Colombia

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Wed Feb 15, 2023 3:02 pm

Second Round of Peace Talks: ELN Delegation Already in Mexico
FEBRUARY 13, 2023

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The delegation participating in the second round of peace talks between the Colombian government and the ELN, to begin in Mexico City on February 13, 2022. Photo: Twitter/@williamparra.

This Saturday, February 11, a delegation of Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) arrived in Mexico, for the second round of peace talks with the Colombian government, which is scheduled to begin today, Monday, February 13.

Among the topics that will be discussed are the bilateral ceasefire and the participatory mechanisms of society for the construction of peace in Colombia.


The ELN delegation is comprised of chief negotiator, Pablo Beltrán, accompanied by Gustavo Martínez, Bernardo Téllez, Silvana Guerrero, Isabel Torres, Aureliano Carbonell, Consuelo Tapia and Tomás García Laviana, in addition to legal adviser, Carlos Ruiz, and manager of peace, Violeta Arango.

Upon his arrival in Mexico, the head of the ELN delegation, Pablo Beltrán, stated: “We hope that the work accomplished in this second cycle will be an effective advance and will provide support for the peace process in Colombia.”

Likewise, Beltrán sent a message to the Colombian youth saying: “the great transformations that our country needs can only be accomplished with struggle, and that struggle without the presence of youth cannot advance.”


On his behalf, the secretary of foreign relations of Mexico, Marcelo Ebrard, pointed out that his country is “a reliable headquarters; it is part of the mediation, and our participation is limited to providing the conditions necessary for dialogue, guaranteeing security and nothing else.”

First round
The first round of talks was held in Caracas and was attended by delegations from Venezuela, Cuba and Norway as guarantor countries. On that occasion, both parties (Colombian government and ELN) confirmed that the meeting reached its end and achieved “highly positive” results.

Among the agreements reached were:

• An agreement on the Dialogue Agenda
• The institutionalization of the Peace Dialogues Table
• An agreement on humanitarian actions and dynamics
• The pedagogy and communication for peace

Nevertheless, the meeting taking place this Monday in Mexico had to overcome harsh tensions between the ELN and the Colombian government, which included an emergency meeting in Venezuela to calm tensions over a failed bilateral ceasefire.

(RedRadioVE) by Milena Bravo
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https://orinocotribune.com/second-round ... in-mexico/

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Colombian Peace Caravan: Bringing the Hope of “Total Peace” to Afro-Colombian and Indigenous Territories
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist 15 Feb 2023

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Image: ElTiempo.com

Ajamu Baraka representing BAP’s Haiti/Americas Team was invited to serve as part of an international delegation of human rights defenders that would accompany the activists, community leaders, government officials and representatives of the National Liberation Army (ELN) on an historic “humanitarian Caravan” between January 17 and the 21st to the Indigenous and Afro-Colombian areas of the Pacific coast of Colombia as part of the peace process initiated by the new government in Colombia. Ajamu was also an observer and international guarantor in Havana, Cuba during the last round of the Peace Process that produced the Ethnic Chapter of the peace agreement between the government and the FARC in 2016. This is his report back on the Caravan.

Total Peace is the Call

When the new Colombian administration of Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez took office, President Petro announced that the administration would prioritize reviving the peace processes in the country. I was there in August that unusually sunny afternoon in Bogota, a city notorious for its foul overcast weather for the inauguration of the new Petro/Marquez administration. Perhaps it was the spirit of the thousands of people jammed into the plaza, exulting in an overpowering energy fueled by hope and the belief in the possibilities of a new beginning for this country that had been mired in violence and despair for so long that it pushed back the clouds and bathed all of us in the warmth of optimism.

It was a moving day to see our Vice President, Francia Marquez come on stage. A product of the Black movement, a woman of impeccable character who embodies our resistance, the hopes of the people, a young woman who I had seen grown up, who broke bread in our house and slept in our beds, who ended up under death threats for years, having to move with security details for the last eight or more years, now confidently assuming her place as the next Vice President of the country. When she came on stage there was not a dry eye among the contingent of Black activists that I had the honor to be with as a special guest of the movement.

Francia, who ran for president but was now Petro’s Vice President, campaigned on a commitment to reviving the peace process that had been subverted by the previous government. This commitment meant there had to be a real commitment to the terms of the agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC, the leftist political movement that had been in conflict with the government for over fifty years before entering into a “peace deal” with the government in 2016.

But the commitment to peace had to go beyond just attempting to implement all the provisions of the agreement with the FARC. The situation in the territories for the people had not only not improved but in most cases the violence, displacement and general insecurity had increased.

To address this reality, President Petro announced that the new administration would advance a process that he referred to as “Paz Total” or “Total Peace.” “Paz total” was a bold initiative that called upon all armed groups to join with the government to declare a unilateral ceasefire and enter into dialogue with the government.

A significant first step in this process was to revive the negotiations between the government and the National Liberation Army (ELN), the other major armed leftist organization in the country that has been in conflict with the government since 1964.

Two FARC dissident groups – the Central General Staff and Second Marquetalia – as well as the Gaitanista self-Defense Forces (AGC), and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Self-Defense were also brought into a dialogue with the government.

The AGC is especially significant. Referred by members of the government and the people as the “Clan del Golfo,” the AGC is the largest paramilitary criminal group in the country that is responsible for a disproportionate amount of the violence experienced by people in the rural and urban areas of Colombia. Ultimately Total Peace, according to the Petro/Marquez government, would be arrived at through this process of engagement in which all of the armed groups in the country would eventually agree to terms that would result in them demobilizing or surrendering.

Humanitarian Caravan

The resumption of Peace Talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN), was announced at the beginning of October 2022, and the first meeting took place in Venezuela on 21 November 2022 moderated by representatives from Norway, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, and Cuba, as well as representatives from the United Nations and the Catholic Church.

During this first round of talks, the Government and the ELN agreed to promote a system of humanitarian relief to guarantee the return of the displaced populations and put an end to situations of confinement generated by the violence in the regions.

Establishing a humanitarian caravan to assist with implementing the agreement on humanitarian relief was the first concrete agreement that came out of the dialogues between the National Government and the ELN.

What was the objective? Diagnose the humanitarian situations in indigenous and African-descendant communities in the regions with the purpose of establishing the conditions for the communities to leave the confinement or, in cases of forced displacement, to return to their territories under the principles of dignity and security.

The process with FARC was a bilateral engagement between the FARC and the government. However, along with including armed paramilitary organizations like the Gulf Clan in a dialogue process with the government, the Petro/Marquez administration is attempting to bring an element into the discussions on peace by going to the territories most impacted by the ongoing violence. No other government, including the government of Juan Manuel Santos that initiated the process with ELN, had effectively included the people before.

The idea was that representatives of the communities would share their conditions and make recommendations. The impressions and written submissions will be compiled at the end of the caravan by the government and ELN delegates and shared at the negotiating table between the ELN and the government in early March in Mexico. The report will serve to adopt the specific humanitarian measures for communities at risk in the Colombian Pacific region.

The caravan began January 17 with an orientation in Cali, Colombia. Over 160 people participated in the caravan. Participants included leaders of the Bajo Calima Community Council, the San Juan General Community Council (Acadesan), the Valle del Cauca Association of Indigenous Councils (ACIVA), the Wounaan People's Council of Authorities of Colombia (Woundeko), social organizations and victims, members of the Catholic and Protestant churches, international agencies of the United Nations and the MAPP-OEA.

The caravan was accompanied by a small delegation of international human rights defender groups, peace organizations and international agencies of the United Nations. The Black Alliance for Peace was one of those groups and was represented by me, Ajamu Baraka from BAP’s Haiti/Americas’ Team.

The National Government was represented by Carlos Rosero, Dayana Domicó, Mabel Lara and Horacio Guerrero, members of the peace delegation, together with Juan Carlos Cuellar and Jairo Arrigui, from the ELN peace management team. They had the responsibility to liaison with the communities, recording testimonies and receiving proposals from the various stops.

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After leaving Cali, the caravan moved en masse to the port area of Buenaventura and the town of Bajo Calima. The caravan was divided into two tours. One caravan traveled by boat to the middle and lower San Juan to visit the towns of San Miguel, Noanamá, Negría and Panamacito.

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The other went by boat from Bajo Calima (Valle) until reaching Docordó (urban head of the Litoral de San Juan, in Chocó) on the way visited the communities of La Colonia, San Isidro, Valledupar, Palestina, Cabecera, Unión Balsalito and Docordó.

What did we see and hear?

Bajo Calima and Medio San Juan are areas where Africans and Indigenous peoples have inhabited for centuries. Africans escaped from enslavement and tried to distance themselves from the Spanish as far as they could. Often ending up in remote areas of the country sharing territories with the Indigenous who themselves were subjected to brutal forms of slavery and various forms of forced labor.

It has only been in the last few decades of the 20th century that the lives of the peoples of these territories have been significantly disrupted. First with the expansion of the armed struggles in Colombia, the invasion of their lands by “colonialists” engaged in illegal lumber, mining and then drug activity and then the arrival of the state, usually the military apparatus.

Today narco-paramilitaries and other armed groups associated with multinational corporations, the ELN and the state’s military and police forces are all locked in a battle over hegemony within the territories with the people paying a terrible price as a result.

Moving down the San Juan river on boats flying white flags hoping that the negotiated agreement to allow the caravan to proceed unimpeded through territories being contested by the ELN, the Clan del Golfo and the state, the story that we encountered was the same.

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Meeting with the communities under tin roofs of community centers packed with members of the caravan and the designated members of the community who were elected to speak, itself a responsibility not taken on lightly since it was not clear if there would be any retaliation for what might be said to the caravan delegation and their international guests.

What the people talked about was life that had been severely disrupted by various groups imposing confinement on the communities where they couldn’t live their villages or sometimes their houses for extended periods of time. This meant they could not get to their farms to tend their crops, or fish or get to the mines. It meant economic life came to a standstill and people went hungry.

They talked about forced recruitment by the armed actors of their young people. They shared the incidents that finally forced them to flee their territories, the collective punishments, the killings that took place in public to terrorize the community. There were tears but also a resiliency that reflected that for many of these communities they had reached the point where they were willing to risk everything in order to defend their dignity, and their cultural and economic life.

And what did they think about the peace process? For some they had seen it all before. They knew about the agreements with the FARC and the Ethnic Chapter of the agreements that were supposed to make the lives of the Indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples in the rural areas better. But all they say instead was more violence and more social instability when new groups of “men with guns” filled the power vacuum when the FARC disarmed and demobilized.

For many of the people, peace was still an elusive term that seemed to only exist in the minds of government bureaucrats, NGOs and the people who did not understand the realities of the territories.

Did we see hope? We did not see hope in the liberal sense of some abstract positive thinking divorced from reality. What we all saw was a determination in some communities that their plight could not be dependent on decisions made hundreds of miles from the realities of their lives in their communities. With the formation of their local guards and a commitment that they were going to live in freedom, it was clear to me that these communities were prepared to pay the terrible toll that is demanded when you struggle for freedom.

A Land of Tears and Hope

As stated previously, many of the people say they have heard it before. Once again, they are being told that there might be the possibility of peace in their territories where the guns would be lowered and removed, the displaced would return, communities allowed to go to their farms and their youth liberated from being forcefully recruited. Dignity and security were right around the corner.

That hope is reflected in the fact that the ELN and the government created a space for the people to have a voice, to participate. But those declarations of total peace will be, must be tempered by the real forces and their interests operating in those far-off spaces away from the centers of governmental power.

The people said over and over again that they wanted the men with guns out of their territories. They made no distinction between the armed factions of the ELN, the narco-paramilitaries or what they referred to as “public authorities” – the state.

But why would the men with guns leave as long as there exists the ability to make tremendous amounts of money in the territories?

Officials in the Petro/Marquez government are reaching out to impoverished coca farmers hoping to revive interest in the idea of substituting coca production for coffee and other high-value crops.

Yet, for many observers of the complex situation that Colombia offers, the Petro plan seems to defy the logic of the capitalist interests at play.

According to Mike Vigil , a former DEA agent stationed in Colombia during the Pablo Escobar era, the narco-paramilitaries will never leave on their own accord as long as illicit drugs remain such an incredibly lucrative business. For these elements, “negotiating is a stalling tactic where they buy time. They’re able to generate more money and become more powerful.”

Because control of territory and profits are fundamentally linked with the global cocaine trade, peace in the territories that does not include forcefully pushing the criminal elements out makes President Petro’s plan seem a little utopian.

The people, however, do not want to see more conflict in their regions. There was a real reluctance to allow further militarization in the territories, even by government forces. Many communities had come to the conclusion that the renewed violence between armed groups in the region and aggressive military operations that at times did not discriminate between armed combatants and the residents, demonstrated that the state could not guarantee security in their communities and territories.

Although, much of the feedback from the communities did not seem to indicate how the people thought security could be guaranteed. The commitment between the government and the ELN to address the humanitarian needs of the people will likely be ratified. But what about the other armed actors?

In the immediate future within the territories, cocaine is one of the main crops the people grow to make ends meet. But as we saw and heard on the caravan, the battle over control of that production along with the illegal mining and lumber activities has made living in the territories extremely precarious

The strategy of the Colombian government - creating partial agreements with the ELN and discussing different issues in each round of negotiations has some potential. What is much more of a challenge is are the armed groups still addicted to the cocaine trade with the material means to protect their interests no matter what the government or the people want.

However, even with the process with the ELN, the government failed to fully implement the agreements with the FARC-EP. As of late 2021 it was reported that “only 30% of the 578 stipulations in the Peace Accord had been implemented.” And while the Petro government is not the right-wing government of Ivan Duque where the implementation of the Peace Accord was almost completely abandoned, the ELN will need to have confidence that the government will deliver on its side of any agreement. The connection between successful negotiation between the ELN and the government is contingent on progress made to revive and implement the accords with FARC – EP.

In the meantime, the conditions do not yet exist for a sustainable peace and national reconciliation process. The objective economic and political interests represented in the state and the legal and illegal economic activities of various entities suggest that before peace can be achieved, the peoples in the regions may have to go through a period of further violence.

But perhaps this time it might be the communities taking the prospect of peace into their own hands by eliminating the elements that continue to bring them so much suffering.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/colom ... erritories

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President Petro: Peru’s Security Forces Behaving Like Nazis
FEBRUARY 14, 2023

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Colombian President Gustavo Petro. Photo: Reuters.

This weekend, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, described the Peruvian police as “Nazis” for killing their own people.

“In Peru, they stomp their own people, like Nazis, breaking the American Convention on Human Rights,” said the president of Colombia.

In this sense, President Petro demanded that all governments in America, including the United States, apply the American Convention on Human Rights; since “it should not be applied only to leftist governments. Drop your double standards.”


Protests

Since last December, when the protests began, some 69 people have lost their lives, the majority as a result of repressive actions by the police.

Dina Boluarte’s coup regime sent about 10,000 troops into the streets to repress the protesters, who are demanding her resignation, the closure of Congress, and the release of the imprisoned President Pedro Castillo.

In addition, they demand the formation of a Constituent Assembly and justice for those who fell during the protests.

In the violent protests and clashes between demonstrators and the National Police, the press has also been affected due to the constant attacks by security forces. For this reason, both civilians and members of the press have requested international assistance..

(RedRadioVE) by Milena Bravo

https://orinocotribune.com/president-pe ... ike-nazis/

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Colombia Unveils Universal Healthcare Plan
February 14, 2023

The Colombian government has presented its reforms to the health system that would extend coverage to the uninsured. The proposal has been called The Change Towards Health for Life (El Cambio hacia una salud para la vida) consists of 152 articles aimed at implementing universality for the first time.

President Gustavo Petro and Minister of Health, Carolina Corcho, presented the bill at a rally in Plaza Núñez, Bogota, where she said that Colombians will now have the “the fundamental right to health”.

At the same rally, President Petro said, “We are going to transform the system to cover the entire national territory, without exceptions, and include all citizens without the need to have an insurance card…What we want is for a doctor to be able to attend to the home of a campesino family, no matter how far away it is”.

The reform will remove power from the current Health Promotion Entities (EPS) that are the current intermediaries between patients and service providers.

The bill is considered one of the most important proposals by the Petro government so far, it emphasizes that health is a right and should not be a privilege or a business. Before being passed into law, the bill must pass four debates in both chambers of Congress, where it can undergo modifications.

The bill was presented yesterday, and today President Petro has organized rallies across the country in support of the social reforms of his government. On his official twitter account he said, “This Tuesday I’ll see you at the balcony of the Nariño palace, and in all the public squares of the country. Let’s go with together for the change of Colombia, for the people of Colombia.”
For more news and analysis, check out our podcast Latin America Review: https://linktr.ee/latinamericareview

https://kawsachunnews.com/colombia-unve ... hcare-plan
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Thu Mar 16, 2023 2:10 pm

Colombian Government and ELN Guerrillas Agree to Ceasefire

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The parties signed the so-called Mexico Agreement, an expression of the consensus reached to advance in the search for peace. | Photo: @IvanCepedaCast

The Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) reached a bilateral ceasefire agreement on Friday, signed at the end of the second cycle of peace talks in Mexico.


"The bilateral ceasefire and the cessation of hostilities in order to create the conditions for overcoming the armed conflict" is one of the points of the agreement, which also includes the recognition by the government of the political status of the ELN as an "armed rebel organization."

Among the points is the construction of a political and social alliance that will lead to a national agreement, as well as the recognition of the victims of the conflict and their reparation with guarantees of non-repetition, and a review of the factors that threaten the reconciliation of the country.

"We were able to begin to address the most urgent, heartfelt and sensitive issues, such as the ceasefire, and we also opened the doors wide to citizen and community participation," said Otty Patiño, chief negotiator for the Colombian government.

For his part, the guerrilla known as Pablo Beltrán, chief negotiator for the ELN, stressed that "the first steps have been taken to achieve a bilateral, national and temporary ceasefire" and considered that "we all have to change to achieve a comprehensive and lasting peace, we all have to participate in its design and realization."

The third phase of the peace talks between the Colombian government and the ELN will occur in Cuba on a date to be determined.

These negotiations began in 2017 and were interrupted for four years until their resumption in 2022 in Venezuela, a guarantor of the peace process along with Cuba, Norway, Mexico, Chile and Brazil, and with Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and Spain as accompanying countries.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Col ... -0020.html

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Colombia Suspends Arrest Warrants for FARC Dissidents
MARCH 14, 2023

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FARC guerillas in Colombia. Photo: RedRadioVE.

This Monday, the Colombian prosecutor’s office suspended, at the request of President Gustavo Petro, 19 arrest warrants against dissidents of the defunct FARC guerrilla group. The president announced the start of a “second peace process” with the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who did not join the peace agreement of 2016.

“I decided to suspend these arrest warrants today,” Attorney General Francisco Barbosa said at an event.

The arrest warrants were lifted in order to establish a dialogue between the Colombian government and the FARC dissidents, as part of Petro’s total peace proposal. The purpose is to minimize the level of violence via agreements with armed organizations.

Barbosa indicated that “those arrest warrants are suspended based on the legal and constitutional capacities of the president of the Republic, which stipulate that, for him, this organization has a political character upon which peace agreements with the national government can be negotiated.”

Likewise, the prosecutor explained that, “In this specific case for the prosecution there is a legal foundation, because the president gave the dissidents, who did not sign the Havana peace agreements, a political character.”

These negotiations with the FARC are occurring in tandem with the current dialogue with the National Liberation Army (ELN).

https://orinocotribune.com/colombia-sus ... issidents/

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Colombia Reports Murder of a Signer and a Social Leader

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"No life, no peace," reads the sign. Mar. 15, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/@LaVozDelSur_1

Published 15 March 2023

Wilson Llanos Sarria was a signatory of the Peace Accords and Néstor Yesid Martínez Pinto was the current community defender assigned to the Ombudsman's Office.


Colombia's Institute for Peace Development Studies (Indepaz) denounced Wednesday the discovery of the lifeless body of a peace signatory, as well as the murder of a community defender.

The lifeless body of signatory Wilson Llanos Sarria, was found on Tuesday in Belén de los Andaquies, Caquetá. Sarria had been missing since March 6.

According to INDEPAZ, the signatory was in the process of reincorporation when he was kidnapped from his relatives' house by armed men, who later executed him.

Yesterday afternoon, relief agencies and neighbors of the rural area found the lifeless body in the Belen mountain range, after several days of searching.

Wilson Sarria 14/22/23, Belen de los Andaquies, Caqueta. Wilson was a signatory to the peace agreement, who was currently carrying out his reincorporation process in the department of Caquetá. He had been missing since March 6, and on March 14 his body was found.

With this death, there are three signers killed this year, while since the signing of the Peace Accord in 2016 there have been 351.

Néstor Yesid Martínez Pinto, 49, was killed in Riohacha, La Guajira, in the middle of the road while riding a motorcycle. This is the 26th murder of a social leader in 2023 while 1435 have been killed since the signing of the Peace Accord.

Pinto was the current community defender assigned to the Ombudsman's Office, recognized for his work in the protection of the human rights of Afro and indigenous communities in La Guajira.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Col ... -0019.html

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Suspected Assassins of Peasant Leader Carlos Bolívar Captured and Charged
MARCH 16, 2023

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Venezuelan peasant activists marching in Caracas to demand justice for the assassination of Carlos Bolívar in Guárico state. Photo: VEA newspaper.

This Tuesday, March 14, the Attorney General of the Republic of Venezuela, Tarek William Saab, announced via social media that four people were presented before the Second Court of Calabozo, Guárico state, for their alleged responsibility in the murder of peasant leader Carlos Bolívar cedeno.

Carlos Rivero and Mariangélica Mujica were presented for the crimes of assassination in the degree of necessary accomplices, criminal association, and use of an adolescent to commit the crime that occurred on Thursday, March 2, around 6 am Alexis Silva and José Mujica were the other Two suspects, presented for the crimes of contract killing to the degree of necessary accomplices, and association to commit a crime.

This Wednesday, Saab also reported that two new arrest warrants have been requested, and that the physical perpetrator was killed during a clash with law enforcement agents, while the intellectual perpetrator—ie the brains behind the operation—is still free.

The names of the alleged perpetrators of Bolívar's murder were known the day after over 300 peasants went to Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, and established agreements with the National Assembly (AN) and the General Prosecutor's Office, to demand justice in this case as well as many other cases where landowners pay hitmen to kill peasant leaders and activists.

Saab stated that the Public Ministry will apply the full weight of the law “to those who promote or sponsor the selective assassination of our peasant leaders to favor the interests of a minority.”

Bolívar was a historic leader of the struggle to rescue the Los Tramojos ranch, an emblematic case of the Admirable Peasant March, as well as a national leader of the Platform for Peasant Struggle and the National Peasant Movement. He was also a spokesperson for the Ezequiel Zamora Commune, in the El Jabillal 1 sector of Arismendi municipality, Guárico state. He was assassinated at the start of his workday in Puerto Carrizalero-Camaguán.

Prosecutor's Office, National Assembly, and peasants
According to information released by the National Peasant Movement, the agreement established with the Prosecutor's Office and the AN included to “update data on peasants prosecuted (prisoners, with arrest warrants, under presentation), as well as victims of hitmen.” Within this framework, they incorporated nine cases that had been presented on Monday during the march in Caracas.

The parties also agreed to review the case of the detained peasant activist “Glinis Méndez, who presents a delicate health condition, for whom we request humanitarian measures.”

“It was agreed to present a supporting document for the Protection Measures for peasant leaders at risk, as is the case of Los Tramojos,” reads the text of the National Peasant Movement.

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Street actions
Local news outlet Venezuelanalysis reported that peasant collectives took to the streets of Caracas this Monday to demand justice for Carlos Bolívar.

“We are here to urge national authorities to open a deep investigation into the assassination of Carlos Bolívar,” Jesús Osorio, also a prominent figure of the Peasant Struggle Platform, told Venezuelanalysis. “This is one of the most emblematic land struggles we have seen, and one where a powerful landowner has used his influence to subvert justice.”

Ramón Soto, fellow member of the Ezequiel Zamora Peasant Council, amplified calls for a thorough investigation. “The situation needs to be clarified and those responsible must be punished, no matter who they are.”

Supreme Court of Venezuela Rules in Favor of Peasants of Los Tramojos

In February 2022, around 30 peasant families secured land titles spanning some 2,900 hectares of the 4,800-hectare Los Tramojos plot. They had recovered the unproductive land in 2010 under the conditions set by the Land Law, but were violently evicted in 2017 after local landowner José Elías Chirimelli presented title deeds that were later proven to be forgeries.

Many peasant activists and leaders point at Chirimelli as the intellectual perpetrator of the plot that ended the life of Carlos Bolívar. They also reject the connection of Chirimelli with the current governor of Guárico state, PSUV official José Manuel Vásquez.

“We feel constantly threatened because Chirimelli received the plot right next to ours,” he said. “Not just that; after he forged documents, why was he rewarded with land?” Soto asked, urging the National Land Institute to take action to remove Chirimelli from the area and either award the land to peasants or use it for public works, reported Venezuelanalysis.

https://orinocotribune.com/suspected-as ... d-charged/
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Sun Mar 26, 2023 4:59 pm

Government of Colombia suspends ceasefire with Clan del Golfo

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The Government held the Clan del Golfo responsible for the violent acts perpetrated during the mining strike in Bajo Cauca. | Photo: Government of Antioquia
Published 19 March 2023

President Petro orders the resumption of military operations against this illegal armed group, responsible for violent acts in Bajo Cauca.

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, suspended this Sunday the bilateral ceasefire with the Clan del Golfo and ordered the reactivation of military operations against this illegal armed group.

In a message broadcast through the social network Twitter, the head of state stated: “I have ordered the Public Force to reactivate all military operations against the Clan del Golfo. The bilateral cessation with this group outside the law is suspended”.

He added that the Government will not allow "they continue sowing anxiety and terror in the communities," in reference to the public order situation created by the so-called Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC), which instigated a mining strike with violent actions in the Bajo Cauca, department of Antioquia.


As a result, in recent days two ambulances have been burned, while this Sunday the illegal armed group incinerated at least four cargo trucks and two buses, according to the governor of that department, Aníbal Gaviria.

Regarding these violent acts, the High Commissioner for Peace, Danilo Rueda, assessed that they call into question whether this illegal armed group really wants to seek peace. Rueda considered that the AGC, dedicated above all to drug trafficking and illegal mining, have carried out an "abusive exercise of force" in Bajo Cauca.


The Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Prada, had already hinted at the possibility that the bilateral ceasefire would be lifted, in view of the importance of guaranteeing tranquility in the territory.

The Government of Colombia declared a bilateral ceasefire on December 31 that included the Clan del Golfo, the Central General Staff of the dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Second Marquetalia and the paramilitaries of the Sierra Nevada.

It is considered that the Clan del Golfo has promoted the mining strike to impose its economic interests and that it chose violence to keep the local population intimidated, confine them and force them to abide by the measure of force. The Government also holds him responsible for an attack against the aqueduct in the municipality of Tarazá and the burning of a toll booth there.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/gobierno ... -0023.html

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Total Peace in Colombia: President Petro Meets With FARC Leaders
MARCH 24, 2023

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Colombian President Gustavo Petro meets with leaders of the ex-guerrilla organization FARC in Casa de Nariño, March 22, 2023. Photo: Twitter/@infopresidencia.

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, met with former leaders of the now defunct armed insurgency organization Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) amid complaints about non-fulfillment of the Peace Agreement signed between the FARC and the government of Colombia in 2016. The meeting, which took place in Casa de Nariño, the seat of the Colombian presidency, on Wednesday, March 22, was attended by the president of the Comunes party Rodrigo Londoño, alias Commander Timochenko of FARC; Pastor Alapé, former member of the FARC secretariat and delegate of Comunes party; and Carlos Lozada, former FARC commander. The government delegation was represented by the High Commissioner for Peace Danilo Rueda.

The meeting came about after President Petro called the Peace Agreement with the FARC, signed by former President Juan Manuel Santos in 2016, “incomplete.”


Upon leaving the meeting, the president of the Comunes party Rodrigo Londoño said that he was satisfied with the meeting with President Petro. “We noticed his receptiveness to the priorities and concerns that we expressed frankly regarding the integral implementation of the Final Peace Agreement,” he said.


“We also agreed that, apart from the implementation of the agreement, it is necessary to guarantee the lives of the signatories,” Londoño stated.

He further reported that a Unified Command Post will be established in the area of Mesetas. However, he added that in other critical areas such as Arauca, Cauca, Antioquia, and others, security points must also be installed for the safety and security of the signatories of the Peace Agreement and other social leaders.

Key points of peace agreement with ELN
Colombian Senator Iván Cepeda presented a report on the progress of the peace agreement with the National Liberation Army (ELN) before the Colombian Congress.

“The new agenda clearly states that the peace process will lead to the end of the armed conflict; and that to that end, a way must be found by which the ELN will renounce not only the use of weapons, but also surrender the weapons themselves,” states point 5 of the report.

Cepeda added that the Colombian government will look for a new method to fulfill “the commitment to the rights of all victims to justice, truth, and comprehensive reparation, as well as to non-repetition and never forgetting.”

Petro-Santos meeting
President Gustavo Petro and former President Juan Manuel Santos also held a private meeting, where the main topic of discussion was the implementation of the Havana Peace Agreement (with the FARC) and its difficulties.

According to Colombian media, Petro promised to implement the Agreement, with some necessary adjustments.

According to other sources, President Petro explained to Santos that he does not want to modify the basic tenets of the Peace Agreement but would like to add some points with the aim of allocating resources and programs for vulnerable populations affected by violence.

https://orinocotribune.com/total-peace- ... c-leaders/

Colombia: ‘The Most Ambitious Labor Reform of the Century’
MARCH 25, 2023

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Labor Minister Gloria Ines Ramirez and President Petro present labor reform bill. Photo: Forbes Colombia.

By Gustavo A Maranges – Mar 21, 2023

This is how Colombia’s Labor Minister Gloria Ines Ramirez described the labor reform bill introduced to Congress on March 17. Improving workers’ conditions and rights is a major part of President Gustavo Petro’s plan to reduce inequality.

The reform is the first of two planned this year by the Ministry of Labor. According to the legislative calendar, the Pension Reform will be presented on March 22, so both discussions will take place almost simultaneously. It is expected that the documents will undergo changes in Congress, but if the President’s legislative force remain united, the chances of getting the bill passed are good.

Among the most significant aspects of the Labor Reform is the re-establishment of the night shifts starting at 6:00 pm. In 2002, the then-recently elected President Alvaro Uribe changed the law and established the beginning of night shifts at 9:00 p.m., to benefit tourism, and entertainment business owners. Petro also proposes to pay double for these hours and holidays and Sunday shifts, which means 25% over the current amount.

Regarding salary increases, workers earning up to two minimum wages will be entitled to a salary increase equivalent to the previous year’s inflation. It will protect real wages, which are on a downward trend due to global inflation and the successive labor reforms of previous governments.

The reform intends to regulate work on digital platforms, like Uber or food delivery workers, but the bill only includes home delivery services, a detail that could change during the debates to make it more inclusive. From now on, those who work this way will have to make social security contributions and will be entitled to vacations and limits on how much they work per week. If workers don’t pay it, the company must assume them. Many employees in the sector welcome the measure, as they now work up to 15 hours a day without vacation entitlement.

It is a very complex sector since, in many cases, there are no formal labor contracts, and it is often assumed as a form of “self-employment,” although many are not. In any case, it is a first attempt to regulate and protect workers’ most basic rights without affecting the growth of the sector, as some critics of the reform have stated.

As expected, one of the reform’s strong critics is former President Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010), who published a statement affirming: “the reform does not benefit workers or businessmen.” According to the best neoliberal teacher in Colombia, the new regulations imply an increase of between 30 and 35% in labor costs, which will slow down employment generation and increase the informal employment rate, which stands at 57.9% as of January 2023.

Regardless of the neoliberal logic behind this approach, Uribe forgot to mention that his policy of reducing labor costs did not succeed in either increasing employment or reducing the informal work rate. However, it did increase the working day length, while reducing real wages and workers’ rights, all of which resulted in workers’ massive exploitation.

According to Uribe, the reform is unnecessary, and a wage increase every five years linked to a productivity increase would be enough. The rest of the measures only make the hiring process more complex, said the former president. Petro said he agreed with the proposal of a productivity-linked salary increase but also stated that it should be included in the reform instead of replacing it since it goes far beyond salary issues.

The main objection to the reform is based on Uribe and some business sector representatives’ statements predicting mass bankruptcies among small and medium-sized companies. This is an unfounded fear, and although it certainly increases costs, it is a measure of income redistribution through salaries.

Ultimately, it is a measure that encourages business owners to increase productivity as a way of balancing any losses from labor costs. Something they were not forced to do before due to the precariousness of employment, a classic neoliberal recipe.

Reform support parades have been organized in Bogota, Cali, Medellin, Barranquilla, and other important cities of the country. The most important unions, among them the Workers’ Unitary Central (CUT), the Labor General Confederation (CGT), and Colombian Education Workers Federation (FCE), all support the Petro administration’s project.

The proposal also modifies the relationship between unions and employers. in some cases, employers have to negotiate work contracts with dozens of unions separately. The reform seeks to limit this type of practice, which implies a lighter burden for the employer and strengthens workers’ unity, offering them better chances when negotiating collective work contracts.

Another positive aspects are the reduction of weekly working hours from the current 48 to 42. The process will be gradual, on a basis of one hour per year, retroactively from 2022. Similarly, service contracts, which left workers defenseless because they did not guarantee social security, health or education insurance, or vacations, will be suspended. Instead, the Ministry’s policy is to foster indefinite-term contracts.

The reform also includes special protection for heads of families, the disabled, workers close to retirement age, and pregnant women. The dismissal of people in these categories will only be possible if qualifies as “just cause” and after a judge’s approval. Meanwhile, for firing other workers without “just cause,” the employer should pay compensation equivalent to the remaining months of the contract’s salary.

Latin America is showing the rest of the world with these measures, especially in a context marked by a worldwide decline in labor rights. In France, for example, there have been strong protests against the two-year increase in the retirement age. Meanwhile, in the United States, the number of unjustified firings and complaints of violations of the right to form unions is on the rise. In Colombia there is a president who is standing with the workers which is never seen in the developed countries of the North, until they are forced to which is what happened by the many labor advances in the US in the 1930’s

This new reform seeks to dignify the Colombians’ work and reverse the disastrous consequences of decades of neoliberalism. It also includes protection against violence and harassment at the work place, as well as safeguards for the right to form trade unions. However, some sectors consider it not inclusive enough, which may be true, but it definitely is an unprecedented step, one in the right direction.

https://orinocotribune.com/colombia-the ... e-century/
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Tue Apr 18, 2023 2:31 pm

Paramilitary violence continues to plague Colombia

According to INDEPAZ, between April 1 and 11, ten people were killed in three massacres, eleven social leaders were assassinated and one ex-combatant was killed in different departments of Colombia

April 13, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch

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"Without life, there is no peace". Photo: Colombia Informa

Despite important advances towards peace made by the government of Gustavo Petro, violence continues across Colombia. The Colombian human rights organization, the Institute of Development and Peace Studies (INDEPAZ), reported that between April 1 and 11, ten people were murdered in three massacres, eleven social leaders were assassinated and one ex-combatant was killed. The alarming number of deaths is one of the highest death tolls registered during a period of ten days this year.

While there has been a noted decrease in the killings of environmentalists, land defenders, human rights defenders, Afro-descendent, Indigenous, peasant and social leaders since the start of the year, human rights organizations have sounded the alarms following this latest bout of violence.

On April 11, three peasants were killed by a group of unknown men in El Tambo, Cauca in the 30th massacre of the year. In these 30 massacres, 98 Colombians have been slaughtered.

On the same day, an environmental defender, Diana Carolina Rodríguez Madrigal, was beaten to death when she was on her way to her home in San Cayetano, Norte de Santander. A peasant leader and member of the Colombian Communist Party Carlos Julio Tautiva Cruz was also murdered by armed men, who attacked him inside his house in the Lagunilla village in Sumapaz, Bogotá, and the bodies of two social leaders, María Cecilia Cuenu Cuenu and Juan Hilario Banguera Colorado, who had been missing since March 31, were found dead with signs of torture near the Palanquera stream in Guapi, Cauca.

According to INDEPAZ, Cuenu Cuenu and Banguera Colorado were the 47th and 48th social leaders to be assassinated in 2023, and the 1,456th and 1,457th since the signing of Havana peace agreements in November 2016.

The Colombian Communist Party (PCC) condemned the assassination of Tautiva Cruz and demanded justice. “Criminal hands took the life of one of our comrades, Carlos Julio Tautiva Cruz (Yuyo), and caused serious injuries to Nubia González in the town of Sumapaz in Bogotá. Yuyo was a historic peasant leader, music artist and a peacemaker. We demand justice!,” the PCC tweeted.

The Union of Agricultural Workers of Sumapaz (SINTRAPAZ) also rejected Tautiva Cruz’s murder. “The agrarian union organization rejects the tragic events that took the life of our comrade and friend Carlos Julio Tautiva Cruz and caused damage to the integrity of his daughter-in-law Nubia Gonzalez Salazar. We urge the authorities, through the activation of the protocols and the rigorous investigation, to promptly find the whereabouts of the criminals, do justice and make reparations to the community of Sumapaz, the Tautiva Cruz and Tautiva Mora families and other family friends for the opprobrious events that occurred,” said SINTRAPAZ in a statement.

Likewise, on April 9, INDEPAZ reported the murder of ex-FARC guerrilla fighter Diego Mauricio Mejía Rojas in the Puerto Asis municipality in the Putumayo department. He was shot dead by armed men riding a motorcycle. He was a part of the reincorporation process and was working as a guard with the National Protection Unit (UNP).

According to INDEPAZ, with Mejía Rojas’ assassination, the number of ex-combatants killed since the signing of peace agreements reached 354.

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Deputy Sergio Marín of the Comunes Party, which was formed as a part of the 2016 Havana peace agreements, condemned Mejía Rojas’ murder, stating “they continue to extinguish the lives of those who work for peace.”

The Security and Protection for Peace Workers Union (SINTRASEPAZ) also rejected Mejía Rojas’ homicide. “Our colleague Diego Mauricio Mejía Rojas, a bodyguard with the Specialized Sub-Directorate of the UNP, was murdered in Puerto Asís, Putumayo. Diego was a peace signatory and protected other peace signatories. Our condolences to family, comrades and friends,” SINTRASEPAZ wrote in a tweet.

The left-wing government of President Gustavo Petro and Vice president Francia Márquez, which took office in August 2022, has promised to achieve peace in the country. The Petro-Márquez government has been promoting peace agreements with all irregular paramilitary and drug-trafficking groups willing to submit to justice. They have also vowed to fully implement the 2016 peace agreements.

According to INDEPAZ, over 20 irregular armed groups operating in the country have expressed their will to lay down arms, engage in dialogue and accept conditions in exchange for peace and definitive non-repetition of violence.

The government has already begun peace talks with at least three groups, including the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), and Segunda Marquetalia guerilla groups, and drug cartel Los Pachencas. It has also resumed the peace process with the National Liberation Army (ELN).

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/04/13/ ... -colombia/

*********

President Petro arrives in the US to meet with Joe Biden

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The Colombian president landed in New York City to participate in a UN forum on the rights of the indigenous community. | Photo: @infopresidencia
Published 17 April 2023

Gustavo Petro and Joe Biden will talk about drug policy and total peace, migration, investment opportunities and climate change.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro landed in New York City on Sunday to begin his visit to the United States, where he will meet with his American counterpart Joe Biden on April 20.

The meeting will be the first official meeting between the two leaders and will take place at the US Government headquarters in Washington DC

From the Colombian Government they indicated that Petro and Biden would talk about various issues on the bilateral agenda such as drug policy and total peace, migration, investment opportunities and climate change.


The Colombian president will have the opportunity to explain to his US counterpart the changes to the extradition treaty, as well as the fight against drugs and drug trafficking.


Gustavo Petro has insisted that the cooperation of the United States is needed to transform the drug policy that currently governs the country.

In addition to the meeting with Joe Biden, the Colombian head of state will maintain a busy work schedule that will lead him to participate in a UN forum on the rights of the indigenous community.


He will also hold meetings with congressmen, meetings with presidents of multinationals and will speak at the OAS.

The meeting between Gustavo Petro and Joe Biden responds to a formal invitation from the US Government.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/gustavo- ... -0025.html

Google Translator

*******

Map of the "missing" in Colombia
April 18, 12:16

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Map of the "missing" in Colombia

Map of "missing people" in Colombia from 1958 to 2018 "Missing" in Latin America refers to those abducted by security forces and paramilitary groups of civilians (usually political opponents and their families), who were killed and their bodies were hidden. Tens of thousands of relatives have been searching for secret graves for decades.

If earlier the Institute of National Remembrance spoke of 265,000 victims between 1958 and 2020, the Truth Commission, which completed its work in July last year, named an even more monstrous figure: 450,666 deaths between 1985 and 2018 alone. Added to this are the “missing”, those whose bodies have not been and most likely never will be found. This is another 121,768 people. 90% of the victims are civilians. To better understand the scale of the nightmare, the population of the country during this period averaged 40 million people.

And these figures are far from final. We are talking only about proven and documented cases. A huge part of the victims from the Colombian hinterland without roads, state presence and channels of communication has never been registered by anyone.

8 million people fled their lands to save their lives and about a million were forced to leave the country for political reasons.

45% of the victims are at the hands of far-right militants "paramilitares", created and trained by the army and government. 27% - at the hands of leftist partisans and 12% - at the hands of agents of the state. Responsibility for the deaths of the other victims has not been established.

Colombia is the United States' closest military ally and the only associated NATO member in Latin America.

It is interesting to compare the number of publications about Colombia in the world human rights press during this period with the number of articles about Cuba and Venezuela, which she was so concerned about. And repeat the rhetorical question about the sanctions that the civilized world, as you know, always punishes the worst violators of freedoms and human rights.

(c) Oleg Yasinsky

https://t.me/olegyasynsky/943 - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8299921.html

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Wed May 03, 2023 2:03 pm

Sharp Turn in Colombia Towards Emergency Government
MAY 2, 2023

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A Colombian flag in the wind. File photo.

By Luis Alfonso Mena S. – Apr 28, 2023

Analysis of the changes in President Petro’s cabinet
Several of the keys to the changes made this Wednesday, April 26, by President Gustavo Petro to his government cabinet are also found in different scenarios, such as his speech before the campesino communities of Zarzal (Valle del Cauca), decisions of Congress of the Republic over land, and in the recalcitrant boycotts by the heads of the old regime’s parties against social reforms.

In his devastating speech on April 25, in Zarzal, a municipality where he handed over a thousand hectares of fertile land from the La Calera property, administered by the SAE [Colombia’s Special Assets Society], to 90 peasant families, the president denounced, first of all, decisions taken in Congress that violate land policy and demonstrate the power of the landowners in that institution.

“Why did the Congress of the Republic, in its economic commissions, remove the article that allowed land to be purchased without expropriating it, minister [of agriculture, Cecilia López], in order to hand it over to the Colombian peasantry?” asked the president, referring to the process of the Development Plan. “Now, only one article remains in force in the law and that is that it must be expropriated. The same Congress of Colombia removes the article that allowed a smooth, peaceful negotiation, and obliges, if the Peace Agreement is to be fulfilled, to expropriate those who have land, the landowners. I do not understand if the Colombian Congress wants war.”

Secondly, in Zarzal, President Petro vehemently rejected the faction of the parties of the establishment which stands against the Health Reform, regarding a pronouncement to that effect issued by former President Juan Manuel Santos, whom Petro did not hesitate to describe as a liar when Santos said that the health care system current situation “is one of the best in the world”—all of which is indicative of the rocky future of the project in the legislative chambers.

“They believe that by taking their children to the Santa Fe Foundation, in the north of Bogotá, they have the best health system,” said Petro, addressing Santos. “They do not know what happens to a child here on a ranch, next to this farm, if they get sick. And then they go saying that they have the best health system in the world because they have not left the streets of Chapinero, or they have not been able to understand what peace really consists of.”

Third and most importantly, the head of state spoke of the necessity of having a team of collaborators with his full confidence, deeply committed to his policies. For this reason, he announced an “emergency government” with officials who “work day and night” for change and who “do not simply earn a salary or commissions.” “We can’t wait any longer,” the president told the community gathered in Zarzal.

“The government must now declare an emergency,” President Petro said. “Emergency means that day and night, government teams are working on how to lower the price of food, on how to deliver land to the peasantry, on how to have more food planted and, therefore, lower prices. Anyone who is no longer capable of doing this no longer has a place in our government.”

The Colombian people need, added Petro, “an emergency government that has officials whose hearts are in favor of humble people and not simply earning a salary and commissions, and who are capable of overcoming the enormous challenges that are demanded of us in the rural countryside. We cannot wait any longer.”

Centrism is coming to an end
In this way, most of these changes express that the stage of the presence, in the cabinet, of liberal and centrist characters who operate only from the ministerial offices is beginning to come to an end. This change was seen in the retirement of Alejandro Gaviria (neoliberal, in the Ministry of Educación), which occurred two months ago, on February 27, and by the departures of José Antonio Ocampo (Samperista, at the Treasury), Alfonso Prada (Santista, in the Ministry of Interior) and Cecilia López (social democrat, in the Ministry of Agriculture), changes oriented, in principle, to deactivate the extreme right with so-called tranquilizers of the market, which have already completed their cycle.

Like Alejandro Gaviria, who had become outspoken against the Health Reform from the government itself, Cecilia López also attacked the project and the energy transition policy. As a result, the expected results in the presidential task of advance in the Agrarian Reform and in the delivery of land to the peasants were not met.

For his part, José Antonio Ocampo was relentless with his militant position on the so-called fiscal rule, which curbs public spending on social programs, and Alfonso Prada, Gustavo Petro’s squire in the campaign, followed the position of his boss, Juan Manuel Santos, against the Health Reform and its lack of results regarding its processing in Congress, as responsible for the political portfolio and the relationship with the Legislature.

In addition, in line with the declaration issued by the president of the end of the “government coalition” with the Conservative, Liberal and U parties, two more of their representatives left the cabinet: Sandra Milena Urrutia (from the U, in the Ministry of Information Technologies, and Communications) and Guillermo Reyes (Conservative, in the Ministry of Transportation).

Sandra Milena Urrutia’s permanence was unsustainable since, in addition to being a bureaucratized official, she was the spokesperson for Dilian Francisca Toro, who recommended her on behalf of the Partido de la U, a group in which Toro applies dictatorial discipline to her congresspersons to force them to vote against the Health Reform, the same as César Gaviria, in the Liberal Party, and Efraín Cepeda, in the Conservative Party.

Regarding the departure of Guillermo Reyes, a member of the Conservative Party, not only the rupture of the coalition that he formed a part of should be considered, but also the strong objections that have been made to him in recent weeks due to his performance in the face of the crisis of the two “low”-cost airlines that did so much damage to tourism and flyers during Holy Week, a fact that was used by the extreme right to generate another criticism against the government.

Arturo Luis Luna, minister of science, was also removed, since his performance was inconsequential and bland, which shows that youth and a resume with many titles are not enough, factors that led Gustavo Petro to appoint him.

The surprise transfer, carried out by the president, of Mauricio Lizcano (of the Gente en Marcha [People on the Move] party) from the Administrative Department of the Presidency of the Republic (DAPRE) to the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications, was surely executed to take advantage of his knowledge in new technologies. Lizcano will have to clarify questions of a different order that have been asked of him for months.

Carolina, in the heart of the people
The unexpected event of this turn was constituted by the departure of Carolina Corcho from the cabinet, since she had gambled thoroughly for the Health Reform. All the leaders of the right-wing parties filed their grievances against her and, insatiable as ever, were not appeased by any of the points on which the Government conceded on the project.

She always received the support of the president, who insisted that she represented the thinking of the government and, therefore, no one imagined that she could be left out of it.

Perhaps in these more than eight months in office there has not been a Government of Change official who has been more attacked and vilified by health businessmen and by multiple business and media sectors than Carolina Corcho, who stoically fought to carry out the core reform of Petro’s mandate.

Surely, the president withdrew the minister to attempt to save the reform, a risky decision that, hopefully, will not be costly and that, from our point of view, is unfortunate, as was the withdrawal, on February 27, of Minister of Culture Patricia Ariza, whose departure was never explained by the president.

It is difficult to find a professional such as Ariza who is so competent and knowledgeable of the entire complex legal framework of the Colombian health system and who is an adequately determined fighter to push forward a law that would put an end to the health disaster produced by certain individuals who manage the multi-million dollar investments of the state in leeches such as EPS (Health Promoting Entities).

Carolina Corcho laid the foundations of the Health Reform, defended it with intelligence and courage, faced the merchants of the system and left the cabinet as one of its best ministers, loyal not only to the Government of Change, but to the struggles and rights of the Colombian people. This extraordinary fighter for humanity deserves admiration and recognition.

The Colombian popular movement values Carolina Corcho and Patricia Ariza and will always take their efforts and persistence into account. They remain in the heart of the people.

The challenges for the newcomers
The doctor Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo, former governor of Tolima and colleague of the president when Petro served as Mayor of Bogotá, as the new Minister of Health, awaits the challenge of carrying out the Reform in Congress. The designation takes him out of the race for the Bogotá Mayor’s Office and clears the way for the endorsement, by the Historical Pact, of a figure such as Gustavo Bolívar.

Replacing José Antonio Ocampo, the prominent economist Ricardo Bonilla, current director of the Territorial Development Fund, FinDeTer, and a man who has the full confidence of the President, will take office at the Ministry of Finance. His contribution will be very important to the financial support of the social reforms; the obsession of their adversaries, as well as the enormous deficit left by the Iván Duque regime in relation to the Stabilization Fund, will be dealt with. Fuel prices and the fight against inflation constitute particularly important areas.

Luis Fernando Velasco, a liberal leader with extensive parliamentary experience and a strong critic of César Gaviria, will assume the Ministry of the Interior. He could revitalize the approach to the social reform projects of a significant number of congressmen who rebelled (18 in total) and wrote a letter to the head of their party in which they rejected the threats made by the former neoliberal president to those who voted in favor of the Health Reform. Velasco is currently a presidential adviser for the Regions.

The new Minister of Agriculture is the lawyer Jennifer Mojica Flórez, current director of Ethnic Affairs of the Land Restitution Unit. She was deputy director of the Colombian Association of Jurists and has been part of processes such as the Association of Arhuaco Authorities of the Sierra Nevada and the Commission for the Clarification of the Truth. Her great challenges are promoting agrarian reform, contributing to improving food production, and fighting to lower prices.

Engineer William Camargo, current director of the National Infrastructure Agency, arrives at the Ministry of Transportation. He is an expert in urban planning and mobility systems. Among his challenges are finding solutions to the mess with Ultra Air and Viva and, more strategically, developing a comprehensive policy for tertiary roads that facilitates the mobilization of campesinos/as and their crops throughout the country.

Anthropologist Yesenia Olaya Requene, a native of Tumaco, Nariño, replaces Arturo Luis Luna in the Ministry of Sciences. She is vice minister of talent and social appropriation of knowledge of the Ministry of Science. She faces great challenges in an organization that has not yet taken off under the current government and in which Gustavo Petro has sown expectations due to the importance he attaches to scientific research as a motor for the development of communities and the country.

Although he is trusted by the president, Mauricio Lizcano is not the official that a ministry of such importance to the government, such as communications, requires, especially after taking into account his passage through DAPRE, which reveals the lack of a global strategy by the president with respect to media such as the radio and television, as it focuses on digital media and on achieving the expansion of the internet to rural areas of the country.

Lawyer and political scientist, specializing in the environment, Carlos Ramón González will be the new director of DAPRE. He is another man who is fully trusted by the president. González was director of Alianza Democrática M-19 and recently served as co-president of the Alianza Verde party. Through his office and that of the Chief of Staff, Laura Sarabia, he has passed through all the structures in the Casa de Nariño and the presidential agenda.

Those who remain
The Minister of Labor Gloria Inés Ramírez, the Minister of Mines and Energy Irene Vélez Torres, and the Minister of the Environment Susana Muhamad are some of those who will continue to serve. The right-wing media and politicians who have always had Minister Vélez in their sights were left with this fact. They even subjected her to motions of censure in Congress, from which she has emerged unscathed.

Two other ministers against whom the extreme right-wing Uribista and Cambio Radical [“Radical Change”] factions have called for motions of no confidence in Congress also remain unscathed: the foreign minister, Álvaro Leyva Durán, and the defense minister, Iván Velásquez Gómez. The latter, the same day of a sharp turn made in the cabinet, appeared before Congress to answer for absurd, malicious accusations from the opposition, as also happened a few days ago with the minister of foreign affairs.

Although of liberal origin, the ministers of justice, Néstor Iván Osuna; that of housing, Catalina Velasco; and that of commerce and industry, Germán Umaña, are now spoken of by analysts as “the points of tension” in the cabinet.

The recently appointed ministers of education, Aurora Vergara Figueroa, and of sports, Astrid Bibiana Rodríguez, who replaced Alejandro Gaviria and María Isabel Urrutia, respectively, in the February 27 changes, continue in their positions.

Finally, it was surprising that in the tremor of April 26, Ignacio Zorro was also not appointed minister of culture, to succeed Patricia Ariza, but continues under the title of manager.

The long-awaited appointment of the manager of RTVC Public Media Systems, a key entity in government communication matters, which is still in the hands of officials who remain from the right-wing regime of Iván Duque, did not take place either, an attitude strongly questioned by the alternative media and by the country’s progressive opinion, which sees how the president is wasting the opportunity to wield this network that could help counter the disinformation campaign of the hegemonic media and the press of the oligarchic system.

The Government of Change thus enters a new phase, without representatives of the right-wing parties that were part of the coalition until Tuesday, April 26, alongside the Historical Pact, the Green Alliance, and the Comunes (Commons) parties.

This shift to the left will make it possible to more clearly define the profile of the government and guide it along the path of real change. Everything also depends on the mobilization in the streets and sidewalks of workers, campesinos, and the middle classes, as President Gustavo Petro has proposed.

On May 1, 2023 there will be a new litmus test, during which the people hope to see their ministers parading with them in the streets, commemorating the International Day of the Working Class and supporting social reforms in motion.

https://orinocotribune.com/sharp-turn-i ... overnment/
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Tue May 16, 2023 1:31 pm

President Petro: Coups Must Be Resisted and Defeated
MAY 14, 2023

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Colombian President Gustavo Petro speaks, with a Colombian flag in the background. Photo: Colprensa.

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, said that “coups d’état must be resisted and defeated through the mobilization of the people. ”

He made this statement after retired Colonel John Marulanda expressed his desire for a coup in Colombia similar to the one carried out against President Pedro Castillo of Peru, during an interview on W Radio on Thursday, May 11.

“I believe that Colombia is following in the footsteps of Peru,” the right-wing military colonel and US-trained retired black hawk pilot said. “I believe that in Peru the reserves were successful as they were able to oust a corrupt president. Here we are going to try our best to oust a guy who was a guerrilla.”


In response to these statements, President Petro said, “Why are they conspiring for a coup? It must be because they are terrified that we will end impunity. The truth intimidates them so much that they are in despair.”

Petro stated that Marulanda wants to oust him from power because “for the first time a president, instead of taking away lands from the peasants and keep it for himself or give it to his friends, is handing land over to the peasants. That is why they want to carry out a coup against me.”

According to Petro, the conspirators “judicially hide what society already knows: the enormous corruption in the state, and the genocide, violence and terror unleashed on the people, are two sides of the same coin.”


The Colombian president added that “sectors strongly tied to impunity are trying to build a common front to destroy the constitutional government.”

“All the progressive people who elected me as president already know it,” Petro continued. “Those tied to impunity are terrified by the truth; they are not thinking about elections, but about a coup d’état. Will the Attorney General’s Office investigate?”

He stressed that his government will work to ensure ” justice, reparation for the victims, and the truth for a great national reconciliation.”

On Friday, May 12, Colombian news outlets reported that the Attorney General’s Office opened an ex-oficio investigation about Marulanda’s statements, on receiving a request from Colombian Defense Minister Iván Velázquez.

Who is Marulanda
John Marulanda is a former helicopter pilot, trained by the US army to pilot Black Hawk helicopters. He has several degrees and diplomas from elite international universities such Ohio State University (Political Psychology, 1996), Cambridge (Negotiation, 2012), and Harvard (Crisis, Leadership Management and Communications, 2016.

Marulanda also worked as security advisor for the US oil corporation Schlumberger during 2002-2010. Since then, he has worked for a shadowy consultancy company called OPS Consultorias, according to his LinkedIn profile. Colombia is famous for security consultant companies that are mostly euphemisms for mercenary contractors.


(RedRadioVE) by Milena Bravo, with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/president-pe ... -defeated/

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MANCUSO CONFESSES LINKS BETWEEN POLITICIANS AND PARAMILITARIES IN COLOMBIA
May 12, 2023 , 10:50 a.m.

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Mancuso revealed the alliances between officials, civilians, paramilitaries and public forces in Colombia (Photo: La Silla Vacía)

Each new statement by the former leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), Salvatore Mancuso, before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), splashes important political personalities in Colombia. This time he said that former Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos influenced the illegal group of the AUC to create a paramilitary bloc in Bogota called "Capital Bloc."

Said request by Santos occurred before he assumed the vice presidency together with Álvaro Uribe Vélez after the 2002 elections, so his ties go back even to the 1990s.

Mancuso's latest statements focused on describing the support that this criminal organization received from the country's political, business and military elites so that the paramilitaries would fight the guerrilla advance in Colombia on a new front.

Faced with the order to make the AUC victims disappear, Mancuso said that, as commander of the Catatumbo Bloc, "the tactic was to throw all the victims into Venezuelan territory." He says that this happened between 2000 and 2001. Some of the bodies were thrown into the river.

"Some members of the AUC entered Venezuela to make graves, there are some 200 people who were buried there," he confessed to the JEP. For that there was coordination with the armed forces of Venezuela.

In addition, Mancuso revealed that Venezuelan generals and politicians asked paramilitary chief Carlos Castaño for the assassination of President Hugo Chávez.


"All this that I am sharing goes much further than what I have already related. This has broader depths because there was also coordination with the military and public forces on the Venezuelan side for this type of operation," Mancuso added.

https://misionverdad.com/mancuso-confie ... n-colombia

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Wed May 24, 2023 2:18 pm

Colombia: Former President Alvaro Uribe to Face Criminal Trial

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Colombian Former President Alvaro Uribe. | Photo: Twitter/ @IvanCepedaCast

Published 24 May 2023 (1 hours 25 minutes ago)

The case against him began in 2012 when the Supreme Court suspected that Uribe had bribed witnesses to build accusations against left-wing Senator Ivan Cepeda.


On Tuesday, Laura Barrera, the judge in charge of the 41st Criminal Court of Bogota, denied the closure of the case against former President Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010) for bribery of witnesses.

After listening to the arguments of his defense lawyers and the Prosecutor's Office, she decided there is evidence that Uribe participated in bribery and witness tampering.

The Prosecutor's Office will appeal the judge's decision because it considers that there is insufficient evidence to prove that the former president had ordered the search for false witnesses against the left-wing Senator Ivan Cepeda.

In August 2022, the Prosecutor's Office also requested the closure of the case, arguing that the investigative acts suggested by the 28th Criminal Judge of Bogota "were carried out."

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The tweet reads, "The majority of Colombians demand jail for the slaughterer."

The case against the far-right politician began in 2012 when the Supreme Justice Court decided to open an investigation against Uribe. The judges suspected that the former president had bribed witnesses to build accusations against Cepeda.

In mid-2018, the Court called Uribe to a hearing for procedural fraud since investigations showed that he tried to manipulate former paramilitaries into testifying against Cepeda. This attempted manipulation happened through lawyer Diego Cadena.

On August 4, 2020, the Supreme Court ordered Uribe's house arrest. A few days later, however, Uribe resigned his Senate seat and lost his parliamentary immunity.

As a result of this, the Supreme Court lost its jurisdiction in the case, which the Prosecutor's Office took over. On October 10, 2020, a judge ordered Uribe's release.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Col ... -0008.html

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Colombia’s Government Suspends Ceasefire With FARC Dissidents
MAY 23, 2023

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Colombian President Gustavo Petro. Photo: Reuters.

The measure responds to a massacre in the southwest of the country.

On Monday, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, announced the suspension of the ceasefire agreement with the dissident groups of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (EMC-FARC). This occurred after a massacre, in which four children died, took place in the department of Putumayo (in the southwest of Colombia) .

“… The bilateral ceasefire that currently existed with this armed group in the departments of Meta, Caquetá, Guaviare, and Putumayo is suspended and all offensive operations are reactivated,” read a statement from President Petro.

“Yesterday, reports emerged of the murder of four minors by the Carolina Ramírez front of the Estado Mayor Central [Central Command Structure], a guerrilla group, in the department of Putumayo,” read Petro’s statement. An atrocious fact that casts doubt on the will to build peace in the country. There is no justification for this kind of crime.”

“Today, after listening to delegates from the communities and from the Extraordinary Security Council —and due to the serious violation of international human rights by this illegal organization, added to other facts that generate uncertainty and anxiety in the population—the Government made the unilateral decision to partially suspend the effects of Decree 2656 of 2022,” Petro added.

In the text, it is indicated that the decision will become effective over the next 72 hours.

“In addition, the EMC-FARC is invited to ratify the participation of its delegates in the local mechanisms in which the ceasefire remains in force,” stated President Petro. “We have verified the détente that has been achieved in other territories where the EMC-FARC operates, out of respect for the ceasefire…”


FARC dissidents allege noncompliance by the Colombian government
The Carolina Ramírez front of the EMC-FARC stated that there were breaches by the military forces of the state. Similarly, it warned that “the unilateral break will unleash war and the death, the wounded, and the prisoners, will multiply, contrary to a policy of total peace,” reported the local press, quoted by Sputnik.

On December 31, President Petro announced a ceasefire with various armed factions, including dissidents from the former FARC, for a period of six months.

https://orinocotribune.com/colombias-go ... issidents/
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 07, 2023 1:58 pm

Soft Coup in Colombia: Sucker Punches and Media Harassment
JUNE 6, 2023

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Colombian President Gustavo Petro. Photo: South China Morning Post.

The political scandal that Colombia is currently experiencing further fuels the rumors that a soft coup is being orchestrated against President Gustavo Petro. Leaked audios, telephone interceptions, and media propaganda have been employed to try destabilizing the Colombian government.

This weekend, Semana magazine published alleged audio recordings of the former Colombian ambassador to Venezuela, Armando Benedetti, in a conversation with the former chief of staff of the presidency, Laura Saraiba. During the call, Benedetti said that he received 15 billion pesos for the Petro campaign.

According to the audio recordings, Benedetti complained to Sarabia that Petro did not give Benedetti a position within the new administration. The former ambassador wanted to be appointed to the Foreign Ministry or the Ministry of the Interior, but this did not materialize.

After the audio leak, Armando Benedetti assured the public that his statements were manipulated and taken out of context. In addition, he apologized to Petro “for the aggression and malicious attack.”

“The Semana magazine audios have been manipulated,” wrote the former ambassador via social media. “I apologize to President Gustavo Petro and Laura Sarabia for the aggression and malicious attack that does not come from me.”


What did Gustavo Petro say after the recordings were leaked?
In the midst of all the controversy, President Petro claimed that he has no knowledge of Benedetti’s statements about the 15 billion pesos. Petro noted that the former official must provide explanations to the Attorney General’s Office.

Petro stated that he is certain that no irregularities have been committed in his government, after guaranteeing that neither commanders of the public force nor directors of intelligence apparatuses ordered telephone tapping or illegal raids.

“I do not accept blackmail, nor do I see politics as a space for personal favors,” the Colombian president specified.


Petro recalled when former President Iván Duque ordered the illegal recording of the conversations that Petro carried out over Zoom during his presidential campaign, and which were published in Semana. The same medium is now being used to promote the soft coup against the Colombian government.

During those wiretaps, the Duque government, at that time, failed to prove anything against Petro’s campaign. The investigation did not advance to the Prosecutor’s Office. Furthermore, a scandal was not generated by the illegal wiretapping, as is currently occurring.

The soft coup against Petro
The leaks are now being used by the opposition sector, including the ex-candidate for the presidency, Federico Gutiérrez, to demand the resignation of Gustavo Petro.


For her part, Senator Piedad Córdoba denounced that the media lend themselves to propaganda and not to informing the public. Last March, Córdoba warned that Colombia’s oligarchy was preparing a soft coup against Petro through misinformation and instigating false motivations.

“They are orchestrating a disinformation campaign, flooding the networks and media with tendentious information, and beginning to incite marches with false motivations,” stated the senator at the time.

https://orinocotribune.com/soft-coup-in ... arassment/

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Colombians will march in support of the president and social reforms

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Colombians will march to demand that Congress approve the social reforms promoted by President Petro. | Photo: EFE
Posted June 7, 2023

President Gustavo Petro invited those who voted for change in Colombia to march not only for the reforms but also against impunity.

Workers unions, unions and social organizations in Colombia will march this Wednesday in the main cities of the country to express their support for President Gustavo Petro and for the health, labor and pension reforms promoted by the Colombian Government.

President Petro confirmed the day before his participation in the mobilizations to be held in the Colombian capital.

Petro invited those who voted for change in Colombia to march in all the municipalities of the country, not only for the reforms but also against impunity.


Former senator Gustavo Bolívar, of the Historical Pact, considered that the demonstrations are an opportunity to reaffirm the proposals for change and support the head of state.

The mobilization day was announced on May 31 by the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia (CUT), the Confederation of Colombian Workers (CTC) and the Colombian Federation of Education Workers (Fecode).

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According to the organizers, the march called "Toma de Bogotá for social reforms" will leave at 9:00 a.m., local time, from the National Park to the Plaza de Bolívar, remaining until late at night, to demand and demand that Congress approval of labor, pension and health reforms.

When announcing the mobilizations, the president of the CUT, Francisco Maltés recalled that Colombia voted for the changes.


Congressmen, students, women, political parties and other sectors of the country who voted for the government and oppose destabilizing actions by sectors of the right joined the call by the CUT and other union groups.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/colombia ... -0006.html

They report a massacre in the Colombian department of Cesar

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The triple murder was recorded in the Zapatosa corregimiento, located in the Tamalameque municipality, Cesar department. | Photo: RCN Radio
Posted June 7, 2023 (8 hours 35 minutes ago)

According to the most recent balance of the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz), Colombia adds 44 massacres so far in 2023.

Colombia added a new massacre on Tuesday in less than 24 hours, confirming the shooting of three people in a rural area of ​​the municipality of Tamalameque in the department of Cesar.

The triple murder occurred on Tuesday morning in the town of Zapatosa, when a group of armed subjects arrived at the site and attacked the victims, causing their death.

The three deceased were identified as Carlos Alberto Martínez Parra, 47 years old; Yoiner Saucedo Campusano, 22, Enith Johana Romero Quintero; while the wounded man is Carlos Alberto Ortiz Guillén, who was not part of the attack, but was on the site and was injured by mistake.


Colombian Police and Army officials arrived at the scene of the massacre to begin investigations into the armed attack.

According to the most recent balance of the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz) Colombia adds 44 massacres so far in 2023.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/colombia ... -0001.html

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Fri Jun 09, 2023 1:40 pm

Colombia: People Mass Mobilize in Support of President Petro
JUNE 8, 2023

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Colombian President Gustavo Petro walking through the mass demonstrations in Bogotá supporting his government, Wednesday, June 7, 2023. Photo: Twitter/@infopresidencia.

President Gustavo Petro joining the mass mobilization: “This time, I will not be on the balcony. I will march alongside the people.”

With the simple motto, “You have to jump, you have to jump, so that labor reform is approved!” that the people shout in the streets of Colombia, mass marches advance in support of President Gustavo Petro and his government program looking to bring justice to Colombians afflicted for decades by civil war and oligarchy rule.

The marches for the “taking of Bogotá in defense of social reforms,” that occurred this Wednesday, June 7, is—according to social media trending topics—for the purposes of labor reforms, social change, and against the soft coup that President Petro has denounced in recent weeks being prepared by the Colombian elite and right-wing forces against him.

The march was called for by Colombian social leaders and trade union organizations in support of the government’s social reforms, and against destabilization attempts by sectors of the right-wing opposition and the elite.

Representatives of trade unions, labor and peasant unions, social political organizations, politicians, and civilian citizens took to the streets defending the reforms and the government that was elected democratically almost one year ago.

On social media platforms, users bring notice to the massive demonstrations across different Colombian cities, such as Bogotá, Barranquilla, Medellín, Santa Marta, and Cali, in addition to expressing their support for the president in the face of recent scandals involving two former high-level officials that are being used by local news outlets and right-wing politicians to torpedo his management.

President Petro joined the marches alongside the people, defending the reforms related to healthcare, labor, and pensions, which are currently stalled in Congress by conservative factors. Through these marches, the protesters seek to express their support and push for the reforms to move forward.

“The people who elected the president are still with the president,” the Colombian president stated during his message to the marchers, highlighting the importance of this mass mobilization.

“There are people who have not yet read what the popular decision at the polling stations last year, meaning, they believe that it was simply a fad, a passing fever, a delirium that has already passed and that left a president abandoned in his presidential palace,” added Petro. “Well, today, today we say it clearly, that it is not like that.”

He stated that the people will take to the streets to defend democracy if there is a “soft coup” against him, in the midst of the biggest crisis that their government has had during ten months in office.

“Petro is not alone. If [the conservatives] dare to violate the popular will, the people of Colombia will come out,” the president said, “to defend [the popular mandate] with their clean, happy hands and without violence,” making a speech before thousands of people in Bogotá during one of the demonstrations in support of his government’s reforms.


The president has spoken this week of a “soft coup” to refer to the scandal in his government, as a result of the revelations of his former ambassador to Caracas, Armando Benedetti, regarding alleged irregularities in the financing of his electoral campaign.

“They took out these lies because there is a strategy that we must understand and confront,” Petro added. “They want to destroy the popular support of the government to have a single government, they want to isolate the Petro government from its people, they want to build mistrust in our popular base.”

https://orinocotribune.com/colombia-peo ... ent-petro/

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“We will not give in to blackmail”: Colombians defend government and progressive reforms
Colombia’s right has launched a coordinated attack on the government of progressive President Gustavo Petro

June 07, 2023 by Zoe Alexandra

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Colombian President Gustavo Petro addresses the mobilization in support of the social reforms and against the "soft coup attempt". Photo: Twitter

Thousands took to the streets across Colombia in support of the labor, pension, and healthcare reforms proposed by the Gustavo Petro government. The mobilization called for by the country’s major trade union confederations, including CUT and CTC, also comes in response to the destabilization campaign against the government being waged by right-wing politicians and mainstream media.

Juan Carlos Quintero, a member of the Peasant Association of Catatumbo and the National Coordination of Marcha Patriótica, told Peoples Dispatch that, “The demonstrations have been massive, in support of the current government of Gustavo Petro and the reaffirmation of popular support for a government that in its government program proposed change for Colombian society.”

Colombian congresswoman María Fernanda Carrascal, who is the sponsor of the Labor Reform, told Peoples Dispatch that, “The attacks we are receiving come from traditional political sectors linked to economic interests, which do not want changes and social reforms to take place. They have used blackmail and manipulation to pressure for reforms to be withdrawn or to be accommodated at their whim.”

In recent months, the government led by Petro and vice-president Francia Márquez presented their proposals to reform the country’s healthcare system, pensions, and labor legislation. These reforms were the cornerstone of the Historic Pact coalition’s campaign platform during the 2022 presidential elections. The historic demand from social movements in the country for expanded access to healthcare, education, dignified jobs, and pensions intensified during the 2021 uprising in Colombia wherein hundreds of thousands were on the streets across the country to demand an end to neoliberal policies in these sectors.

As progressive forces predicted, the reforms have been met with staunch opposition from the right-wing bloc in the legislature and in the media.

Former far-right president Álvaro Uribe, for example, has been especially vocal about the healthcare reform which could overturn his infamous Law 100 which paved the way for the privatization of the country’s health system. He said in March in an anti-government protest in his hometown of Medellín, “This law seeks to end the EPS (system of intermediary private insurers), tomorrow they will try to end all of these private entities. This law is the path that will bring us to what there is in Cuba, which is a disaster.”

Despite this opposition, the healthcare reform bill passed a key hurdle on May 23 when it was approved by the Seventh Commission of the House of Representatives. To become a law, the bill will have to go through three more debates and votes: one in the plenary session of the House of Representatives and two in the Senate. Meanwhile the labor and pension reforms are in the preliminary stages and have not been brought to debate in the legislature yet, but have already been widely criticized by the right-wing that has vowed to stop them from passing completely.

Carrascal affirmed that despite the hardline attitude of the right, they will continue to push for these reforms to get passed: “We have to protect the heart, the very structure of the reforms. We can make concessions on many things, we can move in negotiation as in any negotiation, and we can then compromise, but they also have to give something up.”

She added that the Colombian people have been “asking for [these reforms] for many decades. There is a need here and that is to reform pensions, health and labor.”

The anatomy of a scandal
Alongside the debates surrounding the reforms, the right-wing, in coordination with mainstream media outlet Semana Magazine, has exploited a scandal involving a domestic worker in the homes of former chief of staff Laura Sarabia and the former ambassador to Venezuela Armando Benedetti. The incident which involved the alleged theft of USD 7,000 by the worker, her alleged interrogation, and alleged wiretapping after the fact, has been used by the right-wing as ammo to call for the resignation of President Gustavo Petro.

Read more: Colombia’s opposition and right-wing media intensifies destabilization campaign against Gustavo Petro government
Right-wing media has even gone so far as to allege that the 2022 election campaign of Petro’s Historic Pact alliance was funded by drug trafficking groups. This allegation was substantiated by a Semana report which on June 4 published the audio recordings of an alleged phone conversation between Sarabia and Benedetti. Benedetti has since rejected the report and denounced that Semana the allegedly used manipulated audios.

However, former presidential candidates Rodolfo Hernández, Federico Gutiérrez, and Sergio Fajardo, among other opposition leaders, have fiercely attacked the Petro government and demanded the resignation of the head of state.

Since Semana reported the scandal, President Petro and Vice-President Francia Márquez have decisively rejected these charges. Sarabia and Benedetti have been dismissed and Petro has publicly pledged to support the inquiry.

However, the head of state has warned that the attacks are not only coordinated but also have clear political intentions, he stated: “this is a soft coup attempt to stop the fight against impunity.”

Vice-President Francia Márquez meanwhile criticized the opposition for manipulating the people by using the media against the government: “It was expected that the right-wing was not going to sit still and watch how we govern in favor of Change for Colombia. All their lives, they have manipulated and deceived the people to stay in power. That is their modus operandi.”

She added, “President Gustavo Petro, we stand firm with you and with Colombia…Let’s continue moving forward, the people do not give up.”

Regarding the intensified attacks, social leader Juan Carlos Quintero stated: “The soft coup seeks to use a strategy of disinformation from the traditional media, to generate a situation of crisis, chaos and insecurity among citizens in order to deepen baseless discontent in order to take away support to the national government.”

Defending democracy on the streets
The streets of Colombia have taken on a new role in light of the right-wing attacks. While the nature of the message has changed, progressive forces in the country have emphasized the necessity of staying on the streets, this time in defense of the government and its policies.

Carrascal, who has been active in the battle in Congress stated, “We have participated in democracy and we will continue to do so” but she adds, “we will continue to do so in the streets with social mobilization, which is what has brought us to power and through which we have achieved rights, not only for Colombians, but for humanity.”

Carrascal emphasized, “We cannot leave the streets, especially at this moment, where those economic interests and those traditional politicians seek to keep everything the same…it is very important to highlight and emphasize what the President has said, and that is that neither he will give into blackmail, and in this political project we will not give into blackmail.”

For the peasant leader Quintero, in the mobilization on June 7, “the people showed a very important endorsement of the President of the Republic, to his government.” He emphasized that “it is obviously clear that the streets are going to be a very important scenario for the defense of Colombian democracy in the next months and years to come.”

400 leaders from across the globe reject the “soft coup attempt”
On June 7, Progressive International released a letter signed by over 400 political and trade union leaders condemning the “soft coup attempt” against the government of Petro and Márquez. The letter was signed by Argentine human rights defender Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, former Colombian President Ernesto Samper, US intellectual Noam Chomsky, member of UK parliament Claudia Webb, and Gleisi Hoffmann, a member of Brazilian Congress and the president of the Workers’ Party of Brazil.

The letter condemns that “Colombia’s traditional powers have been organizing to restore an order marked by extreme inequality, environmental destruction, and state-sponsored violence.” They state that the goal of the “coordinated campaign” is clear: “protect the interests of Colombia’s traditional powers from popular reforms that would raise wages, improve healthcare, protect the environment, and deliver ‘total peace’ to the country.”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/06/07/ ... e-reforms/

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Petro arrives in Cuba to close the dialogue table with the ELN

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President Petro announced on Wednesday that in Havana he will sign "a paper that could signify the beginning without retreat of an era of peace" for Colombia. | Photo: @Tatiana_teleSUR
Posted June 9, 2023 (6 hours 42 minutes ago)

Petro's presence gives a historical sense to the closing ceremony, since it is the first time that the president has accompanied the closing of a round of dialogue.

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, arrived on Thursday night in Havana, Cuba, to attend this Friday the closing of the third cycle of peace negotiations between his government and the National Liberation Army (ELN).

Petro arrived in the capital of the Caribbean nation, which acts as the rotating venue for the talks and as the guarantor country of the process, around 10:00 p.m. local time (02:00 GMT on Friday).

Petro's presence gives a historical meaning to the closing ceremony, since it is the first time that the Colombian president has accompanied the formal closing of a round of dialogue, which has raised expectations regarding what was agreed.


The Government of the South American nation announced that the ceasefire will be the key point of this agreement.

As announced by the Colombian High Commissioner for Peace, Iván Danilo, it is expected that the ceasefire will be for the entire national level and that it will have, in a first phase, a duration of six months.

These peace talks began in November 2022 in Caracas, Venezuela, and continued in Mexico City this past February-March.

The third round began on May 2 in the Cuban capital. Previously, the parties made it known that they would examine the bilateral ceasefire, humanitarian relief and the participation of civil society in the peace process, among other substantive issues.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/cuba-lle ... -0003.html

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 12, 2023 2:09 pm

Colombia: The Friends and Enemies of Petro
JUNE 11, 2023

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Colombian President Gustavo Petro standing in front of the flag of Colombia and giving a speech at a podium. File photo.

By Gustavo Bolívar – Jun 4, 2023

Gustavo Petro is paying the price for coming to power without the permission of the six owners of the country and without the endorsement of any of the eight presidential families.

This fact, which today is taking its toll on him, gave him the necessary independence to develop reforms that, precisely, bother the former and mortify the latter. The former because they see their economic interests threatened in some strategic sectors which are the object of these reforms, and the latter because an alternative government capable of changing Colombia would expose the dissatisfactory past administrations headed by traditional politicians and parties, leaving them with no possibility of returning to power soon. That is why they are so vicious in criticizing every comma of Petro’s speech; that is why they are so petty in recognizing that, despite the mistakes that the current government may make, Petro is heading a constructive government.

Even so, Gustavo Petro’s enemies are few, while his friends number in millions. However, the power of those few is so great that they overwhelm the communicative efficiency of the millions.

Let us first talk about the enemies.

Firstly, there are the opponents of Petro’s government. Among them are everyone: Uribistas, Vargas Lleristas, tragicomedians, conservatives who until two months ago were “Petristas,” liberals who voted for Duque, galanistas who voted for Rodolfo who is today sanctioned for corruption, mourners, opportunists, people who want to become famous by checking the pages of Colombia Compra Eficiente [National Agency of Public Contracts] every second, those who want to jump into electoral life, and even supposed allies who disguise themselves as worthy when it suits them or when their funders ask them to torpedo some project or another.

Fortunately for us and unfortunately for democracy, there are no serious or meaningful opponents because all of them, in chorus, have become trivialized. From those who criticize Petro because he asks for a chicken broth and an air conditioner in the municipality of Sucre where temperature does not drop below 36⁰C, to those who worry because the president’s wife moves her hips every time she hears a drum, to those who count the tweets he posts or does not post in a day. There are also the fascists who insist on labeling Petro as a communist when he has never been one, or those who insist on calling him a guerrilla when our president today is a former guerrilla, who made peace more than 30 years ago.

There are also those who keep track of the gasoline expended by the vice president in her travels, something they never did with previous vice presidents, and the senator who asks her not to travel by plane because it contradicts her fight against climate change. Fortunately for them, we have brought upon ourselves media scandals such as the purchase of feather bedspreads, the case of Nicolás, the internal disputes between Laura and Armando, and several mistakes have been committed. Had it not been for this, they would have no objective input to criticize. What they do succeed in is the creation of fantastical stories that are then reproduced by sectors of the press that belong to some ideological and/or political grouping.

But the most shameful opposition is the one made by the eight presidential families that led the country to chaos, those of the four former presidents and four grandchildren of former presidents. It is most laughable. Ex-Presidents Gaviria, Pastrana, Uribe, and Duque do not stop criticizing everything that President Petro does. In chorus, they disqualify his reforms, his tweets, his trips, his speeches, and blame him for everything bad that happens in the country. They criticize Petro for failing to stop in a few months the violence that they created themselves and were not able to stop in decades. They criticize that the structural poverty and hunger that they created in the country have not been eliminated in a few months. They criticize the corruption that they could not repress in their own governments.

I do not know if they have Alzheimer’s or if they are overcome by cynicism, but they forget that between the four of them, they governed Colombia for 20 years, and that it was precisely them who gave us a country taken over by drug trafficking, guerrillas, and paramilitaries, a country with the highest rate of corruption in the world, a country whose agriculture and industry are ruined due to their neoliberal practices, a country with one of the biggest wealth inequalities in the world.

With what authority do these characters criticize anything?

Do they have no shame, that they criticize a president who is risking his life to change the country filled with hunger and misery that we have inherited from them?

It is absurd to validate the comments of these abhorrent ex-presidents. They should be asked whenever they try to teach us: Oh yes, and why didn’t you do that when you were president?

Not far behind the four former presidents are the successors, representatives of four other presidential families who criticize Petro even for what he does not say. The grandson of Carlos Lleras, who was once vice president; the grandson of Turbay Ayala who lies without blushing; the granddaughter of Guillermo Leon Valencia who wanted to divide Cauca between lords and slaves; and the grandson of Laureano Gómez, the most trivial of all, a man who calls terrorist anyone who does not think like him, a man who does not make a single serious comment. Four characters raised in a cradle of gold, who have lived off the State starting from when they were in their mothers’ wombs, and who now oppose that the wretched of this nation may have rights to land, to decent healthcare, to a decent job or a pension that their grandparents could not or would not give them.

In short, the members of eight presidential families who ruled Colombia for decades and who led the country to hunger, the depredation of our natural resources, the concentration of fertile land in few hands, the violation of human rights, perpetual war and corruption as a culture, are the main opponents, together with their parties, of the first president elected without their permission. It is not that permission is needed, it is that they believe they own the country, the truth, the lies, the media, the parties, and the entire narcissistic and corrupt establishment that privatized the country’s wealth.

There are also the ex-military who call for the overthrow of the president, to remove him via coup. Many of them were indoctrinated with hatred against the left and still have the idea of the internal enemy in their heads, so their rage is understandable. But there are also those who, by giving or carrying out orders, were complicit in the role of the State in the false positives and the extermination of the Patriotic Union [Petro’s former political party], to cite just two examples for which the Colombian State has already been condemned. Paradoxically, never before has a president been as concerned about them as Gustavo Petro is. At the end of his government, the reservists of the Armed Forces will find out that their living conditions have improved enormously due to the housing, education, and pension improvement programs of this leftist government.

There are other silent enemies, double-faced, even entrenched in power, but we will discuss that later.

Now let us talk about friends.

Petro has millions of friends. Millions of Colombians who love what he does and who are willing to defend his ideal of social justice, total peace, care for our natural resources, and transparent administration of public resources. However, and although in proportion we are 10,000 to one, we do not have the power to amplify the messages through the mass media, which the few do have. This means that their poisoned messages spread like wildfire and build false narratives that can turn even the people who have benefited from the reforms against the government.

In spite of being millions, we are losing the media and publicity battle. Admittedly, they are more efficient with lies than we are with truths. Besides, loyal friends are not around. Some are in Congress, others are in embassies, and some in official positions. This caused Petro’s close circle to be filled with newcomers to the process, people alien to the progressive cause. Professional politicians who today, at convenience, are on the left, and tomorrow, without shame, may switch to the right. Some of these people have dubious reputations, while others are there for reasons that have nothing to do with their principles. The best example of what I have just said is Armando Benedetti, who gave the infamous interview that appeared in Cambio magazine. The former ambassador says, more or less, that Laura Sarabia [Petro’s former chief of staff] is a cadre of his political company, and that if he had supported Rodolfo instead of Petro, she would not be working with Petro but with Rodolfo. Regardless of how efficient and loyal Laura was to Petro, which was confirmed by the president’s family itself, this is a very raw and very real reflection at the same time. It makes clear what President Petro’s closest circle was made of: a Lizcano who voted for Uribe and for Duque, a Peñalosista Prada, a Roy who went through Uribe’s, Santos’, and Petro’s parties, a Benedetti who has had a similar trajectory. Today, due to different circumstances, none of them are in his close circle, and the president is beginning to pay the high price of having associated himself with them.

But valuable time was lost. During the months that the close circle of power was co-opted by these people, none of President Petro’s fellow fighters were around to watch his back, and this was noticeable in the recent power crisis that resulted in the departure of Benedetti and Sarabia. Petro seems to have grasped this some time ago. He made it clear by appointing Carlos Ramón González, former director of the Green Party and a friend of his since his youth, as the head of the Administrative Department of the Presidency of Colombia. It is expected that Laura Sarabia’s replacement will have the same characteristics. Petro needs someone who knows him, who has principles, who is capable of contradicting him, who is capable of sacrifices in order to protect him.

What is paradoxical is that the results of good governance are beginning to be seen. Or only those of us whose want to see change are beginning to see change. The opposition, the ex-military, the eight presidential families, some so-called allies, the politicized sector of the press, and the petty sector of politics are not interested in seeing and even less in disseminating the macroeconomic figures that would begin to dispel the doubts that they themselves spread in the campaign about Petro’s inability to keep afloat a country that we received with eight points of fiscal deficit, double-digit unemployment, seven million people in extreme poverty, an inflation rate of 10.8%, several armed conflicts in full swing, and many contracting mafias entrenched in the State.

The silence has been brutal. Nobody expected 3% growth in the last quarter. It placed us in fifth place among the fastest growing OECD nations. Foreign investment continues to pour in and that explains, in part, the stability of the exchange rate with the dollar, which after a period of high volatility, is now under control and at the levels at which we received it on August 7, 2022. Inflation is starting to ease with the subsidy for agrochemicals and Petro’s masterful move to get a supermarket chain in Portugal to lower the prices of hundreds of products, which produced a chain reaction with other supermarkets, which today is benefiting millions of consumers. Deforestation is slowing down, agriculture is showing signs of reactivation, the fiscal deficit is decreasing, tax collection is increasing, a sign that companies and individuals continue to produce—all this in the midst of symptoms of global recession.

Although perception goes in the opposite direction compared to the results, violent crimes have decreased by 8%. There were no expropriations either, nor did we “become Venezuela,” and neither are we governing with guerrillas in the Casa de Nariño as everyone was shouting from the rooftops. On the contrary, the guerrillas are not behaving as they did at the height of their power. They continue to hinder peace, they continue to act clumsily, trying to make themselves heard by force and without need, because this government from day one opened the doors to dialogue.

In conclusion, if the government’s publicity is improved, a giant mole of the administration, soon the country will know that we are on the right track and that the country will become better than before. The worrying thing is that the mid-term elections are just around the corner, and we need the country to know this good news so that the atmosphere of pessimism disappears. Only a professional team of strategists and publicists can achieve this.

The National Development Plan has already set the course for new mayors and governors, hopefully many of them from the Historic Pact, to start the change in the territories hand in hand with the national government.

The biggest mole is in the Congress. The government coalition did not work there. There are powers greater than that of the president, and these powers called to order the traditional parties that have always eaten out of their hand. Not having obtained the majorities in Congress (55/86), the daily grind is figuring out how to obtain votes to pass bills. Due to the lack of time and of majorities, it is very likely that in the few days left of this legislative semester, the government’s reforms will not be approved.

Let us make an analysis of what President Petro has and what he can do. The sabotage against the Health Reform in Congress is imminent, but there are things that do not require reform, such as preventive healthcare. Let us put together 5,000 teams of doctors, psychologists, and nurses to start touring the territory, as was done so successfully in Bogotá Humana.

The people have the wisdom to recognize the traitors to the social cause, and they will understand that President Petro, his ministers, and his party’s legislative bloc have made the best efforts to bring welfare to the forgotten territories. What we cannot do is to continue giving in to blackmail and handing over the State and slowing down the definitive start of the government with the pretext of not approving the Reforms.

Let us put the government back together. Let those loyal to the cause stay, and let us make the best government in history.

In view of the terrible misinformation that generates an atmosphere of pessimism in a country that needs joy to overcome so many problems, we recommend to the uninformed and the manipulated that if they do not want to believe us, they should believe the numbers. The numbers do not lie. Colombia is doing very well.


(Cuarto de Hora)

https://orinocotribune.com/colombia-the ... -of-petro/

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Government backers rally in support of Colombian President Gustavo Petro in Bogota, Colombia, Wednesday, June 7, 2023

Colombia’s blood-soaked right must not be allowed to eject President Petro
Originally published: Morning Star Online on June 2023 by Morning Star Online Staff (more by Morning Star Online) | (Posted Jun 10, 2023)

TRADE unions marching in defence of Colombia’s first left-wing president need support, solidarity and publicity from their British counterparts.

The “soft coup” warned of by Colombia’s biggest union federations the CUT, CTC and FECODE is a reminder that Latin America is a front-line geopolitical battleground.

Nobody should underestimate the risks. It is barely six months since a constitutional coup was launched against neighbouring Peru’s socialist president Pedro Castillo, followed swiftly by his arrest and by a murderous crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

Establishment-friendly journalists describe Colombia as “the most stable democracy in Latin America.”

It’s an odd description for the scene of the continent’s longest-running civil war, where a fragile peace process could break down entirely if the left is removed from office.

This “stable democracy” is rated year after year the deadliest country on Earth for trade unionists.

Colombia’s so-called stability simply denotes its formerly stable place in the orbit of the United States. The victims of Washington’s allies don’t count.

They seldom even make the news: in 2019, vast anti-government protests that rocked Colombia were passed over in silence by British broadcasters who built up simultaneous protests in Venezuela into an international crisis.

We would be unwise to assume Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing leader, will be permitted to deliver on promises like universal healthcare and land reform in peace.

Private healthcare bosses have already orchestrated the kind of “protests” that make the headlines (as in Venezuela or Bolivia in 2019, where pro- and anti-government forces took to the streets, it is not the size of the demo but whose side it’s on that determines your airtime).

Rallies by forces veterans are more worrying still, with retired army officer John Marulando’s reference last month to the successful overthrow of Castillo as a model.

No reforming government in a country riven by civil war for five decades can ignore the question of impunity for war crimes. And the unions marching today demanded an end to impunity alongside their support for Petro’s social programmes.

But holding the military to account is dangerous. Colombian officers have a lot to answer for. The army’s own admissions point to more than 10,000 innocent people being murdered during the “false positives” affair, when rewards based on the number of rebels killed led troops to lure people to remote parts of the country, kill them and dress the corpses up in guerilla outfits.

Worse, this military is the U.S.’s closest lieutenant in Latin America. Colombia is Nato’s only “global partner” on the continent.

The U.S. is on the back foot in the region. Last month’s Brasilia summit showcased a new unity among left leaders. Many, including President Lula of Brazil, look to partnership with China as a means of challenging US domination.

But the U.S. plays dirty—and so do we. As Declassified UK has exposed, Britain was complicit in the coup against Bolivia’s Evo Morales in 2019. Rishi Sunak, currently paying court to President Biden in Washington, is as committed to shoring up the U.S.-led world order as any of his predecessors.

Every trick in the book has been used to bring down socialists in Latin America. Armed force, “lawfare,” turncoat presidents like Lenin Moreno who abandon the platform they were elected on and launch a witch hunt against their former leader’s supporters (yes, there are some parallels with British politics).

Colombia is turning a page. It has a leader committed to peace, justice for the civil war’s victims, redistribution of wealth. It has a chance to shake off the number-one spot it has occupied so long on the list of deadliest places to be in a trade union.

All that is at risk. Many British unions have ties with Colombian counterparts through groups like Justice for Colombia. We must be ready to stand with them—our state and our media will not.

https://mronline.org/2023/06/10/colombi ... ent-petro/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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