Colombia

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Thu Dec 13, 2018 10:06 pm

Eradicating Peace in Colombia
Colombia’s new president, Iván Duque, continues to push for failed supply-side drug war policies in Colombia—a reversal of alternative coca substitution policies negotiated in 2016 as part of country’s peace accords.

December 6, 2018

Evan King and Samantha Wherry

Image
A coca farm damaged by glyphosate fumigations in Putumayo, Colombia. (KyleEJohnson/Flickr)


On October 12, the Colombian government kicked off a pilot program of aerial fumigation of coca crops via drones in Antioquia. The initiative lasted 45 days and the drones only fumigated three to four hectares a day and had to be manually transported between sites, according to Luis Pérez Gutiérrez, Antioquia’s governor. In a written letter to Colombian President Iván Duque, Gutiérrez instead proposed the use of “precision helicopters” capable of fumigating up to 200 hectares a day. This request comes in the context of the Trump administration’s ongoing pressure on the Colombian government to crack down on coca production through short-sighted aerial fumigation and forced eradication policies, which threaten to jeopardize the historic peace agreement signed in 2016.

In 2017, the Trump administration threatened to de-certify Colombia, placing it on a blacklist of countries who he has deemed are not adequately targeting the global drug trade. Countries that are decertified face a range of U.S. sanctions, including the suspension of all U.S. foreign assistance not directly related to anti-narcotics programs. This would also include suspending all assistance related to the peace accord.

This aggressive anti-drug rhetoric continues the approach of Plan Colombia, the failed counternarcotics strategy that defined U.S.-Colombia relations between 1999 and 2015.President Duque said that he is committed to tackling the issue by “air, sea, and land” with the help of the United States. This aggressive anti-drug rhetoric continues the approach of Plan Colombia, the failed counternarcotics strategy that defined U.S.-Colombia relations between 1999 and 2015. Under Plan Colombia, U.S. taxpayers contributed to the financing of widespread human rights violations by the Colombian armed forces and funneled money to paramilitary death squads responsible for the conflict’s most heinous atrocities. Part of the program involved aerial fumigation, or the spraying of glyphosate—a Monsanto product declared to be “probably carcinogenic” by the World Health Organization in 2015—throughout the Colombian countryside as a way to destroy coca plants. The U.S. apportioned $10 billion to Plan Colombia, costing thousands of Colombians their lives, homes, and livelihoods, but failed to make a dent in the drug trade. Widespread research and statistics have repeatedly proven that supply-side eradication programs like aerial fumigation do not work.

Former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos ended the program in 2015 due to reports of health impacts, pollution, community displacement, and that fumigation was destroying food crops. Research has demonstrated that aerial spraying with glyphosate has had detrimental impacts on health, communities, and the environment in Colombia. Indeed, respiratory problems, miscarriages, and contamination of soil and water sources persist in the country today. In April 2017, after the World Health Organization’s declaration, the Colombian Supreme Court prohibited aerial spraying of glyphosate on illicit crops.

Fumigation has been the perfect pretext to militarize these regions and apply strict social controls on the population, Arenas says.According to Pedro José Arenas, a coordinator with the Observatory for Illicit Crops, the Colombian government has also used glyphosate to destroy legal crops in regions where coca plants are cultivated, affecting the health of the communities, displacing them from their land, and later using the land for extractive industries or large-scale African palm oil plantations. Fumigation has been the perfect pretext to militarize these regions and apply strict social controls on the population, Arenas says. Military units restrict residents’ mobility within their own territory, and have been known to arbitrarily detain leaders, and in some cases commit extrajudicial killings.

Before leaving office, the Santos administration greenlighted the drones fumigation program, going against stipulations made as part of the country’s historic peace agreement, signed in late 2016, which created a voluntary crop substitution pact with Colombian farmers. The pact intended to target the socioeconomic roots of coca production, subsidizing the voluntary substitution of illicit crops, such as coca for legal alternatives. Duque has stated he plans to expand aerial fumigations in his drug policy agenda—a move the U.S. administration celebrated—dovetailing with Trump’s call for renewed eradication.

Voluntary Substitution

The National Comprehensive Program for the Substitution of Illicit Crops (PNIS) is one of the cornerstones of the Colombian peace agreement, aimed at putting an end to the country’s 53-year armed conflict. The substitution program is part of a broader rural development agreement aimed at alleviating the social and economic inequities that led to the armed conflict. This alternative strategy sought to work hand-in-hand with small growers and rural communities across the country to manually eradicate coca plants.

The plan, which has already enrolled more than 124,000 families from 14 departments (with thousands more waiting to opt-in), would subsidize the voluntary removal of coca plants by members of the community to move towards a gradual reintegration into the legal economy. Families who enroll in the program are entitled to 38 million pesos (about $11,250 USD) over the course of two years—consisting of two million pesos ($3,750 USD) per year for voluntary eradication, paid on a bimonthly basis; 19 million pesos ($6,000 USD) to help them develop alternative economic projects; 1.8 million pesos ($562 USD) to promote food sovereignty, and three million pesos ($950 USD) in technical assistance towards alternative economic projects.

However, according to Juan David Mellizo Ruiz, spokesperson for the Integration Committee of the Colombian Massif (CIMA), in communities like Tambo, Cauca, of the 1,447 families who eradicated their crops, since the program began in early 2017, only 87 have received their initial bimonthly payment and only 35 have received their second. The subsidies would be followed by government infrastructure projects to help small-scale farmers get their new products to market.

Many communities support voluntary substitution, even while armed groups try to discourage small-scale farmers from entering agreements with the government. In the last 18 months, paramilitaries have assassinated 38 leaders from the National Coordination of Coca, Poppy and Marijuana Growers (COCCAM), an organization that is in favor of the substitution program. One of these leaders was Iber Angulo, who was recently killed in the Naya River in a case that garnered international attention.

Yet attempts to derail Colombia’s voluntary substitution efforts in fact go much further back. In 2015, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Kevin Whitaker published an op-ed in El Tiempo that declared: “The majority of reduction in coca cultivation is due to aerial spraying,” while citing the health of Colombia’s rural poor as, at best, a secondary concern. A year later, a month after becoming Colombia’s Attorney General in 2016, Néstor Martínez met with then-U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Immediately after the high-level meeting, Martínez publicly advocated for the return to aerial fumigations with glyphosate in Colombia. Martínez’s stance came despite the knowledge that securing a peace agreement with the FARC would hinge on the approval of voluntary manual eradication program.

Eradicating Peace

Now that Duque has threatened a return to aerial fumigations, many families that have signed up for the substitution program are fearful. This plan goes along with a new stipulation that would reduce eligibility for families to be part of the program, from those cultivating up to 3.8 hectares of coca to those cultivating just 1.78 hectares, with harsher criminal charges if they fail to eradicate within 60 days. This reduction would restrict thousands of families from signing up for the voluntary eradication program.

Many families in Colombia’s coca-growing regions were already wary of the program, and without government support, it will likely suffer further.Many families in Colombia’s coca-growing regions were already wary of the program, and without government support, it will likely suffer further. According to Diego Rodríguez, a COCCAM representative from Argelia, Cauca, without government investment in infrastructure, switching to other crops is not feasible for the country’s coca farmers. Nearly 80% of Argelia’s infrastructure was built thanks to the income produced by selling coca crops, the only viable economic alternative for many of the region’s families, according to Rodríguez. “Coca built our schools, our roads, our bridges,” Rodríguez said. “There is no investment in infrastructure. I can’t carry hundreds of plantains down the mountains to put food on the table. If my son gets sick, I can’t wait six months for coffee crops to grow.” He continued: “Now the government wants to eradicate without investing in alternatives or providing technical assistance. Meanwhile, 38 of our members have been killed since the [peace] agreement.”

Indeed, the push towards forced eradication has already led to mass violence by state security forces against rural communities. On October 5, 2017, in the small town of Tandil, Tumaco, a group of protesters formed a human chain to prevent state security forces from forcibly eradicating their coca crops. In response, in violation of the voluntary substitution agreement, the state security forces opened fire on the protesters, indiscriminately killing eight protesters and injuring at least 50 more.

Three days later, an observation mission of human rights defenders and journalists traveled to the site of the massacre. According to Santiago Mera, a member of the Inter-Church Commission of Justice and Peace who traveled with the mission, when they attempted to cross into a blocked-off area to find information about one of the young men who had died during the massacre, state security forces began firing at them. The incident led to an official apology from former Colombian Vice President Óscar Naranjo, but so far not a single member of the state security forces has been held accountable for the extrajudicial killing of eight unarmed protesters. As Mera says, “these kinds of deadly confrontations are bound to increase if the Duque administration decides to backtrack on voluntary eradication.”

https://nacla.org/news/2018/12/07/eradi ... e-colombia
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 03, 2019 6:43 pm

UN: 85 FARC members killed in Colombia since peace deal
Ex-FARC members and activists are being increasingly targeted despite a decrease in overall homicides in Colombia.

1 Jan 2019

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Colombia's special investigation unit blamed 'illegal armed groups and criminal organisations' for the killings [File: Luis Benavides/AP Photo]

In the two years since Colombia signed a peace deal with the left-wing FARC rebels, 85 members of the armed-group-turned-political-party have been killed, the United Nations said.

Colombia's special investigation unit, quoted in a new UN report published on Monday, blamed "illegal armed groups and criminal organisations" for the killings.

In his quarterly report on the UN's mission to Colombia, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged Colombia's President Ivan Duque - a vocal critic of the peace accord, signed by his predecessor Juan Manuel Santos - to better protect ex-combatants.

The FARC, formerly known as The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, now operates as a political party under the name, Revolutionary Alternative Common Force.

It has hit out repeatedly at the lack of security guarantees for its members, many of whom are struggling to reintegrate into society despite being offered amnesty in the peace deal.

Guterres said 14 ex-members of the FARC had been killed between September 26 and December 26 alone.

Most of the cases have been linked to the Gulf Clan drug-trafficking group that emerged out of disarmed right-wing paramilitaries in 2006, as well as FARC dissidents, the remnants of the now-disbanded EPL Marxist rebels and members of the still-active ELN armed group.

Colombia has been wracked by more than half a century of armed conflict between rebel fighters, drug-traffickers, paramilitaries and state forces, which has left some eight million people dead, disappeared or displaced.

Activists under pressure
Guterres said he was also "hugely" concerned by the number of murders of social leaders and human rights defenders in Colombia, saying the UN had verified 163 of 454 reported cases since the peace accord was signed.

"Most of the murders were in zones abandoned by former FARC [fighters] and where there is limited state presence," the report said.

Colombia's human rights ombudsman estimates that 423 activists were murdered between 2016 and the end of November last year.

Despite the ongoing violence, Colombia has seen a 40 percent decline in its murder rate since the deal was signed, according to the UN, with some 7,000 former FARC fighters laying down their weapons.

Colombia's peace and reconciliation commission estimates that some 1,600 dissident rebels remain active. Some FARC members refused the peace deal and continue their fight against the government and drug-trafficking activities, while other groups, including most prominently the ELN, have botched several attempts to reach a deal with the government.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/ ... 10851.html

Gulf Clan etc my ass, this is your usual fascist death squads in close cooperation with armed forces. Hardly any diff, really.
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Mon Jan 14, 2019 3:15 pm

Colombia Mourns 8th Indigenous Leader Killed in 2019

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The leader survived the attack. He was hospitalized due to a gunshot wound. | Photo: Reuters file

Published 14 January 2019

A report indicates that 34 Awa indigenous leaders were killed in 2018 prompting an immediate government response.


Leonardo Nastacuas Rodriguez is the first indigenous leader of the Awa ethnic group that has been murdered in 2019, and the 8th indigenous leader alone since the turn of the year.

The 36-year-old Leonardo Nastacuas, the father of a 2-year-old girl, was shot and killed by “various” assailants who entered his home, according to preliminary media reports.

The national police are investigating the murder, while indigenous authorities are conducting their own research to try to determine the identity of the assailants.

Last year, 34 leaders belonging to the Awa ethnicity were murdered by armed groups in their territory. The Awas have decried the violence and reiterated their demands to the State of Colombia to take action to protect their territory from violence.

This is the third murder of an Awa in the span of a few months. Another two men from the same ethnicity, Ramiro Garcia and his son Braulio Garcia—who had recently been elected governor of Palmar Imbi—were also killed in Nariño.

In the face of the rampant killings of indigenous leaders perpetrated in Colombia during 2018, the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC for its acronym in Spanish) denounced the government’s lack of guarantees for indigenous leaders to demand the protection and defense of the country’s ancestral lands.

There have been several cases lately involving attacks on indigenous leaders and their families.

Seven indigenous leaders have been massacred since the start of 2019, with arguably the most brutal the shooting of activist Maritza Quiroz Leiva, who was targeted for helping Afro-Colombian victims in the country's long-standing civil conflict

Towards the end of December, indigenous Senator German Valencia denounced an attack on his brother while at his home, by a group of six armed hooded men in the Vilachi Village, Valle del Cauca.

During the same month, the recently elected Awa Governor of the Pingullo Sardinero community Alejandro Pascal Pai was attacked along with his wife.

The Colombian government has acknowledged the troubling situation regarding the murder of social leaders.

Indigenous people are often targeted by criminal organizations such as paramilitary groups. These groups have become stronger in the absence of the former guerrilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC for its acronym in Spanish) in the aftermath of the 2016 peace accords, and continue to gain strength in the already existent void of government control in mainly rural areas of Colombia.

Referring to a recent study, Attorney General Nestor Humberto Martinez said that the greatest number of Colombians murdered over the past two years since the peace agreement was signed are social leaders who serve on Communal Action Boards (JAC).

Indigenous people made up 13 percent of those killed and farmers 10 percent. Union leaders and social leaders, Afro-Colombians and the LGBTI population were the other main murder victims.

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

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Col ... -0005.html

and after all the murders are done the Columbian ruling class will be troubled no more...

If 8 indigenous leaders are 13% of those killed then something like 63 people's leaders murdered in 2 weeks. Was it this bad before FARC surrendered?
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 17, 2019 2:31 pm

AFTER TWO YEARS, COLOMBIA’S PEACE AGREEMENT IS IN SHREDS
Posted by W. T. Whitney, Jr. | Dec 22, 2018 | Featured Stories

After Two Years, Colombia’s Peace Agreement Is in Shreds


By W. T. Whitney Jr.

December 6, 2018

Image

After four years of negotiations, the Colombia government and guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace agreement on November 24, 2016. Over 50 years of civil war had ended. The war took 220,000 Colombian lives and displaced seven million people.



One party to the agreement laid down arms. Otherwise implementation has been nil. A campaign to undo the settlement is gaining. The peace process is on life support.



Defenseless civilians are under siege. By October 1, 2018, 343 social leaders and human rights defenders had been assassinated over the course of 18 months. Between November 24, 2016 and August 20, 2018, 80 former guerrillas were assassinated. Michel Forst is the United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights. Having finished a visit to Colombia on December 3, he told reporters, “It’s more horrifying than anything I have seen in my life.”
The first agenda item of the peace talks was the use and control of land.In 1964 those concerns and fear of repression motivated a few peasant farmers to establish the FARC. Land has been at the heart of political strife in Colombia since the time of liberator Simon Bolívar. The peace accord promised reform, but restitution of stolen land, formalization of land titles, and funding for agrarian reform are almost non-existent.
The fourth item on the six-point agenda was “Solution to the problem of illicit drugs.” Yet the government hasn’t provided farmers with funding and infrastructure essential for growing legal crops. Coca production and narco-trafficking have expanded.Increasingly, violent paramilitaries preside over drug-trade operations. They occupy areas once held by the FARC.


When wars end, prisoners of war go home. However, more than 500 FARC prisoners remain in Colombian prisons. Authorities jailed lead FARC peace negotiator Jesús Santrich. He faces possible extradition to the United States on probablyfalse drug-dealing charges. Head FARC negotiator Iván Márquez is in hiding to avoid arrest.


Agenda item five covered victims of the armed conflict. Agreement on that point determined that combatants on both sides would have the opportunity to acknowledge responsibility for crimes they committed. Having done so, they could expect to be pardoned or, in a few cases, to be punished. In that instance principles of restorative justice would be applied.


The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) would hear confessions and rule on pardon or punishment. Pardoned, ex-guerrillas would return to civilian life – and state agents to their posts. The former could enter regular politics and continue fighting for social justice there.



Colombia’s Congress is destroying the JEP. Spanish lawyer Enrique Santiago recently declared that “modifications [of the JEP] constitute alterations that break the Final Agreement” – hence our emphasis here on the JEP.



According to Santiago, legislation passed on July 18, 2018 creates “separate judicial treatment and procedures for the military forces” and prohibits “investigation of alleged crimes committed by members of the armed forces or agents of the State.” The Congress is now considering further changes of the JEP. There would be special judges to rule on “questions relating to members of the security forces, civil servants or third parties.” These last include paramilitaries.



And a revamped JEP would no longer recognize confessions by ex-combatants. Whether or not they take responsibility won’t matter. Pardons will be unlikely. The incentive for ex-combatants to appear before the JEP thus disappears. That incentive was “the heart of the justice system created in the Peace Agreement,” Santiago insists. The JEP may end up looking like a regular court. Mere confession before the JEP wouldn’t suffice as a basis for judgment.



Santiago argues that “without agreements, life in society is not possible [and] social peace is jeopardized.” This legal principle goes back to Roman law and is validated by centuries of legal practice. Ultimately, “neither the Congress of the Republic, nor any other state institution is authorized … to violate what has been agreed to.”



Santiago served as an advisor for the negotiators during the peace talks. He is secretary general of the Communist Party of Spain.



Former President Álvaro Uribe and his followers are sabotaging the peace process. Founded by Uribe, their Democratic Center Party holds power. Addressing the party’s convention in 2017, Fernando Londoño, a former interior minister and the party’s honorary head, declared that “the first challenge for the Democratic Center will be that of going back and tearing apart that cursed paper called the final agreement.”



The ongoing turmoil is intrinsic to the nature of Colombian society. Writing for the Colombian Communist Party’s website, Nelson Lombrano Silva castigates the state as “serving this filthy and immoral bourgeoisie.” Dominance of that sector signals “the inexorable decadence of capitalism in a state of extreme decomposition.” And “narco-trafficker number 82” is in charge. Lombrano is recalling Uribe’s place on an old U.S. list of Colombian drug traffickers. He continues:



Attorney General Néstor Humberto Martínez holds a side job as advisor to the AVAL Group. That’s the holding company owned by Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo, Colombia’s richest man.
High level corruption is endemic. Sarmiento Angulo’s “dark dealings” with Brazil’s Odebrecht Corporation are emblematic.
The military budget skyrockets. Spending on education, health care, and agriculture dwindles.
“Gringo imperialists” dominate Colombia’s military. Their “21 bases” represent a “supreme act of treason to the country.”
The country’s nominal leader is a “simple caricature” of a president. That’s Iván Duque – former banker, senator, and Uribe aide.
And, “this rotten governing class takes not even the most elemental step without Uncle Sam’s approval.”


Indeed, “the most productive chapter yet in the history of U.S.-Colombian relations” is ahead. That’s the opinion, recently expressed, of veteran U.S. foreign policy operatives Mack McLarty and John Negroponte. They add that, “Colombia boasts a strong democracy, a vibrant economy and ever-improving prospects for peace.”

https://mltoday.com/after-two-years-col ... in-shreds/
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Mon Mar 04, 2019 3:04 pm

Colombia: «Peace is not just the silence of arms»
Sowing the opinion matrix that the ELN's action in Colombia does not have an insurrectional character, but rather a criminal one, is one of the objectives of the Colombian Government and the press at its service

Author: Raúl Antonio Capote | internet@granma.cu

March 3, 2019 20:03:14

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The Colombian right-wing press develops a strong campaign to criminalize the ELN. Photo: TELESUR

The president of Colombia, Iván Duque, recently declared that "the violent escalation of the ELN shows that it has no will for peace." The Government blames the guerrilla group for being responsible for the "freezing" of peace talks.

In an interview with Pablo Beltrán, head of the delegation of Dialogues of Peace of the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Havana, conducted by the popular educator and Argentine journalist Claudia Korol, Beltrán said that "peace in Colombia is the peace of continent". And he explained the importance that, for the plans, so much of the president of EE. UU., Donald Trump, as the government of Ivan Duque, has the interruption of the search for a political solution to the Colombian conflict.

"War is necessary in North American geopolitics, to favor intervention in Venezuela and to put the continent at war." The Government of Colombia, Beltrán argued, seeks through "the systematic genocide of Colombian social leaders - largely belonging to the Patriotic March - to provoke a reactivation of the internal conflict."

After the attack with explosives at the Police School in Bogotá, the Duque government demanded that Cuba extradite the members of the peace delegation led by Pablo Beltrán, extraditions that can not be carried out in accordance with the protocols agreed by the governments. and the parties that carried forward the negotiation.

"The Colombian government has demanded that the Cuban government extradite the leaders of the ELN who are being part of those Dialogues in Cuba. We know that this breaks with agreed protocols in the negotiation process itself, "explained the leader of the guerrilla negotiator, who also explained what are those protocols established in the peace dialogues between the Government, the ELN and the guarantors. «On March 30, 2016, we finished what was called the Confidential Phase, signing a Conversation Agenda in Caracas. Five days later we signed three protocols: the first protocol, on how the delegation of this delegation would move between Colombia and the different countries hosting the dialogue (because there are several); second protocol, on how the conversation cycles would go; and protocol three, where it says that in case there is a breakdown of the talks, we must guarantee the safe return of this delegation to the ELN camps. That protocol of return with security of the delegation of the ELN to its camps, is the one that the Government of Duque does not know, and the one that the guarantors countries are reminding him that it is necessary to comply, because for that State agreements are made ».

Pablo Beltrán, to a question from the journalist about the position of the guarantors, cited the statement of the Chilean guarantor Raúl Vergara, one of the signatories as a witness of these protocols, who in Santiago, Chile, said: "I call the President of Colombia so that honor agreements in which we were guarantors and do not ignore them ». Cuba maintained a similar position, as did the Government of Norway.

The Head of the ELN Peace Dialogue delegation made a clear statement about the reception given by the Cuban Government to the delegation and the principled position held by the Cubans: "You are welcome as a Delegation for Peace, you can develop the rounds here of conversations that they consider, but from Cuba there should not be any other type of activity that is not yours as a delegation ", and pointed out:" We have fulfilled that to the letter ".

"The Government of the United States is pushing the Government of Colombia to say that things are being done against Colombia from Cuba. Something that is false. That is pointing to an old purpose of the administration in Washington, which is to try to prove that Cuba is a refuge, a sanctuary for terrorists, "the negotiator added.

The misrepresentation of the transfer protocol, the media manipulation aimed at giving the image of Venezuela harboring the ELN forces, was denounced by the Head of the delegation, who clarified that Venezuela has not done anything other than comply with the agreement, the established ; The transfer protocol determines step by step the transit of the ELN towards any country to a round of dialogues. "We are going to the common border between Colombia and Venezuela, the Venezuelan security forces receive us, they take us to a Venezuelan airport, and from there we travel, for example, to Cuba or Ecuador, that is the transfer protocol".

THE RIGHT PRESS AND THE CRIMINALIZATION OF THE GUERRILLA

The Colombian right-wing press develops a strong campaign to criminalize the ELN. Recently they released a report by "Crisis Group", according to which there has been an "increase in illegal mining with the participation of the ELN and dissident bands of the FARC in regions near the border with Colombia, in southern Venezuela." They also point to the persistence of kidnappings, attacks, attacks on army forces and an increase in murder and robbery rates in areas close to the scope of the guerrillas.

Sowing the matrix of opinion that the ELN's action in Colombia does not have an insurrectional character, but criminal, is one of the objectives of the Colombian Government and the press at your service.

The Government of Colombia assured before the Council of DD. HH of the UN, in Geneva, that "currently we can not talk about the existence of an internal armed conflict", which seeks to classify the conflict differently before this organization.

An ELN tweet related to the subject, from @ivancepedacast, says: "If the Government denies the existence of an armed conflict with the ELN, Miguel Ceballos should resign his position. It makes no sense to have a peace commissioner in a country where the government says there is no war. Or it could be reassigned, for example, to the Ministry of Defense. " Miguel Ceballos is the High Commissioner for Peace in Colombia.

http://www.granma.cu/mundo/2019-03-03/c ... 9-20-03-14

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Tue Mar 05, 2019 3:39 pm

Firearm threatens member of FARC in Palmira

4/3/2019

This weekend the Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común (FARC), through a communiqué, denounced that one of its members was threatened with a firearm in the city of Palmira ( See press release ).

The events occurred last Thursday, February 28, when the young Johnier Andrei Flórez Rincón, a psychologist and member of the Electoral Commission of the party , was intercepted in the morning while he was going to his residence by armed men who were traveling in a motorcycle without license plates.

"Later, the guy who went to the barbecue would threaten him with a firearm saying: 'Stop bothering with electoral issues'; While this was happening, the driver of the motorcycle said to him: "Stick it on! Stick it!", hinting at being shot . Finally, the two men leave, not before the subject of the weapon warned him: 'You know, stop fucking with that,' "warns the statement.

The threats occur in a context where various social forces and various parties such as the Green Alliance, the Alternative Democratic Pole, the Patriotic Union and the FARC, are working on a convergence with a view to the elections next October.

In this context, it is worrying that members of the leadership of the Green Alliance party in Palmira were in danger last Wednesday, February 27, in a situation that also involves armed men who tried to enter their headquarters at night.

According to the party's leadership, "two individuals who were mobilizing on a motorcycle and carrying firearms tried to break into the premises, fortunately, and for the peace of mind of the seven directors and the councilman of the community who were present at the meeting, they could not open the security gate, which prevented their entry "( See press release ).

Two parties under threat in less than a week ignite the alarms in the municipality of Palmira, more when they are parties that make up the convergence that local power will dispute in the upcoming electoral contests.

Due to the above, various human rights organizations have demanded that the local, departmental and national government provide all the guarantees for the exercise of political opposition and protect the life and integrity of the threatened persons, especially when the number of social leaders surpasses the figure of 430 people killed in little more than two years, without the Colombian Government having taken effective measures for their protection .

https://www.laremap.com/2019/03/amenaza ... lmira.html

Google Translator

Pacifism is counter-revolutionary. For former fighters & progressives it looks suicidal too.
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Fri Mar 22, 2019 4:48 pm

Paramilitaries spend the night at Mario Uribe's farm, says the Prosecutor's Office report

21 Mar 2019 - 6:00 AM
Judicial Drafting
In a ruling against a former commander of the Southwest Block, the Superior Court of Medellín mentioned how several landowners, including Mario Uribe Escobar (cousin of former President Uribe) and his brother Víctor Horacio, would have helped promote paramilitarism.

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The South West Block was formed, among other things, thanks to the request of several farmers and merchants of the region to the Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá. Archive.

A new ruling of the Justice and Peace Chamber of the Superior Court of Medellín , issued on January 25, but revealed in its entirety last Monday, makes a succinct mention that could end in a great controversy: the possible closeness between the former president Álvaro Uribe and the paramilitary groups of Antioquia. This is the first sentence of Justice and Peace issued against the South West Bloc of the United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (AUC), through the case of its former military commander Germán Pineda López, alias Sindi .


In this study that the court made, it is precisely the participation of civilians who, to "fight the insurgency", decided to invest resources in the formation of paramilitary groups. And although the Justice and Peace Room clarified in its decision that "the Office of the Prosecutor did not provide the identification of the persons who requested the creation of the paramilitary group (in question) and who undertook to finance it", he cites, later, several reports made by the research entity.

In one of those reports, prepared by the Office of the 20 th Prosecutor before Justice and Peace, people like the former senator Mario Uribe Escobar - whom the Supreme Court condemned to 7 and a half years in prison for parapolitics - are mentioned , his brother Victor Horacio and his cousin, the former president, natural leader of the Democratic Center party and today senator, Álvaro Uribe Vélez. This was reflected in the failure of 768 pages. ( Read the full ruling here )

"On the farms El Guáimaro, Los Naranjos, El Recreo and El Limón, properties of the ex-senator Mario Uribe Escobar, of the ex-governor of Antioquia Elena Herrán de Montoya, now deceased, of Jorge Andrés Gallego and Víctor Horacio Uribe Escobar, brother of Mario Uribe Escobar, located in the southwestern subregion, spent the night in the South West Bloc , "says the sentence based on the aforementioned report from the Office of the Prosecutor.

According to the ruling, a 1997 Judicial Police report detailed that on the El Guáimaro and Los Naranjos farms were part of the list of sites that were "frequented by the members of the Southwest Block in the subregion." It was a group that was formed following the petition that landowners and merchants in the area made to the Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá, the ruling says. That is, to the Castaño house.


(Also: The history of paramilitarism in Colombia, according to Ronderos )

The part in which President Uribe mentioned is mentioned: "The names of illustrious figures such as Luis Ernesto Garcés Soto; former Antioquia governor Helena Herran de Montoya, Mario Uribe, Horacio Uribe, former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, to name just a few, have been linked to the groups of 'social cleansing' - Las Escopetas - and paramilitaries. " The basis for this assertion is a report from the Office of the Prosecutor 44, Delegate for Justice and Peace, dated January 5, 2011

The court takes advantage of the explanation of the violence suffered by this sub-region of Antioquia to make a subtle claim to former president Uribe. He did this when referring to the Convivir, security groups that ended up working in collusion with the paramilitaries in various parts of the country, but especially in Antioquia: "Even recently, and despite the evidence that exists about the participation of many of these cooperatives in the criminal actions of paramilitarism, (Álvaro Uribe) has defended the validity of this initiative as a security strategy ".

The responsibility of Uribe as promoter of the Convivir while he was president of Antioquia, between 1995 and 1997, was not overlooked either: "From the impulse that the then governor of Antioquia Álvaro Uribe Vélez gave to these cooperatives in the department, they were created in the Southwest some Associations Living together, as in the other regions where they were constituted, had the support of political and economic sectors of the municipalities and became a kind of legal arm of the paramilitaries.


(You may be interested in: Prohibition of paramilitarism, a reform that raises blisters )

For the court, it is clear that the Convivir were key elements in the support networks of the Southwest Block and that, when they disappeared, many of its members entered to swell the lines of the AUC. These support networks were sponsored by "merchants, landowners, some settlers and members of the civil and military authorities"; by members of the Army and the Police, who were also "collaborators of the Southwest Block for the commission of their crimes."

The Office of the Prosecutor has made more than 170 copies of copies for politicians and civilians to be investigated for their possible links with this illegal armed group but, to date, the investigations have not progressed. This was confirmed by the court, which announced that it "will request the Office of the Prosecutor to carry out the corresponding tasks to ensure the momentum and development of these investigations."

This is not the first ruling of a Justice and Peace court in which the alleged proximity or affinity between former President Álvaro Uribe and the paramilitary groups is questioned, who demobilized during his first term in the Casa de Nariño. The former head of state, however, has always maintained that all his actions have been covered by the mantle of legality, that neither he nor anyone in his family has promoted the emergence of illegal groups, and that he is more than willing to take care of them. calls of justice.

https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/j ... ulo-846042

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

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Wed Apr 24, 2019 1:57 pm

Colombian senator denounces murder of ex-member of the FARC

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Lozada again denounced the campaign of stigmatization against the FARC by the party of Álvaro Uribe. | Photo: AP
Published 23 April 2019

Senator Carlos Lozada demanded that the Colombian government grant full guarantees to the ex-members of the FARC-EP for their socio-economic and political reincorporation.

The Colombian senator for the Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común ( FARC ), Carlos Lozada, denounced on Tuesday the murder of the former member of the FARC-EP insurgent group , Dimar Torres, by the National Army .

Lozada told reporters that Torres was killed on Monday, April 22, in the Campo Alegre sector, a rural area in the municipality of Convención, department of Norte de Santander. The fact was witnessed by inhabitants of the region, who rebuked the National Army patrol .


The body Dimar Torres was going to be disappeared in a grave when the community found him | Photo: Inhabitants of Campo Alegre
When the officials refused to reveal the whereabouts of Rojas, the community entered the camp where the National Army patrol was stationed. There they found the grave that was being dug to bury and disappear the ex-member of the FARC-EP . On the same property they found the corpse.

The Colombian senator also posted an audio on Twitter with the testimony of those who found the body. He said he has more audiovisual evidence of the crime.

In addition, Lozada reiterated to the national government, led by Iván Duque, that it grant full guarantees to former members of the FARC-EP , who abandoned their weapons to rejoin society and politics, following the Final Peace Agreement reached on November 24. of 2016.

"Weeks ago we denounced that this campaign of stigmatization that has been waged against the party ( FARC ) and those who left arms by the Democratic Center put us in the spotlight of those who want to sabotage the peace process," Lozada said. to the political party of Álvaro Uribe Vélez.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/asesinat ... -0038.html

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I am so sick of my second guessing but if I could see this coming a mile away why couldn't they? A poorly calculated risk?
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Thu May 23, 2019 3:03 pm

According to a recent count, after the signing of the peace agreements in Colombia, in November 2016, 596 social leaders have been killed.

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Human rights defender Paula Andrea Rosero Ordóñez was murdered Monday night by a group of strangers in the department of Nariño, in southwestern Colombia, official sources said.

Rosero Ordóñez, 47 years old, was the representative of the Public Ministry of the town of Samaniego, in Nariño, and had previously warned she was receiving threats against her life.

According to a police report, the lawyer was approached by two hit men, who shot her at close range.

Although she was given first aid almost immediately, it was impossible to save his life, the reports said. The Attorney General of the Nation and the Ombudsman of Colombia, in a joint statement, lamented the crime.
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.@PGN_COL y @DefensoriaCol condenan crimen de la personera de Samaniego, Nariño. #Comunicado conjunto pic.twitter.com/bxd8puqQ8R

— Defensoría delPueblo (@DefensoriaCol) May 21, 2019
"@PGN_COL and @DefensoriaCol condemn the crime against the person from Samaniego, Nariño. Statement attached"
Both institutions demanded that the government of Colombian President Ivan Duque "take urgent measures" to guarantee the lives of human rights defenders, as well as all social leaders.

According to a recent count made last week, after the signing of the peace agreements in Colombia, in November 2016, there 139 former guerrilla fighters were killed. Also 31 relatives of ex-rebels have been killed, while 596 social leaders and 119 Indigenous people were murdered.

According to the non-governmental organization Programa Somos Defensores, from January to March, 25 human rights defenders in Colombia were killed.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Hum ... -0015.html

Here we go again...and again, and again, and again....
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Re: Colombia

Post by blindpig » Wed May 29, 2019 2:53 pm

THEY DENOUNCE THE OFFICIAL RETURN OF FALSE POSITIVES IN COLOMBIA
May 20, 2019 , 10:22 a.m. .

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The Colombian army returns to Uribe politics that generated controversy in the region (Photo: Archivo)

A report by the New York Times set off alarms in Colombia, because according to a report that reached the hands of the US media, Uribista's policy of "false positives" would have returned officially.

The report reports that, from the official high command of the Colombian army, a policy has been given to increase the number of attacks, captures, renditions and deaths in combat. These "lethality orders" created a controversy that expelled journalist Nick Casey from the country, who also has experience in coverage for that medium in Venezuela, for death threats due to the disclosure of this report.

During the presidency of Álvaro Uribe there were some 5,000 cases of false positives, because in that eight-year period the order from above was to increase the number of casualties on the ground within the framework of the State's fight against the guerrillas and the drug trafficking, so officials decided to "disguise" civilians throughout Colombia as "insurgents" to justify the statistics.

That generated a scandal that remains today and that the filtered report shows that this policy is related to the shadow of Uribe. The President, Iván Duque, managed to ascend to the Casa de Nariño precisely because of the backing of the former president and current senator from Antioquia.

According to the publication, General Nicacio Martínez Espinel, commander of the Colombian army, acknowledged having given the new orders and demanding that the officers establish specific targets to kill, capture or force the surrender of the criminal groups: "He said that he had issued an order for written that instructed the main commanders to double the results, explaining that they had reached that decision due to the threat that Colombia continues to face from the guerrilla, paramilitary and criminal organizations. "

The general also acknowledged that the orders instruct the commanders to carry out operations when they are still not sure of their objectives.

The order of the Colombian army says: "You have to launch operations with 60-70 percent credibility and accuracy". That, according to the officials who spoke with the US media, leaves enough room for error that this policy has already caused questionable murders.

http://misionverdad.com/TENDENCIAS/denu ... n-colombia

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Who could imagine?
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