Colombian Connection: Canadian Neocolonialism in the Global South

Colombian Connection: Canadian Neocolonialism in the Global South
Thursday, 15 August 2013 09:33 By Harrison Samphir, Truthout | News

For more than half a century, Latin America has been a testing ground for American imperialism and its policies of economic shock therapy, resource extraction and covert paramilitary funding. From historic US involvement in military coups in Chile and Guatemala to its arming of narcotraffickers in the Amazonian rainforest, American interests continue to exert a significant influence in the region despite moves toward greater protectionism in places like Venezuela and Brazil.

But it is the United States' northern neighbor that has become the unlikely public focus for widespread abuses and continued exploitation in South America.

Operating well below the radar of mainstream news media, some of Canada's largest energy firms - in parity with US-backed national governments - are operating with impunity in Colombia, a nation already afflicted by a nearly 50-year civil war.

Unwelcome to most in the region, corporations like Pacific Rubiales Energy (TSX: PRE), which produces more than 40 percent of crude oil in Colombia, have run roughshod over organized labor, indigenous communities and the environment. It has become directly implicated in surreptitious union-busting activities and even assassinations that threaten an already fragile social fabric. Yet despite reportedly pervasive ecological damage and attacks against workers and basic human rights, such large enterprises repeatedly have ignored the provisions of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement - an August 2011 document that at least nominally supports freedom of association and the right to collective negotiation.

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http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/18175-colombian-connection-canadian-neocolonialism-in-the-global-south