Colombia

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

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 13, 2018 6:10 pm

Paramilitarism and the Colombian Elections
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JUNE 13, 2018
Valerie Carmel

Colombians will elect a new president on June 17, choosing between former Senator Ivan Duque and long-time legislator and former Mayor of Bogota Gustavo Petro. Their platforms differ on every policy matter, but most importantly both have very different connections to paramilitarism.

Duque, candidate for the Democratic Center Party, has received the support of people with links to paramilitary groups – including his political benefactor, Alvaro Uribe – while Petro has denounced the infiltration of drug traffickers and paramilitarism in Colombian politics since 2004.

Most recently Duque was endorsed by Ramiro Suarez, former mayor of Cucuta, who is serving a 26-year sentence for murder after two former members of the paramilitary group United Self-Defenders of Colombia (AUC) accused him of having ordered the killimgs of two political rivals in early 2000.

His campaign strategist, Luis Alfredo Ramos, has served over three years in prison for aiding paramilitary groups and could face six more after a justice in Colombia’s Supreme Court requested a nine-year sentence for aiding paramilitary groups.

Duque’s political mentor, Uribe, has a long list of acquaintances and ongoing cases against him due to his links with paramilitary groups and alleged crimes against humanity.

Petro, on the other hand, was recently endorsed by Claudia Lopez, former vice presidential candidate for the Colombia Coalition that backed Sergio Fajardo and one of the most prominent researchers on para-politics, which she defines as “a national phenomena of massive capture of political representation and public power by drug traffickers and paramilitary forces.”

Words such as FARC, Venezuela and Castro-Chavism have been used by Duque and other key political actors, including the Colombian media, to discredit progressive candidate Petro and generate fear within Colombian society.

However, the real threat to Colombian peace, stability and human rights is not a demobilized guerrilla or dead Latin American leaders, but rather the deadly combination of political power and paramilitaries.

In 2006, the last year of Uribe’s first presidential term, Colombia’s Supreme Court revealed that 33 percent of Colombian senators, 15 percent of representatives and at least 250 public servants had links with narco-paramilitarism. State institutions – including the legislature, security forces and prosecutorial agencies – had been successfully penetrated by extreme right-wing paramilitary groups responsible for massacres, harassment and intimidation in rural areas.

The political scandal shattered the traditional Liberal and Conservative parties, Radical Change and the National Unity party. All with proven links to paramilitary groups, these parties have historically supported Uribe and are now supporting Ivan Duque.

Between 2006 and 2016, the Attorney General’s Office registered 519 disciplinary processes against state officials due to their links with paramilitary groups in legal processes related to homicides, threats, electoral pressure and financing political campaigns.

In 2014, an ombudsman’s report revealed that the AUC’s successor, known as ‘Bacrims’ (from the Spanish abbreviation for ‘criminal bands’), was present in 27 of Colombia’s 32 departments.

Since the Colombian government signed the peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016, paramilitary presence has increased. In 2017, the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation found that of the 242 municipalities where the FARC were once present, 74 had been taken over by paramilitary groups.

In addition to involvement in drug trafficking, these groups engage in homicide, illegal mining, arms trafficking, extortion and sexual exploitation of minors. They are known to target social organizations and activists who protect their land.

Between January 2017 and June 2018, more than 200 social leaders and human rights defenders were murdered in Colombia.

The power paramilitary groups hold today is the product of their capability to capture portions of the state and work together with politicians, elected officials and public servants in an alliance to maintain the status quo.

In 2017, Claudia Lopez said: “No one else in Colombian politics has received as much support of narco-paramilitarism and corruption as Alvaro Uribe.” It also works the other way around: no politician has supported narco-paramilitarism as much as Uribe.

During Uribe’s presidency (2002-2010), the commander of the Northern Self Defense Bloc, Rodrigo Tovar, penetrated the Administrative Department of Security (DAS): Colombia’s former intelligence and counterintelligence institution.

In 2006, Rafael Garcia, former head of information technology at the DAS, accused Jorge Noguera, appointed by Uribe to lead the DAS, of having allowed narco-paramilitarism to infiltrate the institution.

After the accusation surfaced, Uribe stood by Noguera and accused Colombian reporters of siding with terrorism simply for writing critically about the former DAS director.

Noguera was later sentenced to 25 years in prison after being found guilty of homicide and participating in the creation of paramilitary groups. In 2017, he was sentenced to another seven years for persecuting journalists, union leaders, politicians and justices who opposed Uribe.

Also in 2006, Uribe founded the now-defunct ‘Colombia Democratica’ (Democratic Colombia) party together with his cousin Mario Uribe and Alvaro Garcia Romero. Mario Uribe was sentenced in 2011 to over seven years in prison for links to paramilitary groups, while Garcia was sentenced to four years in prison after the Supreme Court ruled he had embezzled public funds to finance the creation of right-wing paramilitary groups, and had orchestrated the massacre of Macayepo in which the AUC murdered 36 campesinos.

In 2016, Uribe’s brother Santiago was captured by the state’s prosecution service for alleged homicide and participating in the creation of the paramilitary group known as The Twelve Apostles.

Beyond Uribe’s personal links to convicted para-politicians and the fact that paramilitary infiltration occurred during his tenure as president, as president he also led efforts to undermine investigations into parapolitics.

In 2007, when the Supreme Court ruled that paramilitarism wasn’t a political crime and thus was not subject to pardons, he accused the court of having an “ideological bias” against peace. A year later, Uribe attempted to remove the Supreme Court’s ability to investigate legislators.

Today, Duque has proposed a judicial reform previously proposed by Uribe which would eliminate the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, and the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) and unify them into one single high court.

Political opponents have criticized the proposal, arguing it would severely hamper citizens’ protection mechanisms and threaten the peace process by discarding a key part of the Peace Accord with the FARC: the JEP.

Others believe the judicial reform will serve to directly benefit Uribe, who has 28 ongoing judicial proceedings for a series of crimes, including false positives, the death of a human rights defender, illegal wiretapping and the massacres in La Granja and El Aro perpetrated by paramilitary groups in the 1990s.

Parapolitics, which can be defined as the symbiotic relationship between politicians with state power and extreme right-wing illegal armed groups to maintain control with impunity, is Uribe’s inheritance to Duque – a legacy Duque seems unwilling to renounce.

As senator, in 2006 Petro uncovered paramilitary penetration in the departments of Sucre, Cordoba, Cesar and Magdalena. He then publicly denounced Uribe, revealing that Uribe’s 2002 campaign had received funds from Enilse Lopez, sentenced for links with the AUC.

Petro has never belonged to a political party with links to paramilitary groups, nor is he endorsed by them.

He has been criticized for spending 10 years in the M-19 guerrilla movements, after which he switched to political life. As a senator, Petro strongly criticized the FARC for their acts of violence and distanced himself from his former party, the Democratic Pole.

There is a common phrase that reflects popular wisdom: tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are.

Duque’s portrait is bleak.

Testimony Links Uribe Family to Paramilitary Group
Three former employees of the cattle ranch “La Carolina,” owned in the 1990s by the family of Colombia’s former president Alvaro Uribe, told a state prosecutor that the estate was used as the “base of operations” for the paramilitary group known as “Los 12 Apostoles” or “the 12 Apostles” in a case against Santiago Uribe, the alleged founder of the group.

“Los 12 Apostoles” have been charged with threatening and harassing civilian populations, murder and cooperation with the state’s armed forces. Human rights groups have recorded at least 500 victims related to the groups’ “social cleansing” campaigns, in which they executed anyone they believed were criminals or guerrilla sympathizers.

Santiago, Alvaro Uribe’s brother, has been under investigations for at least 20 years and was recently released from prison after serving two years.

According to the investigators, Santiago and Jose Alberto Osorio, alias “El Mono de los Llanos” or “Rodrigo,” allegedly founded the paramilitary group. Uribe has denied having any relations with El Mono, but recordings of his employees obtained by the Spanish newspaper El Pais contradict his statement.

One of the witnesses said Santiago and El Mono “were very close,” and had “very friendly” relations. The same witness claimed “Rodrigo always arrived before Mr. Santiago. Then they left together by horse.” The witnesses affirmed that the two met regularly in a house within the estate known as “La Mayoria.”

“The rumors were that they worked with the police and the military… Well, yes, there they were with the army, that they supported there,” one witness told the prosecutor. Another witness mentions weekly encounters with members of the police.

Santiago Uribe’s defense has argued that the witness presented by the plaintiffs, the NGO Justice and Peace Commission, and the prosecution are false witnesses or have received money for their testimony. He has also “turned it into a political battle against his brother, former president Alvaro Uribe, who was a senator (1986-1994) and governor of the department of Antioquia (1995-1997) when the acts transpired.”

Today, Alvaro Uribe is a senator who received the most amount of votes in the March legislative elections. He is also backing presidential candidate Ivan Duque, who will face off against progressive candidate Gustavo Petro on Sunday.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2018/06/ ... elections/

Perhaps this is a case where 'lesser-evilism" is appropriate, I dunno. I do wonder why FARC entered electoral politics when it appears they have little support. If they concluded that they could not possibly win the armed conflict perhaps a surreptitious withdrawal into Venezuela mighta worked...I dunno, just fishin'.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Thu Jul 12, 2018 3:12 pm

Image
In the most backward ETCR of the country, they do not stop contributing to the peace process
July 12, 2018

Despite the breaches of the national government to condition the Territorial Space for Training and Reincorporation of El Estrecho, located in Patía, Cauca, the ex-combatants of the fronts 8 and 29 of the Farc affirm that they do not consider an option to take up arms again. Murders in the region and the possession of the next head of state creates uncertainty.

"The government did not hit a nail and we came from Policarpa because he said it was impossible to develop a productive project there. Now we have been in El Estrecho for more than six months and we continue to live in plastic cambuches. However, we are committed to peace until the end. "

In this way Sebastián *, one of the coordinators of the Territorial Training and Reintegration Area (ETCR) Aldemar Galán, summarizes how the process of reincorporation of the members of two guerrilla fronts that had a presence in southwestern Colombia, one of the most victims of the implementation of the Final Agreement that the national government and the Farc sealed on November 24, 2016.

This space began in the first months of 2017, when around 300 subversives were concentrated in the then Veredal Zone that was installed in the hill La Paloma, in the Nariño municipality of Policarpa, to make its weapons disposal. However, the schedules were not fulfilled as agreed and the necessary infrastructure to facilitate the reincorporation of the FARC was not built because, as the national government argued, the geographical conditions were very difficult to transport the construction materials.

For that reason, as explained to this portal in March last year 'René Hertz', then coordinator of the Veredal Zone, "we had to put together 'cambuches' in different places so that, when they come to build, they have the space to do the pending buildings ". Thus, the months passed, the FARC left their weapons and the validity of the Veredales Zones ended, but the pending buildings were not built. (Read more in: Veredal Zone of the Farc in Policarpa, between agreements and disagreements )

In accordance with the agreement in Havana, once the abandonment of the FARC's arms was completed, the Veredales Zones and the Transitory Normalization Sites became Territorial Training and Reintegration Spaces (ETCR), so that the ex-combatants can receive training and develop productive projects. However, as there was no infrastructure at all, the FARC agreed with the government to install this space in a more accessible area.

And that's how on November 24, about 60 men and women arrived at a farm located in the village of El Estrecho, in Patía, south of Cauca. They did it with the hope that this time the adequacy did not have greater delays because the ETCR is ten minutes from the Pan-American highway, in a flat area.

However, eight months later, they are still in the same situation as in La Paloma: they live in plastic shacks, do not have drinking water, there are no classrooms to receive training and until now there are no productive projects in progress.

Reincorporation in the middle of nowhere

Image
This is how the Aldemar Galán ETCR currently looks, whose infrastructure is based on boards, canvas and plastics. It is named after the head of the Front 29 that was killed in a bombardment of the security forces on May 22, 2016 in Guapi, after President Juan Manuel Santos authorized those air operations again, because the FARC killed eleven soldiers in one. path of Buenos Aires. That was one of the most difficult moments of the peace negotiations, which had led to the de-escalation of the armed conflict. Photos: VerdadAbierta.com.

"We came here because it is close to the Pan-American highway and nothing has changed. Among the same institutions of the State in charge of implementing the agreement, the ball is thrown: first, it was the responsibility of the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace, after that of Fondopaz and then of the ARN ... Until a little over a month ago, We had electricity and came at our initiative with something that was not something else: it took 300 meters of cable and some poles that we helped to nail to make the interconnection, "explains Leo Moreno, one of the coordinators of the ETCR.

This approach is shared by Sebastián, who alleges that a myriad of obstacles have been encountered in order to achieve reinstatement: "The delays are in the absence of studies, characterization, requirements that we did not know about and the whole bureaucratic procedure. The situation is so complicated that there is no drinking water here and Fondopaz gives us bags of water. In this space there are more than ten children and there is no schooling either. "

The lack of common spaces and classrooms also persists in Patía. "Despite being close to the road, they tell us the same thing they always do: they're going to do it. There is a lot of bureaucracy, they are very slow and it seems that there is no will. This is the only ETCR in which they have not built the basics of others. I was in La Elvira when it was Zona Veredal and there were rooms, then they sent me to Policarpa and here we continue with the same plastics from there. They told us that in two months they will do the common areas and nothing, "says Jacinto Constante, member of the communication team of the ETCR Aldemar Galán.

And just as infrastructure is lacking, productive projects that facilitate the economic reintegration of ex-combatants are also scarce. Two months ago they developed the only project they have had to date, which consisted of raising 500 chickens. "That project was developed with UNDP resources. A part of the chickens was sold at 3,500 pesos per pound and another part was purchased by the government for consumption at the ETCR as part of the food it provides. We have not had any other projects and we are still waiting to start up the cooperative, "explains Constant.

As indicated by the person in charge of communications, the Patía ex-combatants are waiting for the bank account to be enabled and to finalize the final details to start up Sendapaz, the association with which they intend to rejoin.

"The FARC is characterized by unity and that is why we survived so long in the war. We are part of the solidarity economies, Ecomún, and the one here is called Sendapaz, Forjando Senderos de Paz. We have collective projects, which are already presented, but there is no feasibility. There is one fish farm, fruit trees, citrus, even cattle. This was presented to the National Council for Reincorporation (CNR). Four projects have been generated and we are waiting, "says Moreno. (Read more in: Farc cooperatives, commitment to local development )

On the situation of Patía, Jefferson Mena, manager of the ETCR, argues that the delay in the adaptation is due to the fact that the ex-combatants requested that permanent and more solid homes be built, unlike those that exist in the rest of the country.

Image
On the left the Veredal Zone of La Paloma and on the right the ETCR of Patía. Eight months later, the differences are not noticed. Photos: courtesy ETCR Aldemar Galán.

"Once they moved to the Bordo (municipal seat of Patía), we were ready and gave instructions to Fondopaz to start all the construction of the Territorial Space; nevertheless, they in a session of the CNR asked that the possibility be considered that the constructions were not ETCR style, but were more stable and lasting. We have agreed to that and we work with different government agencies to create the route that allows us to invest resources in more durable homes. We are in that process. "

In addition, he acknowledges that "Fondopaz is behind on the issue and we have asked him to catch up, but there is already a budget and there are professionals in the area studying the land. I think that in the next few days we will start construction of the works. That implies a coordinated work with the Ministry of Agriculture through the Office of Rural Housing, so that the most durable homes are built. "

Regarding the economic reincorporación indicates that while the big productive projects start up, the national government is getting resources with the international cooperators to "invest in small enterprises that they have already been developing, such as the raising of chickens".

And on the disbursement of the one-off contribution of eight million pesos for the ex-combatants to develop a productive project, he recalls that "it is not a quantity that is delivered to them on a certain date, but corresponds to the process of economic reincorporation that they have to develop , presenting the productive project to the CNR, to make the disbursement after it is evaluated and approved ".

Due to these delays, of the 60 ex-combatants who arrived in Patía, only five are permanently in the ETCR and another ten occupy it occasionally. The rest, after a windstorm damaged some cambuches, opted to rent houses in the two surrounding towns and are waiting for the reincorporation process to begin.

The majority of the 250 remaining ex-combatants who laid down their arms in Policarpa decided to return on their own to their homes, and only a minority, of which there are no concrete figures, was linked to dissent. As René Hertz told this website when they first settled in Patía, the delay in the implementation of the Final Agreement in Policarpa was used by armed groups to recruit some of the ex-guerrillas. (See interview and Does the implementation of the Final Agreement run water in Policarpa? )

Security uncertainties
Patha's ETCR
At the entrance to the ETCR, the Revolutionary Alternative Power of the Common flag flies, which the FARC founded after the abandonment of arms. On the other hand, in the Paloma Veredal Zone waved the one of that organization raised in arms, that had stapled the map of Colombia, its acronyms and a couple of rifles stamped on the national flag. Photo: VerdadAbierta.com.
Although in Patía the same situation of violence suffered by the ex-members of the Farc in the north of Cauca does not occur, where according to the records of the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz), eleven of them have been killed since the signing of the peace agreement, they are worried about the violence that surrounds the ETCR.

"In the last six months there are six dead in the region. They killed two people about 600 meters from here on the river and two others about a kilometer from here through the mountains. Although the Public Force says that it is by settling accounts, it does not stop worrying that there are violent acts in a space of peace ", Sebastian fears, adding that" in the Cordillera there are Eln, dissidents, 'paramilitaries' and Public Force . It was our territories and they were occupied by residual groups. "

In addition, the region has identified the presence of dissidents and the EPL in Pan de Azúcar y Betania, and the Eln and paramilitary groups in Leiva and Rosario. "In the mountain range there are groups that call themselves dissidences but that have a purpose that is none other than obtaining economic resources. We are worried because two months ago, near the space, on the other side of the river, two people were murdered. So far we have not received threats but the danger is latent, "says Moreno.

On the other hand, ex-combatants also have uncertainties regarding their legal security due to the change that will take place in the Casa de Nariño starting on August 7, after Iván Duque, candidate of the Democratic Center, a party that has strongly opposed to the manner in which the peace process was developed and to the consequent implementation of the Final Agreement, it obtained the highest vote in the last presidential elections.

"We are concerned about the change of government. Personally because it is the continuation of uribism, which was our direct enemy. He had already said that they would damage the agreements and started with the JEP. We are concerned, but we continue to fulfill, organizing people and raising awareness that a change is needed. If they want to disappear us, we will look for all the mechanisms to make us listen at a national and international level because the government can not change the agreements, "says Constante.

While it is true that the Democratic Center, headed by former president and senator Álvaro Uribe Vélez, has made strong criticisms of the peace process, in his first speech as president-elect, Duque said he will modify the Final Agreement but will grant guarantees to the demobilized persons who want to continue their reincorporation process and who do not go back to commit a crime.

In this regard, Moreno believes that after the elections, the Democratic Center has modified his speech in part "because of the reading that has been given to the voting volume of Colombia Humana - an campaign opposed to that of Duque, whose presidential candidate was Gustavo Petro - , that is a force that enters to dispute the hegemony to that political class that has always had the control of the country ".

And he adds that they are waiting for the reading that the new government will have: "To Duque I would say that we are committed to peace and that a new Colombia is possible. We are convinced that war is not the way of Colombia; we committed ourselves and we have fulfilled one hundred percent, and we will continue doing it to work for a different country. "

* Name changed by request of the source

https://verdadabierta.com/17697-2/

Google Translator

Hope springs eternal, I guess. In every way possible the Colombian government's word ain't worth spit.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Mon Jul 16, 2018 3:55 pm

Colombian army killed thousands more civilians than reported, study claims
‘These were cold-blooded murders’: research finds over 10,000 were killed to boost numbers for military aid in ‘false positives’ scandal

Joe Parkin Daniels in Bogotá

@joeparkdan
Tue 8 May 2018 01.00 EDT Last modified on Tue 8 May 2018 01.01 EDT
This article is over 2 months old
Relatives carry coffins with the remains of children during a mass funeral in Barranquilla in September 2010. Authorities turned over the corpses of six victims of the army’s ‘false positives’ scandal.
Relatives carry coffins with the remains of children during a mass funeral in Barranquilla in September 2010. Authorities turned over the corpses of six victims of the army’s ‘false positives’ scandal. Photograph: Reuters
Gloria Astrid Martínez last saw her son on the morning of 8 February 2008. After breakfast, Daniel, 21, left their home in Soacha, a downtrodden suburb of Colombia’s capital, to start a new job working on wealthy countryside estates.

“He told me he found a job that would pay so much I wouldn’t have to work any more,” recalled Martínez. “It sounded too good to be true, but he insisted, so he left.”

Eight months later, Daniel’s body was found clothed in jungle fatigues in a mass grave near the Venezuelan border. Soldiers from the Colombian army had lured Daniel with the promise of work to the city of Ocaña, 414 miles from Bogotá, where they murdered him and declared him a rebel fighter in order to boost their statistics in the war against leftist insurgents.

The inflated figures, dubbed “false positives”, were used to justify US aid military packages while the officers who carried out the executions were rewarded with promotions and time off.

When news of the killings first broke 2008, the scandal engulfed the Colombian military: dozens of senior officers were fired, and many rank-and-file soldiers .

But a new study co-authored by a former police colonel alleges that the practice was far more widespread than previously reported: according to authors Omar Rojas Bolaños and Fabian Leonardo Benavides, approximately 10,000 civilians were executed by the army between 2002 and 2010 – more than three times the number tallied by human rights groups.

In their book Extrajudicial Executions in Colombia, 2002-2010 – Blind Obedience in Fictitious Battlefields, the authors describe how Colombia’s army systematically killed civilians to boost their body counts.

“We can call them ‘false positives’ or ‘extrajudicial executions’, but really these were cold-blooded murders,” said Rojas, who previously served 31 years as a police officer. “They were meticulously planned and carried by all ranks.” Rojas said disabled boys were specifically targeted because of their vulnerability as well as a handful of military men who were suspected of whistleblowing.

Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in September 2016. Farc signed a peace deal with the government in November 2016, formally ending 52 years of civil war.

Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in September 2016. Farc signed a peace deal with the government in November 2016, formally ending 52 years of civil war. Photograph: Mauricio Duenas Castaneda/EPA
“This isn’t just something that happened in the past: we are still finding ‘false positive’ cases today,” Rojas said. “It’s not with the same intensity as before, and now they call them ‘military errors’.”

Colombia’s largest rebel group, the (Farc), signed a peace deal with the government in November 2016, formally ending 52 years of civil war that left 220,000 dead and over seven million displaced, mostly civilians. State-aligned paramilitaries and other leftwing groups contributed to the bloodshed, with atrocities committed by all sides.

President Juan Manuel Santos – who was awarded the Nobel peace prize for shepherding through the deal – served as defense minister from 2006 until 2009, at the the height of the “false positive” killings.

Activists say neither Santos nor his predecessor Álvaro Uribe have been called to account over the scandal, though Uribe faces several separate investigations over alleged war crimes. A key witness in one case was murdered in Medellín last month.

Colombia’s government has often brushed off the scandal as the actions of a few rogue individuals.

“‘False positives’ were not just a problem of a few bad apples,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “These apparently widespread and systematic extrajudicial killings were committed by troops attached to virtually all brigades in every single army division across Colombia.”

The soldier who recruited Daniel is currently serving a 39-year sentence, along with many other middle and low ranking officers. But not a single general has been convicted.

For Martínez, who has received death threats over her fight for justice, the impunity is galling.

“They say the pain of loss gets easier everyday but that’s a lie, it gets worse,” she said, her voice cracking. “The state should protect its people, not kill them.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... are_btn_tw

Overheard at FARC HQ, "Yeah, I think we can work with these guys...".
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Mon Jul 23, 2018 6:42 pm

tweet thread:

A while ago I was able to speak with former farc members and I think my biggest takeaway from them was their idea of class struggle. They didn’t think of themselves as revolutionaries, they thought of themselves as defenders of the people.

The context of the FARC is important here. Basically, in the 50s the Colombian communist party had organized socialist communities in rural parts of the country where there historically had been limitedstate presence. In 1964 US-backed Col army launched Operation Marquetalia, an unprovoked 2 month long massive ground and aerial assault on civilians. Those who survived the attack escaped the area and formed the FARC in order to better protect their communities in the future. The FARC’s creation was out of NECESSITY not revolutionary desire.

I was reminded of this when watching Sorry to Bother You when waking dead guy is asked if he just goes places to start trouble and he says trouble is already there.Trouble being organizing workers not violent adventurism which said character struggles against in the film.

Anyways back to Colombia. The FARC have always wanted peace and a politician resolution to the conflict. Less than two decades after the massacre at Marquetalia, the FARC entered into peace negotiations with the government. A large segment of the FARC turned in their weapons and formed a electoral party called patriotic union. In the following years over five thousand UP members we were killed. This was a genocide. So once again the FARC had to return to guerrilla warfare out of self defense.

Today my heart aches, I get daily WhatsApp messages about assassinations taking place. In a way, history is repeating itself. The FARC once again began peace talks in 2012 and came to a peace agreement in 2016. I encourage those who can to read the document. It doesn’t just say wars over it mandates land reform education healthcare all the things we fight for as communists. In May for the first time ever a leftist candidate made it to the second round of the election capturing over 8 million votes. Nonetheless, once again a genocide is being carried out 300 leaders have been killed in 18 months. Many of these communities have counted on the protection of the farc from Capital’s forces in the past. The key here is to think of things dialectically. I think we all know a communist who is quick to condemn any development such as a peace treaty or allowing private property as a retreat or failure. I remember even seeing “end of communist century” what the fuck does that mean? All history is the history of class struggle and as long as the bourgeois class is subjugated communism persists. Inthe case of the FARC,they have always been the army of the people and the people wanted peace. Peace in Colombia can at the same time mean the opening of a new democratic struggle and the worst repression in years. It’s on communists to continue to fight the democratic struggle on behalf of the people no matter what. If the repression continues as it is and reaches to levels of the past then it is likely that armed struggle will return in Colombia. However that is once all other recourses have been exhausted. The example of Cuba teaches us the same thing.

"Revolutionaries didn't choose armed struggle as the best path; it's the path that oppressors imposed on people.” - Fidel Castro. So I guess I just too twenty tweets to say what Fidel said perfectly in one sentence but I hope others can read this and understand why thinking as defenders of the people is more important than revolutionary. This is a long hard process with what exists now not the creation of a paradise. By organizing to defend what we have we simultaneously learn how to beat democratically build what we want in the future. Pa’lante!!

Courtesy Andres @vivalarev1
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Tue Jul 24, 2018 10:22 pm

Colombia: Peace Trapped in Networks of Betrayal
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JULY 23, 2018
Iván Márquez

Image
On July 20, three insurmountable obstacles were imposed on development of the Peace Agreement.

The first of these is the judicial assembly or entrapment plotted by the Attorney General and the DEA that has unjustly placed Jesus Santrich behind bars. The Prosecutor buried the dagger of his resentments in the heart of trust in the immense majority of FARC guerrillas.

The second is the impressive disfigurement of the JEP that today makes that Jurisdiction unrecognizable compared to the original text signed by the parties in Havana. There is no precedent on planet earth in which a peace agreement, after being signed and celebrated by the plenipotentiaries of the parties, has been modified at the whim of interested persons into a form utterly alien to their construction.

The third circumstance is that the determination to comply with essential matters of the agreement there is nowhere to be seen, such as the Political Reform, without which there would be no conditions for the transition from armed rebellion. It is inconceivable that 5 years after the approval of the first partial agreement, land has not been formalized or titled in favor of the peasants who currently own them. Without underestimating the role of the incompetence of certain state officials, the ordinary citizen perceives that they tremble with fear in front of the land owners and land dispossessors.

The great majority still hope to save this peace process that made us all dream of the Colombia of the future. It is necessary to return to the original text of the Agreement signed in Havana and to deposit with the Council of the Swiss Federation as a Special Agreement of Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, and subsequently before the UN as a unilateral declaration of State. The Peace Agreement is an Official Document of the Security Council, which generates an international compliance obligation for Colombia.

I feel that the peace of Colombia is trapped in the networks of betrayal, and not so much because the agreement has not materialized, which requires time for its concretion, but because of the modifications introduced that disfigured the agreement. The agreement is not the one we signed in Havana. The mad artificers of that Frankenstein are the Attorney General, some parliamentarians frightened of peace and truth, the Court that is a weather bave that changes its decisions according to political winds, and the Government itself. Pacta Sunt Servanda! The agreements must be kept and fulfilled.

I want to thank Professor Jairo Estrada for the torch of his reflections that always illuminate the path of politics and where he invites me to take office as Senator of the Republic on July 20. In the same sense, of great impact for me was also the letter of Gustavo Petro, full of humanity, of faith in the role of our youth in the construction of the Colombia of the future. Thank you, thank you very much to both of you. I will continue to work day and night without ceasing for the consolidation of the peace of Colombia, for the fulfillment of the agreement, for the social and economic reintegration of the guerrillas in the ETCR, without legal insecurity for anyone, even evading unusual military operations launched by the command of the army against me and against Oscar Paisa, a decision that does not take into account that there is an agreement for the termination of the conflict.

I ask the social and political organizations of the country to keep the banner of peace high, without faltering. Peace is the highest of all rights and without it we will not be anything as a nation. Let us be his missionaries. Let us not allow the obstructions to spoil the most extraordinary achievement of Colombia in recent decades.

The Santrich case and the treachery of the State to the peace agreement must not become the trigger for a return to confrontation. We have more traps ahead designed to sabotage peace.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2018/07/ ... -betrayal/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Tue Nov 13, 2018 2:19 pm

Colombian Soldiers Implicated in Social Leader's Murder
Published 13 November 2018

Alvaro Gomez Garzon became the 183rd social leader killed in Colombia in 2018.

Communal leader and human rights defender Alvaro Gomez Garzon was reportedly murdered by members of the Colombian Army Monday night in the Cauca department.

Cristian Delgado, a member of the left-wing political movement Patriotic March, denounced the fact via Twitter. Gomez was a member of the Patriotic March, the National Association of Campesino Reserve Zones (ANZORC-ZRC), and the National Federation of Agricultural Unions (Fensuagro).

— Cristian Delgado (@CristianRDelgad) November 12, 2018
"Last night in the municipality of Balboa Cuca our comrade communal leader and human rights defender Alvaro Paul Gomez Garzon of @patrioticmarch... was murdered by members of the @COL_ARMY. @IvanDuque @DefenseMin @IACHR (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Truth Justice Reparations and Non-Repetition )"

In the context of continuous murders against social leaders throughout Colombia, the Research Institute for Development and Peace (Indepaz) has urged Colombia for a "plan for non-stigmatization and to recognize the importance of leaders, who are the base of democracy." According to teleSUR's own count, in 2018 183 leaders have been killed.

Since the peace agreement between the Colombian state and the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was signed in 2016, 487 Colombians have been murdered due to their links to organizing. Indepaz reported that 69 leaders have been murdered since President Ivan Duque took power on Aug. 7, 2018.

Only two days ago, this Sunday, environmentalist Hector Fabio Almario was murdered by several men who approached him in a motorcycle in the department of Meta. Almario worked in restitution processes for Campesinos moving away from crops of illicit use, a core element of the 2016 peace agreement.

The National Coordinator for Coca, Poppy, and Marijuana Growers (COCCAM) announced the murder Monday. "Yesterday the murdered our comrade and regional leader Hector Fabio Almario, president of the communal action board of Getsamani in Macarena-Meta. They inform us there are two unidentified bodies. #SubstitutionWithGuarantees @ProsecutorCol @UNHumanRights."

Hasta cuando esta masacre!! Hoy la noticia es que en la Macarena, Meta asesinaron a Hector Fabio Almario, presidente de la JAC de Getsemaní. Destacado líder ambiental de la zona. https://t.co/EbuHyNB3uh

— Leonardo González Perafán�� (@leonardonzalez) November 11, 2018
Leonardo Gonzalez, a researcher and human rights advocate for Indepaz, responded in outrage. "How long will this massacre last? Today the news that in Macarena, Meta Hector Fabio Almario, president of the communal action board of Getsamani and outstanding environmental leader, was murdered."

Last week, social leaders from the Magdaleno Medio valley launched the ‘Somos como tu’ (We’re Like You) campaign, a strategy to combat the strong stigmatization and persecution they suffer.

According to Human rights groups, lack of investigative efforts and the unwillingness of the Colombian state to recognize the existence of paramilitary groups explain the inability add to the impunity with which social leaders are killed in Colombia.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Col ... -0010.html

There is nothing to stop them, nothing.

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

Colombia: Student, Union March Ends With Police Repression
Published 9 November 2018


Image

The Defense Minister announced he will present a bill to Congress to increase sentences to up to 50 years for people who attack state security forces.

In Colombia, the student and workers' unions march ended Thursday night with brutal cases of police repression reported throughout the country.

In Cauca, since roughly 3 p.m. demonstrators denounced the disproportional use of force by members of Colombia's Mobile Anti-Disturbances Squadron (ESMAD). "With no regard to the humanity of the protesters, the ESMAD leaves countless injured until now. The people of Cauca rejects these violent actions against young people, children, the elderly, and everyone who was present in the peaceful demonstration," Prensa Alternativa Cauca reported.


Source: Facebook
The national march was organized by Colombia's Central Workers' Union, the teachers' union (Fecode), and Colombia's student movement, which declared a national strike in early October to demand a higher budget for Colombia's historically underfunded public university system. Other social sectors, including pensioners and transport workers, joined Thursday's march to reject President Ivan Duque's tax reform that will extend taxes to almost all items in the basic consumer basket while providing a tax cut for corporations.

In Bucaramanga, a human rights defender told a local outlet "At this moment we are kidnapped by the Metropolitan Police of Bucaramanga." The woman, whose name was not included in the report, said that several students of the Industrial University of Santander were attacked by police with tear gas and rubber-coated bullets.

She also explained that human rights defenders present at the protests attempted to mediate with police to no avail. There are also reports of a brigade of the Colombian Army stationed at the entrance of the university. According to witnesses, they fired into the sky to intimidate protesters.

Several videos of police repression were shared through social media Thursday night. Like the one below, in which you can hear protesters chanting "without violence" and see them lifting their arms before they are fired at. Protesters respond to the explosion by yelling insults at the ESMAD.


"The response of the ESMAD to the peaceful student march, with children present. These are society's defenders? #NationalStrike #StudentStrike #ESMAD"

The Popular Network for Human Rights issued an official statement repudiating and warning against "arbitrary detentions and intimidations at the hands of public forces and the disappearances that students suffered at different universities."

The total number of Colombians detained, injured, and disappeared remains unknown. But the scenes of violence registered in Colombia's departments were also reported in Bogota, the capital.

Defense Minister Guillermo Botero, who has previously associated civilian protests with illegal armed groups and called for social protests to be regulated, announced he will present a bill to Congress to increase sentences to up to 50 years for people who attack members of the state's security forces.

Colombia's public education system has a 3.2 billion pesos deficit just to continue operations, and 15 billion pesos deficit to maintain quality and infrastructure. Students want to meet with president Duque to discuss the national budget and have announced a meeting with different unions to organize a national strike if the government does not recognize their demands.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Col ... -0010.html

Coming soon to a failing bourgeois democracy near you.......................
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Tue Nov 27, 2018 7:39 pm

Words of Rodrigo Londoño on the occasion of the second anniversary of the signing of the Havana Agreements
Written by Rodrigo Londoño - Timo

Image

Words of Rodrigo Londoño on the occasion of the second anniversary of the signing of the Havana Agreements

"We trust that sanity and rationality will eventually prevail, we will not return to arms, we are deeply convinced that today there are superior forms of struggle, we are going to prove it".

Two years ago, at the Teatro Colón, we signed with President Juan Manuel Santos the Final Agreement for the Termination of the Conflict and the Construction of a Stable and Lasting Peace. Six days later, the entire Congress of the Republic endorsed it in its entirety, and then, by judicial decision, the Constitutional Court declared it enforceable.

Thus, by voluntary decision, without any kind of imposition, the Colombian State and the FARC-EP, after a discussion that took five years of meetings and disagreements, we managed to seal the solution formula to the longest armed conflict of the continent. 53 years of confrontations to death came to an end. State and FARC we committed to take the weapons of political activity.

Of course, making the political solution to the conflict possible meant examining the causes of the conflict and the way to solve them. That is why the Agenda agreed upon for the Havana Round Table and then the Definitive Agreement contemplated and defined concrete measures on specific issues such as the Comprehensive Rural Reform, the drug problem seen in its entirety, the Political Participation and the Rights of the Victims of violence.

It was not, as some of them wanted to interpret later, the capitulation of the insurgency, its simple abandonment of arms and its submission to the order that it fought for decades. The document we signed on November 24, 2016 is a true peace treaty, a set of institutional, economic, political, social and cultural transformations that the State recognized as necessary and essential to overcome the past, in exchange for which the guerrillas He agreed to become a legal political party whose only weapon would be the word.

The Legislative Act number 002 of 2017, incorporated into the National Constitution the obligation to guarantee the stability and legal security of the Final Agreement, a rule declared enforceable by the Constitutional Court, who also determined that "the institutions and authorities of the State" have, among others , the constitutional obligation to "comply in good faith with the provisions of the Final Agreement."

The Havana Agreement is more than armored before the rules of domestic law, it can not be modified or altered at the whim of legislators, rulers or interpreters. This characteristic is also derived from the commitments that both parties, by their free will, agreed to confer on the plane of international law.

The Agreement was signed in its entirety as a Special Agreement of the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and was deposited with the Swiss Federal Council in Bern, the depository organ of the aforementioned Conventions. A Unilateral Declaration of the Colombian State made by the President of Colombia to the United Nations was made, obligating Colombia to comply with and respect the Final Agreement.

In addition, the full text of the Final Agreement was incorporated into an official document attached to Resolution 2261 (2026) of the United Nations Security Council. All of which means that no institution or authority of the State is authorized or legitimized to breach the agreement, and if they did, they must assume that they are not "improvements" introduced, but unilateral alterations that break the Final Agreement of November 24, 2016

When a State, in accordance with the rules of international law, signs an Agreement, it is irremediably bound to comply with it, in application of the universal principle of pacta sunt servanda. Nor can you modify it at your whim unilaterally. Our party, in a peaceful manner, invoking the authority conferred by the strict compliance with the agreement, reiterates its position again, the Colombian State is obliged to honor its word.

And not in one or two aspects of the signed, but absolutely in everything. It would be wrong for us to affirm that nothing has been accomplished. In fact, if we are here, in this act, commemorating the two years of the signing of the Definitive Agreement, it is because we have sufficient guarantees to do so. We were amnestied, the arrest warrants that we had against were lifted, we were able to celebrate our founding congress as a political party, we took part in the political campaign to Congress, we have senators and representatives.

The agreed points that have been implemented over time are multiple and of different nature. But both the country and the international community are witnesses of the difficulties we have encountered at all times. Little has been recognized spontaneously, we had to claim and fight for almost everything. In fact, we still have almost four hundred of our detainees in prisons, many of them are going through hunger strikes, demanding a freedom that was ordered in laws and decrees, but from which they have not benefited.

Entire parties and personalities of the national life have insisted on going through one way or another to prevent the normal development of what was agreed upon. Fronts and frontal attacks have been repeated during the passage of agreements by the legislature. The interpretations of the Constitutional Court exceeded the agreed contents more than once. The Attorney General, seriously questioned by the nation, does not squander an opportunity to be angry against the Agreement, and even against our good faith, in public display of resentment and intolerance.

That is why our comrade Jesus Santrich remains in detention and threatened with his extradition, despite the weakness of the accusation made against him. That is why the distrust that appeared in many others. After all, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, the judicial mechanism agreed upon in Havana and to which we promised to appear, has been the victim of virulent attacks, which seek to delegitimize and distort it, in order to guarantee impunity for certain characters, at the same time that exemplary convictions are tried against us.

In an excessive effort of synthesis, we could try to remember the points signed in the Definitive Agreement, to make a slight comparison with the reality that we live two years after its subscription. Of the three components of point one, Integral Rural Reform, seen one by one, there is very little that is actually implemented. On land access and use, one can ask about the Land Fund, the subsidies and credits to farmers to access them, the strengthening of the rural reserve areas, the multipurpose cadastre or the agrarian jurisdiction.

Poco se conoce de los Programas de Desarrollo con Enfoque Territorial, mientras que de los planes nacionales para la Reforma Rural Integral falta todo por implementar. La infraestructura de vías, la electrificación rural, la conectividad, el desarrollo rural en salud, educación y construcción o mejoramiento de vivienda. Los estímulos a la economía campesina, la asistencia técnica, los subsidios y créditos, la protección social, la garantía progresiva del derecho a la alimentación.

The guarantees provided for the political opposition are few. The Statute for the Opposition was hardly passed, while the components of the integral security system for the exercise of the policy are weak. The very high number of murdered leaders and social leaders, and that of ex-guerrillas violently killed, are the best argument to describe the situation of the Security Guarantees point for leaders of organizations and social movements and human rights defenders.

We do not believe that we can speak of a change in terms of guarantees for mobilization and protest. The recent actions of the ESMAD make it present. The same can be said of the Guarantees for Reconciliation and Coexistence. The stigmas against us as a new political party and against other opposition forces continue to be the conduct of important political sectors. What if we mention the reform of the regime and the electoral organization or the special transitory circumscriptions of peace foreseen in the point of political participation?

The National Program for the Substitution of Illicit Use Crops, differential treatment for small growers, the Alternative Substitution and Alternative Development Plans, the National Program for the substitution of illicit crops in National Natural Parks, the health policy against consumption and the different points agreed upon as a solution to the problem of drug trafficking, are despised in the face of the fumigations and forced eradication that the authorities proclaim today.

Regarding the Accord on victims, perhaps the most developed component, despite its enormous shortcomings, is the Integral System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Repetition. Regarding this last aspect, it should be remembered that it was always maintained that the Guarantees of Non-Repetition will be the result of the coordinated implementation of all the previous measures and mechanisms, as well as in general compliance with all the points of the Final Agreement.

In the same way we do not see that the commitment to the promotion, respect and guarantee of human rights has been developed. Hence, we argue that the Colombian state debt to the popular opposition movement, with social organizations, with human rights defenders, with the victims, with the peasants, indigenous and black communities, as well as with the former guerrillas and former guerrillas is still very high.

Faced with these situations our attitude is not negative. We are revolutionaries, we understand the nature of the class struggle and the interests that cross over when it comes to solving the most felt cries of the Colombian people. It is not now that the ruling classes are missing their word. Quite a few examples gives us the story. We know that in front of that the only and best alternative is the struggle of the underdogs, their protest, their mobilization, their decision to enforce the agreement. The triumphant Army of Bolívar followed the persecuted comuneros de Galán.

The popular yearnings do not stop, they do not crush. We are convinced that the Colombian people, with the support of the international community that devoted so much effort to the realization of this Peace Agreement, will achieve that the agreement ends up being carried out to the letter. Blood, violence, war, persecution and hatred have to be definitively in Colombia's past. We have the right to peace, they can not take it from us.

After all, it is the basic condition for any economic and political model. Our party will not back down, will not stop working for the diffusion, the knowledge, the appropriation of the Agreement by the great majority, for its full implementation. We are confident that it is the best way for our nation.

We trust that sanity and rationality will eventually prevail. We will not return to arms, we are deeply convinced that today there are superior forms of struggle, we are going to prove it. We will never give up our dreams and objectives of a new sovereign, just, democratic, developing and peaceful Colombia. We feel that the clamor grows for her, we join her. And we call to reach it all men and women of good will.

Bogotá, November 26, 2018.

https://www.farc-ep.co/comunicado/palab ... abana.html

When you give up all your arms, but the enemy doesn't, and you are totally under his power, that is surrender. The endless litany of the murdered and disappeared does not look like peace. What are my lying eyes not seeing?
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Sat Dec 01, 2018 3:32 pm

Farc veterans in the Cesar bet on the farm as a way of life
United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia
By the UN Verification Mission in Colombia
NOVEMBER 26 TH , 2018
They work in a plantain plantation that was strengthened by the Verification Mission of the United Nations in Colombia through an irrigation system, seeds, fertilizers, fertigation, equipment and tools.

At a point on the road that connects the municipality of Manaure with that of La Paz, in Cesar, a group of ex-guerrillas is stationed on the road. Many are sitting on stones in the small space between the road and the Manaure river. Others are standing, surrounding the perimeter. There is a former commander, Aldemar, former head of the front 41, accompanied by his security scheme (men of the National Protection Unit (UNIPEP), with state weapons.) There is an armored truck and 33 other ex-combatants with pikes and shovels.

Before the signing of the peace with the FARC-EP, this scene, which occurred on October 11, could cause fear in the population. It could well be a FARC company ready for combat, or in military terms, a war platoon. But no, they were drinking soda and eating cookies, while waiting for the arrival of a truck full of 1,000 and 5,000 liter water tanks and pipes with which they will install an irrigation system to improve and technify a banana crop.

The 35 are in the process of reincorporation. They live together with about 100 other ex-combatants in the Territorial Space for Training and Reintegration, ETCR, of Tierra Grata, located between the municipalities of Manaure and La Paz, Cesar, and are part of an association that has undertaken several agricultural projects.

While drinking soda, Jorge Luis Montero, Augusto Reyes in Farc, 43, 26 of them in the guerrillas, says in a Guajiro accent that the project was born a year ago: "With Comrade Octavio, who was the one who was on the farm before, we put a machine to clean the paddock, we bought a seed in Curumaní -they were 2,000 colinos, which cost 800,000 pesos- and that's where we started with the banana project ". He adds that the project started with Farc's own resources stemming from the government's bancarization. In short, savings of the same contributions made by the Government for their maintenance.
The learning
"It was assumed that at eight months there should be production, but many plants were small and not all of them that have grown have paid off", says Jorge Luis, who explains that, despite his previous experience cultivating, it has been difficult move forward the plantain. "In the confrontation we made activities of sowing banana, yucca, everything, for our consumption. We all know how to sow, because it was the basis of our sustenance. We are good at working, but we have to accept that we lack technical knowledge, "he says.

Aldemar, Gilberto de Jesús Giraldo, in civilian life, accepts that the project failed in its beginnings due to the lack, precisely, of technical advice, and because of the differences between sowing in the jungle to eat and plant for a productive project scale. "The boys believed that this land was the same as the one we planted in the war, but no, there were some very productive lands, that do not need fertilizer, but here, because these lands are very worked, there they were virgins, and how We did not study the soil, we failed and that's why the banana did not grow enough, "he says.

Although we must not ignore the fact that the ex-combatants have knowledge and accumulated experience in the field work, they needed the support of entities such as the Sena, the OACP, the ARN that began to provide technical advice, and the Verification Mission of the United Nations in Colombia that prioritized this project and managed to coordinate the support and find the necessary resources to strengthen one of the most important demands, the fertilizers and an irrigation system.

With the strengthening of the plantain crop through the implementation of the drip irrigation system and fertigation (irrigation of fertilizers), the ex-combatants will be able to recover the crop and improve production. It is estimated that they can go from 7 tons to 11.2 tons per hectare. You kill them, says the UNDP technician who supports the project, they are healthy, they only need fertilizers, permanent water and care.

This project, prioritized in coordination between OACP, ARN, SENA, MISSION, UNDP and FARC, will allow the self-supply of plantain for the feeding of the members of the FARC that are living in the ETCR, and the surpluses will be commercialized with large areas and the market local.

For Carolina Vargas (Adriana Cabarrús in Farc), this project is her most important productive commitment: "Here we arrived with nothing, only with a team, that we no longer have, and a rifle that we already delivered, so we need to forge our future. This project is our self-supply, our economic sustainability ".

Aldemar, who came to lead 300 men in the front 41 during the war, now encourages them to lead this productive agricultural project, integrates them, gives encouragement to those who were sad to see the first results. He also thanks the United Nations Verification Mission for the support and hopes that the international community and the government will continue to support them.

The truck has arrived. It's 11 in the morning, they waited for it from Las ocho. He made three trips to the Manaure riverbank, where the 35 men loaded the tanks and the pipeline to other trucks and crossed the river, they arrived at the Borja farm, where the crop is and they started the work that promises to save their harvest and be their new way of life

Footnotes: By: Jorge Quintero, Public Information Officer, Regional Valledupar. Verification Mission of the UN in Colombia.
Cesar, Colombia
© 2018 UN Verification Mission in Colombia

https://misiononucol.exposure.co/excomb ... io-de-vida

Google Translator

View photos at link
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Sat Dec 08, 2018 7:02 pm

[VIDEO] Students from Colombia win the streets for the educational budget and are repressed
After two months of unemployment against the adjustment to education, students held a new day on Thursday. They were brutally repressed by the government of Iván Duque, with a balance of 250 detainees and 500 wounded.

Saturday, December 8 | 15:17


Colombia: students, again in the streets for the educational budget - YouTube

They have been unemployed for two months, demanding that the government of Iván Duque allocate 5% of the budget to education.

Along with teachers, peasants, labor unions and trade unions, they mobilized again this Thursday across the country against educational underfunding
and the increase in products of the basic basket.

The government responded with a brutal repression that left 250 people arrested and 500 injured.

Prepare a new day of struggle for Thursday, December 13.

All the support for your fight!

http://www.laizquierdadiario.com/VIDEO- ... ign=buffer

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

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

Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Tue Dec 11, 2018 4:38 pm

In the Depths of the Colombian Jungle: An Encounter with the ELN
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 10, 2018
Vivian Fernandes

Image

Brasil de Fato’s Vivian Fernandes recently travelled through the province of Choco, on of the bases of the guerrilla group, ELN. In the first of a series of articles, she narrates the experience of first meeting the guerilla fighters, and provides insights into their lives
Fearful of forgetting my own name, I chose Maria. Once the plane landed in Cali, in the department of Valle del Cauca, Colombia, that would be my name. Phones off. From there on, I would only have my own memory and a notebook to register everything.

Along with my new name, I had to memorize the new names of my comrades accompanying me on the trip. I repeated them in my head, obsessively, while I looked at their faces. I didn’t want to be the one who messed up the plan.

When we landed, a woman greeted us with a smile. She and the man with her introduced themselves. I was sure that she wasn’t Yaneth, just as I wasn’t Maria either. But her smile, along with her hug, created a bond. It felt like she was a family member, maybe my aunt.

In a white truck, we drove through the streets of Cali, in middle class and upper middle class neighborhoods. As we passed each neighborhood, Yaneth told us about the drinks and food of this region of Colombia.

After half an hour, Yaneth and the driver said goodbye, and another man took the wheel. This time, we were on a zig-zagging highway for several hours. Our bodies kept lurching due to the speed and I felt like we were flying but when I looked at the panel of the car, the needle of the speedometer did not move.

By looking at signs on the highway, I tried to understand where we were going. I had looked at the map of Cali the day before, but now, all I knew was that we were headed towards the Pacific.

After travelling hundreds of kilometers, we arrived at a small house. A few blocks later, we got out of the truck. The curves on the road had left me nauseous and I was glad I hadn’t eaten any breakfast. But we had completed only the first stage of our journey. The next part was by boat.

A young woman with a piercing on her lip seemed to be our tour guide. She asked if we wanted juice, yogurt, or something to eat. We were all fine. We got into the boat, which was already full of passengers and baggage and sat on a couple of wooden benches.

A lot of people smiled at us. There are few times when I had felt so lost and yet, so safe. I didn’t feel the need to ask anyone anything, just follow the instructions and go along.

I felt the wind blow strongly on my face and hair and I could already feel the humidity on my skin. Around us, the vegetation was lush.

Image

Those on the boat and on the banks of the river were mostly indigenous and Black people. There were almost no white people, except us, clearly standing out as foreigners.

We saw many houses on stilts on the banks. We passed by canoes, steered by children, men, women and old people, many of whom were accompanied by dogs. I couldn’t take my eyes off everything around me, until I fell asleep to the rocking of the boat.

We arrived at what we thought was our destination and got off the boat. An almost ghost-town welcomed us, but since it was lunch-time, I thought the inhabitants must be eating or sleeping the siesta since the heat was so intense.

“What size shoe are you?” As they handed over black rain boots with a heel, designed for work in the countryside, I understood that my sneakers would not be enough to continue the journey.

I thought we were going to travel a long distance by foot, but we got on to another boat, this time much smaller. We began to bond, with everyone introducing themselves and getting to know each other’s identity of the moment.

I felt my anxiety increasing, so I tried to relax myself by looking at the area around us, until a fast boat appeared with youth dressed in military garb, with guns and red and black patches with the letters ELN tied to their arms.

At that moment, I looked at Gustavo and Jorge and the others, and we laughed. We always knew it, but we never had said it, and now it was happening: we were in the territory of the National Liberation Army (ELN), the largest active guerrilla group in Latin America, formed in 1964.

I asked one of my companions if we were still in Valle del Cauca. He explained that we had already entered the Colombian department of Chocó. And a few kilometers ahead was where Panama began.

Some minutes later, the motor of the boat was turned off and we began to dock at a house. I looked up. An indigenous youth with a modern haircut, a military uniform with ELN identification and a rifle in this hand looked us over. Santiago commented smiling: “Some years ago, this haircut was not allowed.”

We got off the boat, walked up a small hill and we were invited to enter a house where an older couple lived with their small grandson and some other children.

After a few more handshakes and smiles, we were once again back on the boat. The diverse modes of transportation seemed to be in order to confuse us but mostly to leave as few trails as possible.

A bit further ahead, we got down at another dock. There, a tall man greeted us. He was clad in a military uniform and standing next to a black and red flag of the ELN. He introduced himself as Commander Uriel.

Dozens of men and women, most of them young, their rifles close to their bodies, welcomed us. One by one, I shook hands with each of them, saying, “Nice to meet you, I’m Maria”. It seemed like my new personality was taking over.

They welcomed us with two glasses of oatmeal juice and an invitation to bring some plastic chairs over to form a circle. These circles of dialogue in the midst of the guns was a scene that would be repeated over the next few days.

We all introduced ourselves. There was me, Maria, from Brazil, along with the comrades from Argentina accompanying me, and them – all members of the guerrilla movement from across Colombia. Black people, Indigenous people, white people, faces from the neighboring regions and from other departments of the country.

My intention was to get to know more about the ELN and to conduct interviews – that is how I introduced myself. Then, they took me to speak to Lucía, a beautiful, intelligent young woman, who sounded like she hailed from an urban region but had chosen the countryside, the guerrilla movement, as the space of her militancy.

The two of us began to talk, with me having just a notebook. She explained where we were: The Western War Front of the ELN –Omar Gómez.

Image

We are in Chocó

The department of Chocó is in the western part of Colombia, and borders both the Pacific Ocean and the Carribean Sea. The San Juan River runs through it. It is the most impoverished region of Colombia and its population is mostly made up of Black and Indigenous communities.

With a little more than 500,000 inhabitants, 82% of the population of Chocó is Afro-Colombian, and 9 out of every 10 people are black, according to the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE).

According to the governmental body, in its last study, of 2011, Chocó emerged as the Colombian department with the highest index of Unmet Basic Needs, affecting 79.19% of its population compared to 27.78% on a national level. Within this definition of people who are considered poor, the index of misery is at 32.24%.

Another study from the Ombudsman Office, from the year 2018, titled “Humanitarian Crisis in Chocó”, points to grave problems of child malnutrition, public insalubrity, lack of medical attention, precarity in the coverage and in the quality of education and the impact on the ecosystem.

The document also highlights that children, adolescents, women and old people, as well as the Black and Indigenous communities, and people in prison, are in situations of vulnerability. “Chocó continues to be one of the places in the country where the effective guarantee of human rights of the population is the most limited.”

Anyone who has gone to the bay of the San Juan River would testify to the accuracy of this data and these were some of the aspects highlighted by Lucía in our conversation.

Image

She stressed on the fact that the department of Chocó, despite everything, is rich, with a great amount of natural elements in its territory: gold, silver, forests with timber, petroleum, in addition to a great number of rivers and access to two oceans. That is where the interests of the Colombian state and the national and transnational companies are, she explained.

“Where the transnational companies operate, is where the State is,” Lucía declared, listing out a series of mining projects and transportation infrastructure projects that are already up and running or predicted to be implemented in the region, like those that connect Colombia with Panama.

Due to this region being a base for business interests, she said, the people were constantly being deceived into leaving their territory, or worse, forced to abandon it because of violence, in what is being called ‘displacement.’

In addition to the actions of the Colombian Army, Lucía also mentioned the role of the paramilitaries, who also dominate narcotrafficking and control the drug routes towards Central America through the Pacific region of Colombia.

As far as the regional institutional policy and governance were concerned, she said, “It doesn’t matter what party they are from, money is what moves them,” pointing out that she thought Chocó to be the department “where there is the most corruption in the country.” She said for her, it was generally the conservative sector that governs.

And what of the ELN in this context? Lucía explained that the actions of the guerrilla movement were a factor of resistance against the advance of the multinationals and their exploitation of the population and of nature. This disturbs the Colombian State, which enters in the conflict by deploying the Army.

Lucía also said that the ELN was present in almost all the 30 municipalities of Chocó. The guerrilla movement focuses on political education and the organization of the communities, in addition to the armed movement. The guerrilla group also coordinates with civil society organizations, as well as sectors of the Catholic Church that espouse Liberation Theology.

As for the financing of the guerrilla group, Lucía said the movement charged “taxes on economic activities. For example, a tax for those who buy and transport products like wood, mining and coca leaves; but never on those who produces, because that does not make any sense.” She added that they were there to defend the communities and work with them.

The war in communication

Within the guerrilla movement, photos and videos are only allowed in certain situations, and that with the faces of their members covered. From the visitors, they expect respect and understanding of the security protocols that they have established.

Gustavo and Jorge took photos and recorded videos with the guerrilla fighters posing and simulating activities of training and combat.

Image

From mid 2017, The Western War Front of the ELN –Omar Gómez decided to pursue a new strategy of action, in communication. They opened accounts on social media and also their own blog, through which they sought to establish direct dialogue with the Colombian population and the rest of the world.

Through communiques, photos of activities with the communities and graphic art with historic dates, messages of struggle and denouncements, they post messages with frequency, directly from the guerrilla movement and with a “guerrilla aesthetic” that they defend in their productions.

For instance, the alias, Commander Uriel, has pages and profiles on Twitter, on Instagram, on Vimeo and a blog, in addition to the official website of ELN. Lucía explained that they calculated that it was important to personify some of the pages to show that there were people and individuals building the guerrilla movement in order to help people identify with the movement.

They tried to create other pages on Facebook and on Youtube, but “five minutes after they were created, the accounts were erased, with no explanation,” she said.

Despite its low reach, the accounts are also an attempt at communicating with people who are far away from the guerrilla actions. They also have a WhatsApp number and an e-mail for Commander Uriel which are direct channels of conversation for those interested in learning more about this war front.

It is through WhatAapp that the guerrillas promote a cycle of debates and study with those who are interested, with constant dispatches of educational texts, in what they call Virtual Collectives of Study and Work. In addition to the texts, they encourage the people involved to spread this information and the images to show support to the ELN on these social platforms.

Through this first educational contact, they hope, in the future, to bring the supporters to visit the guerrilla territories. And it is not just Colombians who seek to contact the guerrillas, according to them; there are many foreigners too.

There has already been greater flexibility so that national and foreign journalists can visit the guerrilla camps. Around 20 media outlets have visited various war fronts of the ELN in recent times.

Not all who wish to meet the guerrilla movement get to do so though. There is initially a long process of dialogue and evaluation of the intention and editorial line of each agency before the actual meeting takes place. A minimum degree of trust is essential, also for questions that are answered by email and sending videos.

When asked about the evaluation of this press coverage, the members of the movement said that they were honest in general, and while they did not support the movement, they did not try to defame them either. However, there have also been cases of “manipulation of the interviews, cutting the declarations and giving a different meaning to what was said,” Lucía added. However, this is a risk they are willing to take, among many others.

Many in the encampment have phones and once in a while, can be seen taking photos or maybe just staring at the screen. For the management of their social media, they use different phones, according to them, which they change constantly and keep connected only in certain situations. Those who have computers do the majority of their work offline, and connect to the internet only at the time of sending and receiving information.

A number of houses have television sets, along with satellite transmission. It is in one of these houses that we take shelter at night, often watching the news programs of hegemonic channels from various countries, such as the National News show of Rede Globo (the Brazilian media conglomerate).

While watching these shows, one could say that of every 10 news items, seven are about issues related to the guerrillas or the peace talks, whether it be with the ELN or the agreements with the erstwhile Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), currently the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force party.

Image

Guerrilla youth

Without a watch, with our phones turned off and amid so many conversations, one does not feel the time pass. We had lunch and dinner on the same plate in one of the houses which welcomed us. The meals consisted of rice and chicken, which is the basis of the local diet. Then, we watched the sunset.

When darkness comes, it is time to prepare for the end of the day, at least for us. Meanwhile, the nighttime watch is organized. The young guerrilla fighters run around with their flashlights, take their backpacks, rifles, stack the chairs and finish washing the plates, silverware and cups in the stream of the river since there are no sinks, taps, showers or even toilets in the houses.

In order to go to the place where we would go to sleep, it was necessary to take a narrow canoe. Only two people could occupy a seat and the boat had a very small motor that was not very loud. We quietly went to the boat, which soon set off which was when we faced our biggest challenge.

Suddenly, the motor stopped. The guerrillas accompanying us proceeded to check the problem with only a small flashlight for illumination. With every step they took, the boat rocked to one side, and we had to balance the weight to the other side. It was an almost intuitive process, since we could not speak or make any noise.

Finally, the motor burst into life, disrupting the silence of the night in that humid forest. Now with the wind hitting our face again, I could observe the majestic starry sky and the contours of the shadows of the vegetation. Suddenly, Venus appeared at my side, a dog slightly dirty from all of the mud, and one of the beloved animals of the guerrilla front. Venus apparently always sits on the seats in the front of the boat, taking in the nighttime breeze.

Again, I was taken over by tranquility, and perhaps the innocence of someone who does not know the dangers of being in a zone of an armed conflict. It was no longer strange to be among youth in military uniform, with rifles in their hand and red and black patches on their arms.

Brasil de Fato || Report: Vivian Fernandes || Editing: Luiza Mançano || Photos and videos: Gustavo Jorge and || Graphic Arts: Lucas Milagres and Fernando Bertolo

(English translations by Peoples Dispatch)

English Translation: Zoe PC || Editing: Prasanth R || Image Editing: Sumit Kumar

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2018/12/ ... h-the-eln/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

Post Reply