniatlantico.edu.co

#Colombia #StudentMovement #AllianceForGlobalJustice #AUC #Americas

The U.S. government is stepping up its surveillance and harassment of U.S. activists in an attempt to intimidate them and dampen their spirits for the change we believe in. International solidarity activist James Jordan was returning from a two week trip to Haiti, on Jan. 7, five days prior to the terrible earthquake disaster. When his flight touched down in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, flight attendants called out for “James Patrick Jordan” and asked him to come to the front of the airplane. Homeland Security came on board the airplane to escort him off.

Jordan said, “The agents put me up against a wall, kicked my legs apart and frisked me. They took me to a detention area, then a back room where two agents began going through all my papers, my cell phone and camera, all my bags, looking for Lord knows what?” Homeland Security was most interested in his notebooks concerning Haiti and Colombia.

The Haitian groups James met with organize against the grinding poverty, support workers’ rights and work to improve health care for the masses. Now hundreds of thousands of Haitians are dead in the earthquake and more will die due to poverty and lack of doctors and medicines. The U.S. government is responsible for the dire conditions in Haiti, holding the people down and suppressing any progressive change. In 2004, the U.S. military kidnapped President Aristide and overthrew his government. Aristide had disbanded the Haitian army a few years earlier to prevent a U.S.-backed military coup. President Aristide, a former Catholic priest, was making mild reforms to help the people of Haiti, but U.S. companies wanted privatization of the electric system and other services.

The Latin American Solidarity Coalition (LASC) in the U.S. sponsored Jordan’s delegation, and his Colombia work was the focus of the interrogation. Jordan said, “I told them that two of us were in Haiti representing the Alliance for Global Justice [AFGJ] and that, specifically, I worked with the Campaign for Labor Rights, a part of AFGJ. And I explained that AFGJ was part of LASC. They asked about Chuck Kaufman and what kind of work he did. They wanted to know his flight information and I told them I didn’t know what it was. They asked me about the other delegates and I told them that I didn’t know their flight information and that I didn’t feel comfortable giving them names and other information about those delegates and they ceased questioning about them.”

Chuck Kaufman, also on his way home from Haiti, was detained and questioned in New York City. Chuck said, “I told them I was in Haiti. They asked what other countries I've visited and what I did there. I described a trip to Hiroshima, Japan and swimming with nurse sharks in Belize. They dropped the subject.” Chuck was held for a couple of hours and missed his connecting flight, forcing him to spend the night in New York.

James Jordan continues, “They were very interested in the folder I had about the terrible situation with the Colombian prisons, political prisoners and human rights violations. I am working on a project to advocate for better conditions at La Tramacua prison in Valledupar, Colombia – a prison that is very overcrowded, rife with violence and intimidation aimed at the political prisoners and imprisoned guerrillas, where inmates do not have access to sanitary toilet facilities and have access to drinkable water only ten minutes a day. There was also information about the relationship of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in funding, advising and restructuring this and other maximum-security prisons in Colombia. We are calling for an investigation of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ relationship with these prisons and what responsibility it bears for the conditions that exist there. Everyone hears about the White House closing Guantanamo, but the U.S. government is overseeing terrible things in Colombian prisons.”

Jordan emphasized, “There was a flier for my speaking at the School of the Americas protest this [past] year that featured a picture of Lily Obando. Lily Obando is a political prisoner we support and campaign for. The agents asked about Lily Obando, if she was part of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia [FARC] or accused of being part of the FARC. I told them Lily is so accused, but the evidence against her is not credible. They seemed especially interested in notes I had taken from a Counter Punch article concerning the Valledupar prison in Colombia and the targeting of FARC members held as prisoners of war. I tell you the U.S. government is up to no good there.”

Lily Obando is internationally known for her recent report exposing the death squad murders of 1500 farm organizers and union members with FENSUAGRO. Obando is one of 7000 political prisoners and prisoners of war. Many are trade unionists, peasant organizers and community leaders; some are FARC and ELN guerrilla fighters, held by the Colombian government, many without trial.

There is a massive movement against the wealthy elite, including narco-traffickers, that rule Colombia. The U.S. government funds the notoriously corrupt Colombian military, giving it nearly $7 billion in the last ten years. The White House announced it is occupying seven military bases inside Colombia. This will expand the U.S. war in Colombia and threaten neighboring countries like Venezuela and Ecuador. Pentagon generals and the U.S. Southern Command direct the war that brings poverty, misery and death squads to the lives of Colombian peasants and workers. The U.S. Congress funds and covers for the most reactionary, corrupt and unsavory elements of the Colombian elite.

James Jordan, though a seasoned activist, said, “Certainly the process was intrusive, uncalled for and intimidating. I was unsure of what my rights were when they took me off the plane. I did not know if I should answer their questions or ask for a lawyer?”

Bruce Nestor, of Minneapolis, Minnesota and past President of the National Lawyers Guild, advises, “Homeland Security asserts an unprecedented right to search people’s papers and even the entire contents of their computers, when they cross the border back into the United States. In addition to treading upon constitutional rights to privacy and against unreasonable searches, much of this activity appears to be intelligence gathering directed at political activists traveling to countries which are actively challenging United States foreign policy. People need to know and assert their rights, to refuse to answer unwarranted questions and refuse consent to search of personal papers and electronics.”

We have heard from a number of activists and their families that they have been detained when returning from holiday trips abroad. The line of questioning is similar to the case of James Jordon where they are asked of political history regardless of the purpose of the trips the activists were taking. U.S. agents made insinuations and demanded answers that had nothing to do with the trips that these people were taking. It is clear the U.S. government is stepping up its harassment and repression of people organizing for fundamental social change.

#UnitedStates #AntiwarMovement #Colombia #Haiti #LatinAmericanSolidarityCoalition #AllianceForGlobalJustice #Repression