Leftist social and political leader assassinated in southern Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Colombia Reports

Leftist social and political leader assassinated in southern Colombia
posted by Philipp Zwehl
Nov 19, 2013

A leader of one of the leftist social movement Marcha Patriotica was assassinated in southern Colombia on Monday, according to national media reports.

Roberto Cortes was reportedly shot five times by unknown attackers early Monday morning in the presence of his son. He was still alive when he arrived at a nearby hospital in the state of Huila but died of his wounds several hours later.

According to statements made by the Marcha Patriotica, Cortes was an active organizer in the nationwide agricultural strikes and protests that gripped much of the country between July and September of this year.

The organization also reported that Cortes was the 25th of its leaders to be assassinated this year, drawing parallels to the Union Patriotica (UP), a leftist political party formed in the 1980s by various rebel groups and Colombia’s communist party before a wave of targeted assassinations killed most of its leaders.

Read more: http://colombiareports.co/leader-one-colombias-largest-leftist-social-movements-assasinated/

[reddread]

1. our tax dollars at work

http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/americas/colombia/us-policy-in-colombia

[Enthusiast]

2. That's just what I was thinking..............nt

[Judi Lynn]

3. Outstanding Amnesty Int'l report on US policy on Colombia.

Very helpful, very accurate.

Thank you.

[Comrade Grumpy]

4. Good thing this didn't happen in Venezuela. There would be a contingent here...

...calling for a US invasion to save the country from the murderous leftists.

But this is rightist Colombia, not leftist Venezuela, so nary a peep. Strange double standard.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Citizens have been tortured, disembowled, murdered

publicly with chainsaws, buried in mass graves (as did Venezuelans under a predecessor of Hugo Chavez, Carlos Andres Perez), thrown into rivers with their bellies ripped open and stuffed with stones in order to sink quickly, even thrown into crematoria at various places in Colombia, as witnessed in courtroom testimonies, and here, right-wing trolls work themselves into a lather trying to get to LBN first with the next article on toilet paper shortages in Venezuela.

It's strange beyond all understanding.

[bitchkitty]

13. You won't see them

in this thread. Unless they can find some way to pin the murder on Maduro.

Yes, it is strange. It's also disgusting.

[Judi Lynn]

6. This is a different assassination: "Colombia: Cauca campesino leader assassinated"

Colombia: Cauca campesino leader assassinated

Submitted by WW4 Report on Wed, 11/20/2013 - 05:35 Andean Theater

Sergio Úlcue Perdomo, a campesino leader representing veredas (hamlets) in the municipality of Caloto, in Colombia's southwestern Cauca department, was killed by unknown gunmen in civilian clothes who invaded his family's shelter in vereda Marañón on Nov. 17. Family members, including children, looked on as he was slain. The family has been living in the improvised shelter since November 2011, when they were forced by paramilitary threats to abandon their traditional lands and home in vereda El Pedregal. In 2009, Úlcue Perdomo led an effort to document rights abuses by the Colombian army and allied paramilitaries at the veredas of El Pedregal and El Vergel, bringing a complaint before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) on behalf of some 175 families. The CIDH issued a "Precuationary Measure," MC-97-10, calling on the Colombian government to guarantee the safety of the threatened families. (Corporación Justicia y Dignidad via Rebelión, Nov. 19)

The assassination came two days after the closing of an international indigenous meeting that was held in the Cauca resguardo (indigenous territory) of La María Piendamó, the Fifth Continental Summut of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala, attended by some 2,000 from throughout the Andean and Central American nations, as well as Mexico, the US and Canada. The periodic summit, named for the word for the American continents in the language of Panama's Kuna people, convened for the first time in Mexico in 2000. The Fifth Abya Yala Summit concluded with the issuance of a "Declaration of La María Piendamó" condemning the "predatory and irrational" nature of the "neoliberal extractive capitalist model," while also warning against a "'green economy'" that would "commercialize" natural resources in the guise of saving them. (Panamá On, Nov. 19; Servindi, Nov. 15)

http://ww4report.com/node/12773

What a desperate shame it is that it's almost assured the people behind this filthy assassination of another helpless Colombian campesino will NEVER be brought to justice.

[octoberlib]

7. And then there's Chiquita.

Chiquita Brands International Inc. (CQB:US)’s bid to stop the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from releasing documents on payments to a Colombian terrorist group was dismissed by a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington rejected the company’s argument that the damage it would suffer from disclosure of the records should bar their release to a public interest group under the Freedom of Information Act.

Chiquita, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, contended release of the records could compromise the fairness of trials in Florida, where families who claim relatives were kidnapped and murdered after the company made payments to the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia have filed lawsuits.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-11-20/chiquita-loses-suit-to-stop-sec-release-of-colombia-records-1

The fact that Cortes was an organizer in agricultural strikes caught my eye.

[Oilwellian]

9. Wasn't Holder Chiquita's defense lawyer in Colombia? n/t

[octoberlib]

11. Yep.

In 2004, Holder helped negotiate an agreement with the Justice Department for Chiquita Brands International in a case that involved Chiquita's payment of "protection money" to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a group on the U.S. government's list of terrorist organizations.[23][24] In the agreement, Chiquita's officials pleaded guilty and paid a fine of $25 million. Holder represented Chiquita in the civil action that grew out of this criminal case

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Holder

[reddread]

8. Nestle

http://colombiareports.co/nestle-worker-union-activist-killed-receiving-threats-paramilitary-western-colombia/

[Oilwellian]

10. Plan Colombia

I did a video on this issue a few years ago...kinda long, but very eye-opening.

[JackRiddler]

12. Horrible