Dear Supporters,

There is a growing debate in Congress concerning Plan Colombia. There needs to be an end to U.S. military aid to Colombia. The almost $5 billion the U.S. has sent in military aid since 2000 has had horrendous results in Colombia. It has paid for military and para-military human rights abuses including massacres, disappearances, kidnapping and threats to social justice and labor activists and their families.

Some in the Latin America solidarity movement are calling for a shift in funding from military aid to humanitarian aid. However, the Colombia Action Network does not support a call for ‘humanitarian aid’ in lieu of military aid. Repeatedly over the past seven years, the Colombian social movement has demanded that the government spend money on social services rather than war. The movement has also demanded that the U.S. stop sending military aid and advisors to Colombia. The movement has not called for the U.S. to send humanitarian aid because they know that the Colombian government would not increase social spending. The Colombian government would instead just use the funds to offset more military spending. As long as the Colombian government spends their resources fighting, killing and torturing the Colombian people the solidarity movement in the U.S. should demand an end to all aid – both military and ‘humanitarian’ – to Colombia.

Now is a key time to end Plan Colombia. Between the Uribe’s and Chiquita’s death squad scandals and the unpopularity of Bush’s foreign policy in general, the Democrats are considering ending Plan Colombia. We need to stand together to say a clear “no” to aid to Colombia. Please do everything you can to demand an end to Plan Colombia. Call Congress at 202-224-3121 or go www.house.gov and www.senate.gov. Thanks for your support.

Peace,

Meredith Aby

Colombia Action Network

#UnitedStates #AntiwarMovement #Colombia #Statement #ColombiaActionNetwork #PlanColombia #Americas

On December 3rd Colombian revolutionary Ricardo Palmera faces sentencing in a Washington D.C. federal court. The National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera will pack the courtroom in support of this brave freedom fighter.

Ricardo Palmera is a peace negotiator for Colombia’s rebels – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The U.S. extradited Palmera to a prison outside Washington D.C. and hold him in solitary confinement – no family, no friends, no reporters, not even his own Colombian lawyer. Palmera only defends his country and fights for freedom and democracy for the Colombian people.

Professor Palmera’s trials are extraordinary. By speaking the truth, FARC leader Palmera has consistently beaten the Bush administration’s prosecutors. Palmera won a victory when the first trial ended in a hung jury. When the U.S. government re-tried Palmera on the same exact charges, Judge Hogan was caught cheating and had to step down. Hogan’s replacement, Judge Lamberth refused to allow Palmera any witnesses. The U.S. prosecutor has dozens of witnesses – paid informants, lying convicted drug runners, and corrupt Colombian government officials. At the end of the retrial, the jury could not find Palmera guilty of “terrorism” charges or a kidnapping charge related to three U.S. military contractors captured and held by the FARC. Unfortunately, based upon the FARC capturing its enemies in combat, the jury convicted Palmera of “belonging to a conspiracy to kidnap”. In another recent “drug” trial, seven American jurors wanted to find Professor Palmera “not guilty”, but a hung jury resulted. The U.S. prosecutor plans to re-try Ricardo Palmera though there is no evidence, only paid informants. Palmera plans to testify and win again. The only fair trial is no trial. The only fair sentence is no sentence.

Tom Burke of the National Committee says, “Ricardo Palmera is a good man who dedicates his whole life to the Colombian people. We oppose the extradition, trials, and imprisonment of Ricardo Palmera because it violates the sovereignty of the Colombian people. Palmera is a political prisoner.”

Angela Denio of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) relates, “Students from across the U.S. are educating themselves and protesting the trials and sentencing of Professor Palmera. We oppose the war in Iraq and we oppose Plan Colombia – the U.S. dirty war that brings poverty, misery, and death to the Colombian people. SDS protests at the U.S. Military’s School of the America’s in Georgia, where the Colombian death squads are trained. An SOA graduate recently testified against Professor Palmera. It is Bush and the SOA that should be on trial! Our campaign to Free Ricardo Palmera is growing and spreading. People are speaking out.”

Burke finishes, “From Baghdad to Bogotá, President Bush’s empire is crumbling around him. At every trial, the rebel leader Ricardo Palmera exposes the lies, distortions, and injustice of Bush and the U.S. Empire. Palmera has beaten the U.S. government again and again. We await Ricardo Palmera’s speech! We say Free Ricardo Palmera!”

Free Ricardo Palmera!

Picket line and press conference to demand Ricardo Palmera's freedom!

Monday, December 3rd, 8:30 AM picket line 9:00 AM press conference

U.S. Federal Court Building (333 Constitution Ave., NW)

For more info contact Tom Burke at 773-844-3612 or Mick Kelly at 612-715-3280. www.freericardopalmera.org

#UnitedStates #SDS #Colombia #RicardoPalmera #NationalCommitteeToFreeRicardoPalmera #Statement #PoliticalPrisoners #PlanColombia #RevolutionaryArmedForcesOfColombiaFARC

Born into a peasant family, Marulanda joined Colombia’s Liberal forces fighting against the Conservatives. He became a guerilla in La Violencia, the civil war following the 1948 assassination of presidential candidate Gaitan, a popular and national democratic leader despised by the U.S. government. This civil war continues to this day, with the U.S. intervening on the side of the Colombian elites. As Marulanda said, “I did not go looking for war, war came looking for me.”

In the late 1950s Marulanda joined forces with Jacobo Arenas, a Marxist fighter and admirer of Che Guevara. They became the important leadership team of the newly founded FARC in 1964. From a small, tightly knit group of revolutionaries, the FARC today is a formidable force that threatens the whole of U.S. imperialism's plans in Latin America. Marulanda is largely responsible for the revolution's success.

Marulanda was ideologically firm, a Marxist-Leninist applying the scientific theory of revolution to the conditions of Colombian society. He was a great strategist, like Mao in China or General Giap in Vietnam, understanding the capabilities of his own revolutionary people's army, the FARC-EP, while anticipating the moves and capabilities of his enemies – U.S. imperialism and the Colombian oligarchy.

Marulanda and the FARC learned from the peasants and working classes, studying and struggling. They remained tactically flexible, moving forward and retreating according to the situation, whether in military conduct or with political initiatives like the Patriotic Union or peace negotiation. Always, Marulanda kept politics in command. In times when other revolutionaries stumbled or faltered, the FARC took strides forward, methodically cutting a path through the layers of confusion and disinformation sowed by the enemies of revolution and socialism.

The last decade of Marulanda's life was dedicated to defeating Plan Colombia. Plan Colombia is the U.S. Pentagon's dirty war, bringing death and destruction to the doorsteps of peasants and workers in Colombia. Like the Vietnam War, the U.S. government is waging a large-scale counter-insurgency war. Colombia's armed forces have more than doubled their size over the past eight years. The Colombian military murders peasants in cold blood, driving millions off their land, villages are destroyed, death squads assassinate trade unionists, and U.S. planes spray chemical agents across wide areas of the countryside to scorch the earth. Funded by U.S. taxpayer at nearly $5 billion, planned by Pentagon generals, and conducted by U.S. military advisors and private contractors, the war is brutal and fierce but rarely reported on by the U.S. media. Still Marulanda was able to organize an orderly retreat by the FARC and they are hitting back at the U.S. intervention, with many small battles every week.

Plan Colombia, like the invasion and occupation of Iraq, is a failure. Lapdogs like President Uribe may announce bigger and greater victories, exaggerating and crowing, but their gains are temporary and futile. The Colombian people, like the Iraqi people, will triumph.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization honors the life and leadership of Manuel Marulanda, commander in chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army. Marulanda, nicknamed, Sure-shot, passed away in the arms of his partner, surrounded by guerrilla fighters. He died from natural causes at the age of 77 after leading the life of a revolutionary warrior since the late 1940s. We are all living things and all that lives must pass on. The ideas and example of Marulanda will continue to live in the minds of all those continuing the fight to end barbarism and win back our humanity. The FARC has chosen from amongst its many capable leaders the veteran fighter and Marxist-Leninist Alfonso Cano.

Long live the sprit of Marulanda!

Victory to the FARC!

#UnitedStates #Editorial #Colombia #Editorials #RicardoPalmera #Remembrances #PlanColombia #ManuelMarulanda #RevolutionaryArmedForcesOfColombiaPeoplesArmyFARCEP #LaViolencia #MarxistLeninist

The FARC moved the prisoners of war from three separate jungle camps to one location, planning to transfer them by helicopter and release them to French and Swiss government envoys. It was a simple plan that would have given the FARC a platform to demand freedom for 500 FARC fighters in Colombian prisons. For FARC negotiator Ricardo Palmera and rebel Sonia (Anayibe Rojas Valderrama), held as hostages in U.S. jails, the raid and the refusal of the U.S. and Colombian governments to negotiate is bad news.

During its 44 years of fighting a guerrilla war in the countryside of Colombia, the FARC has unilaterally released prisoners a number of times, including seven months ago. These prisoner releases provide a rare opportunity for the FARC to present their political views and talk about pathways to social justice and peace in Colombia. At the prisoner release ceremonies, the FARC message sharply contrasts with the typical media distortions and censorship about them. In recent times, the U.S. strategy is to criminalize the FARC, to make it impossible for the FARC to negotiate with the Colombian government (or anyone else) and to deny the legitimate struggle of the peasants and workers.

The U.S. wants war without end. Bush wants victory, not prisoner exchanges and negotiations. The U.S. is frustrating all attempts at talks, while intensifying the war in Colombia. During his testimony in U.S. court, FARC negotiator Ricardo Palmera explained he was kidnapped by U.S. intelligence in Ecuador on his way to speak with a U.N. envoy three years ago. In January 2008, the FARC successfully released prisoners to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but only after the U.S. and Colombian military spoiled the first attempt. In March this year, the U.S. was behind a high tech missile and bomb attack killing FARC Commander Raul Reyes and 24 others inside Ecuador. Raul Reyes was planning the next high profile prisoner release with ranking government officials from Ecuador, Venezuela and France. The U.S. tries to kill every effort.

The U.S. behavior is cold, hard and calculated. The U.S. is at war, no negotiations. The U.S. cannot stand for anyone to recognize the legitimacy of the FARC. The Bush officials were shaking with rage when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the FARC should be granted international legitimacy known as ‘belligerency status.’ For the same reasons, the U.S. government was flabbergasted when U.S. prosecutors were forced to repeat Ricardo Palmera’s trials. Most of the American jurors believed Palmera over the U.S. government, leading to mistrials.

In the recent prisoner handover, the FARC were willing to release Colombian soldiers, the wealthy reactionary politician and French citizen named Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. mercenaries. The three American military contractors were paid by Northrop Grumman to help kill Colombians. In the Washington D.C. trials of FARC leader Ricardo Palmera, it was revealed that Marc Gonzalves, Keith Stansell and Thomas Howes provided ‘real time’ information from their high-tech airplane to the Colombian military in its war against the peasant fighters of the FARC. This direct involvement by U.S. soldiers of fortune in Colombia’s civil war is risky business. It shows the calm restraint of the FARC that the three returned to the U.S. in such good shape.

However, soldier of fortune Marc Gonsalves spoke strong words against the Colombian revolutionaries who are fighting to free their country from U.S. domination and war. Like the patriot-for-pay that he is, Gonsalves defensively repeated again and again the big lie of the Bush administration, “the FARC are not revolutionaries.” Poor Marc Gonsalves – his big story of abuse involves his captors making him carry a heavy backpack in the jungle while marching tied together with other prisoners and under armed guard. Compared to the treatment the U.S. military gives prisoners of war at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, one would think Marc Gonsalves and the others might appreciate their good health and fair treatment in someone else’s country.

The effect of the prisoner raid is that the U.S. seized the media spotlight away from the FARC. The fact the FARC was already releasing the prisoners is swept clean from U.S. news stories. This pleases the Bush White House to no end. Bush has just boosted Colombian President Uribe out of a sticky situation where the Colombian Supreme Court was questioning the legitimacy of Uribe’s last election.

Despite Bush’s support, President Uribe’s regime is shaky due to his personal and political ties to narco-traffickers and corruption. An old U.S. intelligence report ties Uribe to the infamous cocaine trafficker Pablo Escobar. So does Escobar’s surviving girlfriend. No matter to the White House, Uribe is their man. Uribe’s rule consists of death squad terror for peasants, trade unionists, student activists and human rights defenders. In the countryside deadly chemical poison is sprayed on countless acres of land where FARC support is strongest, driving peasants off the land. Only Iraq has a bigger refugee crisis. Poor Colombians are forced into shantytowns around the big cities. Police and right-wing paramilitaries patrol the shantytowns in tandem. Repression is all around for working and low-income people.

For sections of the middle classes and the rich oligarchy in Colombia, the situation is one of combativeness as they mobilize to support Uribe and the violence of the Colombian state. The wealthy elite who rule Colombia and sell off its natural resources to U.S. corporations are perfectly willing to ignore the repression and the terror in the countryside. They are happy to have U.S. Southern Command conducting the war in their country, but they are careful not to speak too loudly about it. There are 800 U.S. military advisors, 600 military contractors, and scores of U.S. Special Forces on Colombian soil to direct the dirty war.

The rich people who rule Colombia are bathed in the blood of tens of thousands of peasants, workers and leftists. U.S. taxpayers foot the bill to the tune of $5 billion. The Bush administration fully backs the corrupt, narco-trafficking, death squad government of President Uribe. Without this, the wealthy few who rule Colombia with a bloody hand would be chased from power, never to return. The Uribe regime would collapse in months. Death squad democracy would be history, revolution a certainty.

Nevertheless, due to the recent blows against the FARC leadership, American imperialists, Colombian reactionaries and fools of all stripes want to claim the FARC are collapsing or are ‘finished.’ Others who should know better, because they know how it feels to be hunted by assassins, are suggesting that the FARC should one-sidedly ignore the history of Colombia and surrender their weapons. This is wishful thinking. In Colombia, laying down arms is akin to suicide.

For those who want social change in Colombia, the electoral road ends in the cemetery. The Colombian state murdered more than 4000 members, candidates and elected officials of the left-wing party, the Patriotic Union, in the late 1980s. In 1987, Patriotic Union political leader Ricardo Palmera went and joined the FARC, dedicating his own life to continuing the struggle. In his U.S. trials, Professor Palmera said, “My choices were death, exile, or joining the fight in the countryside.” In Colombia, those on the freedom road must carry arms if they are going to defend the people and reach their destination.

For sure, the FARC are reassessing their tactics in terms of releasing the small numbers of prisoners of war they still hold – mostly military officers. However, this is only one part of the FARC strategy. Mainly the FARC organize the masses of Colombian people to take control of their land, labor and lives to make revolution. It is slow, difficult, unglamorous work, but the FARC is a political organization and its strategy relies on the people. After 45 years of building the largest revolutionary army in the hemisphere, with tremendous growth during a period when much of the left was in retreat or capitulating to imperialism, the FARC is more political in its approach to making revolution than ever.

Millions of supporters of the FARC understand the long-term nature of the struggle for national liberation. The FARC is on a long march and expects to face both setbacks and advances. The goal is to wear down the Colombian state and its imperialist backers in the U.S. until conditions exist for the people to seize power. To the north, the American people do not like wars where Americans get killed, so the White House and Pentagon are limited in what they can do.

Plan Colombia is a U.S. war plan that brings poverty, misery and death to Colombians. In practice, Plan Colombia means more war, more repression and more drugs. Plan Colombia is the enemy of all people who want peace and justice. Like Bush and Uribe, the days of Plan Colombia are numbered. Plan Colombia cannot continue and the U.S. will soon need a new strategy or possibly go to war in Latin America.

The growing aggressiveness of the U.S. across Latin America is a sign of weakness, not strength. Bush and the U.S. empire are losing their grip. In Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador, the people are rising and attempting to build new societies. The U.S. wants to put a stop to the people’s movements and reverse their gains. If the FARC leads a successful revolution in Colombia, it is game over for the U.S. empire in that region. Like Iraq in the Middle East, Colombia is key to the U.S. strategy for dominating Latin America.

We should do everything in our power to expose the Bush administration and its war in Colombia. That is our responsibility.

The four trials of FARC leader Ricardo Palmera in Washington D.C. went a long way to exposing the phoniness of the War On Terror and the War On Drugs. The U.S. empire, with millions of dollars, could not defeat a lone revolutionary held in solitary confinement and denied many of the constitutional rights Bush claims to defend. Palmera beat the slick U.S. prosecutors on nine out of ten charges and the U.S. was forced to drop all the false drug charges. Professor Palmera is a good and decent man. He chose to do what hundreds of thousands of other Colombians have done before him, to pick up a gun and defend what is right, what is good and what is just. Palmera stands for the poor, against the rich, despite his own background.

We too should stand with Palmera, Sonia and the 500 FARC prisoners held by the proto-fascist Uribe. We should stand with all the Colombian workers and peasants yearning to be free from U.S. corporate dominance and U.S. military death and destruction. The U.S. is on the wrong side of the civil war in Colombia. We need to demand that the U.S. government and military pull out and bring all the troops home now! Stop Plan Colombia!

#Colombia #Editorials #RicardoPalmera #FARC #PoliticalPrisoners #PlanColombia #mercenaries #soldierOfFortune #PatrioticUnion #Americas

Washington, D.C. – A U.S. judge placed ads in Colombia’s newspapers the last week of August “ordering” the FARC – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, to appear in his Washington D.C. courtroom. This adds to a list of bizarre procedures involving the extradition, imprisonment and trial of Ricardo Palmera, an important FARC leader. U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan ridiculously asserts that the FARC members should leave their homeland and come to the U.S. to appear on charges of, “taking hostages in violation of U.S. laws.”

Ricardo Palmera was extradited from Colombia and imprisoned on the same charges. Legal experts in Colombia and around the world consider the U.S. government’s extradition of Palmera a violation of Colombia’s sovereignty and a kidnapping.

The FARC, with over 27,000 armed fighters, is Latin America’s largest and strongest leftist insurgency. For 40 years the FARC has fought the Colombian state in a civil war. With broad support amongst the people, the FARC is the de facto government in as much as 40% of Colombia. The FARC fights a Vietnam-style people’s war against the corrupt narco-government of President Alvaro Uribe. President Uribe, previously connected to a drug trafficking cartel by U.S. intelligence, now oversees the U.S. government’s ‘war on drugs’ in Colombia. President Uribe signed the papers to send Ricardo Palmera to the U.S. on drug and kidnapping charges.

The FARC holds three U.S. mercenary contractors: Tom Howes, Marc Gonsalves and Keith Stansell. The U.S. government claims their detention is a kidnapping. A statement from the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera clarifies the matter: “It is absurd that the U.S. government has extradited Mr. Palmera on the basis of hostage taking and providing material support to terrorists. The specifics of the charge concern U.S.-contracted mercenaries who were shot down in their plane over FARC territory. A firefight ensued in which a U.S. mercenary and a Colombian sergeant were killed, while three U.S. mercenaries were captured. The U.S. Justice Department is trying to claim that this small battle in Colombia’s civil war amounts to hostage taking, and that the long-running guerrilla war is now a ‘terrorist action!’ This makes a mockery of international law, as Bush attempts to impose U.S. sovereignty in Colombia.”

As the United States military becomes more involved in the war in Colombia, the potential for these cases will increase. Plan Colombia spends over $4 billion of U.S. taxpayer money for massive chemical spraying of poor peasants’ crops and for tripling the size of the Colombian military. Despite analysis that Plan Colombia is a failure, Bush and Congress increased military spending to Colombia in 2005 and upped U.S. military ‘advisors’ to 800, plus 600 mercenary contractors. As U.S. military ‘advisors’ go out into battle alongside the government’s troops, the likelihood of more captured or dead advisors and mercenary contractors seems certain.

Palmera’s next status conference in front of U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan is Oct. 4.

#WashingtonDC #News #FARCEP #Colombia #RicardoPalmera #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #PlanColombia #PoliticalPrisoners

Meredith Aby of Fight Back! interviewed members of a delegation to Colombia: Marty Hoerth, Tsione Wolde-Michael and Erika Zurawski.

Community Action for Justice in the Americas and the Colombia Action Network organized a delegation of student and community activists from Montana and Minnesota that traveled to Colombia in June. The delegation met with human rights organizations, labor unions and campesino (peasant) groups to investigate the true effects of U.S. military aid to Colombia.

Paramilitary death squads murder an average of two to three Colombian trade unionists every week. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International document that U.S. military aid, called Plan Colombia, funds the repressive Colombian military and right-wing paramilitary death squads. The U.S. has spent over $3.5 billion since 2000 to fund Plan Colombia.

Fight Back!: What did you see during your trip?

Erika Zurawski: U.S. military aid to Colombia just went up again, renewing $742 million in military aid. As a result, political repression by paramilitary death squads and the Colombian Army has risen dramatically. In the city of Tamé, 85 people were already assassinated from January to May 2005. The situation is deteriorating. Colombians directly relate this to U.S. military aid.

While we were in Tamé, we heard the testimonies of around 50 people with the courage to denounce the massacres of the people in their city. Some of these testimonies were made at a public meeting where paramilitaries were present. The people of Tamé, like the rest of Colombia, are dedicated to resisting oppression and to working towards positive change.

Fight Back!: What is the current situation for the Coca-Cola workers’ union, SINALTRAINAL?

Tsione Wolde-Michael: Coke’s new move is to use psychological tactics in addition to physical ones to dissuade Colombians from joining the union. Company representatives scare workers’ families into signing ‘voluntary agreements’ to resign from their jobs. The Coke psychologists say if the father or mother does not resign, they will get no compensation from Coca-Cola. If the workers resign then Coca-Cola takes no responsibility in lawsuits for job layoffs or if they are murdered.

Nine SINALTRAINAL trade unionists have been killed by Coca-Cola death squads. Local vice president William Mendoza specifically credited the Coca-Cola boycott with protecting them and helping them keep their jobs. Because of the Coke boycott, Mendoza receives a call once a month from the U.S. Embassy to see if he’s alive. In 2003, when eleven Coca-Cola plants were closed, pressure from the Coke boycott forced the company to relocate the union workers instead of throwing them on the street. The international boycott has helped keep the Coca-Cola workers’ union alive.

Fight Back!: Under Plan Colombia, the U.S. government purchases chemical poisons for the Colombian government’s aerial spraying in the countryside. What is the impact that you saw of U.S.-sponsored fumigation in Colombia?

Tsione Wolde-Michael: The fumigation is interesting when you look at it in the context of the ‘war on drugs.’ Our U.S. tax dollars are supposed to be spent to help fight the drug war and coca production. We see that fumigation kills the coca, yes, but it also kills legal crops and animals. People are sprayed too!

In the end, even people growing legal crops are forced to grow coca. The reason is, when you grow a legal crop and the government sprays you, you do not have your crops to sustain yourself, and your animals are dying off, and your family members are sick. You either get up to move, which is sometimes what the government wants so they can get your land, or you begin to grow coca. Campesinos decide to grow coca because it will eventually grow in the polluted soil and it has a guaranteed income.

In Santo Domingo, helicopters fly in to come pick up coca. Whereas farmers who grow legal crops take a three-hour mule ride followed by a two-hour boat ride to get their crops to market. It just is not worth it to take that trip. Conveniently, it is great for U.S. policy because it looks like Bush is trying to stop drugs, when in fact all the money is going to the paramilitaries and military. Fumigation forcibly displaces people and creates opportunities for U.S. corporations to exploit the land and resources.

The ‘war on drugs’ is really about securing U.S. interests and having another puppet government that is strategically placed next to Venezuela and near Bolivia. By controlling Colombia, the U.S. is trying to prevent the full realization of the Bolivarian process – the unity of South American countries against U.S. imperialism.

Fight Back!: You met with many social organizations who are fighting for economic and political rights in Colombia. What dangers do they face from the right-wing government of President Uribé?

Marty Hoerth: Social organization leaders face warrants and arrest. While the police do not immediately act upon them, the warrants limit the movement and organizing of those leaders.

We witnessed this with the campesino leader Álvaro Manzano. We were supposed to accompany him back to his hometown. Previously, he had been arrested, detained and forced to sign a confession that he was a guerilla fighter. The government used this signed paper as ‘evidence’ of rebel activity and further targeted his fellow activists. He escaped from the secret police, the DAS, and went to Bogotá. Eventually he needed to return home, so he took a bus to meet us in Barrancabermeja but only a block from the bus station he was arrested again by the DAS. He was with a member of our U.S. delegation. Fortunately, two weeks later Álvaro was released without charges due to a lack of evidence.

Many leaders have these arrest warrants out for them and can be imprisoned at any time. Three years ago the government had arrest warrants out for six activists on the board of directors of the Cimitarra River Valley Peasants Association, now it is sixty.

Fight Back!: What connections do you see between the U.S. occupation in Iraq and the U.S. intervention in Colombia? What connections do Colombians make between these two areas of U.S. foreign policy?

Erika Zurawski: Colombia, like Iraq, is an oil-rich and occupied country. The difference is that the U.S. is more able to hide their involvement in Colombia because their government bows to U.S. interests. The U.S. cannot hide their involvement, however, from the Colombian people, who say that policies in Colombia are made by the U.S. State Department. Colombians do not choose to displace themselves and give their land to multinational corporations.

Colombia is a land occupied by soldiers and paramilitaries, and those fighting for the people of Colombia are labeled as terrorists and are the targets of assassinations, disappearances and death threats. In Iraq, the U.S. is trying to secure the same government compliance as in Colombia. Though U.S. presence in Iraq is visible now, without the resistance forces that continue to fight against the occupation, a sovereign Iraq will disappear under neo-liberal oppression, as in Colombia.

Colombians understand that resistance to U.S. occupation in Iraq is resistance to U.S.-led oppression in Colombia. A victory by the resistance in Iraq will be a victory to the people in Colombia because it will be a blow to the U.S. agenda of war and terror. Just as Colombians who fight for justice are not terrorists, neither are the Iraqis. Alirio Joreda, a former local president of USO, said, “We admire the strength of the resistance of the Iraqi people in defense of their national sovereignty and will continue to carry out actions in support of them.”

#UnitedStates #Interview #Colombia #Interviews #ColombiaActionNetwork #PlanColombia #CocaCola #SINALTRAINAL #Americas

Javier Correa is the president of SINALTRAINAL, the courageous beverage workers’ union, which fights for labor rights in Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia. Coca-Cola-sponsored death squads are responsible for murdering nine Colombian trade unionists. SINALTRAINAL calls for an international boycott of Coca-Cola products because of Coke’s use of paramilitary violence against the union.

Fight Back! : What effect does Plan Colombia (the U.S. military aid package) have on SINALTRAINAL?

Correa : Plan Colombia limits free speech and limits the ability for people to enter cities and regions in order to organize the workers. The war terrorizes the workers and their families. Plan Colombia attacks our union, because our union doesn’t want the war. We demand a political solution to the social and armed conflict in Colombia. We always struggle for peace and social justice. At the same time, Plan Colombia motivates unions to protest against the abuses suffered by the people in the zones where the Colombian government does fumigations, bombings and machine gun attacks. Plan Colombia also, to the union, is a violation of our national sovereignty.

We reject the presence of North American soldiers on our soil and the intervention of the United States government in our country’s affairs. We see Plan Colombia as a tool of force to subject the Colombian people and our movements to the will of the transnational corporations, so that the big foreign companies, without any barriers, can exploit our natural resources and our labor. Plan Colombia is a plan against our country. It is an instrument of military domination against organizations that resist and that struggle for a different or alternative model of life. Also, Plan Colombia forces the governments of the region to impose the so-called free trade agreement on their people, the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas). Plan Colombia is a plan for domination.

Fight Back! : What are the conditions for SINALTRAINAL today?

Correa : At this time we live under real conditions of great persecution. We live with a lot of uncertainty due to the policies of the foreign companies and of the Colombian state that continuously violate our rights. The government refuses to acknowledge the conditions of poverty and misery that the workers and the people live in. This puts the workers in a struggle for survival and in defense of their lives, a difficult struggle.

Fight Back! : How is the boycott against Coca-Cola affecting the work of SINALTRAINAL?

Correa: The boycott, or the campaign against Coca-Cola, has had a positive impact for the union and for the workers of Colombia. First, because the world is learning what is happening in Colombia. Second, the truths of the abuses by Coca-Cola are being revealed. Third, it has put increasing pressure on Coca-Cola. Since 2002, Coca-Cola has not assassinated any of our members. Although other types of aggression continue, this is a major advance. Fourth, the boycott has allowed the continued existence of the union, because there is a strong sense of solidarity around the world with us, the workers of Coca-Cola and SINALTRAINAL. And fifth, we are very hopeful that we will achieve a victory against Coca-Cola in order to obtain truth, justice and compensation [reparations].

Fight Back! : How do the SINALTRAINAL members feel about our solidarity work here in the United States?

Correa: First of all, there is an understanding that the United States government is responsible for the aggressions that we suffer in Colombia. And we see the North American people, who speak out against the policies of the U.S. government and of U.S. corporations, as being very different from the U.S. government. Second, the solidarity work in the U.S. gives us a lot of hope, a lot of strength to keep fighting. Third, we see that we are not alone in this struggle; that equally, we must continue to strengthen solidarity between the people. And in general, the workers and the union are very grateful for your solidarity because, thanks to all the support, even in the middle of such a difficult conflict as in Colombia, it is possible to keep organized and to struggle for change for all of society. It makes us very happy to see how the campaign creates a higher consciousness among many people in the United States and in other countries, and to see how, through this campaign, the truth becomes known about what is happening in our country and how our struggle unites other sectors of the population here – like students, indigenous peoples, the peace and anti-war movement, the women’s movement, peasants and ethnic minorities.

Fight Back! : What do you want us to do here in the U.S. in order to support the struggle of the SINALTRAINAL members?

Correa : One very important task is to help eliminate Coca-Cola contracts in universities and in other institutions. Another is to demand that Coca-Cola resolve the requests for compensation [reparations petitions] that were presented by SINALTRAINAL and require that the U.S. government and corporations like Coca-Cola adopt a policy of respect for human rights. Another possibility is to send delegations to Colombia so that you may verify testimonies directly from the victims and convince Coca-Cola and the United States government that the abuses are real.

#Interview #Colombia #Interviews #PlanColombia #CocaCola #SINALTRAINAL #JavierCorrea #Americas

Erika Zurawski of Fight Back! interviews two Colombian trade unionists who are in the U.S. through the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center. Jhonny Meneses is a union leader from SINCONSTASCAR (a union of taxi drivers in Cartegena) and an outspoken opponent of U.S. free trade and economic policy in Latin America. Nelson Quijano is a union leader from USO (Oil Workers Union). USO is a leading social force in Colombia. In the spring of 2004, USO went on strike for several months to successfully fight the privatization of the national oil company.

The U.S. has spent over $3 billion on military aid through Plan Colombia. International human rights groups agree that this money is being spent on a war against the Colombian people through the funding of government sponsored right-wing paramilitary death squads. The paramilitaries target any progressive activist in the name of ‘national security’ and have made Colombia the most dangerous place to be a trade unionist in the world.

Fight Back!: What is Plan Colombia and how does it affect different sectors of Colombian society?

Meneses: Plan Colombia is a project financed by the United States which claims to help Colombia confront drug trafficking and the guerrilla movement. It’s really a plan that results in declaring war not only against drug trafficking and the guerrilla movement, but also against the Colombian people. It’s a strategic plan that’s based principally on militarizing all the strategic zones where the Colombian economy is driven by the interests of not only the Colombian government, but also of the United States – interests that in the end will mean control of the land, control of industry and of commerce by the capitalists. Plan Colombia is the principal base of trade agreements such as the FTAA [Free Trade Area of the Americas] and the TLC [Free Trade Agreement]. In order for such agreements to take effect, a country must guarantee security to investors and undergo labor reform that hurts the Colombian people – namely the farmer and the small trader. The plan reaches past the Colombian borders. It aims to eventually extend throughout the Andean region, but Colombia is a very strategic point for the entry of commercial development that would only benefit the United States.

Fight Back!: What is neoliberalism and how does it relate to Plan Colombia?

Meneses: Neoliberalism is a political model based on the economy, which has to do with private capital rather than with a state economy. This is a model that has tried to gain ground in Latin America, but has been confronted by different social and popular organizations because it has to do with the control of state goods by private capital. The control of production is in the hands of only a few, not of the workers. The market is controlled by a monopoly – farmers don’t even control their own production. The country has lost the ability to feed its people – Colombia imports the vast majority of the foods it consumes.

The peasant has been directly affected by the great agricultural and technological production of the United States, which has flooded our country with products that, although don’t have the same quality nor human health benefits, are more economical; therefore, the peasants cannot sell their own products. The peasant is not given a space to supply what he produces because everything is based on the ownership of production supplies.

Furthermore, in Colombia there is a huge concentration of wealth. 20% of the richest families own 52% of the country’s income, while 60% of the population lives below the poverty line.

Fight Back!: What is the Free Trade Agreement?

Meneses: It is one of the two trade agreements that the North American government wants to negotiate with the Andean countries. This agreement is actually in the review plan before the Colombian Congress and in other countries such as Ecuador and Peru. The Colombian government wants to have a say in the agreement and is currently criticizing it. Ecuador and Peru have advanced further in the negotiation process. This agreement does not rely on the democratic participation of the Colombian people. It is being carried out behind closed doors. The Colombian people don’t know of the initiative nor even know what it is based on. Its name, as it indicates, deals with bilateral free trade, but it is really free trade for the U.S. and not for the other countries involved, as they are not ready for a commercial development of such magnitude, in which they will find themselves facing the economic and commercial power of the U.S. The agreement aims to restructure the industry of participating countries so that industry favors U.S. companies – not even the American people. At the heart of this agreement you will see an invasion of U.S. products that would enter to compete with the weak economy of the Andean countries. Apart from this, it would further generate low labor wages, thus continuing to increase the misery of the workers.

As a consequence of this commercial plan from the United States government, many civil and union organizations have organized mobilizations which continue to grow larger and include peasants, indigenous peoples and the rest of the civilian population because they are the ones affected most by the trade agreement. Marches have been organized at the national level so that the governments don’t continue to be forced to accept that the agreement be implemented, as it would create more poverty in the Andean countries.

Fight Back!: How have the people of Colombia responded to Plan Colombia?

Quijano: Plan Colombia strengthens the resistance. Based on the consequences that Plan Colombia has brought to the Colombian people, peasant, indigenous, social and union organizations alike say to the world, specifically to Colombians, that the plan only aggravates the armed conflict that we live with in the interior of our country. Plan Colombia does not provide a single benefit to the communities where it is being carried out, such as the communities of Arauca, Putumayo and other zones under the plan’s influence. This resentment toward Plan Colombia can be seen in the different expressions of protest that have come about in our country. For example, we have indigenous and peasant protests in the Colombian southwest and there is constant resistance from the people of Arauca and neighboring zones against this plan.

Fight Back!: How does Plan Colombia affect union members and trade unions?

Quijano: Plan Colombia is basically a military plan in which the civilian population, including trade unions, finds itself in the middle of the conflict. President Uribe wants to polarize the country, because to him there exist only those citizens who are with the government and those who are against the government. He allows no freedom of civil opposition to his policies by community organizations or unions. The president and his cabinet accuse social organizations that criticize the actions of the army and the paramilitaries as being supporters of insurgent [rebel] groups, and is putting these organizations under the watch of paramilitary groups. Add this to Uribe’s military mandate of persecution of insurgent groups and of any person who collaborates with them. Such groups, according to Uribe and to the U.S., are considered terrorist groups, and combating them is one of the objectives of Plan Colombia. Uribe is using judicial power, in this case prosecution, to set up judicial processes against social and union leaders in his eagerness to demonstrate results for the U.S. government.

Fight Back!: What is the relationship between oil and Plan Colombia?

Quijano: One of the clearest objectives of Plan Colombia is to ensure that the oil reserves in Colombia are for the exclusive use of multinationals, primarily U.S. companies. Because of this, the majority of economic aid to Colombia is concentrated in increasing the number of troops surrounding the oil infrastructure of our country. We see a large concentration of troops around the pipeline of Caño Limón Covenas, which is the principal route of oil extraction for the multinationals outside of our country, not forgetting that Plan Colombia also seeks control of the oil reserves of countries such as Venezuela, Brazil and other South American countries, even if military intervention if necessary.

The Colombian union movements, in support of the oil workers who defend our oil as a Colombian resource that should benefit Colombians, constantly reject the deceit of Plan Colombia, primarily because it causes grave situations of violence, like those that occur in Arauca, a very important region for oil. An example of the degradation of the armed conflict that Colombia lives, and that is militarily supported by the United States, is the assassination of three union and social leaders at the hands of the Colombian army on Aug. 5 in the city of Arauca, with the pretext that they had open investigations due to a presumed crime of rebellion. Testimonies by the people of Arauca have been able to prove that the assassination was an extra-judicial execution, which demonstrates the level of persecution by the Colombian government toward social and union movements

#UnitedStates #Interview #Colombia #Interviews #PlanColombia #USO #SINCONSTASCAR #Americas

On Tax Day, April 15, activists around the country took part in the Colombia Action Network's third national day of action this year. The April 15 protest brought attention to the human rights crisis that U.S. military aid is creating in Colombia. In Colombia, an average of three trade unionists are murdered each week. The U.S. counter-insurgency program, 'Plan Colombia,' and the new 'Andean Initiative' is arming, training and directing the war in Colombia using U.S. taxpayers' money.

Tom Burke, of the Colombia Action Network (CAN), explained, “We called for this national day of action to draw attention to the connection between the $2.1 billion in military aid that our tax dollars have provided to Colombia. This military aid funds paramilitary death squads, which target trade unionists and human rights activists. We have been leading a boycott of Coca-Cola since July 22, 2003. Corporations like Coke are able to hire death squads to intimidate and murder Colombian trade unionists because of the U.S.'s military aid and training to the death squads through Plan Colombia.'

Actions were held in Chicago; Flagstaff, Arizona; Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Missoula, Montana.

In Chicago, the Colombia Solidarity Committee and the DePaul University Anti-Coke Coalition organized a march from the Federal Plaza to DePaul University – ending at the Colombian Consulate.

At the rally at DePaul University, the Anti-Coke Coalition – a collaboration of more than ten student organizations – raised awareness about the anti-union practices of the Coca-Cola Company in Colombia. Organizers also thanked DePaul for asking the Workers' Rights Consortium to investigate reported human rights abuses in Coca-Cola bottling plants. Students signed a petition asking Coca-Cola to change their corporate policies by complying with human rights standards. These petitions were presented to university officials to show student dissatisfaction with the university's current contract with Coca-Cola.

In Minneapolis, the Anti-War Committee organized a picket outside of the downtown post office and passed out flyers explaining what taxpayers are really paying for in Colombia. Supporters held signs that said, “Boycott Killer Coke,” and “U.S. out of Colombia.”

Jared Cruz, of the Anti-War Committee, said, “In Latin America, the U.S. continues to attempt to dominate economically and intervene in other countries' politics. The cost of U.S. domination has been terrible to the people of Latin America, but it also hurts us here. We cannot detach what is going on in Latin America from what happens in the U.S. The Colombian trade unionists who fight for human rights, who are killed in Colombia by U.S-funded paramilitary forces, are helping to defend union jobs here in the U.S. But also, the U.S. funding for these murders and massacres comes out of our own tax dollars. So we must stand in solidarity with people around the world opposing U.S. domination.”

In Milwaukee, COMPA held an event where Luis Adolfo Cardona, the trade unionist from Coca-Cola who escaped from the paramilitaries, spoke at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. This was their seventh event in the 'Make Coke Broke' series.

In Missoula, Miguel Cifuentes, a leader of the Cimitarra River Valley Peasant Association in Colombia, spoke at the University of Montana. Cifuentes urged Congress to vote against funding for Plan Colombia and the 'free trade' agreements. Community Action for Justice in the Americas activists will deliver letters from voters written during Cifuentes's tour, along with the videotape of his talk, to their congressional representatives at an upcoming meeting.

On Feb. 2, Bush proposed the 2005 federal budget, which earmarks $700 million for Colombia – including $109 million to finance a special Colombian military brigade to protect an oil pipeline. Call Congress and the president to say NO to continuing Plan Colombia! Call to demand money for human needs, not for military aid. Call 202-223-3121 for the Capitol switchboard and ask to be connected with your Congressperson's office.

For more information go to www.colombiaactionnetwork.org

#UnitedStates #AntiwarMovement #News #Colombia #AntiWarCommittee #ColombiaActionNetwork #PlanColombia #CocaCola #Americas

Join tens of thousands in Washington DC on Saturday, September 29 to say:

• No to Plan Colombia
• No to the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas)
• U.S. Bases out of Vieques and all of Latin America & the Caribbean
• Close the School of the Americas / WHISC
• Stop the Direct Assault Against People of Color and the Poor in the Americas through the Phony War on Drugs

The U.S. government is continuing its legacy of intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean by imposing pro-corporate, anti-people economic policies, by providing military aid and training to repressive governments, and attempting to crush any movements that support alternative models. We must stop these policies and stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers throughout the Americas. They are at the forefront of opposition to these policies, and are creating alternatives that place human need above corporate greed.

The U.S. government is using its armed forces to push through economic policies that only serve to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. This war system works hand in hand with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The U.S. government is using the production of narcotics in the southern part of the American continent as an excuse to militarize the Americas. There are currently military bases in Cuba, Ecuador, and Puerto Rico and a strong military presence in Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Peru.

Current U.S. policy towards Colombia is a failed policy which is inflaming a violent conflict and contributing to increased human rights abuses. We call for an end to all military aid to Colombia and for an end to U.S. funding of fumigation in Colombia and the Andean region. We recognize that U.S.-funded fumigation of coca crops is destroying critical biodiversity throughout the Amazon region and is creating health and food security crises among the local populations. At the same time – with the excuses of the “drug war”, and “illegal” immigration – the U.S. has militarized its border with Mexico. It is also increasingly militarizing the police forces in urban and rural areas and is brutalizing the people of color who live there. We know that all this repression has the same root and the same purpose: to maintain U.S. economic control, and to concentrate wealth in even fewer hands.

Challenges to this anti-people model – especially those rising from democratic processes and civil society – are a tremendous threat to U.S. control in the region. We support the peaceful resolution of differences in our personal lives, in our communities, in our nation and in the world. We condemn the actions of the United States government that increase economic and social inequality, undermine democratic institutions, and fund police and military violence.

We uphold the right to self-determination and national sovereignty. The nations and peoples of the hemisphere have the right to pursue self-government free of external military and economic pressures.

We who live in the United States must realize the responsibility of the U.S. government in creating and maintaining inequality in the Americas. We must work to end all U.S. military aid and training to the region, to stop the blockade of Cuba, to end the continued colonial exploitation of Puerto Rico and its use as a giant military base from which invasions to other countries are rehearsed. We must say no to the U.S. viewing and using other countries as their backyard.

We propose alternatives to the pro-company, anti-people economic model – alternatives that overcome repressive structures in our own countries, as well as the existence of the same structures elsewhere. We propose alternatives that include real community building, fair economics, and self-determination. Therefore, we oppose the so-called “war on drugs”, Presidential fast track authority in trade negotiations, and NAFTA- style Free Trade Agreements between the U.S. and the other countries of the Americas.

We call on people of conscience around the world to join us on September 29 in our protest against U.S. military and economic intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean. We are organizing a massive protest in Washington D.C. as part of the week of action against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. We call for people to organize local demonstrations on the same day. We are also coordinating with movements throughout Latin America and the Caribbean to make this an International Day of Action Against U.S. Military and Economic Intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Signed:

• Nicaragua Network
• CISPES(Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador)
• NISGUA(Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala)
• Colombia Action Network
• Witness for Peace
• Latinos and Latinas for Social Change
• Chicago Nicaragua Solidarity Committee
• Guatemala Human Rights Commission – USA
• Rights Action

Stop U.S. Intervention in Colombia

The Colombia Action Network (CAN) is a national network of local activist groups fighting to stop U.S. intervention in Colombia and supporting progressive forces working for social justice within Colombia. We encourage everyone to use our activist resources and take up our campaigns. Resources, background info and up-to-date information is available on our website. Get in touch with us!

Colombia Action Network

www.actioncolombia.org

actioncolombia@hotmail.com

612-872-0944

#WashingtonDC #AntiwarMovement #Colombia #Cuba #ElSalvador #Honduras #Americas #Bolivia #IMF #Statement #FTAA #freeTrade #PlanColombia #WorldBank #InternationalBank #SchoolOfTheAmericas

Stratford, CT – Shortly before dawn, Feb. 12, 100 protesters came together here at the gates of the Sikorsky Aircraft factory to protest the manufacture and sale of Blackhawk helicopters to Colombia. 25 demonstrators risked arrest and blocked the gate, trying to prevent employees from entering or exiting the plant, thus slowing down or halting production. No arrests took place.

The high tech attack helicopters are an important part of “Plan Colombia”, the $1.3 billion military aid package signed into law by former president Clinton.

Under the guise of fighting drug trafficking, “Plan Colombia” is in fact aimed at blocking the advance the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (F.A.R.C.) and other guerrilla movements. These movements are fighting to break the hold of Colombia's elite and its Washington D.C. backers.

Colombia Action Connecticut, the CT Global Action Network, Atlantic Life Community, and the Cesar Jerez Catholic Workers organized the protest.

The action followed a day long teach-in on U.S. intervention in Colombia. Speakers drew attention to the failure of the domestic and international “War on Drugs”, the harmful effects of the fumigation on crops in southern Colombia, the truth about U.S. funding of the Colombian military and its death squad allies, and how U.S. military intervention is a way to bolster U.S. economic domination through the Free Trade Agreement for the Americas (F.T.A.A.).

Teach-in speakers included grassroots activists, community anti-drug-war activists, people who recently had visited Colombia, a chaplain, and a former U.S. Naval Intelligence Officer who called for an end to U.S. intervention.

Organizers called the action a success. “Thousands of people learned about Sikorsky's involvement in the slaughter of the Colombian people, and we're going to continue carrying out actions against the U.S. war machine,” said a blockade organizer.

#StratfordCT #News #Colombia #PlanColombia #Americas

The Colombian people are fighting for liberation against a government that only serves the interests of the rich. The South American country has been involved in this civil war for decades, but, until recently, it has gone on unnoticed by the American public. In summer 2000, the U.S. Congress approved a $1.3 billion aid package, part of Colombian President Andres Pastrana's “Plan Colombia.” Its purpose is to fight the civil war in the name of a war on drugs. This aid will send military weapons and equipment, as well as U.S. Army personnel, to train Colombian soldiers.

Plan Colombia involves the U.S. in another country's civil war for the profit of corporations and the benefit of politicians. Why? Because Colombia is rich in mineral and oil resources, and has an important strategic location. Bordered by five other countries and two oceans, it is the doorway between South America and the rest of the world. The U.S. has lost control of the Panama Canal, and proposes building a new canal in nearby northern Colombia. Colombia's current government is a willing puppet of the United States. If Marxist guerrillas were to gain power, or if the people's movements won the reforms they seek, the U.S. would lose its influence over this important nation.

Because U.S. warmongers spend $2 million a day to maintain control in Colombia, people here must hold the U.S. government accountable for every penny that contributes to the deaths and environmental destruction. We will not be silent while Colombia becomes the next Viet Nam. This special edition of Fight Back! is written by and for activists in the struggle against Yankee Imperialism in Colombia.

#UnitedStates #Colombia #Statement #PlanColombia #Americas