Colombian Rebels Ambush Army Convoy

Colombian Rebels Ambush Army Convoy
April 22, 2006

Associated Press BOGOTA, Colombia -- Leftist rebels ambushed a military convoy in remote northeastern Colombia, killing 16 soldiers and secret police officers in the deadliest attack on security forces this year, the army said Friday.

The attack took place Thursday in Norte de Santander province, 260 miles northeast of the capital, Bogota. Ten of those killed were DAS secret police officers, Colombia's hybrid equivalent of the CIA and FBI. The other six were soldiers.

The agents and soldiers had been carrying out operations against the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, when explosives were detonated alongside their convoy. Rebels then attacked the survivors.
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http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-1s.1.main_6.artapr22,0,2502128.story?coll=hc-headlines-nationworld

Published Saturday, April 22, 2006

Colombia: A sick U.S. colony

By Amanda Martin
MinutemanMedia.org

Since his election four years ago, Colombian President álvaro Uribe Vélez has spent $3 billion of our tax dollars in further militarization of Colombia, resulting in massive displacement, massacres, violations of human rights, and toxic fumigations of one of the most biodiverse regions on this planet. Colombia has over 3 million internally displaced people, second in the world to Sudan. The Colombian military, under President Uribe, has committed massive human rights violations, including murder of civilians, by weapons and bullets purchased with our tax dollars.

The proposed Colombia-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, is opposed by the majority of Colombians, including organized groups of rice, wheat, and cotton farmers, as well as public health workers, public school teachers, human rights defenders, indigenous tribes, Afro-Colombians, university students, mining and petroleum unions, and many more. The results of a referendum in the department of Cauca in August 2005 showed 99 percent of the population against the agreement.

Today U.S. farmers receive, on average, $2,500 in annual government subsidies; in Colombia, only the big agro-industrial industries of cotton, bananas, and flowers are subsidized. Most Colombian farmers sell their crops locally. If the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is signed, 1 million Colombian rice farmers will lose everything when U.S. rice is dumped on the market. Likewise, 250,000 Colombian chicken farmers will fold when we dump 7,000 tons of chicken parts that U.S. consumers deem "garbage".

The free trade agreement also makes generic drugs unavailable to Colombians; 44 million people with a 64 percent poverty rate (minimum wage is $168 per month) cannot afford to pay high prices to further fatten the pharmaceutical waistline. Public health care programs already fail to cover basic needs. "I just paid $180 out of pocket for my mother to have a colon cancer test. I had to ask for a one month advance at my job," my Afro-Colombian roommate told me this morning.

The mining and petroleum industry in Colombia are already being privatized. Water, education, and energy will soon follow.
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Over 22,000 paramilitary troops have demobilized under Uribe«s program. The majority now live in Bogotá, in communal houses in a residential neighborhood (where I happen to live and work). The two-year program places up to 160 young men together, trained to kill, with nothing to do but spend their monthly stipend of $350 on pool halls and booze. They occupy 3,000 houses in Bogotá and own thousands of businesses, including 5,000 taxis. The process is corrupt, as the official count on paramilitaries in Colombia was only half the number who turned in their arms. "How do they do it? It is like the story of bread and fishes, multiplying the original number by three. We need to learn this trick," a local union leader commented.
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http://cjonline.com/stories/042206/opi_martin.shtml
(Free registration required)

Amanda Martin is a member of the Witness for Peace International Team. Witness for Peace was founded in1983, and has offices in Washington, D.C., Mexico, Nicaragua and Colombia and a project in Cuba. Witness for Peace's seeks to inform the U.S. public about the human, social, economic and environmental costs of U.S. foreign policies.
www.witnessforpeace.org

on the US taxpayer payroll.

As you say, our tax dollars go to the murderers and torturers in the Colombian military.

the awesome coverage of Latin American affairs. The US has run out of puppet governments in Latin America. I think Colombia along with El Salvador are the only two left.

The tide has turned, and it's definitely time for the US to stop doing this. I've read that we're almost exclusively using surrogate forces in the countries where we're meddling, because we're so short-handed.

Your colonies are rebelling, King George.

I hope we can all make up for lost time from the years we got absolutely NO INFORMATION WHATSOEVER about Latin America and the Caribbean through our own media.

You have to wonder why that was. One day I heard how large some city was in South America and it nearly floored me, when I realized based on what we'd been hearing here, you'd never even KNOW there was any one at all south of the U.S. border other than a bunch of crabby, ill-tempered "foreigners" who demonstrated against that sweet Vice-President Nixon back in the 1950's.

Such ignorant pride to disregard so many, many people.

I hope that blackout they've thrown over their operations in Latin America will be penetrated, and they'll be encouraged to start respecting the real people of the Americas without further bloodshed and exploitation.

Colombia: Uribe Must End Attacks on Media
by Human Rights Watch (reposted) Wednesday, Apr. 19, 2006 at 6:35 AM
(New York, April 17, 2006) - Instead of attacking the news media for reporting allegations of criminal activity in a Colombian intelligence agency, President Álvaro Uribe should ensure a full investigation of the charges, Human Rights Watch said today.

Over the last two weeks, major news media have extensively reported on allegations of paramilitary infiltration of the Colombian executive branch's intelligence agency (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, or DAS), targeted killings of labor union leaders and academics, and electoral fraud in the 2002 presidential elections. President Uribe has reacted by charging the news media with being dishonest and malicious, and with harming Colombian democratic institutions.
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According to García's statements to prosecutors and journalists, for approximately three years the DAS worked in extremely close contact with several paramilitary groups, particularly the "Northern Block" led by paramilitary commander "Jorge 40." He claims that these links were established by Jorge Noguera, then director of the DAS and currently the Colombian Consul in Milan. Among García's many detailed allegations, which have received extensive coverage in Colombia, are:

* Extrajudicial executions of labor union leaders: García states that during this period the DAS provided the paramilitaries with lists of labor union leaders and academics, many of whom were subsequently threatened or killed.

* Electoral fraud: According to García, Noguera collaborated with the paramilitaries to carry out massive electoral fraud when he was Uribe's campaign director in Magdalena state during the 2002 presidential elections. García alleges that the fraud resulted in 300,000 additional votes for Uribe. A similar plan, he claims, had also been implemented in congressional elections in several northern states. If proven, his allegations would confirm recent studies attributing highly unusual voting patterns in the 2002 congressional elections to electoral fraud.

* Political assassination in Venezuela: García recently said in an interview that the DAS collaborated with paramilitaries in a plot to assassinate several Venezuelan leaders, including President Hugo Chavez and a prosecutor, Danilo Anderson. More than 100 alleged paramilitaries were arrested near the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, and a few months later, Anderson was killed. Based on testimony by one of those arrested, Venezuelan authorities have charged former DAS director Noguera with knowledge of the alleged plot.
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http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/04/1816326.php

COLOMBIA: A dangerous place to be a unionist

Vanessa Garbett, a member of the Electrical Trades Union in Victoria, writes of her experiences visiting Colombia last year as part of a union delegation.

Colombia is a country in turmoil and war caused by globalisation and exploitation by multinational business interests, the US and the capitalist government of Alvaro Uribe.

Colombia is rich in minerals and resources, yet the vast majority of its population live in adverse poverty. Colombia is a dangerous country to be an activist, unionist or someone who speaks out against the abuse of human rights.

The US legitimises its military aid to Colombia under the guise of its fight against cocaine trafficking. But in reality, these weapons are put in the hands of paramilitaries and used to persecute and kill workers and activists and to displace and destroy whole communities.
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http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/665/665p18b.htm