Lutheran World Relief alarmed by violence in Northern Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Lutheran World Relief

Lutheran World Relief alarmed by violence in Northern Colombia
Source: Lutheran World Relief (LWR)

Date: 13 Nov 2009

Baltimore, November 13, 2009 — Lutheran World Relief is concerned over increased violence against LWR partners in northern Colombia, South America. In the province of Córdoba, murder rates over the last two years have reached historic highs, with more than 500 assassinations last year. LWR partners, representing rural farming communities, internally displaced populations and Evangelical churches are under threat.

The October 29 murder of Ramiro Montes Valencia—teacher, community council president and member of the Beautiful Light Evangelical Church—highlights a disturbing trend of violence in Córdoba. Recent threats, murders and disappearances have been aimed at civil society members taking steps to protect their communities and advocate for improved living conditions in the province's more marginalized towns.

Lutheran World Relief is saddened by the murder of Montes Valencia, who was killed by unidentified gunmen while waiting for public transportation near the Pica Pica community in the Montelíbano municipality. Montes Valencia leaves behind his wife and four young children. LWR calls on Colombian and US officials to quickly investigate this murder and ensure that Montes Valencia's family has access to necessary protection measures.

Despite a 2003 government-sponsored demobilization of paramilitary forces in Córdoba, the region has not experienced peace. Annalise Romoser, acting director for public policy and advocacy at LWR explains, "Re-organized paramilitary forces, largely made up of former rank and file paramilitaries, are terrorizing communities in Córdoba and impeding their access to vital land, resources and justice mechanisms. Violence in Córdoba—a region already hard hit by poverty—represents a serious humanitarian crisis."

Read more: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/AMMF-7XRSSZ

[Vidar]

1. US backed death squads at work. Must be Chavez's fault.

[ShortnFiery]

2. Wow, I guess they missed the 1980s and 90s?

:crazy:

Drink of The Death Squads
David Rovics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HFZ3cH1UAI

Coca-Cola came to Colombia
Seeking lower wages
They got just what they came for
But as we turn the pages
We find the workers didn't like the sound
Of their children's hungry cries
So they said we'll join the union
And they began to organize

So Coke called up a terrorist group
Called the AUC
They said "we've got some problems
At the factory"
So these thugs went to the plant
Killed two union men
Told the rest, "you leave the union
Or we'll be back again"

Now Coke did not complain
About this dirty deed
Why give workers higher wages
When Coke is all they really need
They phoned the AUC
Said "thanks, without you we'd go broke
And to show our appreciation
Here's one hundred cases of Coke"

(Chorus)
The baby drinks it in his bottle
When the water ain't no good
The dog drinks it
But he don't know if he should
Some folks say
It's the nectar of the Gods
But Coke is the drink of the Death Squads

Well the workers wouldn't take
This situation lying down
Some went up to Georgia
Said "look what's happened to our town
You American workers got downsized
And as for us we just get shot
And those of us who survive
Our teeth begin to rot"

(Chorus)

Well now that's the situation
What are you gonna do
'Cause death squads run Colombia
And they're paid by me and youWe can let Coke run the world
And see what future that will bring
Or we can drink juice and smash the state
Now that's the real thing

[Judi Lynn]

5. Thanks! This video deserves more exposure. Going to share it, too. n/t

[MetaTrope]

3. Funny, in Honduras and Mexico the right-wing paramilitaries were in league with Evangelicals

Wonder how that balance has changed.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Don't forget Bible-thmping genocidal Efrain Rios Montt, Reagan's puppet.

Born-again killer Rios Montt plans run for Guatemalan Congress
Written by Dan Bacher
Tuesday, 20 February 2007

Former Guatemalan dictator General Jose Efrain Rios Montt, who prosecuted a Reagan administration-supported war of genocide against the Mayan population, on January 17, 2007 announced that he plans to run for Congress in September.
This would provide him with immunity from prosecution on the charges of genocide and other violations of human rights during the country's 36-year civil war, according to SOA (School of Americas) Watch.

Members of the country's Congress enjoy immunity from prosecution unless they are suspended from office by a court. "I am certain and sure" of getting a seat in Congress, Rios Montt, told a news conference. Rios Montt, who continues to be an influential and powerful politician in Guatemala, ran for the presidency in 2004 and finished third (Associated Press, January 17).

The Spanish National Court has charged the former dictator, who attended a "special course" in the 1950 at the SOA (now called WHINSEC - the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), with the crimes of genocide, torture, terrorism and illegal detention. In July 2006, Spanish Judge Santiago Pedraz issued warrants for the arrest of General Ríos Montt and several other former senior officials.

“The Guatemalan authorities subsequently took some of the accused into custody in order to ensure that they would not flee the country,” according to Amnesty International. “However, General Ríos Montt remains free. Strong international pressure is needed to ensure that all either face trial in Guatemala or are extradited to Spain.”

Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize Winner Rigoberta Menchu charged five ex-military officials and three ex-government officials, including Rios Montt, in the disappearance of Spanish priests and a fire at the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City that killed Menchu's father and 36 others. A Guatemalan court is still considering whether to order the arrest of the former dictator and his associates for crimes committed while he ran the country between March 1982 and August 1983.

Ríos Montt’s rule was one of the bloodiest periods in Guatemala's civil war when over 200,000 people, mostly Mayan Indians, were killed or disappeared. The overwhelming majority of these people were innocent civilians murdered by government forces and paramilitary death squads. Rios Montt led his systematic and brutal “scorched earth” campaign to wipe out large portions of the country's indigenous population, under the guise of “stopping communism,” in what I refer to as the “Guatemalan Holocaust.”

According to the United Nations-sponsored Truth Commission, this bloody campaign resulted in the annihilation of nearly 600 Mayan villages. The Commission concluded that acts of genocide had been committed, "through methods whose cruelty has outraged the moral conscience of the civilized world."

~snip~
The U.S. "Christian" right fervently supported Rios Montt and his “scorched earth” policy against the Mayan population. Rios Montt was a "born again" mass murderer who was a member ("elder") of the Arcata, California based Church of the Word (Verbo), a branch of Evangelical Gospel Outreach. He surrounded himself with advisers, both North American and Guatemalan, from his Verbo church. A loose coalition of right-wing fundamentalist organizations, including Pat Robertson's "Christian" Broadcasting Network, conducted an extensive fundraising drive and sent volunteers to Ixil Triangle villages under military control.

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/635/33/

http://upsidedownworld.org.nyud.net:8090/main/images/stories/Jan07/monttspeech.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_V_HHeKTB7QU/R0cxnIL96AI/AAAAAAAABCI/643WFnERUCU/s400/01.jpg


.nyud.net:8090
"Nicolas Chen, a survivor from Rio Negro, often visits the museum where a number of his murdered relatives’ photographs are on display. Here, Mr. Chen caresses the photograph of his daughter, Marta Julia Chen Osorio, where the caption reads: “She was murdered when her gestation period was about to be completed. The soldiers, acting as medics, induced a forced cesarean with machetes. The assailants, who wanted to see how a child grows inside a mother’s womb, accomplished their feat. How is it possible that someone can take the life of defenseless human beings so unjustly?!”"

http://upsidedownworld.org.nyud.net:8090/main/images/stories/August08/pacux%20mural%20dscn0119.jpg

http://www.unbc.ca.nyud.net:8090/assets/geography/whats_new/2009_08_nateeinbinder_commemoration_small.jpg

"In the early 1980s the civil war became fiercer and the Guatemalan government launched a brutal war against its own people. Military dictator Efrain Rios Montt, backed by the US Reagan administration, began an all-out military campaign to annihilate the mostly Mayan Indian peasantry. Some of the worst massacres occurred at Rio Negro where the locals were forcibly evacuated to make way for the World Bank funded construction of the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam. Military leaders owned vast tracts of land in the area that the dam would service but the locals were reluctant to leave. In four separate massacres, almost 500 men, women and children were strangled, shot or hacked to death. Filling of the reservoir began after the last of the natives were removed or killed. To date neither the World Bank nor the Guatemalan government acknowledge responsibility for Rio Negro."

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. Most Lutherans are not "evangelicals" in the way that the megachurch types are

The confusion arises from the fact that the main Protestant church in Germany is called "die Evangelische Reformierte Kirche," and it is the result of the Kaiser requiring the Lutherans and Calvinists to unite into one church in the 19th century.

The official name of the largest and most liberal Lutheran body in the U.S. is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). They're the ones who just recently voted to ordain admittedly GLBT clergy.

[Judi Lynn]

12. Thanks for the information. Did not know where the Calvinists went! n/t

[Critters2]

13. Actually, the union church which brought together the Reformed (not technically Calvinist),

Lutheran, and Pietist Churches in Germany--united by the King of Prussia, who did not use the title "Kaiser"--is the Evangelische Kirche des Union (the EKU), the Protestant Church of the Union. The American descendant of the Lutherans who chose not to participate in that union is the very conservative Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. The American sister church of the EKU is the United Church of Christ (USA). The king who united the EKU was influenced by Friedrich Schleiermacher, the father of liberal Christianity.

[David Zephyr]

14. Thanks for making this point, Lydia.

:)

[Judi Lynn]

4. Map showing Cordoba province, Colombia:

http://upload.wikimedia.org.nyud.net:8090/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Colombia-cordoba-SIM.svg/415px-Colombia-cordoba-SIM.svg.png
More from the article:

Romoser adds that because of violence in Córdoba, the number of internally displaced Colombians in the province has increased in recent years, contributing to the nation's already significant internally displaced population of four million.

LWR partners in Córdoba affected by violence have received inadequate attention from the Colombian government, including the state agency charged with serving internally displaced people (IDPs), Acción Social. Displaced communities are unable to return home due to precarious security situations and sheer fear. In cities and towns they suffer from unemployment, lack of food and clean water, and unsanitary living conditions.

"Violence in Córdoba and the impunity perpetrators enjoy is a threat not only to our partners, but to development as a whole," notes Michael Watt, LWR regional director for Latin America programs. "LWR has accompanied displaced communities in Colombia since 1996, but growing violence has required the organization to increase our focus on protection and emergency measures, while limiting our ability to support development and rehabilitation programming, such as improving rural families' livelihoods and facilitating a return home for IDPs."

[Mudoria]

7. Could be FARC having a little fun too...

they are well known for drug running and massacring civilians. Unfortunately for the civilians they are catching it from both sides.

[Judi Lynn]

9. You might want to inform the people who've been living there a long time who wrote the report. n/t

[Zorro]

10. You mean the ones who reported the murder as "killed by unidentified gunmen"?

Do you know something about this murder that they don't?

[Judi Lynn]

11. The ones who reported "Re-organized paramilitary forces..are terrorizing communities in Córdoba"

or people like LWR regional director Michael Watt:

"Violence in Córdoba and the impunity perpetrators enjoy is a threat not only to our partners, but to development as a whole," notes Michael Watt, LWR regional director for Latin America programs. "LWR has accompanied displaced communities in Colombia since 1996, but growing violence has required the organization to increase our focus on protection and emergency measures, while limiting our ability to support development and rehabilitation programming, such as improving rural families' livelihoods and facilitating a return home for IDPs."

LWR continues to support partners in Córdoba and advocate on their behalf before the US Congress and Colombian government. LWR calls on the US government to work with Colombian officials to investigate all acts of violence in Córdoba and develop decisive plans to protect communities in the region and dismantle re-organized paramilitary groups operating in the region.