Colombia

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Colombia

Post by blindpig » Tue Jul 25, 2017 5:49 pm

More on Columbia here: http://www.thebellforum.net/Bell2/www.t ... l?t=152263

Criminal gang offers $1m bounties for killing Farc leaders, lawyer says
Guerrillas handed in weapons as part of peace deal with Colombian government but have long feared assassinations, as they prepare to take seats in Congress

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The peace accord allows the Farc 10 unelected seats in Congress through 2026 and grants amnesty to the majority of ex-fighters. Photograph: Fernando Vergara/AP

Tuesday 25 July 2017 12.37 EDT
A criminal gang is offering bounties of $1m to assassins who kill leaders from Colombia’s Farc rebel group, a lawyer for the guerrillas said on Tuesday, as the group prepares to take seats in Congress as part of a peace deal.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, fought the government for more than half a century but handed in its weapons as part of the deal, negotiated during more than four years of talks in Cuba.

“We have knowledge of a criminal organization with resources, which has offered up to $1m for each person on the Farc secretariat who is murdered,” Spanish lawyer Enrique Santiago told local Caracol Radio, referring to the group’s leadership council.

“These offers come from people who have the economic means to offer not just $1m, but $9m, because there are nine secretariat members,” Santiago said, adding that seven former rebels have been slain since 1 April. He did not name the criminal group offering the bounties.

The rebels have long feared assassinations after demobilization, concerned there could be a repeat of some 5,000 killings of members of the Patriotic Union, a leftist party decimated in the 1980s and 1990s by rightwing paramilitary groups.

Such assassinations, especially of leadership members, could severely damage the peace process. President Juan Manuel Santos’s government has repeatedly promised to protect former rebels.

The accord allows the Farc 10 unelected seats in Congress through 2026 and grants amnesty to the majority of ex-fighters. Rebels convicted by special courts of human rights violations will avoid traditional prison sentences, instead performing reparations work such as removing landmines.

Assassinations of social activists and community leaders from indigenous groups are common in Colombia. Rights organizations say there have been more than 40 such killings this year.

The Farc said on Monday that it would officially launch its new political party on 1 September. It has not yet announced which of its members will fill the congressional seats or said what the new party will be called.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... um=twitter

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Colombia's armed groups sow seeds of new conflict as war with Farc ends
Last year’s deal with the guerrilla group left a power vacuum, putting authorities and residents on edge amid new violence: ‘Everyone’s nervous’
People carry harvested coca leaves along a coca field. Armed groups are attempting to take control of the cocaine trade in regions the Farc left behind.

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People carry harvested coca leaves along a coca field. Armed groups are attempting to take control of the cocaine trade in regions the Farc left behind. Photograph: Fernando Vergara/AP

Tuesday 18 April 2017 05.00 EDT Last modified on Thursday 15 June 2017 11.32 EDT
The guerrillas of the Farc occupied the territory around Argelia long enough to gain the support of some residents, and the loathing of others.

So when local people watched a contingent of 140 rebels file through the town on their way to demobilization camps as part of a peace deal, it was with a sense of ambivalence: some bade farewell – others good riddance.

But since the rebels abandoned the area in late January, supporters and critics have shared the same fears.

Townspeople, police and the military are on high alert as other criminal groups attempt to fill the power vacuum. Robberies, murders and petty crime are soaring and unidentified citizens appear to be trying to establish private vigilante groups.

“No one has taken over here yet, but there is a lot buzz, a lot of rumours,” says Manzur Silva, a community leader in El Encanto, a nearby village, and a spokesman for local farmers who grow coca, the raw material for cocaine. “Everyone’s nervous,” he says.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia fought the Colombian state for more than half a century before last year’s historic deal with the government, which put an end to a conflict that has left more than 230,000 dead and millions displaced from their homes.

But in a country whose violent history consists of cycle upon cycle of conflict, it was perhaps inevitable that the end of one war would contain the seeds of another.

Across Colombia, new armed groups – and some long-established ones – are violently occupying the regions left behind by the Farc, all hoping to wrest control of the cocaine trade, illegal gold mines and other criminal enterprises which once financed the rebels.

The military promised to send out 65,000 of its soldiers to occupy and secure the regions and President Juan Manuel Santos announced last month that 960 new police agents would be assigned to rural areas.

But criminal groups have moved faster.

Fighting between a smaller rebel faction, the National Liberation Army, ELN, and the military branch of a criminal group known as the Urabeños has led to the forced displacement of nearly 1,000 people since the start of the year in the western region of Chocó. On 25 March, five community members of one town in that area were gunned down, though it is unclear by which side.

And even before the Farc began its retreat, dozens of social activists and leftist political leaders have been murdered across the country; hundreds have been threatened. In Argelia, a member of a local farmers’ association was gunned down on Christmas day.


The town and its surrounding area makes a tempting prospect for criminals. For the years the coca business has boomed in valley of the Micay river, which begins high in the mountains of Argelia and cuts through hills covered by fields of bright green coca plants.

The river runs past rustic kitchens where coca leaves are turned to paste and continues toward cocaine labs where the paste is turned into white powder for shipping to market by boats on the Pacific Ocean.

Coca crops in this valley nearly doubled from 2013 to 2014, from over 3,300 hectares (8,100 acres) to more than 6,300 (15,600 acres), according the army. Today, farmers calculate there could be as much as 10,000 hectares of coca planted in the area.

The crop is harvested every two months, meaning the region produces 70 tons a year – just under one-tenth of all of Colombia’s estimated annual cocaine output.

Under the peace agreement signed in November, the Farc and government agreed to promote crop substitution programs through voluntary eradication pacts: the farmers pull out their coca bushes in exchange for subsidies, land titles and technical assistance to grow something else. Since January, more than 55,000 families throughout the country have signed on.

But farmers in Argelia are dubious. “We would like to grow other things but no other plant is as profitable as coca,” says Alice Rodríguez, a 31-year-old coca farmer, during a recent workshop in a village school to learn about the peace deal. “And how can we know that the government will come through on their promises?” she asks.

Coca farmers here are highly organized and leaders are calling for resistance – against both eradication and the new criminal groups.

While they controlled the valley, Farc took a cut of all the coca base that moved through the area, until about six or eight months ago, according to Silva, the community leader.

Then the ELN started trying to demand payments, even as it engaged in its own peace talks with the government. Coca growers met with the leaders of the smaller rebel group and told them outright they would not pay. Other unidentified groups have also appeared, trying to set up shop.

“Coca farmers spent decades paying the Farc a tax. Now that they’re gone, they’re not just going to let someone else come in,” says Silva.

But despite the danger, residents whose livelihoods depend on illegal economies don’t want a state security forces to replace the rebels.

“We don’t trust the police and army,” says Silva.

That comes as no surprise to the authorities. In 2015, the community of the village of El Mango drove out a police contingent that was trying to establish a base there.

“They see us and immediately think: eradication,” says a member of the Argelia police force, which remains holed up in the station on one corner of the town’s main square, behind sandbag barricades.

That doesn’t stop the police and soldiers in Argelia from trying to win over the civilian population. So far the gains are modest.

“At least they say hello to us now. Some of them, at least,” says a member of the security forces stationed here who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak.

But it’s a long way from getting a “hello” to offering real security.

And the numbers are worrisome. Ten people were murdered in Argelia in the first two months of the year, more than double the number of homicides from the same time last year, according to security sources.

Some of those killings are believed to be linked to a violent extortion ring that has left many Argelia residents unwilling to answer calls on their mobile phones from unidentified numbers. Such calls begin with a demand for large sums of money – and end with a death threat against the person or a family member. The money is needed, callers say, to establish a “security group” to bring order to the town.

Residents fear that could be the start of the creation of paramilitary groups similar to those that were founded in the 1980s by drug lords and large landholders to fight rebel groups when Colombia’s military was too weak to do so.

By the start of the century, those militia groups had swelled into a vast, brutal army responsible for massacres, torture and murder. The paramilitaries officially demobilized some 30,000 troops between 2003 and 2006 but others, such as the Urabeños, quickly took their place.

It is those groups that human rights organizations fear are behind many of the killings of social activists, which they see as a threat to their illegal activities.

At least 59 rights defenders were killed in Colombia last year, 14 of them in Cauca province alone, according to the UN human rights representative in Colombia, Todd Howland.

“The Farc leaving is complicating the lives of leaders,” Howland told reporters.

According to Colombia’s human rights ombudsman, Carlos Negret, 156 avctivists have been killed in the last 14 months. “One of the main causes is the illegal armed groups’ aspiration to take over the areas where the Farc have left,” Negret says. “They want to control the illegal economies that have fueled Colombia’s war.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... med-groups

Leaving aside their cheap shots against FARC what is notable here is that the Guardian is presenting a more realistic view the post cease-fire situation than the FARC does. I understand that FARC wishes too present a positive face to the process but christ amighty it sure looks like whistling past the graveyard.
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Re: Columbia

Post by blindpig » Thu Aug 17, 2017 8:17 pm

Acute, continue to kill human rights defenders
Between January and June of this year, 335 human rights defenders were victims of some kind of aggression that put their life at risk. They murdered 51. The figures are from the report of Somos Defensores.
Natalia Herrera Durán - @ Natal1aH

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Members of the Indigenous Guard of northern Cauca regretted the loss of the native leader, Eder Cuetia Conda, who was murdered in that southern department of.

"What appeared to be a bad premonition in 2016, today is a delicate reality: there is a significant increase in homicides and attacks on the lives and physical integrity of human rights defenders in Colombia." That is the worrying conclusion reached by the Information System on Aggression against Human Rights Defenders (SIADDHH) of the non-governmental protection program Somos Defensores.

The numbers of homicides argue with crude words: in the first semester of 2017 51 social leaders in the country were assassinated. This means that 51 campesino, communal, indigenous, union, victim and LGBTI populations lost the experience, training and recognition of one of their leaders.

Also read: Murder of Nidio Dávila: against the substitution of coca

The increase in these deaths compared to 2016 was 31%. It went from 35 cases reported in the first half of last year to 51 in the same period of 2017. Only seven of them had reported threats. And in seven cases the defenders were disappeared before they were found dead. Six of their bodies also showed signs of torture and sevicia. The vast majority (80%) of the deaths were planned and there were previous follow-ups.

Of these homicides, 86% were men (44 cases) and 14% were women (seven women), five more than those who were murdered from January to June 2016. The departments that recorded the highest number of these murders were Cauca And Valle del Cauca, with eight leaders each. They are followed by Antioquia, with seven cases, and Cesar, with five. In reviewing, the most hit leaders were those associated with communal action boards, community work (especially in rural areas) and peasants (with the highest number of homicides: 28 out of 51).

The threats

But the violent not only murder, but also intimidate. Between January and June 2017, 225 threats were recorded, however scandalous it may be seen that this figure decreased by 3% in relation to the previous year (from 232 defenders threatened in 2016 to 225 in the same period of 2017) .

Cauca registers the largest number of threatened defenders, with 59 cases, followed by Bogota, with 40; Valle del Cauca, with 26; Tolima, with 18; Antioquia, with 15; La Guajira, with 14, and Santander, with 11 defenders threatened. They are mainly threatened by pamphlets (139 defenders were threatened by this mechanism), emails (26 cases), telephone calls (24), direct harassment (19) and text messages (17).

Also read: "No one guarantees the lives of human rights defenders": President of Afrodes

Regarding who would be behind the killings and threats, for Somos Defensores it remains a contradictory indicator that, while the Government insists on the demilitarization of paramilitarism, the whistleblowers point out as alleged perpetrators of the attacks on paramilitaries (59%) already Unknown actors (by 32%).

And it is not that this violence is new. It has been documented for more than 10 years. Attacks against social leaders and human rights defenders have been a historical reality, but "now, with the silence of FARC rifles, this violence has focused even more against this type of activists," the document says.

Acúzate, who are killing us is the title of this report and its name is a call for self-protection, mutual care among activists, "before a passive state protection, a zero prevention of these violence and a minimum progress in investigations by these Crimes, "they say.

This is because the increasing numbers show that despite the innumerable announcements, commitments and provisions of the Government, the scourge does not cease: "There are a number of initiatives, analysis tables, risk warning reports and official statements on this issue , But the killings and attacks on the lives of these activists do not stop. This year there is already a 30% increase in homicides, "they say.

In that sense, the report recognizes that the Attorney General's Office is moving forward, but not at the pace necessary for the identified risk in which human rights defenders and social leaders live in the country. "The Prosecutor's Office mentions historical advances, but they do not feel sorry for the volume of cases that are recorded day by day," he says.

Also read: Ezequiel Rangel: The assassinated leader who socialized the Peace Accord

One of the cases highlighted highlights the complexity of this problem. In May 2017, the first conviction was given in the country for threatening human rights defenders. The 45th Circuit Court of Knowledge Circuit of Bogotá sentenced Diego Alexánder Céspedes Moreno to four years and two months in prison for threatening, through electronic means, 18 social leaders and human rights defenders in February 2014. At that time Jaime Caicedo Turriago, a political leader and human rights defender, denounced death threats from an e-mail account with intimidating messages.

The captive, who confessed to having made the threats, was escorted by the protection scheme of Land Restitution Leader José Gilberto Buitrago Quiroga. According to the investigation, the defendant worked in the DAS as a detective and escorted various political leaders, including some leftist leaders.

In the end, this report is above all a new call not to lose hope of having a country where political violence is no longer the weapon of intimidation and silencing. "We seek that the Government take decisive action to stop this violent barrage that can put in check not only peace, but also the stability of the country, especially when we have an electoral year to come and these violence have a significant weight in the regions" , Concludes.

http://colombia2020.elespectador.com/pa ... os-humanos

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Re: Columbia

Post by blindpig » Sat Aug 26, 2017 1:27 pm

FARC-EP: New times, new party
By Félix Albisu Chief Correspondent / Bogota

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Bogota, Aug 26 (Prensa Latina) The great expectation that exists in Colombia before the imminent start of the founding congress that will continue the existence of the FARC-EP exguerrilla, it is evident, despite the apparent timidity With which the country's big press addresses the issue.

For decades using the most extreme epithets against the work of the insurgent movement, there seems to be no 'elaborate information lines' on how to deal with an event of national interest, which breaks in these times of peace, with the well-known schemes of treatment of the Domestic information monopolies, which by tradition and interests, is customary, are always placed on the side of the establishment.

The summit of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP) will begin this Sunday and according to statements by members of the Central General Staff, this is a new and wide open political movement that will fight for social equality And which will clearly maintain its Marxist-Leninist line.

The Congress is expected to conclude on September 1 with a popular rally in downtown Plaza Bolivar, a political-cultural event convened by the National Convergence for Reconciliation and Peace.

"The Party in which we will transform will fight for a fairer Colombia," said Matías Aldecoa, one of the members of the top leadership of that organization.

According to Commander Iván Márquez, clearly the second man of the guerrilla movement, the insurgency is likely to assume the new name of 'Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria de Colombia', so as not to lose the FARC's historical acronyms.

Sources from the old guerrilla told Orbe that there are other proposals for identity, but that will ultimately be decided by the more than 1 000 delegates of the FARC-EP who will attend the founding event at the Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada Convention Center Of Bogota, with the presence of about 200 guests.

The Congress itself will take the decision to elect the members of the ex-guerrilla to occupy the 10 seats in the Senate and in the House of Representatives - five in each instance - as agreed by the FARC-EP with the delegates of the administration of Juan Manuel Santos in the Havana talks.

Another topic that will be present in the debates of the Congress will be the imperative of the electoral process looming in the country in 2018, with two elections on two different dates: congressional and presidential elections and what will be the course in the projection of the new party.

TIMOCHENKO IN BOGOTA

FARC-EP leader Timoleón Jiménez, Alias ​​Timochenko, has been in Bogotá for several weeks in the Cuban capital, under medical treatment, due to heart disease to take charge of the congress's preparations.

It was learned that in the days leading up to the congress, Timochenko will hold meetings with the Secretariat of the organization, in order to address the agenda and other issues that have to do with the operation of the appointment.

On his arrival in this capital, the main commander of that ex-guerrilla wrote in his Twitter account: 'Colombia can not remain one of the most unequal countries in the world. To change that, we will make our #NewProject available.

He also advocated that in the new conditions of peace, that guerrilla force 'will continue to fight so that the workers have the support of the State and have more opportunities'.

The FARC-EP, the oldest guerrilla in Latin America and the Caribbean, ceased to be an armed movement on August 15, when the United Nations Mission in Colombia withdrew the last weapons that remained in the zones Transitional concentration camps, where some 7 000 ex-combatants are housed in 26 camps.

To reach this moment, after signing the peace agreement between the parties at the end of last year in Havana - and after four years of talks - it was necessary to overcome in Colombia more than five decades of armed conflict, which brought to the country 5.7 million victims of forced displacement, 220 000 dead and more than 25 000 missing. (Taken from Semanario Orbe)

http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?o ... ign=buffer

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Columbia

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 01, 2017 3:28 pm

Colombia's FARC Rename and Transition into a Political Party

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FARC members Mariana Zambrano, Pastor Alape and Sandra Milena Pulido address the Congress, Bogota, Colombia, August 27, 2017

Published 31 August 2017 (16 hours 57 minutes ago)

Friday will be the official launch of the new party in Bogota, where all are invited to celebrate with a “concert for reconciliation and peace.”
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, have ended their Congress ahead of the group's transition into a political party, as part of the peace agreement to end more than five decades of conflict.

At the closing session, the FARC also confirmed their new name, the Revolutionary Alternative Forces of the Commons, leaving the group with the same acronym they have been known by for decades.

The Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations, Ernesto Samper, attended the 5-day event which took place at the Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada Convention Center in Bogota.

"By a majority decision within our congress, the new name of the #NewParty is defined as: Revolutionary Alternative Forces of the Commons."

"Welcome to democracy, one of the main functions of this new party will be to lead the formation of a large progressive bloc for peace, which will accommodate all kinds of people who are committed to the Havana agreements," Samper said, referring to the peace agreements made between the group and the Colombian government last year.

Some 1,200 members attended the Congress and were joined by about 200 international guests and 400 journalists. At its plenary session, the delegates also approved the fundamental elements of the party, its political platform, and revealed its new symbol.

Campesinos, Indigenous people, Afro-descendants and women's representatives from across the country joined the Congress’ delegation.

The new party aims to take part in all future elections, from votes for small communal councils to municipal polls as well as for legislative seats.

The FARC has already announced plans to seek a 2018 election alliance with the Colombian Communist Party, less than a year before the country's presidential election.

A new Gallup poll on Thursday found that FARC is leading in popularity by two points, compared to other political organizations in the country.

The transition of the group into a political party, still “does not mean that we give up our ideological foundations,” said Rodrigo Londono, also known as Timochenko, the top leader of the FARC, during the opening ceremony of the Congress..

"We don't want to break ties with our past. We have been and will continue to be a revolutionary organization," Ivan Marquez, another leader of the FARC said last week.

"See you tomorrow in the Plaza de Bolivar. We invite you to the Concert of Reconciliation and Peace. #NewPartY #NewColombia"

Friday will be the official launch of the new party, in Bogota’s Plaza de Bolivar, where all are invited to celebrate with a “concert for reconciliation and peace.”

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/ ... -0032.html

Good luck, you're certainly gonna need it.
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Re: Columbia

Post by blindpig » Thu Sep 14, 2017 5:05 pm

FARC, the letters mean more now in Colombia
Alternative Communal Revolutionary Forces (FARC). This is the name of the new political party with which former Colombian guerillas are looking to enter the country's political arena

Author: Sergio Alejandro Gómez | informacion@granma.cu
september 14, 2017 11:09:04

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The red rose and initials of the new Alternative Communal Revolutionary Forces identify the party which has been established by Colombia's major former guerilla army. Photo: theguardian.com

Alternative Communal Revolutionary Forces (FARC). This is the name of the new political party with which former Colombian guerillas are looking to enter the country's political arena, maintaining the initials they used fighting in the mountains, plains, and jungles for more than 50 years, as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

The name chosen goes beyond formalities and sends a clear message about the group's objectives following the historic peace agreement signed in Havana last year.

The guerrillas' first Congress since moving to civilian life, held last week in Bogotá, established not only the new organization's name, but also its structure and the strategy to be followed in its first incursion in legislative and Presidential elections - coming in 2018.

It was the debate on the name, however, that made headlines, since some believed that, with the end of the armed conflict, it was time to leave the old initials behind and opt for something new. Nueva Colombia (New Colombia) and Esperanza Popular (The People's Hope) were on the table, but in the end neither garnered much support. The majority decision was to keep the initials and only change their meaning. (Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común).

For some in the country, the initials bear a strong connection with death and suffering, but the former guerillas chose to maintain a symbol of their revolutionary struggle which has accompanied them since the days of Marquetalia, when the group was formed under the leadership of Manuel Marulanda.

A strong message is being sent that they are not abandoning the revolutionary objectives for which they undertook a 50-year armed struggle, but rather intend to reach them through other means. The red rose they chose as a logo follows the same logic.

They hope that peace - to the degree that it has helped heal the wounds of war - will temper the stigma that has developed over years of negative propaganda.

And the march along this path has already begun.

On September 1, the more than 1,200 former guerillas attending the Congress as delegates gathered in Bogotá's Bolívar Plaza. For many, it was the first time they were able to visit the capital without being obliged to hide or evade authorities. And it was also the first time residents of the city had seen so many FARC members together in one place.

The Congress that lasted more than a week, established that the party seeks to attract diverse revolutionary and liberation currents, including those adhering to Bolivarian thought, and will have community work among its priorities.

In fact the "común" of the new name (translated as communal) is also a reference to the work cells in settlements and neighborhoods deep inside Colombia, where the destiny of the group will be determined, despite the fact that for the coming legislative term, the group is guaranteed at least ten seats, as part of the peace accords.

In addition to having their own organization and leadership - headed by Timoleón Jiménez, but distributed in a collective fashion, very similar to the former secretariat - the FARC looks to create a broad coalition of social movements and progressive parties to guarantee the fulfillment of the peace agreement and neutralize the warmongering threats of the far right and paramilitaries.

Although it faces a difficult road ahead, the Alternative Communal Revolutionary Forces emerges at a moment when traditional parties are thoroughly discredited. According to the last Gallup poll conducted, the FARC has greater possibilities in the upcoming elections than any other national political group. Although this fact in itself does not guarantee an expedited route to the Nariño Presidential Palace, it is an indication of the new times in Colombia, which are arriving accompanied by a name with a long history.

http://en.granma.cu/mundo/2017-09-14/fa ... n-colombia

Knowing the immediate history of Columbia, knowing how the tides of class politics flow, how can any student of historical materialism expect this to end well? Am I missing something here?
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 15, 2017 2:04 pm

Ninth FARC Member Killed in Colombia Despite Peace Process

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Since Colombia’s government signed a historic peace deal with FARC guerrillas last November, a total of 181 attacks against social leaders and human rights defenders have been recorded according to a recent study | Photo: Reuters

Published 14 September 2017

A social leader is killed every four days despite the peace process agreed between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
A member of the former Colombian rebel group, the FARC, has been killed in the town of San Vicente del Caguan, in the southern department of Caquieta.

The Foundation Lazos de Dignidad issued a statement which said Maicol Guevara was a young fighter who had taken part in the demobilization following November's peace deal signed with the government after decades of armed conflict.

Guevara was killed on Tuesday. Witnesses say he was shot seven times by men on an unlicensed motorbike as he made his way home.

Caqueta's Federation of social, environmental and rural organizations, COORDOSAC, warned that the killing “represented an imminent risk for those who those who believe in the peace process.”

The foundation also demanded the government stepped up security for demobilized FARC fighters, as well as social leaders.

Since the signing of the peace agreement in November, the violence by paramilitary groups against the former rebels has left eight dead along with 10 family members.

Paramilitaries have been filling the void in rural areas vacated by the FARC.

55 murders of community leaders and human rights activists have been recorded so far in 2017.

The former rebel group has now transitioned into a political party called the Revolutionary Alternative Forces of the Commons.

Their leader Rodrigo Londono, also known as Timochenko, said the murders of former members and the security vacuum remain a key concern.

His sentiments were echoed by the chief negotiator for Colombia's last remaining rebel group, the National Liberation Army as it moves towards a cease-fire in October.

In an interview with teleSUR's EnClave Politica show, Pablo Beltran, urged the government to end the killings of social leaders.

Beltran said the deaths are contradictory during a peace process.

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/ ... -0034.html
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 15, 2017 8:08 pm

List of Prisoners by FARC is Serious and Rigorous

In recent days some media and communication portals have published news about alleged “intruders” in the lists produced and delivered by the FARC.

We want to inform the public that these lists have been delivered with transparency and internal verification criteria, a process that includes a rigorous verification on a permanent basis with the National Government.

These lists were delivered to the National Government under the principles of good faith and confidentiality, in order to carry out joint verification between the FARC and the National Government. This process, which has not culminated, is the one designed in the Agreement in order to fully identify those members who will be accredited as members of the FARC.

Clearly, the process of confidentiality and reservation of information that threatens the life and integrity of the persons mentioned is not respected. We must remember that several of those killed after the signing of the Final Agreement are people who are beneficiaries of amnesty measures, among others.

The parties have agreed that the route to be followed for the resolution of disputes is agreed in the CSIVI-Follow-up, Implementation and Verification Commission, so it will be in that space in which official cases that may present some observation will be dealt with.

The country and the international community are aware of the seriousness and transparency that we have demonstrated in fully complying with what has been agreed, the preparation of the listings is not an exception, therefore we have established a mechanism for the revision and purification of these listings that has been operating since their very own preparation.

In a forceful and unhesitating way we warn that there will be no casting in our lists, no conduct outside the developed in the framework of the insurgent confrontation will be endorsed by our organization, since we are already advancing the necessary procedures to review the situation of cases that have required an observation. Unlike other processes we will not allow our listings to be used to fuel impunity.

We inform to the country that our lists will be composed exclusively by those people whose behaviour obeys in time, manner and place to actions of genuine insurgent practice, taking into account the irregular nature of the war.

In that sense, the actions related to the development of the rebel action must be incorporated in its complexity to the political offence concept. We must point out that, for years, the persecution and judicial confrontation based on the doctrine of the criminal law of the enemy that brought to prison hundreds of guerrillas and militiamen accused of a number of criminal behaviours unrelated to the nature of rebel action, was part of the military confrontation.

Precisely that was the denaturalisation of political offence and legal war. It became a custom of Colombian justice to not objectively prosecute them according to their insurgent activity.

Under this practice and before the crisis of legitimacy of the judicial and penal authorities in Colombia, it became necessary to establish a special court that has jurisdiction over the conduct committed during the conflict, who in an unbiased and objective manner should resolve on the legal situation of all our members.

We urge the media, the judicial authorities, and the national and international community to demand with the same vehemence the fulfillment of the freedom of all political prisoners of the FARC who are still deprived of their liberty.

We also ask the National Government to clarify the existing responsibilities regarding the leak to the press of confidential information.

National Political Council

People's Alternative Revolutionary Force (FARC)

http://www.farc-epeace.org/peace-proces ... orous.html

Treaty becomes surrender when one side gives up all leverage.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Dhalgren
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Re: Colombia

Post by Dhalgren » Fri Sep 15, 2017 8:30 pm

blindpig wrote:
Fri Sep 15, 2017 2:04 pm

In an interview with teleSUR's EnClave Politica show, Pablo Beltran, urged the government to end the killings of social leaders.

Beltran said the deaths are contradictory during a peace process.

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/ ... -0034.html
Is this naivete, whistling past the graveyard, or what? The FARC have to know with whom they are dealing - the death-squads, the imperial licksptal government, and behind it all the murderous empire.
" If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism." Lenin, 1916

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Thu Sep 21, 2017 3:43 pm

No easing of US vengeance against Colombian revolutionary Simon Trinidad
worker | September 20, 2017 | 9:39 pm | Colombia, Imperialism, Simon Trinidad
By W. T. Whitney Jr.

Unable to receive letters, packages, and emails, Simon Trinidad, citizen of Colombia, lives in a tiny, constantly illuminated, underground cell in a high-security prison in Colorado. From 2005 to 2016 Simon Trinidad lived in total isolation. Now he may, infrequently, receive four family members and two lawyers as visitors. Now, chained, he may occasionally interact with a handful of prisoners.

A U. S. court in 2008 sentenced the 58-year old Trinidad to 60 years in prison. He was charged with conspiracy to hold three U.S. contractors hostage – “mercenaries of North American corporations engaged in spying,” according to one observer. The three hostages went free that same year.

Solidarity

One Colombian regards Trinidad as a “clear symbol of the resistance and dignity of a people who had to rise up in arms to confront state terrorism.” Another speaks of the “debt we have as revolutionaries” and “the grief we feel that someone with the humanity of Simon is in that situation.”

The group Voices for Peace, joined by Colombian human rights organizations, has been agitating for Trinidad’s repatriation; the group cites humanitarian reasons and the peace process. It urged Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to submit a request to President Donald Trump. But Santos’s office referred the question to the Foreign Ministry and from there it went to the Ministry of Justice and Law, where it stalled. An activist explains that, after all, Trinidad is only one of many “extradited Colombians suffering in jails of the imperialist country.”

A new solidarity group emerged recently with support from prisoner defense organizations in Colombia and from Spain’s “Solidarity with Colombia Platform.” The name for the group’s campaign for Trinidad’s release is: “When you read dignity, you write Simon Trinidad” (“Se lee dignidad, se escribe Simón Trinidad”). Organizers are on their way to gathering 100,000 signatures for a petition to the White House. The campaign’s website is here.

The group organized and sponsored Mark Burton’s European tour for the prisoner that ran from September 4 to September 15. Burton, Trinidad’s U. S. lawyer, is part of the Simon Trinidad campaign in the United States. In Europe, he held informational meetings with parliamentarians of Spain, the Basque Country, Germany, and the European Parliament. Burton joined a forum staged by the United Nations Human Rights Council and in Geneva he discussed Trinidad’s case with diplomats of various countries. Along the way, he took part in public events and gave interviews



He told interviewer Javier Couso, a Spanish United Left deputy to the European Parliament, that “Simon Trinidad is a most important person in the peace process in Colombia,” and on that account must be freed. Later he remarked to Publico’s interviewer Danilo Albin that, “I want to educate people about my client … I know that the European Union is involved in the phase of peace implementation in Colombia. That’s why I am looking for support for his freedom.”



Reviewing his trip in an email, Burton anticipates parliamentary statements and diplomatic initiatives on Trinidad’s behalf. Pro- Trinidad organizations are taking root in Berlin, Brussels, Madrid, Alicante, and Geneva. A member of Germany’s Bundestag wants to visit Trinidad in prison.



Serving the FARC



Prior to joining the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 1987 at age 37, Simon Trinidad had been Ricardo Palmera, member of a politically-connected and wealthy family. He prepared in economics and worked as a banker and economics professor in Valledupar, Cesar Department. Along the way Palmera became aware of unjust land use and distribution. He and others formed a left – leaning, local affiliate of the Liberal Party, after which he helped organize a group called Common Cause. He soon joined the Patriotic Union.



A peace agreement in 1986 between President Belisario Betancourt’s government and Marxist-oriented FARC rebels made that political party possible. Demobilized FARC insurgents, Communists, and other leftists belonging to the Patriotic Union ran for political office. Soon they were being killed. Palmera had already suffered prison and torture for a week. Comrades were leaving for exile, but Palmera “decided to save his life but [also] to continue with his revolutionary ideals of social justice, and thus joined the FARC.”

The FARC began in 1964 when a group of small farmers fighting for agrarian rights organized militarily to defend against violence. As Mark Burton explains, new FARC recruit Simon Trinidad, formerly Ricardo Palmera, became “in reality an intellectual for that group.” He was in charge of political education, propaganda, and negotiations with international agencies, foreign governments, and the Colombian state. He had a lead role in peace talks with the government in Caguán beginning in 1998.

In January, 2004, Trinidad was in Quito, Ecuador where he was to have asked United Nations official James Lemoyne to facilitate FARC plans to release hostages. Ecuadoran police, assisted by the CIA, arrested him and transferred him to Colombia. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe insisted on his extradition to the United States. Trinidad lingered for a year while a pretext was manufactured. A former political prisoner explains that, “Colombia’s Constitution prohibits the extradition of a citizen for political reasons” such as rebellion. Alternative charges were devised.



The U. S. government subjected Trinidad to four trials. Persuaded by his testimony, Trinidad’s first jury stopped short of convicting him on the charge of membership in a terrorist organization. A second jury did convict him of conspiring to hold the three captured U.S. agents as hostages, this despite the unlikely chance he would have helped plan the operation; he had no military-command responsibilities. Two subsequent trials declared Trinidad innocent of drug – trafficking.



For four years FARC negotiators insisted that Simon Trinidad join them at peace talks in Havana. The FARC is a political party now, and spokespersons say they need Trinidad’s negotiating skills for dealing with post – agreement problems. While the talks were in progress, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos indicated he was open to Trinidad’s return. After conferring with former U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry, FARC representatives were hopeful that the U. S. government might cooperate. But, “the Colombian government apparently never approached the United States with a formal request,” according to Mark Burton.



In Colombia Trinidad would be benefiting from the peace agreement. He would join other former insurgents in applying to the new Special Jurisdiction for Peace for amnesty. He might receive reparations, as per the agreement, because his wartime partner and their child were targeted for murder.



No end to conflict



Old adversaries are at each other’s throats. Simon Trinidad figures as a stand-in for the revolutionary side, still under siege in Colombia.



Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, inveterate opponent of the peace process, leads the opposition to Trinidad’s release from prison. In one tweet typical of many such denigrating the prisoner, Uribe laments that “Simon Trinidad added narco-trafficking to the money from kidnappings.” Opinion surveys suggest that at least a majority of Colombian adults agree with claims from Uribe – led right-wingers that the FARC won’t comply with requirements of the peace agreement and claims too that high-visibility FARC leaders deserve imprisonment.



Nor have wealthy elites in the United States forgotten the cause they shared with counterparts in Colombia. To defeat the FARC, they provided billions of dollars in military aid, U. S. troops, and intelligence expertise and equipment. Florida Senator Marco Rubio, intent upon keeping that memory alive, has led in vilifying Simon Trinidad.

Revolutionaries in Colombia are speaking out. For former political prisoner Liliany Obando, “Simon has been man of integrity, a revolutionary, and a humanist and his cause on this road has been altruistic….Simon must inevitably be able to count on more hands and on the solid commitment of many people, abroad and especially in the United States, people who can be mobilized and exert important political pressure so that Simon’s repatriation can be achieved.”

On August 20 in Bogota, Colombia’s Communist party staged its annual festival for its Semanario Voz (Weekly Voice) newspaper. An editorial writer celebrated the event saying that, “It’s time now for Colombians who are living moments of change and national reconciliation to take on the job of broadcasting the life, history, and need for repatriation of Simon Trinidad. [He] has already gone from being a rebel of the FARC –EP to being a national hero.”



Jaime Caycedo Turriago, secretary – general of the Party, read a poem:



“To Simon/ The bright star you can’t see/ hardly asks you/ if any verse/ flew off in the night, /If it came through the bars/ And the regulations, / If it disappeared beyond the sea/ And the empire’s walls. / Perhaps there’s no reply/ To this question. / There will be silence and, / There will be uncertainty. / But here / On this shore, / Which is the shore of the world, There are millions who are pondering. / And they throw out hopes to the universe / That are shaking your bars. / There are millions of hearts / that are together on a shaft of liberty /Who are calling you back to your homeland, / And to freedom.

http://houstoncommunistparty.com/no-eas ... -trinidad/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Tue Sep 26, 2017 2:33 pm

Words by Timoleón Jiménez

Well known health reasons oblige me to stay in Havana, where the warm hospitality of the government provide for my treatment and therapies needed for a full recovery.
It is for this reason that I am unable to attend this event.
But let this be an occasion to share some reflexions.
First of all my gratitude to the tripartite mechanism for its responsible and effective work. Despite small problems, the commitment of the two parties involved in the conflict has led to the agreement to end this very conflict and in this achievement the mechanism has played an important role.
Doubts cannot be risen about how the FARC has kept their word. Our unities moved to the Transitional Zones despite the delays of the National Government in ensuring the living conditions agreed upon. Well passed the deadline many of the Zones are still to be completed. The process of abandonment of arms has been carried out with maximum good faith and in the same way we published the inventory of our war economy.
We are a political party that begins to work in a legal framework, without any weapon but our voice. Soon a new UN Mission will begin, its main task being ensuring the Colombian State comply with its obligation and commitments. I fear this Mission, contrary to today’s comments, will indeed have a huge work to do.
There are hundreds of our prisoners still in jail, despite the amnesty and freedom laws and decrees. The safety guarantees to life and exercise of social protest and politics, meticulously detailed in the Final Agreement, have not been put in place and the killings of social and popular leaders, as well as of our reinserted militants, are happening by the day. The ESMAD keeps repressing citizens.
Peasants’ demonstrations are increasing because of the official repression of their crops, ignoring the Agreement signed in Havana and the agreements with communities’ official representatives on the issue. The National Government openly ignore the role of people in the Development Plans with Territorial Approach. The political reform sails between serious hostilities and dirty tricks threatening to sink it.
Agreed mechanisms to promulgate legislative reforms crucial to the implementation have been object of serious institutional mutilations. The Attorney General busies itself in putting any kind of obstacles to the creation of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, as well as to the Special Unit that should be in charge of the judicial investigations on paramilitarism and its links.
Several official measures aim to disarticulating and damaging our unity in the Territorial Spaces of Education and Reincorporation (ETCR). We are warned about an imminent withdrawal of food and basic services, included for tutors in charge of education. Green light is denied to production projects that will ensure the subsistence of our people, as well as the delivery of lands in which those projects are meant to be implemented.
A true campaign of hatred and smearing is being lashed against us. The reconciliation we dreamed of is being stranded, pushed down by those committed to deny us a space in Colombia. It is as if the end of conflict and the building of a just a lasting peace had not been agreed.
Therefore I wanted to rise a voice of alarm.
Colombian people and the international community cannot allow peace being denied to our land.
We have walked a long way, enemies of a different country cannot be allowed to win.
Bogotà, 22 September 2017

http://farc-epeace.org/peace-process/ne ... A9nez.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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