Colombia

The fightback
User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Tue May 04, 2021 1:40 pm

COLLAPSE IN COLOMBIA AMID PANDEMIC, TAX REFORM AND PROTESTS
May 3 , 2021 , 9:48 am .

Image
Confrontation has been the common factor in Colombia, where six tax reforms have been attempted in 10 years, all focused on the dispossession of the working classes (Photo: Sergio Ángel)

Even though the slogan "More wages, less taxes" prevailed in his electoral campaign, Colombian President Iván Duque is going through the same crisis today as a result of his proposals for economic reforms that have used the global pandemic due to covid-19 as an excuse.

This is the third tax reform in three years, and the sixth in ten years, called the "Sustainable Solidarity Law Project" that aims to raise 23 trillion pesos (approximately 6.3 billion dollars) between 2022 and 2031.

Its Minister of Finance has declared that it is necessary due to the fiscal deficit that the Andean country is going through. This indicator will be in the order of 8.6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), an increase with respect to the 7.8% that is estimated to have been generated in 2020. The government argues that it needs to raise taxes on the middle and upper class of the country to finance subsidies to companies and the most vulnerable population that was especially affected by the pandemic.

DUQUE PROMISED "LESS TAXES" BUT IT WAS NOT WITH EVERYONE
The electoral plan presented by the Uribista president was to increase the income of workers who found employment while reducing the tax burden on companies, even though the people could have understood otherwise. His economic team repeated what many technicians of the neoliberal doctrine: if companies pay less taxes, they could generate more jobs and raise salaries.

Image
The electoral propaganda of the current Colombian president, Iván Duque, offered less taxes but did not refer to the entire population (Photo: Wild evil)

The tax and labor reforms were added to the assassinations of social leaders, the breaches of the peace agreements and the absence of frank dialogue, this caused protests by labor unions, teachers, university students, peasants, indigenous communities and different social groups between November of that year and February 2020. The repression unleashed by the Duque administration left at least 17 dead and more than 700 injured among police officers and protesters.

This led to the dismissal of Defense Minister Guillermo Botero, who declared about the need to regulate social protest and blamed illegal armed groups. This proposal was supported by Vice President Marta Lucía Ramírez , making an urgent call for the regulation of the proposal, accusing the Venezuelan government of infiltrating protesters.

In December of that year, a tax reform was approved that included exemptions for national companies "to promote job creation and competitiveness." This was established by reducing the income tax for companies of all kinds, from 33% to 30%, which has been applied progressively, one point per year, until 2022.

It also included social benefits for natural persons that consisted of the refund of VAT to citizens with the lowest income, the implementation of three days without VAT distributed throughout the year, the reduction of health contributions for pensioners who receive one and two minimum wages and a stimulus to companies that hire young employees.

THE EXCUSE OF THE PANDEMIC IN THE FACE OF PERMANENT AND STRUCTURAL CRISIS
The management of the global pandemic caused by the covid-19 disease has been part of the crisis that today confronts the Colombian government with different sectors. Erratic decisions such as lack of coordination between the executive branch and local authorities were compounded by failures in economic decrees such as:

Reduction of pension contribution payments to generate relief for companies and transfer more than 25 thousand members of private funds to Colpensiones (declared unenforceable by the Constitutional Court).
Authorization for mayors to increase subsidies in aqueduct, sewerage and cleaning services, by 80% for stratum 1, 50% for stratum 2 and 40% for 3 (two ministers did not sign the approval of the rule).
Solidarity Tax of 20% on the salaries of public officials (not private) who earn more than 10 million pesos per month (declared unenforceable by the Constitutional Court).
The Colombian economy is an economy that has been dismantling the State through the delivery to the private sector of different and strategic productive areas such as energy mining, communications and financial services. The last Colombian governments have expanded serial reforms with exemptions and deductions for large capital that has accumulated profits in a vertiginous way, more since the Uribe Vélez governments.

Image
The Duque administration's handling of the pandemic accelerated the structural causes that generate war and misery in Colombia (Photo: Caracol Radio)

Control over the flow of capital, the repatriation of profits and the evasion of large firms and Colombian magnates with accounts in tax havens and other assets abroad is ineffective or non-existent. The unproductive latifundia and the profit from the non-cadastral updating are maintained, which causes the landowners to pay taxes below the law. The public debt of the State is close to 60% of GDP, much more than during the great financial crisis of 1999.

For this structural crisis, they want to blame COVID-19 and its regressive effects on the global economy. Only in labor policy has Colombia's historical performance maintained an immutable course towards precariousness. Since the 1990s, Congress began to pass laws to relax and deregulate labor relations, and social security went into decline.

This process corresponds to the enactment of Law 50 of 1990, Law 100 of 1993 and Law 789 of 2002, which generated loss of identity with the world of work, high staff turnover, decrease in real salary, and quality life of the middle layers, highly qualified.

In the midst of a pandemic, according to the former presidential candidate Gustavo Petro, "a budget fund was created to subsidize the labor payroll of companies that totaled three and a half billion pesos. It was about giving the businessman 40% of the value of his work payroll. While there are 1,800,000 small entrepreneurs in the country, they only helped 100,000 with this fund. Most of the money, more than 50%, went to only 1,000 companies, the largest in the country, the richest and most those that produce the least employment ".

Duque's management of the pandemic focused on leaving small businessmen and the middle classes to their fate to reinforce the privileged sectors. In their environment of analysts, they have tried to include, without solid data, the impact of the massive arrival of Venezuelans to the country as an aggravation of the situation, however several studies indicate that, in the long term, migration can be beneficial, as it optimizes the "demographic bonus", as they are mainly young people.

However, for this to become a reality, it is necessary to improve the way of inserting this population into the labor market, as this demographic growth has remained informal.

AVIANCA: LIFEGUARDS AT WILL AND A SKY OF DOUBTS
An example of how the pandemic is being implemented to favor large capitals was the lifeline that the government launched to Avianca Holding, a company that on May 10, 2020, presented an application to a US bankruptcy court to apply to Chapter 11 of the Code of Bankruptcy of that country.

Avianca Holding is made up of more than 30 Latin American companies, including the Avianca airline, founded in Colombia, but which long ago ceased to be a national company. It generates more than 21,000 direct and indirect jobs in Latin America, of which more than 14,000 are in Colombia, and works with a network of more than 3,000 suppliers.

After the approval for the financing of 370 million dollars by the recently created Emergency Mitigation Fund (FOME), administered by the Ministry of Finance under Alberto Carrasquilla, Duque explained that the decision was made to preserve the air service national in the face of the emergency caused by the covid-19 pandemic, and that this company has the largest operation in the country with a 45.5% share in the transported passenger market in 2019.

Image
Avianca, a foreign airline that owns most of its staff in Colombian territory, was rescued by a loan from the Duque government, whose sister was a senior executive of the company (Photo: File)

The presidents of smaller airlines, such as Viva Air or Easy Fly, said they agreed with the government loan to Avianca but considered it necessary that this help also be given to the rest of the air market players in Colombia.

"While this lifeline with Colombian resources is being thrown at (Avianca), the government has denied the basic emergency income, it has denied zero tuition for all young students of public universities," said Senator Antonio Sanguino, of the Alianza Verde party, during a virtual session of Congress.

In addition to the fact that the company has been on the verge of bankruptcy on more than one occasion and already owes several billion dollars to creditors to whom it has not been able to pay, it is curious that a foreign company is privileged to the detriment of other public or 100% Colombian capitals that produce more jobs.

Especially when his sister and former communications vice minister of Álvaro Uribe's government, María Paula Duque , was the company's senior vice president of Strategic Relations and Customer Experience, a senior executive position.

By allocating an important part of the FOME to this sector, the government reduces the amount allocated to social assistance and millions of citizens have not been able to stay at home, which in turn has prevented the mitigation of contagions and deepened economic instability.

IMMOLATING DUQUE? URIBE AND THE DEMOCRATIC CENTER PLAYING IN HIS FAVOR
In the middle of the second wave of the pandemic at the end of last March and the beginning of April, the government team leaked working papers with preliminary proposals that would seek to increase the taxable base of VAT, that is, without raising rates, a greater number of products would be taxed. This would bring higher tax returns to the most vulnerable households as compensation for these increases.

In such a way that products that do not pay sales tax or that have a 5% rate, would have a 19% surcharge. Another measure was to increase the volume of Colombians who pay income tax, going from imposing the tribute to those who earn 4.9 million pesos a month, to those who earn between 3.5 and 4 million, increasing taxpayers by one million.

In the boiling of rumors and debates in the media, several members of the ruling Democratic Center party criticized the proposals in vogue, including Uribe, who announced his vision of seeking a "social and moderate tax reform agreed with majorities." He also stated that the proposals to increase taxes are unpopular and should be replaced by spending cuts, for which the Congress must be reduced and the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) must be reformed.


For the former president and former senator it is still appropriate that the body in charge of prosecuting and investigating all members of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), public forces and third parties, be eliminated or denatured due to the large number of of open trials and complaints for crimes against humanity that exist against their government efforts.

The rest of the government party accompanies him because no congressman would like to be associated with an increase in the taxes of all Colombians one year before the general elections, which would be in 2022, that includes the members of the government bench.

Even though during his eight years of government and the successive years of Santos and Duque, widely linked to their political ideology, large capitals have been favored, Uribe spoke that the family basket should not be taxed but "that the wealthiest pay." .

The government's need is such that it intends, with the latest reform proposal, to raise almost 30 trillion pesos, which is equivalent to three tax reforms the size of the last one it made in 2019.

In addition, the middle class was greatly affected by that reform by limiting discounts and raising rental rates for individuals. This trend continued in the project presented by the government as it would have further limited deductions, which raises the tax base, and would imply an increase in taxes. This added to the eventual pension tax proposal, which would have further affected consumption amid weak demand and, of course, would affect economic growth.

THE REFORM ENTERS AND THE PROTESTS IGNITE
On April 28, a 24-hour general strike was called by the unions, who would consider extending it for two or three days, as other sectors claimed. The final proposal of the "Sustainable Solidarity Law" entered Congress proposing an increase in VAT to 19% for public energy, sewage and gas services while reducing the minimum amount from which citizens must pay taxes, which would expand the register of taxpayers.

Three million workers should file an income tax return from which they are currently exempt due to their income and half of them would have to pay taxes, those who earned $ 663 would be required to file income taxes in 2022, but the following year the The tax standard would grow because the rule would apply to everyone who received $ 470.

The reform also established a wealth tax that would allow those with an equity of 1.3 million dollars to pay 1.0% of taxes in an extraordinary way in 2022 and 2023 and that those who receive four million dollars or more, pay 2.0%. It also envisaged that those who earned around $ 2,700 a month would cover a one-time extra tax, in addition to the income tax they already cover.

Government critics such as former senator Piedad Córdoba accused him of hitting consumption, affecting production and keeping large companies untouchable with VAT on public services for strata 4,5 and 6 without taking into account the growing unemployment and bankruptcy in the middle classes. He also criticized a VAT on the Internet service from stratum 3 just when the virtualization of work and education have made it an essential item of all households, also the VAT on funeral services in the midst of a pandemic and with figures of 400 deaths a day .

Criticisms continued against the VAT on gasoline with the consequent transfer of costs to public transport and goods; the authorization to municipalities to install urban tolls within the cities and the payment of tolls for motorcycles and more measures "where citizens enter to pay what has not been spent and is not going to be spent."

Image
Peaceful social mobilization is not made visible like isolated violent events, which serves the press to demonize the protests and the security forces to repress (Photo: Archive)

Between peaceful marches, riots, road closures and clashes with the Police, the protests have lasted up to four days and were massive in Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, Barranquilla and Cartagena. Multiple cases and reports of police abuse were reported and there were reports of victims whose numbers vary.

The National Ombudsman, Carlos Camargo, affirmed that the four days of protests in the city of Cali resulted in 10 deaths, while Defense Minister Diego Molano reported that four homicides were being investigated. Local human rights groups, for their part, even point out that the fatalities during the protests amount to 14 .

Uribe, for his part, called for the use of lethal force against the protesters through his twitter account, this generated a massive protest on the virtual platform demanding that the former president's account be blocked on that network.

The company deleted its tweet alluding that the ex-president violated the policy of "glorification of violence" while he justified himself by declaring his intention to "prevent vandalism in the main cities of the country, which generate terrorism and fear among citizens."

Duque affirmed that the necessary measures of "military assistance" would be taken to "guarantee supplies, mobility, the right to work and security in the national territory," noting that the Army and the Police are ready to continue acting. "We are not going to allow de facto means, the destruction of property or the message of hate to have a place," he said.

But everything has its end. On Sunday, May 2, Duque announced that he would withdraw the reform to formulate a new text that would seek to "build a new initiative based on consensus, which allows us to find the necessary resources to pay the expenses of the pandemic and guarantee the social aid that require ". The pressure obtained a momentary payoff, with noticeable casualties as usual in the social and armed conflict that Colombia has been experiencing for more than half a century.

A smoke remains in the air that does not dissipate: the questions about a country in which violence does not disappear and whose military spending is the highest in the region, which exports its internal war and even uses it to exacerbate regime change In Venezuela.

Once again, the intention to make those who did not cause it pay and those who never benefited from the policies that generated this chronicle of a serious economic crisis, were defeated. The story goes on.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/co ... -protestas

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

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Thu May 06, 2021 12:55 pm

ESMAD: US COUNTERINSURGENCY MODEL APPLIED TO THE CIVILIAN POPULATION
May 4 , 2021 , 3:15 pm .

Image

The last few days have been hell for the Colombian population in different cities and regions, where the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (Esmad) has been the main protagonist of the multiple complaints for actions that violate the human rights of citizens in the context of the protests for the tax reform promoted by the government of Iván Duque and against the system supervised by the United States prevailing in Colombia .

Different counterinsurgency tactics have manifested themselves in the police and military repression on the population, and with them a series of complaints that have been representative of the Esmad record throughout its history.


This apparatus of social repression was created within the framework of the export of the US National Security Doctrine model through Plan Colombia, during the presidency of Andrés Pastrana. The activities of the Esmad can only be understood under the recent history of the social and armed conflict that the neighboring country has experienced for decades.

AN IMPORTED COUNTERINSURGENCY MODEL
In order to gain geopolitical power and control, the export of the American policing model began during the Cold War, when the security establishment traveled to more than 50 countries offering assistance to stop the "spread of communism" to local police forces, creating with The success of a network of repressive police forces at the transnational level under its aegis.

This practice continues to sustain her. Today, the United States trains police in 91 different countries, primarily in the Global South. According to an article recently published in The Washington Post , "US funding for foreign police training expanded from $ 4.3 million in 2001 to $ 146 million in 2018." With the incessant financial increase it is understood that the training of the police abroad is essential to Washington's interests in the world.

Colombia was made one of the first countries to import the American police model. In 1999, the Colombian government, backed by President Bill Clinton, created Esmad as part of the Plan Colombia military assistance program, one of the prides of current President Joe Biden.

Plan Colombia constituted the United States' response to the insurgent escalation of the guerrillas in the 1990s, using the fight against drugs as an excuse and deepening the insertion of organizations such as the DEA, the CIA and their systematic indoctrination programs of the public forces. Colombian.

With Plan Colombia and the beginnings of Esmad in 2000, complaints of violence against social leaders and activists began to emerge while silencing peaceful protests in different regions of the country. In rural areas, Esmad has been used against protests led by peasant communities, including attacks against indigenous Mingas and communities protesting for different local and national motives. The aggressive force they impart on these communities echoes the country's history of state neglect and structural violence, under the American doctrinal aegis.

But it is not only about Plan Colombia: in previous decades, the United States was cementing its National Security Doctrine to the repressive and military structure of Colombia during different presidencies, tending a strategic thread of its interests to the reasons of the Colombian State. This is documented by the academic Francisco Javier Toloza (pp. 249-278):

Within a few years the disastrous Yarborough Mission (1962) introduced into the country the ideology of the "internal enemy", the "method of taking the water from the fish", the techniques of monitoring, repression and torture of opponents, psychological warfare operations and the accompaniment of the state counterinsurgency with paramilitary mercenarism. A secret North American mission (1960) advises the creation of the civil intelligence organization (former DAS) with the consequent interference in the definition of objective methods and plans, as well as the obvious access to national security information (Vega, 2015). The appearance of the so-called Anti-Narcotics Police in the 1980s also shows the express participation of the United States, as well as that of the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad, ESMAD (2000),

Seen this way, it is conclusive that the overlap between the police forces of the United States and Colombia is not a coincidence. The foundations of the relationship between the United States and Colombia are based on efforts to safeguard US geopolitical and geoeconomic interests in Colombia through military and police cooperation.

GREAT BRITAIN ALSO TRAINS ESMAD

An investigation by British journalist John McEvoy reveals that "the UK Police College has been training Colombian police. This has been going on for the last three years in a row: 2018, 2019 and 2020. All training took place in Colombia".

Although there is no information on exactly where the training has occurred, the nature of the training and the cost, McEvoy states that "the issue is of public concern in light of possible UK government complicity in human rights abuses in abroad".

The report states that the College "has been criticized for receiving millions of pounds to train repressive police regimes. These include Saudi Arabia, where the death penalty remains legal." It also quotes the institution's website, reaffirming its commitment:

"The UK Police Service works closely with government departments ... to ensure that the assistance provided is consistent with UK national objectives."

Taking into account the participation of the United Kingdom Police College in police training in Colombia, it can be said that, like the United States, it is also responsible for the crimes committed by Esmad in recent years by designation of origin, also providing the counterinsurgent training, lessons that they put into practice on the civilian population even when they are unarmed and in the middle of a peaceful demonstration.


20 YEARS OF COMPLAINTS
When a wave of protests broke out in Bogotá and other Colombian cities in September of last year, the State's response was to take Esmad to the streets, resulting in more than a dozen people killed by the repressive actions.

In previous years, the multiple activities of Esmad against the civilian population have been denounced without any reform to the organization or proper attention or repair to the victims and their families.

Between 1999 and 2018, Esmad killed 18 people in Bogotá alone, according to the Peace and Reconciliation organization .
Official reports show that most of Esmad's interventions have been in the department of Cauca, a zone of guerrilla and indigenous presence.
In recent years, the agency carried out property eviction operations: 1,154 between 2013 and 2015, according to official figures.
Despite the documented killings and severe brutality committed by Esmad, the police institution has continued to receive government funding to grow and strengthen itself, going from 200 officers at its inception in 1999 to just over 3,300 today .

The US influence in the repressive apparatuses of Colombia is revealed once with the latest events, unfortunate for the Colombian citizenry. State terrorism that is being applied in cities and rural areas throughout the neighboring country cannot be masked by the lamentations of "excessive use of force" that Atlanticism squanders on social networks and diplomatic spokespersons.

The US counterinsurgency model stains all of Colombia with blood, once again.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/es ... cion-civil

Google Translator

All of a piece, and the unifying link across national boundaries is class.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Sat May 08, 2021 1:50 pm

COLOMBIA: WHEN THE STATE DOES NOT SERVE THE RICH OR THE POOR
May 7 , 2021 , 9:08 am .

Image
(Photo: El Cayapo)

That March 16, 1781, when Manuela Beltrán broke in the public square of El Socorro with the edict on the increase in taxes, she never imagined that she would contribute, on the one hand, to breaking the moorings with the nauseating Spanish monarchy and, on the other hand, another, would lay the foundational foundations of an oligarchic caste, which in its bad seed nested all hatred, fear and hunger that arrived from Europe, but also inherited the frightful knack of being subservient to any foreign power that would show its teeth, demanding of it for crumbs the benefits of the territory and the efforts of its inhabitants.

This has been manifested in each of his acts, the sibylline, the betrayals, the servility to foreign power, personified in Francisco de Paula Santander, his most famous representative. These are its distinctive features that, more than two centuries later, keep the Colombian population in subjugation, in the name of the interests of the transnational corporations that today have destroyed the Colombian territory, to distribute it to them like a feast of zamuros in the middle of a garbage dump.

But this unworthy and miserable caste of beggars, with pretense of owners, fed by the weakest, has its birth in the wars between different empires, specifically Europeans, between obscurantist Spain and the nascent capitalist England.

The burgeoning capitalism offers landowner slaveholders, bloated in their crimes and robberies in these lands, a better deal in their trade, that is, better pay for their merchandise, without having to go through the drowning taxes of the Spanish crown, but also without claims of their outrages because capitalism had already imposed the freedom of "letting go, letting go."

This aberration of the bourgeois revolution that was taking place in Europe was never realized, nor was it his interest, that centuries later it would be used not only to oppress and assassinate the Colombian working people, but would also be used as a beachhead for transnational corporations to they could at will try to invade and subdue their neighbors.

The so-called Colombian oligarchy, which has as a scapegoat not only the State but all that opposes it, has used not only the territory to fatten the large transnational corporations, but has also delivered the US imperial army without honor, contingents of young Colombians to go to die in Korea, Vietnam and other wars of prey initiated by imperialism.

This monstrosity born of murderous and thieving landowners, raised by the most criminal of the world's warrior cultures, such as the European elites, has a record of cruelty and betrayal against its own people. Already in 1928 he lent himself to defend the interests of the United Fruit Company, which exploited the Colombian workers in slavery, because they demanded better conditions to hand over their forces to this transnational. The response was forceful and cruel: more than 3,000 workers were killed. It should be noted that this same corporation unleashed massacres and wars in other parts of the world, especially in Central America.

The vampires liked that blood of the people and 20 years later they assassinated with premeditation and treachery the lawyer who defended the banana workers in front of thousands of his followers in the public thoroughfare; his name was Jorge Eliecer Gaitán. With this fact, they gave continuity to the tragedy unleashed by the European elites for more than 500 years against this industrious people.

From now on, crime and looting have not stopped, begging, crying, the call for help, fearful silence, care in the language of the subjugated people, acts of bravery, uprisings, armed struggles have not been enough. , the attempts to organize for the protection or seizure of power, nothing has stopped these sibylline snakes, that everything that they bite, poison and rot, they do not respect any negotiation or performance, no truce or pact, they respond to everything in each time with more viciousness and violence, with more robbery and crime. If any people in the world have the right to abandon and abandon their satraps, it is the Colombian people, for having subjected them to the greatest torment that any people have ever suffered.

This outgrowth of the world bourgeoisie feels beautiful and supported by all the transnational corporations and their institutions of civil servants without any modesty, or shame, puppets, hypocrites, servile; call yourselves the UN, the OAS and their derivatives, NGOs, UNESCO, churches, which support and applaud your felonies. These infamous ones also count on companies or media corporations owned by them or by foreign corporations to hide their crimes, their robberies, their looting with false information. All this pandering of elites in different spheres is due to the fact that they all rape in the same territory what it contains, plus the merciless exploitation of its inhabitants, because these institutions and corporations are a structural systemic framework that belongs to and protects each other.

Their practices have contaminated with indignity many intellectuals, politicians, artists, professionals who scavenge the crumbs that, from time to time, the satrapy drops them for services rendered, because yes, they charge everything, they give nothing, and if a few They do not accept the bribe, they try to impose it on them, and if they do not receive it, then they are forced into exile, assassinated, imprisoned. This continuing crime has not stopped in more than 500 years, this rot over the centuries has fulfilled its role as a hit man without any compassion, because in its bustle it has only perfected its methods of robbery, gobbledygook and crime.

This felony, in the last 60 years, has been perfecting its impudence, because it has not only handed over the entire territory to Monsanto / Bayer, the oil companies, the mining companies, but it is also the spearhead of drug production in the world, the latest fashion trend imposed by corporations.

Today the Colombian territory is used to produce 80% of the world's cocaine, this territory is controlled by the large landowners who in turn are partners of the financial companies, producers, transporters and marketers of the drug, which in a criminal network Like any transnational or local corporation, they accumulate wealth at the expense of displaced people, immigrants, uprooted, including the disappeared, massacred, because their murders leave the way free for these power sick.

THE COLOMBIAN PEOPLE ONCE AGAIN RISE ABOVE THEIR EXECUTIONERS AND THEIR GLOBAL PIMPS

From all this tale of real horror, where the maxim is brutally fulfilled that no fiction, no matter how fiction it may be, will be able to overcome reality, an unquestionable lesson remains for this species, and that is that above any tragedy, life, as already said , he does not commit suicide.

The Colombian people once again rise above their executioners and their global pimps and show themselves with all their vigor, with all their joy, to shout to the world, to their species, to their fellow human beings, that today more than ever we are alive. and in a position to abandon the yoke, to be others, not to carry the curse of Santander and to show the true, real blood from where we descend: from the liberating fathers, with Bolívar at the forefront, trying to redeem ourselves from independence, designing a future, a destiny as a people, in conjunction with the other peoples that today we struggle to abandon capitalism and its works.

Today in Colombia, the exploited people, after so much shouting, crying and claiming, have come to the conclusion that the State to which they beg no more tragedy does not serve them, it is only a repressive and vulgar instrument in the hands of shameless murderers and criminals. at the service of the worst causes, but it also does not serve the transnationals, because these today require that the State, as it has been known in the last 200 years, is no longer present, it is an obstacle to the new plans of capitalism that needs the territory like a pasture and people like cattle that they can use and serve as they please.

From El Cayapo we want to dedicate this text published in the book What the hell is a revolution? to the brave, audacious and thinking Colombian people.

In the middle of a great revelry with his intimates, he fell with all the sphincters open, trying to get rid of an overdose of wealth. One day at the end of the nineteenth century, in the midst of his death throes, two great and butcher wars recommended by experts placed him in a coma in the middle of the twentieth century, but they were of no use, and the corpse continued to swallow life desperately in endless small wars, applying itself a tourniquet called programmed obsolescence engineering, which in no way remedied his drowning, but on the contrary, he choked avoiding oxygenation, until one day in the middle of the inauguration of the twenty-first century his widows and relatives woke up to the unpleasant news that he had dead, and since then they have tried to hide his death, putting makeup on and perfuming the old corpse,

THE GRAVEDIGGERS

Here we are all the poor of the planet, full in the trades, with living amazement discovering the hidden. We have come from all corners of the planet to bury this entelechy with all its weapons and spoils, with all its virtues and its vices, with all its failures and its successes, with its demons, divinities and sanctities, with its must have been settled, with its infinite bankruptcies, with its inefficiencies and efficiencies, with its leonine debts and collections, with its triumphs and defeats, with its companies and loneliness, with its love and its lack of love, with its rights and twists, with its equalities, fraternities and freedoms, with its prisons, madhouses and hospitals, with its classicism, renaissance, enlightenment and romanticism, with its forms, reforms and counter-reforms, its revolutions and counterrevolutions, with its war and peace,

It is not up to us to be policemen, prosecutors or judges to judge what is judged by our own hand, nor do justice; It is not our turn to revenge or revenge, we only come to fulfill the office of burying, just as we have fulfilled all the other and infinite offices that we have created in our marvelous and wonderful union and that the voracity of someone who was known as Humanism had secularly snatched it from us for centuries and centuries, we have come to announce that with this burial we are also leaving, conceptual and natural children of capitalism. This is the great task.

May no one sympathize with us, may no one cry for us, may no one applaud the task, it is our duty to accomplish it.


THE POWER OF NAMING

Let people dream now, but let us not dream of us to satisfy what was lost. What happened, happened was. That they do not dream of themselves as owners, that they dream of themselves as people, and if one day this story is to be told, fear, hunger and ignorance, a tragedy of the grandparents, become like a never again.

Live strongly in this bright hour, the Colombian people.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/co ... -ni-pobres

Google Translator

*************************************************************

Update on the National Strike in Colombia: ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE
May 7, 2021

Members of the Francisco Isaias Cifuentes Human Rights Network in Cali, Colombia put themselves between police and a crowd participating in the National Strike.

Image
Members of the Francisco Isaias Cifuentes Human Rights Network in Cali, Colombia put themselves between police and a crowd participating in the National Strike.

ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE TO SUPPORT THE NATIONAL STRIKE IN COLOMBIA

Send an email to Colombian authorities and the White House demanding an end to the repression.
https://default.salsalabs.org/Tbcc6ad5d ... 5a049d08df

Send an email to your Congress person urging them to take appropriate actions to end the assaults on the National Strike.
https://default.salsalabs.org/T25c19327 ... 5a049d08df

Attend the United National AntiWar Coalition’s webinar “Rebellion in Colombia”, Saturday, May 8, at 4pm Eastern Time, featuring (in order of appearance):
James Jordan, Alliance for Global Justice
Charo Mina-Rojas, Afro-Colombian Human Rights Defender
William Camacaro, Bolivarian Circle
Ajamu Baraka, Black Alliance for Peace

https://default.salsalabs.org/Tf1a1f37a ... 5a049d08df

Greetings to all. The popular strike and national demonstrations continue in Colombia, as does the repression. We want to thank everyone who contributed to the fund to support victims of police violence in the region of Cali, Colombia, where the repression has been concentrated and especially fierce. We have collected more than $4,000 from over 70 contributors. This not only helps the movement in the streets with vitally needed materials; this is a form of solidarity that reaches deep into the heart and soul of Colombia’s popular resistance to encourage them to stay strong.

We will be following up in a few days with more detailed news and analysis about the strike. Briefly, the government has been impeding the flow of information with rolling electrical blackouts, interruption of internet, suspension and censorship of Facebook accounts, and disruption of telephone communications. Nevertheless, reports do continue to get through, and what we are hearing is very concerning. We have heard reports of two youth burned alive by police in Cali, of takeovers of major cities by the U.S. funded and armed ESMAD riot police and Colombian military, multiple reports of troops saying they have received orders to “shoot to kill” (which top officials deny), of houses being set on fire by police, of random shooting into Cali neighborhoods by helicopter gunships. Some things we can confirm—for instances, we have videos of the helicopters flying over and firing on residential parts of Cali. Some we cannot. But so many reports are coming in, the situation is certainly dire and chaotic.

As always, we in the U.S. must remember that Colombia’s weapons of repression flow south from Washington, DC—whether the Democrats or Republicans are in power. We have to change that.

Image
Darnelly Rodriguez’ shoulder showing one of the bruises she sustained from police beating of human rights defenders.

One of the most troubling allegations has been that the police are not respecting even officially recognized human rights monitors. The following is from a notice that details aggressions against human rights monitors including Darnelly Rodriguez, who coordinates the Cali chapter of the Francisco Isaias Human Rights Network (REDDHFIC). REDDHFIC, along with the Alliance for Global Justice and five other popular movement organizations, are members of the Centro Pazífico Human Rights Center.

According to a notice released on May 5, 2021:

At around 8:40 p.m., the verification mission arrived at the Fray Damian police station, informed the police officers of their presence, and requested to conduct a verification because they had information of people detained at the site. The police officers let them pass on the condition that they do so individually.

Delegates from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights and the Attorney General’s Office entered the National Police facilities while human rights defenders Darnelly Rodríguez (REDDHFIC), Ana María Burgos (Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners Foundation and Defend Freedom Campaign), James Larrea (Unitary Workers Center – “AFLCIO of Colombia”), Rubén Darío Gómez (Observatory of Social Realities of the Archdiocese of Cali) and an official from the Ombudsman’s Office waited their turn to enter.

Outside, a police officer began to shout at the defenders saying that they were “good for nothing”, accusing them “why didn’t they defend the police” and kicking them out of the place, saying “you are good for nothing, go away, you useless people”. Immediately, police officers came out of the station, surrounded the defenders, and started shouting at them.

This part of the Verification Mission was forced to try to leave the site, but one police officer assaulted human rights defender James Larrea and others assaulted human rights defenders Darnelly Rodríguez and Ana María Burgos. The police officers surrounded them and shouted at them to leave the place, so the defenders accelerated their pace to leave and received threats that they were going to be killed.

Nevertheless, these brave human rights defenders are not daunted. The very night of this beating, after being treated in the emergency room, Darnelly was back in touch with us at AFGJ, telling us about the latest news, strategizing on how to keep up the struggle in the streets and how to build international solidarity. Bruised, beaten, in fear for their lives—they keep on.

When will the repressors learn: the resistance will never die, not until the repressor is gone forever.

https://afgj.org/update-on-the-national ... u-can-take
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Sun May 16, 2021 12:50 pm

Colombia: Congressional Action; Update; and the Great Popular Audience
May 14, 2021

Image

We at the Alliance for Global Justice want to express our sincerest gratitude to all of you who have acted to support the popular strike in Cali and throughout Colombia during this period of brutal repression. Despite the repression, the biggest story of all is that even with all their US supplied guns and bullets and tear gas cannisters and helicopters firing randomly on the people from overheard, the forces of State-sponsored and paramilitary repression cannot hold back the victories people are achieving in securing their demands. You are very much a part of this. Many of you have given to our fund to support street medics and human rights defenders in Cali. Many of you have responded to the call to write Colombian and international authorities and the White House to demand an end to the repression.
https://afgj.org/street-medic-supplies- ... n-colombia
https://afgj.salsalabs.org/colombiadesp ... index.html


We are writing you now to ask you to take action to urge your representative in the U.S. Congress to sign the “Dear Colleague” letter on Colombia that is currently being circulated.https://actionnetwork.org/letters/conta ... nal-police


AFGJ will continue to report on the struggles in the streets in Cali and throughout Colombia. According to a report released this morning by the Fundación Lazos de Dignidad (Links of Dignity Foundation),



INFORMATIVE BULLETIN OF THE FOUNDATION LAZOS DE DIGNIDAD

Having occurred in 16 days of PROTESTS IN COLOMBIA

We share for the national and international public opinion the up-to-the-moment statistics that we have registered in violation of Human Rights:

341 persons who are victims of physical violence. Deeds presumably attributed to members of the public forces.
53 Homicides Presumably attributed to members of the public forces.
1431 cases of arbitrary detentions. We have seen evidenced that the detained persons are not guaranteed their rights, because they have already been victims of physical and verbal violence.
551 persons DISAPPEARED since the beginning of the protests.
423 cases of police repression
29 persons with wounds to their eyes
30 ACTS OF GENDER DIRECTED VIOLENCE
1 POLICE HELD CRIMINALY RESPONSIBLE. We have seen evidenced that the organisms of control and vigilance have been absent whenever excesses of the public forces are denounced.

Finally, we present to you an English translation of the Political Declaration of the Great Popular Audience of Colombia, in which Colombian popular movements and international supporters gave testimony against the aggression occurring against the popular strike, as well as celebrating the victories that have been won:

Political Declaration
Colombia Great Popular Audience

May 13, 2021

From all the corners of our country, in the name of the most diverse expressions of the current social mobilization, since April 28, men and women have decided to take to the streets. Convened in a Great Popular Audience, we want to make known for the national and international public opinion that:

1.Colombia is facing one of the deepest crises in its history, which has forced the excluded majorities to rise up and demand solutions. The sharp economic recession since 2020, the inundation of poverty that affects more than 21 million compatriots, the destruction of public finances and the greatest inequality in Latin America, are just some of the examples of the daily suffering that we demand be solved with real social policies. The withdrawal of the health reform presented by [President Iván] Duque, the construction of a truly progressive tax reform, the enactment of basic income and an emergency package for the most vulnerable regions and sectors of the population, are urgent measures to seek an exit to this crisis.
2.We reject the authoritarianism of the present government and its fascist actions. Popular protest cannot be silenced with the massacre that the security forces have carried out, nor with the promotion of paramilitarism represented by the armed civilians against the mobilization. The repression, murder, physical violence, sexual abuse, and criminalization against protestors violate the most elemental democratic principles. We demand that the high military and civil commands assume their responsibility for the crimes committed during the National Strike and open an authentic process of truth, justice, reparation, and non-repetition for the victims. The President must immediately cease the militarization of the cities and the acts of war against the social mobilization. Duque must give the order to stop the death, let the perpetrators be tried, liberate the political prisoners from the strike and clarify the status regarding disappeared persons.
3.With the great leading role of the youth, the profound national crisis has raised up new and massive sectors of the county to join together in the strike against the economic policies of the present government, of the corruption and the absence of democratic guarantees. The street and the “cacerola”* is the decisive voice of the majorities without voice. The proof of the massive strength and inconformity is the unprecedented powerful triumph to defeat Duque’s tax reform. This is a historic strike that is showing us that the social mobilization works. Despite the repression, this is a potent and victorious strike that overflows to whatever social organization or existing politic, and whose resolution demands the wide participation of the diverse majorities. This is the strike of the people: young people, women, students, workers, unemployed, ethnic and rurual peoples that are victims of this system.
4.We call on the Colombian people to maintain themselves firmly in our struggle demanding unerring gestures from the national government to resolve the present crisis. We call for building the route of struggle without exclusions to continue obtaining victories to benefit everyone. This people who are resisting and rising up will be the builders of a new reality where the implementation of the Havana Accord may be possible, the peace complete, the health, education, dignified life and work [be] for all. As our beloved Gabo** said on receiving the Nobel prize:

“A new and sweeping utopia of life, where no one can decide for others even how to die, where truthfully love may be sure and happiness may be possible, and where the races condemned to a hundred years of solitude will finally and forever have a second chance on Earth.”

* [people literally and often spontaneously taking to the streets, patios, front yards to beat pots and pans in protest, including when public demonstrations are being prohibited]

** Gabriel García Márquez

https://afgj.org/colombia-congressional ... r-audience
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Thu May 20, 2021 2:21 pm

Colombian Minister of Defense Summoned for Censure Motion

Image
A woman with her face painted with the colors of the Colombian flag participates in an artistic presentation in front of the El Campín stadium, today in Bogotá (Colombia) | Photo: EFE

Published 19 May 2021

The legislature will debate a motion of censure against the minister in charge of the repression against the National Strike.


The Colombian House of Representatives summoned the Minister of Defense, Diego Molano, to a censure motion debate on May 25 for the excessive use of force by the military and the police, in the context of the protests that the country has been experiencing since April 28.

The information came out through a communiqué from the board of the Colombian lower house, which informed that Molano will have to answer for the militarization of the streets "without fulfilling the requirements in the demonstrations of the last days, facts that could generate consequences that could compromise his functions as minister".

The summoners claim that the public forces have incurred in an omission of their functions of protection of the citizens, exercising abuse of force and actions that do not comply with international humanitarian law.

On May 10, the Chamber's board of directors considered processing the request for a motion of censure "which will deal with matters related to the functions of the Minister of Defense, Dr. Diego Molano Aponte".

"It is necessary for the Congress to use all legal and constitutional mechanisms to face this situation and what must be done immediately is to remove Mr. Molano from the Ministry of Defense", since the country "is living a massacre at the hands of the public forces", according to representative Inti Asprilla.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Col ... -0022.html

Censure? This guy belongs in the slammer. What is he, a US cop or something?

Oh yeah, I guess he is...

*****************************************

Colombia: FARC-EP Second Marquetalia Confirms the Assassination of Commander Jesús Santrich in an Ambush by the Colombian Army
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 18, 2021

Image

COMMUNICATION TO COLOMBIA AND THE WORLD:

We inform Colombia and the world with pain in our hearts, the sad news of the death of Commander Jesús Santrich, member of the FARC-EP’s Second Marquetalia Directorate, in an ambush executed by Colombian army commandos on May 17. It happened in the Serranía del Perijá, a binational border zone, between El Chalet and Los Laureles, inside Venezuelan territory. Colombian commandos entered the area by direct order of President Iván Duque. The van where the commander was traveling was attacked with rifle fire and grenade explosions. Once the crime was consummated, the assassins cut off the little finger of his left hand. A few minutes later, nearby, the commandos were quickly extracted in a yellow helicopter headed for Colombia.

To his family, our deepest condolences. We accompany them in their infinite desolation and in the sadness that overwhelms their soul.

Santrich fell free; free as he wanted. Free while dreaming of the New Colombia in complete peace, with social justice, democracy and dignified life for its people, for the poor of the earth, the excluded and discriminated, and the defenseless population brutally attacked these days by the army and the police in the streets by order of the monstrous tyranny of Duque and Álvaro Uribe

Santrich has departed to eternity carrying his light, with the geopolitical vision of Bolivar and Manuel dreaming of the victory of unity, brotherhood and solidarity of the peoples of the continent.

The news of Santrich’s death will not save the arrogant tyrant Ivan Duque from the unleashed popular anger. To the Colombian people mobilized for 20 days in permanent protest against the corrupt government, we ask, in homage to Santrich, that they do not slacken in their just struggle and to throw themselves with all their strength to defeat this damned regime that is squeezing us to the soul.

We call on them to continue fighting in the streets until we have a new government of the people and for the people, one that is more humane, that considers the dignity of the people and not just increasing the privileges of the oligarchies, a government without corrupt people and thieves of the State, as the fallen commander sought in the struggle.

We salute those who have departed, but who are still with us, like Jesús Santrich, the man who consistently fought for a peace for Colombia without betrayal and without perfidy.

Colombian people, for the victory,

CHARGE!

FARC-EP Second Marquetalia

May 18, 2021

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2021/05/ ... bian-army/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Sat May 22, 2021 1:17 pm

Colombia's National Strike Committee: Protests Continue

Image
The National Strike Committee remarks that the government still refuses to condemned police brutality and establish guarantees for the right to protest peacefully. | Photo: Twitter/ @

Published 21 May 2021

Maltes announced that the National Strike Committee will also demand "the motion of censure to the Minister of Defense, Diego Molano" as nationwide protests are expected for May 26 and 28, marking a month of social unrest against social injustice, police brutality and repression carried out by the government.

Colombia's National Strike Committee confirmed on Friday that the mobilizations will continue, as protests enter their 24th day amid violations of human rights and police brutality.

The president of the Central Unitary of Workers (CUT), Francisco Maltés explained that the Committee has not reached an agreement with president Ivan Duque and although they will continue holding meetings with the cabinet, the demonstrations won't stop.


"This event that occurred on March 20 in Bucaramanga is further evidence that the @PoliciaColombia @PoliciaColombia did not comply with the ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice that ordered to protect the right to protest from the systematic violence of the public forces. That boy could have been killed."
Maltes announced that the National Strike Committee will also demand "the motion of censure to the Minister of Defense, Diego Molano" as nationwide protests are expected for May 26 and 28, marking a month of social unrest against social injustice, police brutality and repression carried out by the government.

On the other hand the president of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), Percy Oyola urged mayors and governors to intervene to solve the problems in the regions and organize themselves so they can talk directly with the government.

After several attempts to reach an understanding, the National Strike Committee remarks that the government still refuses to condemned police brutality and establish guarantees for the right to protest peacefully. According to non-governmental organizations, Indepaz and Temblores since the beginning of the protests there have been 51 killings and 2387 police brutality victims among other serious human rights violations.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Col ... -0025.html

**************************************************

Colombia: Constitutional Court Revives Peace Seats

Image
A group of women performs the performance "A rapist on your way" during a sit-in to protest the murders, sexual abuse of women and violation of human rights of which they are accused | Photo: EFE

Published 21 May 2021

The Constitucional Court agreed with the senator Roy Barreras and revived the 16 peace seats in the Congress of the Republic

The political controversy reached the high court through a tutela action filed by Senator Roy Barreras.

By ruling on a tutela action filed by Senator Roy Leonardo Barreras Montealegre against the Board of Directors of the Senate of the Republic, the Constitutional Court gave the green light for the reactivation of the 16 seats for victims.

The controversy of a political nature reached the High Court through a tutela action filed by the senator after, in 2017, in the Congress of the Republic, the bill that had as an initiative that the victims of the conflict would have a voice and vote in the legislature was sunk.

In the first instance, the Administrative Court of Cundinamarca denied the claims of the legal action.

"It corrects the injustice that for many meant that in Congress there were seats for the perpetrators, but not for the victims," said Barreras, indirectly alluding to the fact that the peace agreement reserved 10 seats in the two chambers for demobilized members of the FARC guerrillas.

The "Constitutional Court did justice to the victims of the conflict, especially to the victims of the 170 PDET (Program for Development with a Territorial Approach) municipalities, the areas most affected by the armed confrontation in Colombia", considered former Minister of the Interior Juan Fernando Cristo.

"It was ratified that Congress did have enough votes to approve the initiative. From now on, from 2022 to 2030, these municipalities, where more than six million victims live, will have a voice in Congress to defend their interests and demand compliance with the Peace Agreement," added Cristo.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Col ... -0027.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Mon May 24, 2021 1:48 pm

Alert report on possible torture sites and mass graves in Cali

Image
The document specifies that some young people from Cali reported as missing were executed in the municipalities of Guacarí and Buga. | Photo: Colprensa
Published May 23, 2021 (13 hours 6 minutes ago)

The report from the human rights organizations asserts that 120 disappearances have been reported in Cali from April 28 to date.

The Legal and Humanitarian Team 21 N, the Justice and Dignity Corporation, and the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace, published a report this Sunday revealing reports of sites used by paramilitaries and police for detention, torture and even disappearances of protesters in the city Colombian woman from Cali, located in the department of Valle del Cauca.

"Since May 13, 2021, our organizations have received absolutely scabrous and delicate reports that hurt the conscience of humanity due to police behavior and practices," the report warns.

Human Rights defender organizations (HRD) assert that since May 2, there have been reports that the Municipal Administrative Center (CAM) of Cali is allegedly used as a covert operations center by the public force.


"Some young people were taken to basements (of the CAM), hours later they were taken out in polarized vans (...) later sources reported the mobility of trucks that, apparently, are part of means used by the Police for their mobility In some of these, young people were taken at night to the sector known as Mulaló, Yumbo district, located 30 minutes from Cali. There, in a previously prepared place they would be unloading bodies of young people from the popular neighborhoods that participate in the mobilizations and who are considered missing ", explains the document.

Likewise, the report reveals that since May 14 there were reports of possible mass graves in rural areas of the municipalities of Buga and Yumbo, neighboring sectors of Cali, "in those places, apparently the bodies of many young people from Cali were being taken away. ", they add.

The document specifies that some young people from Cali reported as missing were executed in the municipalities of Guacarí and Buga (located less than 40 minutes from Cali), "some of the survivors of the executions were found with gunshot wounds in health centers and today they are terrified and in hiding ", they limit.

Appearance of the pique houses in Cali
The organizations reveal in their report that in Ciudad Jardín, a neighborhood located in Cali and where people dressed in white attacked the indigenous minga with gunshots, the pique houses were established, places used to dismember people.

"Today, May 23, a more delicate version of the operations of the armed civilian groups protected by the police was revealed. A Pique House was installed in the exclusive place of Ciudad Jardín," the report states.

The document assures that citizens are afraid to report the chilling events that have been perpetrated both by the Police and by a group of armed civilians supported by the public force, "due to the well-founded fear that eventual witnesses may witness of being victimized in their lives. , integrity and freedom, the adoption of technical measures typical of the judicial investigation is required, "they add.

"Some family members have shared with our organization some names of the young people who are detained, then taken to a police facility in Meléndez and days later their whereabouts are unknown," states the organizations' statement.

The report asks the Colombian State to guarantee the investigation processes with experts from the Institute of Legal Medicine and the Unit for the Search for Missing Persons, as well as the company of national and international humanitarian organizations.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/colombia ... -0015.html

Google Translator

********************************

Colombia: Duque’s Representative in Negotiations Quit

Image
Jhon Erik Larrahondo, another victim of Duque's repression

Published 23 May 2021

National strike in its 26th day. One youngster, Jhon Erik Larrahondo, was shot dead in Cali


Miguel Ceballos was the government's voice in the negotiations with the National Strike Committee. It is the third resignation in Duque's Executive in the last month.

The strike is in its 26th day, showing unabated resolve across the country, in spite of growing and brutal repression on orders of Iván Duque.
One youngster, Jhon Erik Larrahondo was shot dead in Cali, while the Government announced the death of policeman Carlos Ceballos, member of the feared ESMAD squadron of riot-police, from burns caused by a Molotov cocktail.


In Cali, a roundtable was held with representatives from the “front line” and accompaniment from international human rights organizations.
The Calipso sector in the east of Cali, capital of the southern department of Valle del Cauca, became a battlefield when public security forces clashed with protesters from Saturday afternoon until the early hours of Sunday morning.
In Bogotá, a group of 16 lawmakers pleaded the Inter-American Human Rights Court to send a mission to Colombia as a matter of urgency.
In Cali, human rights groups denounced that said facilities of the Éxito chain store were used as a torture and murder center.
Since 03:00 hours on Saturday, the area was surrounded by a large number of police officers, who cordoned off all blocks and forced people to lock themselves in their homes.
The police action generated a strong confrontation with the so-called "front line", who with stones and sticks confronted security forces firing firearms, stun bombs and tear gas.
Everything exploded when the police prevented the entrance of human rights observers to the Éxito Calipso warehouse where -according to the community- floors and clothes of the place remained with traces of blood.
The version has been denied by local authorities, who assured that they entered the warehouse and did not verify any of the allegations.
In the midst of the repeated scenes of violence and repression experienced in several neighborhoods of Cali since the national strike took shape, the organized communities denounce the disappearance of 558 people.
Neighbors of the area also reported sounds of gunshots, detonations and the overflight of a police helicopter during the night.
During the course of the night, the disturbances continued, while the demonstrators denounced the actions of the police.
On the other hand, human rights organizations reported that some people were seriously injured in these events, so it is expected that the authorities deliver a balance of what happened.
Through a publication in social networks, the Guagua Foundation denounced that the events in Calipso left two people dead, six injured and four detained.
"As a consequence of the brutal repression with firearms by the Police and the GOES in the points of Calipso and Puerto Madera. We hold the National Government, its minister Diego Molano and other military authorities responsible for what happened," said the foundation.
According to Contagio Radio, on Saturday night Jhon Erik Larrahondo was murdered in the Calipso sector in Cali.

https://youtu.be/ZmnfzwjRi9E

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Col ... -0002.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 02, 2021 2:03 pm

Image

Winners, Losers, and Human Rights Abusers in Colombia’s National Strike
May 30, 2021
By James Patrick Jordan – May 30, 2021

It is just over a month since Colombia’s National Strike (Paro Nacional) began. The international community is appalled by the endless reports of atrocities and abuses by the ESMAD riot police and Colombian Armed Forces (which combine the military and police under one command), and the right-wing gangs allied with them. As always, we must point out that US funding enables these outrages.

At the same time, we are inspired and encouraged by the tenacity and continued momentum of the popular movements and the victories that they have achieved. Along with the anger and grief we all must feel, there is something else we should recognize: popular movements are winning this struggle!

Send an email to demand an end to the targeting of health, media, and human rights workers supporting Colombia’s national strike!

Image
Armando Álvarez

Casualties of the resistance
There were hopes that the repression would abate following the signing of a “pre-agreement” on Monday, May 24, 2021, between the National Strike Committee and the government. The main point was to guarantee the right to protest. However, no sooner was this announced than police repression of protests was underway yet again. The very day of the announcement, Armando Álvarez, assistant director of a Cali health clinic, who was supporting street medics, was murdered by an unknown assassin.

Repression following the pre-agreement was heaviest in Tuluá. (Tuluá is home to a police airbase that receives US funding.) Before the next day had ended, two people would be killed there as part of the national strike. One was an 18-year-old protester and pre-Law student named Camilo Andrés Arango García. His death has been attributed to the police by the Colombian organization Indepaz.

Image
Camilo Andrés Arango García

Juan Camilo Vargas was killed while carrying out activities as a street medic. He was killed attending to the wounded from a base that had been supplied with first aid supplies funded by contributors through the Alliance for Global Justice. Many of you who are reading this contributed towards this fund. We have raised several thousand dollars to supply street medics in Cali, where violence has been at the highest level. We are deeply concerned about the targeting by police and death squads of medical personnel, human rights monitors, and independent journalists. In fact, leaders and members of the organizations we work most closely with in Cali—REDDHFIC (Red de Derechos Humanos Francisco Isaías Cifuentes), CPDH (Comité Permanente de Derechos Humanos), and other members of the Centro Pazífico—have been assaulted and/or threatened by police, and some of them have been forced to abandon their homes and go into hiding. This is personal for us, and I believe it is for you, too.

According to a statement by REDDHFIC, “Juan Camilo Vargas, a young nursing assistant, was lending service to the wounded in the city of Tuluá and agents of ESMAD arrived discharging [their weapons]. A civilian who was accompanying ESMAD shot the young man right in the neck, which caused a significant hemorrhage. The companions who were with Vargas tried to help him, but they were forced to flee since ESMAD continued launching tear gas.”

These continuing assaults are the heartless and desperate attempts of President Iván Duque to impose his will on a nation that has repeatedly frustrated his attempts to destroy Colombia’s peace agreements and break the opposition. He has failed in every way. Even judges and lawyers and clerks of the country have gotten involved. On May 25, almost one month after the National Strike began, members of the judicial branch shut down courts to join protesters in the streets.

On May 26, a Gallup poll showed that Duque’s disapproval rating had hit 76%, the worst in polling history, breaking the record of former president and Duque ally, Andres Pastrana, who, with the Clinton Administration, developed Plan Colombia. (Plan Colombia is an internal war strategy that has been funded by more than $12 billion in US taxes.) The popularity of Duque’s mentor, former president Álvaro Uribe, is also at an all-time low as he continues to battle court processes linking him to death squads. The current repression is considered by some analysts to be an attempted kind of self-coup against peace and the popular will. However, with the resistance continuing to grow, it is clear that the Centro Democrático Party of Uribe and Duque could not possibly win a fair contest in next year’s elections.

I spoke with Davíd Escobar, an independent journalist in Cali, who has organized street medics and helped us distribute our (your) contributions. I had told him that I was concerned particularly about the targeting of journalists, street medics, and human rights monitors; the sabotage of social media and internet; and the seizure of administration of Cali and other cities by the Armed Forces. I wondered if Cali was being used as an experiment in rapidly achieving full spectrum control in a siege of an urban area. What was taking place seemed like an attempt to impose a concentrated, municipal version of the Pentagon’s DIMEFIL strategy for “nation building.” DIMEFIL stands for military coordination of Diplomatic, Information, Military, Economic, Financial, Intelligence, and Law Enforcement components in the invasion, occupation, and administration of a targeted country rebuilt according to the US/NATO Empire’s specifications.

David responded: “Without doubt this experiment has been carried out, but the balance is not very favorable for the government: two overturned reforms, three members of the cabinet have resigned, a commander at the head of the city (Cali) resigned, all the mayor’s cabinet asked to resign, this week will bring about a motion of censure against the Minister of Defense…. The bourgeois dream of total control has shattered, and the international community has its eyes on a dictatorship, and this occurs while Uribismo is imploding under the possibility that this beacon light and guide may be incarcerated. The fascists are desperate.”

To review, on April 28, 2021, a national strike was called by Colombian labor unions and broad sectors of popular, student, Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, and rural movements. The strike was against a tax reform that would have benefited the wealthy while inordinately burdening youth, students, working, and “middle-class” families. That reform has been tabled, one of the strike’s first victories. The strike has other demands, as well, including free education, a fully functioning health system with an adequate response to the coronavirus, and, most important of all, the right for people to participate in electoral and political activities without the fear of being killed, forcibly displaced, or jailed—a primary component of the embattled Colombian Peace Accord signed in 2016. Even before the strike began, human rights defenders, social leaders, unionists, and signatories to the peace agreement were being killed by military and paramilitary agents at a rate of more than one victim per day.

Since the national strike began, according to Indepaz, as of May 25, 54 people had been killed during repression of the strike. The organizations Temblores and REDDHFIC put the figure at 60. Fundación Lazos de Dignidad published a report stating that between April 28 and May 13, 2021, 53 protesters had been killed by members of the public forces, that there had been 1,431 cases of arbitrary detentions, 551 persons disappeared, 29 persons wounded in the eyes, and 30 acts of gender-directed violence. Various sources report as many as 30 acts of sexual violence against women perpetrated by the public forces. Most of the violence has been perpetrated by the hated ESMAD riot police, a highly militarized unit that was created as one of the initial acts of the US and Colombia’s Plan Colombia.

Resisting police violence from Cali to Minneapolis
The scenes of heavily armed, militarized police decked out in armor assaulting crowds of protesters against police violence in Colombia will immediately call to mind the images of repression we witnessed in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Chicago, and around the country during last year’s uprising in the US.

Both the US and Colombia are nations with entrenched and privileged owning classes who wield vast mechanisms of control over population. They are both countries where the gap between the rich and the poor grows daily. In fact, Colombia has the second worst wealth gap in Latin America, following Brazil. Both are countries that have prioritized military, police, jails, and other forms of state coercion and repression over developing truly participatory democracies or meeting social needs. In both countries, those who monopolize power do so based on systems where racism and class oppression are entrenched, and where African-heritage people, Indigenous communities, and low income urban and rural workers suffer disproportionately from poverty, degraded infrastructures, police, paramilitary and para-police violence, and mass incarceration.

But if we only talk about similarities, we should know that we are not making a comparison between equals. Colombia is in the profoundest sense a client state of the US-NATO global Empire. The Marcha Patriótica is one of Colombia’s largest popular movements for a just peace. Their central motto is that they struggle for the second and definitive independence. They are speaking quite specifically about the struggle for real democracy and autonomy, for true freedom and independence from the Empire, and the wealthy class of Colombians who have so gleefully collaborated with and sold out to foreign interests for the sake of their own profit.

ESMAD, the US-funded and much hated Colombian riot police
I already mentioned Plan Colombia and the US role in creating ESMAD. The dismantling of ESMAD has been a demand of this national strike, and of previous strikes. Between its inception in 1999 and September 9, 2020, ESMAD had killed some 34 persons in popular protests. Its entire reason for existence is to repress both urban and rural protests. In rural areas, ESMAD has even committed massacres against communities protesting because they wanted to participate in government programs that would exchange rural infrastructure development and crop substitution programs for giving up their coca, marijuana, and poppy crops. (Such a program is a core component of the 2016 Peace Accord; however, the Colombian government has completely abandoned its commitments in this regard.)

On September 9, 2020, in the early morning hours, a man was beaten to death in Bogotá by police for violating a COVID-related curfew. The city exploded in protest. By the end of the day 13 more people had been killed by ESMAD.

Image
Colombian police helicopter over Cali neighborhood

ESMAD and the Colombian National Police are responsible for the majority of those killed and otherwise assaulted since the current strike began. Early on, we received reports, and then video confirmation, of aerial assaults by police helicopters firing randomly into neighborhoods in Cali. There is a police air base in the city of Tuluá, 57 miles north of Cali. The US has invested considerably in building up police air capabilities. For instance, in 2012, the US government allocated $149 million over one year to support the Colombian National Police aviation program. One casualty of this investment is the young soccer player, Kevin Agudelo, who was killed in a peaceful vigil on May 3 2021. Video footage shows how ESMAD shut off electricity to the street before firing on the crowd. Helicopters belonging to the Colombian military and police are with few to any exceptions provided by the United States.

The popular movement against police brutality and against ESMAD are historical struggles that preceded the uprising in the U.S. The Alliance for Global Justice was present for the strike of November and December of 2019, the largest mass mobilization in the country since the 1970s. Calls for ESMAD to be dismantled were prominent, and I witnessed firsthand the police assaults against protesters. However, the uprising of September 9 in Bogotá, and the current one in Cali and across Colombia, have been carried out by organizers who are keenly aware of and inspired by the U.S. uprising. Just as surely as the oligarchies of the US and Colombia are deeply connected and intertwined, so, too are our popular movements.

Image
REDDHFIC and CPDH putting themselves between protesters and ESMAD

The impact on our partners on the front lines
In September of last year, the Alliance for Global Justice (along with Camino Común, in the US, and, in Colombia, Francisco Isaias Cifuentes Human Rights Network or REDDHFIC, the Permanent Committee on Human Rights or CPDH, the Rural Workers Association of Valle de Cauca or ASTRACAVA, the National Coordination for Indigenous Peoples or CONPI, and the National Coordination for Afro-Colombian Peoples or CONAFRO) opened the Pacific Center for Human Rights, or Centro Pazífico, in Cali. The Centro Pazífico provides office, meeting, and training space to our partners in Cali, as well as short- and medium-term lodging for threatened and displaced social movement leaders, and for national and international human rights accompaniment. It has functioned as a safe space for organizers and threatened activists during the strike.

When we heard about the brutal repression happening in Cali, we began raising money to get supplies to street medics in Cali treating the injured, and also to human rights monitors, as well as to stock up more supplies at the Center. Every group we have worked with has recently been threatened by police and/or paramilitary and para-police agents.

Let me share with you part of the alert we received about the beating of Darnelly Rodriguez, from REDDHFIC, and others. Darnelly is also the acting coordinator for the Centro Pazífico:

At around 8:40 p.m., the verification mission arrived at the Fray Damian police station, informed the police officers of their presence, and requested to conduct a verification because they had information of people detained at the site. The police officers let them pass on the condition that they do so individually.

Delegates from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights and the Attorney General’s Office entered the National Police facilities while human rights defenders Darnelly Rodríguez (REDDHFIC), Ana María Burgos (Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners Foundation and Defend Freedom Campaign), James Larrea (Unitary Workers Center, or CUT–AFLCIO of Colombia), Rubén Darío Gómez (Observatory of Social Realities of the Archdiocese of Cali) and an official from the Ombudsperson’s Office were waiting their turn to enter.

Outside, a police officer began to shout at the defenders, saying that they were “good for nothing,” asking them “why didn’t they defend the police,” and kicking them out of the area, saying “you are good for nothing, go away, you useless people.” Immediately, police officers came out of the station, surrounded the defenders, and started shouting at them.

“This segment of the Verification Mission was forced to try to leave the site, but one police officer assaulted human rights defender James Larrea and others assaulted human rights defenders Darnelly Rodríguez and Ana María Burgos. The police officers surrounded them and shouted at them to leave the place, so the defenders accelerated their pace to leave, and received threats that they were going to be killed.


Image
Bruises suffered by human rights worker during police assault

Nevertheless, these brave human rights defenders are not daunted. The very night of this beating, after being treated in the emergency room, Darnelly was back in touch with us, telling us about the latest news, strategizing on how to keep up the struggle in the streets and how to build international solidarity. Bruised, beaten, in fear for their lives—they keep on.

Human rights, street medics, independent journalists—in the crosshairs of the oppressors
As we are angered by the abuses against our partners, and inspired by their examples, we must pause and reflect on the significance of these assaults and threats. In the case of the attack against Darnelly, she was in the company of international officials from the United Nations and a government representative from the Attorney General’s Office. In another incident, UN Human Rights Monitors denounced the discharge of live ammunition by Colombian police against them on May 3, 2021. We have received numerous reports, some confirmed, many not, of threats against Colombian government, independent, and even UN and Red Cross human rights monitors and humanitarian assistance providers. This is especially worrisome because it represents an escalation designed to take away normally protected and tolerated defenders of the Colombian popular movements, and international accompaniment.

There have also been reports of impersonations of human rights defenders by police or police collaborators. Cristián Castaño, of CPDH in Cali, told me that:

No guarantees exist for human rights organizations. The police are attacking the civil population during the protests with live ammunition. They are not discriminating who are human rights defenders. They don’t even respect United Nations delegations. And in some of the points of resistance, there are people who pose as human rights defenders, but no one knows them, and they aren’t wearing the orange jackets we wear, and don’t have any identification from a known group they are part of. They come in black vests that say “humanitarian rights” on the backs, not human rights. They have a flag in front that says “human rights, and badges very similar to the police badges. One of them was carrying a clipboard with a list. Other human rights monitors saw people with those same vests accompanying the police.

The situation has been similar for journalists, especially independent and alternative journalists. I briefly described the violence against the journalist Davíd Escobar. Not only was he robbed of video equipment following a confrontation with police, he was threatened that he would be killed if he didn’t stop what he was doing. He was in the company of a European journalist who was also threatened. According to the Foundation for Free Press, or FLIP, in the last three years, 583 journalists have reported threats against them in Colombia, more than 80 during the national strike, and 33 have reported actual physical assaults. Many in the US will recognize that this was a feature of the repression against our anti-racist uprising. During the first week alone of the US uprising, FLIP reported 328 press freedom violations.

Image
Brigadistas deliver street medic supplies in Cali

Threats and assaults have become commonplace against those providing care to the wounded during the strike. We have already mentioned the killings of health workers Armando Álvarez and Juan Camilo Vargas on May 24 and 25. A few days before, we received an alert issued by the Student Health Brigade of the University of Valle. The brigade has received many of the supplies bought with AFGJ contributions. They reported “… on the day of May 22, 2021, at 17:28 in the afternoon, the service post located in Calypso… In the common house of the Pondaje [neighborhood], [the Brigade] is surrounded by the public forces…. At the moment there are 20 persons among the brigadistas and patients sheltered inside the house…. We are sounding an advance alert about the situation as a consequence of the various assaults that the medical mission has suffered in the latest days.”

Image

Popular movements are succeeding
Despite all the casualties from the repression, President Duque had steadfastly refused to grant permission for a verification visit from the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights. In yet another reversal forced by popular movements, on the morning of May 27, 2021, Duque stated that the IACHR would be welcome to visit.

The most striking aspect of what’s happening in Colombia is the tenacity of the protests. This movement isn’t new. It’s a continuation of mass struggles that have continued and grown over years. And most impressive is that the protests are making real and significant gains.

I recently participated as an international observer in a virtual Popular Audience of various representatives of popular movements and grassroots organizations. The following is a translation from the political declaration that came out of that meeting. I believe it is more than appropriate to let the Colombians have the last word in this piece, and that word is, more than anything else, a word of hope:

With the great leading role of the youth, the profound national crisis has raised up new and massive sectors of the county to join together in the strike against the economic policies of the present government, of the corruption and the absence of democratic guarantees. The street and the cacerola* is the decisive voice of the majorities without voice. The proof of the massive strength and nonconformity is the unprecedented powerful triumph of defeating Duque’s tax reform. This is a historic strike that is showing us that social mobilization works…. This is the strike of the people: young people, women, students, workers, unemployed, ethnic, and rural peoples that are victims of this system…. These people who are resisting and rising up will be the builders of a new reality where the implementation of the Havana [Peace] Accord may be possible, the peace complete, the health, education, dignified life and work, for all, as our beloved Gabo** said on receiving the Nobel Prize: “A new and sweeping utopia of life, where no one will be able to decide for others how they die, where love will prove true and happiness be possible, and where the races condemned to one hundred years of solitude will have, at last and forever, a second opportunity on earth.”



Notes
* cacerola: people literally and often spontaneously taking to the streets, patios, front yards to beat pots and pans in protest, including when public demonstrations are being prohibited

** Gabo: Gabriel García Márquez



Featured image: Vigil for those fallen during the uprising. Photo courtesy of AFGJ.

(Alliance for Global Justice)

https://orinocotribune.com/winners-lose ... al-strike/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Sun Jun 06, 2021 1:52 pm

Image

The Assassination of Colombian Revolutionary Jesús Santrich
June 5, 2021
By Greg Butterfield – May 26, 2021

When a respected revolutionary dies, the impact reverberates around the world. Or, as Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong said, “To die for the people is weightier than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather.”

Commander Jesús Santrich, a communist and member of the National Directorate of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP), Second Marquetalia, died for the people.

Santrich was reportedly assassinated by a Colombian military squad on May 17. The killing took place on Venezuelan territory near the Colombian border.

After murdering Santrich, the killers cut off his left pinkie finger to verify his death (and collect a $1.5-million bounty placed on his head jointly by the Colombian and US governments), then fled back into Colombian territory aboard a helicopter.

The assassination, carried out on another country’s territory in blatant violation of international law, was reminiscent of a similar operation in 2008, when Colombian troops killed FARC Commander Raúl Reyes in Ecuador.

It came just four days after the Colombian Supreme Court ruled in favor of Santrich’s extradition to the United States. His fellow FARC Commander Simón Trinidad has been held incommunicado since his extradition to the US at the end of 2004. Political prisoner Trinidad is currently serving a 60-year sentence in a Colorado supermax prison.

“The court carries out the orders of the gringos,” Santrich said in a statement released the day before his death.

It’s no coincidence that the court ruling and assassination took place during Colombia’s unprecedented month-long popular uprising against the right-wing regime of President Iván Duque. It was meant as a warning to those fighting in the streets who might consider taking the movement to a higher level, from rebellion to sustained resistance.

Such a high-level hit could not have taken place without the approval and involvement of the Pentagon and the Biden administration. All are guilty of Santrich’s murder.

A fighter for the people
Jesús Santrich was one of the most renowned revolutionaries in Latin America, a popular and influential spokesperson for revolutionary Marxism and the path of armed struggle.

He was a leader of the Bolivarian Continental Movement (MCB), an alliance of revolutionary parties and movements in South America.

An internationalist to the core, Santrich was usually seen wearing a keffiyeh as a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinian people. The Israeli apartheid regime plays a big role in training and steering Colombia’s repressive forces, as directed by the United States, and Santrich felt the connection with Palestine’s struggle deeply.

Santrich was legally blind from a young age and walked with the aid of a cane. But his disability was no match for his revolutionary determination. After joining the FARC in the early 1990s, he quickly proved himself a capable organizer and strategist, and gained the rank of commander.

His closest friends and comrades, who called him Trichi, spoke of his humor, thirst for knowledge and wide-ranging interests. Santrich played the saxophone, composed poetry, and painted despite his visual impairment.

He was also a prolific author. At the time of his death, Santrich was writing a series of articles on the relationship between Marxism and Bolivarianism, the national-liberation outlook uniting peoples across Latin America.

US – Colombia betray peace accords
Santrich was a member of the team that negotiated the 2016 Havana Peace Accords between the government of Colombia and the FARC-EP. While working for several years in Cuba on the peace agreement, Santrich met and befriended many visiting activists and revolutionaries from around the world.

As the negotiations dragged on and pressure for a resolution grew, Santrich and fellow negotiator Iván Márquez warned that the FARC should not agree to disarm before the Colombian regime met its obligations. However, they were overruled.

When Santrich returned to Colombia, it quickly became apparent to him that Duque’s government and its Washington masters had no intention of honoring the Havana Accords, using them only as an excuse to disarm and divide the guerrilla movement.

Santrich himself, though guaranteed a seat in Congress and legal immunity under the agreement, was thrown into prison on false “drug trafficking” charges. He was held in torturous, life-threatening conditions.

A mass movement fought for and won his release. But the threat of extrajudicial killing or extradition to the US still loomed.

Santrich went underground. In August 2019, Santrich, Márquez and others announced the formation of the FARC-EP, Second Marquetalia, an initiative to rebuild the revolutionary guerrilla movement following the betrayal of the peace agreement by Bogotá and Washington.

“Either a slow death in a maximum security prison in some hot desert in the US, 30 meters underground, without any human rights, like his youthful friend, his fellow from Caribe Simón Trinidad, or shot down in a confrontation,” wrote Alberto Pinzón Sánchez.

“With this perspective… he returned to arms—this time a little more ‘symbolically,’ in order to accompany with his knowledge, ideas and far-seeing vision, a group of former comrades who shared with him the idea that it was better to die fighting counterinsurgent fascism than kneel before the perfidy and deceptions of the regime.”

Death squads kill former guerrillas
Between the signing of the Havana Accords in 2016 and April 2020, at least 271 former FARC guerrillas were murdered by right-wing death squads, along with hundreds of community activists, student leaders, trade unionists, journalists and representatives of the Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities.

Santrich had seen it before.

As a student activist in the late 1980s and early 1990s, young Seuxis Pausias participated in organizing the Patriotic Union movement, an earlier attempt to transform the decades-long civil war and build a powerful social-justice alternative to the political parties dominated by Colombia’s oligarchy and US imperialism.

Then, too, the response of Colombia’s ruling class, big landlords and US backers was to unleash death squads to exterminate their political opponents.

In fact, Seuxis Pausias’s close friend, a fellow student leader, was one of those executed in 1991. He took the name of his slain friend—Jesús Santrich—in tribute, and left to join the guerrillas.

“Was it necessary to execute a blind revolutionary militant?” asked Argentinian revolutionary Néstor Kohan. “Were the US Pentagon, the Israeli Army and the Colombian Armed Forces so afraid of a blind person who walked with a cane?

“Yes, they were afraid of him. And now that he’s dead… they are going to be even more afraid, because the unwavering example of this communist revolutionary will surely take on other dimensions, as happened in their time with Camilo Torres, Che Guevara and with so many other revolutionaries of Our America.”

In his honor, the Bolivarian Continental Movement has declared May 17 the “International Day of Global Insurgence Against Decadent and Criminal Imperialism.”

¡Comandante Jesús Santrich, presente!


Featured image: Commander Jesús Santrich after his release from prison in 2019.

(Struggle La Lucha)

https://orinocotribune.com/the-assassin ... -santrich/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 09, 2021 11:57 am

The Unemployment Committee calls for a mobilization in Bogotá against President Duque

Image
Since April 28, mobilizations have been carried out in the main cities of the country against President Duque. | Photo: EFE
Published June 9, 2021 (4 hours 23 minutes ago)

The National Unemployment Committee called for the march after the government's refusal to sign the preliminary agreements on guarantees for social protest.

The National Unemployment Committee called for this Wednesday the great takeover of Bogotá within the framework of social mobilizations in rejection of the economic agenda of President Iván Duque and against the repression by the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (Esmad) against the protesters.

The collective made up of trade union, union, student and other organizations announced the great takeover of Bogotá after the Government's refusal to sign the preliminary agreements on guarantees for social protest and move towards negotiating the list of demands.

Image

According to the organizers of the march, the mobilization is expected to start at 10:00 (Local Time) from the National Park of the Colombian capital.

The refusal by the Duque government led to the suspension of dialogues and meetings with representatives of the Unemployment Committee that sought to end the social crisis in the country.

Image

From the Comunes party, the government's refusal in relation to pre-agreements constitutes an affront to life and democracy.

The delaying way in which the government faces the dialogue process shows its disinterest in the country's great problems: unemployment, health, education, lack of income for the population, generalized violence in the countryside and cities, emphasized the progressive group.


Representatives of the Unemployment Committee indicated that they will hold a meeting with members of an international Human Rights organization in Bogotá and the city of Cali, the epicenter of the protests against Duque.

The international human rights commission indicated that next week it will deliver its reports on the situation that has been experienced in the country in the midst of the protests and its reasons for continuing in them.

Repression in Barranquilla
Human rights groups and organizations on Tuesday denounced repressive actions by Esmad in the city of Barranquilla during the qualifying match for the Qatar World Cup between Argentina and Colombia.

The Esmad with more than two thousand members tried to avoid a mobilization, called in the context of the national strike, with tear gas, stun grenades, shots and arrests.


'I love football, but I love my country more; If there is no peace, there is no football 'were some of the slogans chanted in the vicinity of the Metropolitan Stadium of Barranquilla where the two teams saw each other.

Organizations that defend human rights in Colombia presented a report to the International Criminal Court, ICC, on Tuesday morning, where they report at least 3,825 human rights violations between April 28 and June 2.

The document also indicates that there are 22 types of violating conduct by members of the Public Force, with emphasis on the appearance of Urban Paramilitarism.

Image

It also reveals about actions or omissions in relation to crimes against humanity committed by the Police, the Army and armed civilians.

The report reveals 229 new violent cases since May 11 to date, with 1,271 new victims, of which the identity of 554 is provided.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/colombia ... -0002.html

Google Translator

*******************************************************

Report from Bogotá: Colombia at Turning Point?
BY OAKLANDSOCIALIST ON JUNE 9, 2021
Anthony Boynton reports from Bogotá, Colombia:

Protests in Colombia. The banner says “We will never remain silent”

Tomorrow (Wednesday June 9, 2021) could be a turning point for the mass movement that erupted here at the end of April and which has thrown the government into a major crisis.

The strike committee has changed tactics and called for a “toma de Bogotá” (taking of Bogotá). For the first month of the strikes, demonstrations, and blockades, the committee led a movement that was decentralized. There were mass demonstrations in all of the major cities and in many, many smaller cities and towns. Road blockades sprang up like mushrooms on major national highways as well as within cities and towns.

Repression and Confusion
Throughout, the government has met the protests with a combination of repression and confusion. It abandoned the reactionary tax reform which had initially sparked the movement, its bid to privatize all health care failed miserably in the congress, it has made all sorts of promises: to create a new loan program for small farmers, to reform the police (new uniforms and all!). So far close to 100 people have been killed by the police, hundreds have “disappeared”, more than 2,000 have been arrested, and thousands have been injured.

The government’s confusion has extended to negotiations with the strike committee. Weeks were spent with on-again-off-again talks about procedural issues. Finally, a “preagreement” was reached. The government never signed it. After shopping it around the various ministries for comment, the government rejected it and demanded that all demonstrations and road blocks be stopped before substantive negotiations could begin. This was ostensibly the redline imposed by the Ministry of Defense, but was a condition in fact imposed by former President Alvaro Uribe Velez, the increasingly frustrated puppet master of the “Centro Democratico” (misnamed democratic center), the party of President Ivan Duque. Uribe has castigated Duque for being weak, and other leaders of the CD have called on Duque to resign because he has not been sufficiently repressive.

The government’s lead negotiator, the “High Commissioner for Peace” resigned immediately after the government issued its ultimatum. Four ministers have also resigned.

Immediately after the government issued its ultimatum, the strike committee changed tactics. It announced that it would use all of its influence to dismantle roadblocks throughout the country despite the fact that it did not control the roadblocks. Most of the roadblocks have been dismantled, but a couple of dozen remain, and some sprout up again after they have been dismantled.

The government, despite its demand that all roadblocks be dismantled and all demonstrations be stopped, resumed negotiations.

Nevertheless, the strike committee’s gesture of good will may not have been the reason for the resumption of talks.

International Pressure
International media from Al Jazeera to Fox news has shown videos of the murderous behavior of the Colombian police and military. I guess violence makes for good ratings, but it does not make for good diplomatic relations. Colombia has been publicly criticized by many other governments, by the European Union, and has received the most lukewarm public support possible from the excessively lukewarm Biden administration in the USA.

The bad international press has led to a total disaster behind the scenes in world insurance and capital markets. Foreign investment has been placed on hold and London reinsurers have either pulled out of Colombia or have drastically increased rates. On top of this, the failure of the tax reform has led to a major reduction in the country’s bond rating.

To make matters worse, the Inter-American Commission on Human Right, an autonomous branch of the Organization of American States, decided to send a delegation to Colombia to investigate human rights violations during the course of the strike. The government panicked and told them they were welcome to come…at the end of July! Bad press and diplomatic pressure resulted in a change of heart, and the government decided to let the delegation come sooner.

The IACHR delegation arrived two days ago (Sunday June 6) after accepting the Duque government’s condition that they spend the first half of their four day visit talking to various government officials. The delegation is scheduled to leave tomorrow night, after the “toma de Bogotá”.

War of Attrition
To the extent that the government has had a strategy, it has been a war of attrition. The government’s confusion has been combined with the calculation that delaying tactics combined with repression would simply exhaust the mass movement. Their calculation has been proven to be at least partly correct: the demonstrations last Wednesday (the mass demonstrations have been called every Wednesday and sometimes on Fridays, with a multitude of smaller demonstrations in between) were markedly smaller than those on previous Wednesday.

Taken together, this explains the strike committee’s decision to call a major national demonstration in the capital tomorrow.

The size of the demonstration tomorrow may well determine what happens in the next few weeks. A large demonstration could bring the government to the negotiating table with a willingness to make real concessions, but a small demonstration is likely to empower the ultra-right wing within Duque’s party and lead to an end to negotiations and increased repression.

I will write another update this weekend.

(In the meantime, the Colombian national soccer team played Argentina to a draw in their first head to head elimination match in the lead up to the next World Cup).

Covid 19
Another major factor in the situation that could determine tomorrow’s outcome is Covid 19.

The country’s hospitals and ICUs are overflowing. This is the worst moment of the pandemic here so far, despite a significant increase in the rate vaccinations. Colombia is approaching a health care crisis similar to those experienced already by Brazil and India.

When the national strike was announced in response to the government’s tax reform at the end of April, a lot of people on the left were hesitant or even opposed because of the increasingly desperate health care situation. Nevertheless, when the protests began, the left united behind them.

The Covid-19 crisis is clearly the cumulative result of the government’s slow and indecisive reaction to the pandemic combined with the predictable development of new and more contagious and/or deadly variants. The Duque government followed what might be called the European Union model rather than that Trump or Bolsanaro model. It relied on government restrictions on movement and socialization combined with masking and a cost-conscious vaccination program.

The policy seemed to work, more or less. It prevented the country’s hospitals from becoming overwhelmed for more than a year, but by the end of April that was beginning to change as new more contagious variants (including a Colombian variant) began to appear and become predominate here. While the older population of the country has been vaccinated, the hospitals have filled up with younger and younger Covid patients, and many of these younger patients have required ICU care or have died.

Miami hotels are full of upper class and upper middle class Colombian vaccine tourists.

Colombia’s frontline doctors and nurses are sick and exhausted. While many of them have supported the paro, their sentiments are divided because of fears that the massive crowds, some without masks, have added to the contagion.

The government and the right-wing media have increasingly used Covid 19 as a cudgel against the mass movement, falsely blaming it for the current spike in the pandemic.

This may have been part of the reason for last week’s low turnout at demonstrations, and it could affect the turnout tomorrow.

Image
Protests in Colombia. The banner says “We will never remain silent”

https://oaklandsocialist.com/2021/06/09 ... ing-point/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

Post Reply