News and Views from the People's Struggle
Fight Back! is circulating the following statement from the Committee to Free Simon Trinidad. Simon Trinidad is a prisoner of the U.S. empire who has done nothing wrong, only struggled to free his country.
Fight Back! interviews Mark Burton, attorney for Colombian revolutionary Simon Trinidad who is a political prisoner held by the U.S. government. Simon Trinidad, also known as Ricardo Palmera, is a good man who has done nothing wrong. His only crime is to fight for the freedom and independence of his own country, taking the side of Colombian workers and peasants. Due to U.S. government repression, we are unable to interview Simon Trinidad directly. Check out the campaign to Free Simon Trinidad at http://freesimontrinidad.org.
Chicago, IL – Prominent Argentinian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel and 43 other human rights activists from 18 countries have written to President Donald Trump asking him to free Colombian revolutionary Simon Trinidad.
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.”
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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.
Agencia Bolivariana de Prensa originally published the following article by Ivan Marquez, of Colombia’s FARC. It was translated by Fight Back! staff.