Colombia's Pres Loses Majority Support In Congress-Report

Of the billions that the US sends to Colombia, 80% goes to the SOA-trained military who then trains and advises the paramilitaries who then torture, murder, and disappear thousands. Over the past two years, paramilitaries are responsible for 70% of the massacres. The worst attrocities are being commited in the area that produces 80% of Colombia's OIL and Colombia is the US' 8th largest supplier of oil. Same sh*t that happened in Central America is happening now in Colombia and our tax dollars are paying for it.

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BOGOTA (Dow Jones)--Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, whose administration is trying to push through Congress a fiscally important bill to raise taxes, has lost his majority support among lawmakers, a pro-Uribe senator said in Friday's El Tiempo newspaper.

"What happened Wednesday night is a sign that Uribe's majority has been lost," said Senator Rafael Pardo.

Pardo was referring to a bill proposed by the Uribe administration to pass through Congress some of the measures that were included in a referendum that Colombian voters rejected in October. On Wednesday night, Congress also rejected it.

Since taking office 15 months ago after a landslide election victory, Uribe, an independent, has enjoyed a legislature that was very receptive to his administration's requests, both in fiscal matters and issues related to Uribe's hardline stance toward leftist guerrillas.

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Plan Colombia... Plan of Death (your tax dollars at work)

I recently returned from a delegation to Colombia sponsored by the Colombia Support Network. The purpose of this trip was two-fold. First, to better understand and to see first-hand the effects of fumigation in the Putumayo region; second, to bear witness to the violence perpetrated by the Colombian military--of which more than 10,000 soldiers have been trained at the School of the Americas--and the paramilitary forces, which have been responsible for more than 70% of the massacres in Colombia over the past two years. The fumigations are part of the "anti-drug" campaign called "Plan Colombia," which is a multibillion dollar program purportedly developed by the government of Colombia to deal with the many conflicts of its country. To date, the US has pledged $1.3 billion in aid (which will primarily be paid to US weapons and chemical corporations) in the form of military training, helicopters, and fumigation related expenses. Additional funding has already been proposed.

During our time in Colombia, we met with community leaders, including tribal representatives from the indigenous people of the Putumayo region, religious leaders, Colombian officials, military leaders, the director of the UN High Commission on Human Rights, and the US Ambassador to Colombia.

Throughout our meetings and visits to the Putumayo it became vividly evident that due to the indiscriminate nature of the fumigation campaign not only were coca (the raw material of cocaine) crops being targeted, but food crops and medicinal plants were being eradicated, and water supplies were being contaminated. The herbicide, glyphosate (more commonly known as "Round-up"), is produced and manufactured by the US chemical corporation, Monsanto. In Colombia, this herbicide is used in a highly concentrated form and can obliterate a food crop with a single aerial application. The negligence associated with the fumigation campaign has not only had disastrous ecological and health consequences for the region, but it also has significantly increased the expansion of coca crops throughout Colombia.

Paradoxically, as coca was being eradicated in regions such as Peru and Bolivia, there was a nearly instantaneous surge in production and control in Colombia by the newly formed Medellin Cartel. Basic economics, and our own history, tell us that where there is a demand, especially of an illicit drug, there will always be those who find a way of not only providing the product, but of making a tremendous profit on it.

http://www.soawne.org/Pccrops.html

having lived there for 2 yrs I feel for all the people of Colombia. Not sure what paln will work, but it should be more of a focus for those of us North America and the world at large. :(

Hidden in Plain Sight about the SOA and Plan Colombia about the *war on drugs* that is nothing more than US intervention.

http://www.hiddeninplainsight.org/

http://www.plancolombia.org/

congress. It was a back room deal that was struck between Clinton, the State Department, and former Colombian president Pasterna. Until 9/11 Pasterna's government was in peace talks with the FARC. After 9/11 the government abruptly ended those talks--the US didn't need the *drug war* front any longer--it could now intervene in the name of narco-terror.