Colombia protests against unlawful killings by security forces

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Amnesty International

Colombia protests against unlawful killings by security forces
Protest in 2006 against the murder of mining trade union leader Alejandro Uribe
6 March 2009

Demonstrations were taking place in Bogotá and other Colombian cities on Friday, focussed on the on-going problem of unlawful killings by the security forces.

Over recent years, Colombian and international human rights organizations have sought to bring this problem to national and international attention and to demand action by the authorities.

At least 330 civilians were reported to have been victims of unlawful killings by members of the security forces in 2007. The victims, mostly peasant farmers, were often presented by the military as “guerrillas killed in combat”.

~snip~
As a result of their work in exposing unlawful killings and the impunity that surrounds these cases, members of Colombian human rights organizations have received death threats and have been publicly criticized by government officials, who suggest their work is part of a guerrilla strategy to discredit the security forces.

Read more: http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/colombia-protests-against-unlawful-killings-security-forces-20090306

[Idealism]

1. Columbia needs a regime change, Bolivarian revolution-style

[Peace Patriot]

2. $6 BILLION in U.S.-Bushwack military aid to Colombia = 330 civilan deaths!

Colombian coca crops up 26%, in the corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs. Bolivia is doing much better, compared to Colombia--a rise of 5% in coca production--since Bolivia rejected the U.S. "war on drugs" and instituted a SANE drug policy of permitting small-scale coca leaf production and use (used for chewing or tea drinking--a traditional indigenous medicine)--but opposing cocaine production and of course drug lords and crime.

The Bushwhacks tried to overthrow the SANE government of Bolivia--the one making progress in stemming cocaine production and crime--this last September--and President Morales thre the U.S. ambassador and the DEA out of Bolivia, for funding and organizing fascist rioters who machine-gunned some 30 unarmed peasants.

What's wrong with this picture? Colombia, run by narco-thugs, gets $6 BILLION of our tax dollars; Bolivia gets a U.S.-sponsored coup attempt.

There is plenty wrong with it, and I don't think we can even see whole picture yet, of why Bushwhacks and the cocaine trade and the murderous Colombian military and its death squads go so well together.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Colombia: Chilling threats against Lina Paola Malagón Díaz ... Colombian Commission of Jurists

Colombia: Chilling threats against Lina Paola Malagón Díaz, member of the Colombian Commission of Jurists

Brussels, 6 March 2009: Lina Poala Malagón Díaz, a member of the Colombian Commission of Jurists (CCJ) and a trade union rights lawyer devoted to the constant denunciation of the climate of impunity surrounding anti-union violence, has received a chilling fax in which she is declared a "military target".

In February 2009, Lina Poala Malagón Díaz drew up a report on the impunity with which crimes are committed against trade unionists, on account of their work to defend labour rights. The information in the report was referred to at length at a hearing on 12 February in the US House of Representatives. The hearing was called by George Miller, chairman of the House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee, to examine the rights situation of workers and the anti-union violence in Colombia.

The work carried out by the CCJ for the hearing was coordinated with the director of the National Labour School of Colombia (ENS), José Luciano Sanín Vásquez, who took part in the hearing called by George Miller. The Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, reacted to his participation, stating that he and the other Colombian delegates to the hearing were people who distort the truth and are motivated by “political hatred”. The US trade union centre AFL-CIO pointed out that such statements represent a serious threat to those who took part in the hearing and urged President Uribe to immediately retract his statements and to publicly acknowledge the legitimacy of human rights defenders in Colombia, including trade unionists, and to recognise the value of the work they do. It also called on him to guarantee the free exercise and defence of trade union rights, so that this work can be carried out without fear of reprisals.

In a letter to President Uribe, Guy Ryder, general secretary of the ITUC, strongly condemned the death threat issued to Lina Paola Malagón and, in the name of the international trade union movement, called on him personally and his government to take every measure necessary to protect the life and integrity of lawyer Lina Paola Malagón Díaz. He also demanded that the Attorney General immediately commence the necessary and relevant investigations, to bring those responsible for the threats to justice. On 5 March, the ITUC also sent a complaint to the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association, within the framework of Case 1787.

http://www.ituc-csi.org/spip.php?article2814

[Judi Lynn]

4. Aerial Assault on Colombia's Farmers and Ecosystem

Published on Friday, March 13, 2009 by The Guardian/UK
Aerial Assault on Colombia's Farmers and Ecosystem
The aerial spraying on cocaine funded by the US is wiping out everything - apart from coca plants

by Grace Livingstone

The counter-drugs strategy of the United States is clearly failing. UN figures cited in the Guardian this week show that the cultivation of coca, the plant from which cocaine is derived, has surged in the Andes. The most dramatic rise has been in Colombia, the only country in the region that allows the use of pesticides to eradicate coca leaf - a policy promoted and funded by the US.

I recently received a disturbing email from southern Colombia warning that the fragile Amazonian soil could "soon be turned to desert". They were the words of a Catholic priest, so I rang a church worker whose parish lies deep in the Amazonian state of Caquetá. Military planes targeting coca farms, funded by the US, had been spraying mists of pesticides over food crops, grazing animals and even areas where children were playing, she said: locals were complaining of breathing problems and rashes; "strips of skin" have been peeling off cows, and chickens have died; and maize, yucca, plantain and cacao crops have wilted and shrivelled. "We fear there will soon be a very serious food shortage in the region," she said. The local parish has issued an urgent appeal.

The US has been funding the spraying campaign for more than two decades, but 70% of the world's coca leaf is grown in Colombia. Glyphosate is the most frequently used pesticide; its biggest selling commercial formulation is Roundup, made by Monsanto. The company acknowledges that contact with glyphosate may cause mild eye or skin irritation. But independent studies have suggested a far greater range of symptoms, including facial numbness and swelling, rapid heart rate, raised blood pressure, chest pains, nausea and congestion.

In Colombia, glyphosate is mixed with other chemicals, and because the exact composition has not been made public it has been impossible to test its toxicity. One addition, a surfactant, makes the corrosive liquid stick to the surface - leaf or skin - on which it is sprayed. The pesticide is used at higher concentrations than stipulated in the US, and is sprayed from above the recommended height of 10 metres. Farm workers in the US are advised to keep clear of weedkillers, yet in Colombia aerial spraying takes place with no warning, showering humans and animals with chemicals.

All Colombia's neighbours - Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela and Brazil - oppose the "fumigation" policy. The Andean and European parliaments have called for its suspension, as have numerous environmentalists, scientists and politicians in Colombia. But spraying has intensified since the launch in 2000 of Plan Colombia, the US-funded counter-narcotics strategy.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/13-3