One-Third of Colombia’s Newly-Elected Senators Have Paramilitary Ties

One-Third of Colombia’s Newly-Elected Senators Have Paramilitary Ties
Analysis by Constanza Vieira

BOGOTÁ, Mar 13 2014 (IPS) - In July 2004, when paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso was demobilising, he admitted to the Colombian parliament that the illegal extreme rightwing forces controlled 35 percent of the seats. Ten years later the situation is very similar: one-third of the new senate, where congressional power mainly resides, is allegedly linked to the paramilitaries.

These are the conclusions of the non-governmental Peace and Reconciliation Foundation’s monitoring of candidates in the congressional elections of Sunday Mar. 9.

Thirty-three candidates related or allegedly related to paramilitary forces active in the Colombian armed conflict were elected to the senate, equivalent to 32.4 percent of the 102 seats. In the lower chamber, 37 were elected, or 22.3 percent of the 166 seats, the Foundation said.

They are the heirs of politicians related to paramilitarism (the parapoliticians, in local terms, dozens of whom have been tried and convicted), or they are alleged to have direct links with the criminal organisations that took over after the paramilitaries demobilised under then president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010).

The specialised web site VerdadAbierta.com (OpenTruth) says that 15 politicians elected to the senate were under investigation for allegedly making pacts with the paramilitaries, while 11 under the same suspicion won seats in the lower chamber.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/03/one-third-colombias-newly-elected-senators-paramilitary-ties/

In Defense of Venezuela

In Defense of Venezuela
Posted: 02/20/2014 1:53 pm EST Updated: 02/21/2014 9:59 am EST

The U.S. media, echoing the sentiments of the U.S. government, is openly encouraging violent regime change in Venezuela. An emblematic story from yesterday was aired in what is considered a "liberal" media source, National Public Radio (NPR). In short, this piece featured claims of Venezuela at the precipice of "economic collapse," and spoke in glowing terms of the opposition's hopes for a "coup" to overthrow President Maduro. This type of reporting is not only irresponsible, but it is deeply misinformed.

While the U.S. government and media have been portraying Venezuela as a basket case ever since Hugo Chavez took office in 1999, this is far from the truth. Indeed, if we look at the UN's Human Development Index, which measures several key indicators of the health of a country's citizenry (e.g., life expectancy, income, education, equality), we see that Venezuela has actually experienced a steady growth in such human development indicators since Chavez took office with a total Human Rights Index score of .662 in 2000, and rising to .748 in 2012. See, Table 2 at p. 149 of the UN Report. Significantly, Venezuela had a huge relative increase in this index during that time, jumping nine (9) rankings in the HDI chart from 80 to number 71 in the world.

If we compare this to Venezuela's neighbor, and chief U.S. ally in this hemisphere, Colombia, that country has been stuck at position 91 in the world during that time same time period. Moreover, in terms of human rights, there is no comparison between these two countries with Colombia, one the largest recipients of U.S. military support in the world, having the dubious distinction of leading the world in forced disappearances at 50,000 and internally displaced peoples at over 5 million.

Moreover, it is the very poor and those of darker skin tone who have benefited most from the improvements since the election of Hugo Chavez, and it is they - by the way, the vast majority of the Venezuelan population -- who support Chavez and his successor the most. Of course, the U.S. government and its compliant media openly side with the white, wealthy elite - such as Kenyon and Harvard trained right wing leader Leopoldo Lopez -- against Venezuela's poor in their current cheer leading for the opposition. Again, the NPR story is notable in this regard.

Without irony, the media fulminates about Venezuela's alleged lack of democracy (again, ignoring Colombia's death squad violence against its own population) to justify its open support of Venezuela's elite opposition. However, as Chilean writer Pedro Santander recently put it so well:

Regarding the supposed "democratic deficit of the Venezuelan regime", the facts speak for themselves. Since 1998 there have been four national plebiscites, four presidential elections, and eleven parliamentary, regional, and municipal elections. Venezuela is the Latin American country with the highest number of elections and it also has an automatic electoral system (much more modern than Chile's one), described by Jimmy Carter, who has observed 92 elections in all continents, as "the best system in the world".

Uruguay planning to sell legally cloned marijuana by year’s end

Source: Agence France-Presse

Uruguay planning to sell legally cloned marijuana by year’s end
By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, March 12, 2014 20:57 EDT

Uruguay plans to begin legal marijuana sales of pot grown under government control by year’s end, using cloned plants, President Jose Mujica said Wednesday.

Mujica, speaking to a local newspaper during a visit to Chile, said the process was complex because it was regulated by the market.

“We try to use what we have,” Mujica told La Tercera daily, referring to land where the marijuana would be grown.
“It will be grown in one place, probably in an armed forces’ facility. There will probably be private producers, but under certain conditions.”

Predicting that sales would begin in December or January, Mujica said the marijuana would be cloned to reproduce the same genetic code, which would give the plants a clear identifier for tracking.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/12/uruguay-planning-to-sell-legally-cloned-marijuana-by-years-end/

A Manufactured Crisis: Venezuela is Not Occupy

March 12, 2014

A Manufactured Crisis

Venezuela is Not Occupy

by ROGER D. HARRIS

With demonstrating students in the streets confronting state security forces, the recent unrest and violence in Venezuela superficially bears a resemblance to the Occupy Movement that began in New York City’s Zuccotti Park on September 2011. But there the similarity ends.

Manufactured Crisis

The overwhelming character of Occupy was its spontaneity, unpredictability, and certainly its independence from corporate or government influence. Occupy appealed to and was supported by the disposed and marginalized. The Venezuelan unrest has been the opposite. Building on genuine popular discontent in an already highly polarized context, the recent violence in Venezuela has all the elements of a manufactured crisis.

To find a script for the violence to come in Venezuela, one need only go to the Brookings Institute’s January 23rd memo1 to President Obama suggesting “inciting a violent popular reaction” could “oust the radicals and president.” In the polite doublespeak of the Washington consensus, the memo deplores violence at the same time it welcomes its possibilities including a “traditional coup” in Venezuela.

The source of this memo is not a fringe right-wing nut-shop. The Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institute is funded in major part by the U.S. government and is ranked as the most influential think tank in the U.S. and in the world.2 Some 98% of Brookings’s employees’ political donations went to Democrats.3 The positions of the Brookings Institute are generally considered reflective of official U.S. policy, which is to achieve regime change in Venezuela despite the democratic will of its people.

Sabotage by the Wealthy

Venezuela is experiencing serious problems: rampant inflation, scarcities of basic consumer goods such as toilet paper, and one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world. Crime and consumer product shortages are complex problems deeply rooted in Venezuela’s history and the predominant role of oil in its economy. Neither President Chavez nor President Maduro’s governments have been fully able to resolve these problems; both committed missteps as well as had their efforts blunted by individual corruption within state agencies. But in major part, the Venezuelan people have been victims of deliberate sabotage by elite domestic elements backed by the U.S. Unlike the under-funded Occupy Movement, the opposition in Venezuela has enjoyed hundreds of millions of U.S. aid dollars according to WikiLeaks documents.4

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/12/venezuela-is-not-occupy/

How Florida Reactionaries Undermine Venezuelan Democracy

March 12, 2014
The Anti-Cuba Privateers

How Florida Reactionaries Undermine Venezuelan Democracy

by W.T. WHITNEY


Remember the Tonkin Gulf Resolution? In 1964 that joint congressional resolution propelled the United States into war lasting nine years. Resolution 488, passed by House of Representatives by a 393 – 1 vote on March 4, is a moral and practical equivalent. Its title was “Supporting the people of Venezuela as they protest peacefully for democracy, a reduction in violent crime and calling for an end to recent violence.”

The vote took place under a provision known as “suspension of the rules” which Congress uses for “legislation of non-controversial bills.” The sole dissenter was a Kentucky Republican. Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen introduced R 488. In Florida she represents the 27th congressional district, part of Miami-Dade County. All but unanimous backing for the resolution is reprehensible – for three reasons.

One, the resolution did not tell the truth. It speaks of Venezuelans “protesting peacefully.” Actually as of March 7 protesters had shot five people dead. Three were soldiers. Six deaths are attributed to opposition roadblocks, 30 more because roadblocks prevented access to emergency services. Soldiers had killed three people, one a government supporter. When protests started in Táchira, Mérida, and Caracas in early February, police did not intervene until government offices and police cars were being attacked and burned and until food and medical supply trucks were blocked. The government arrested officers who violated orders to to act with restraint.

The resolution suggests Venezuela is undemocratic. Over 15 years, however, governments there have won 17 out of 18 national elections. They are elections that for fairness and efficiency are “the best in the world,” according to the Carter Center in Georgia. Press freedom abounds: Venezuela’ predominately privately-owned newspapers and television outlets disseminate opposition viewpoints. Their television broadcasts reach 90 percent of viewers nationally.

Real democracy means uplift for everybody. In Venezuela poverty dropped from 50 percent in 1998 to 32 percent in 2011. Social spending increased from 11 percent of the GDP to 24 percent. Pensioners rose from 500,000 to 2.5 million; people finishing college, from 600,000 to 2.3 million. High school enrollment increased 42 percent. Children malnutrition and infants deaths have fallen dramatically. Every year the minimum wage has increased 10 – 20 percent.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/12/how-florida-reactionaries-undermine-venezuelan-democracy/

A Coup in Venezuela Means Another Victory For Corruption

A Coup in Venezuela Means Another Victory For Corruption
Posted: 03/12/2014 5:27 pm

The United States and Canada have plenty of reasons to be afraid of the (oil rich) Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, so they are doing their utmost to address their perceived problem.

The US, in particular, fears that Venezuela's social democracy will set a dangerous precedent, and that, if allowed, other countries will follow suit. They also fear the status quo, wherein they are denied control over Venezuela's oil reserves (the world's largest).

The Bolivarian revolution itself, initiated by late president Hugo Chavez in 1998 and continuing with president Nicolas Maduro, is emblematic of the US' s "problem", even as the legitimacy of the revolution is beyond dispute:

Chavez, who died of cancer on Tuesday, March 5, 2013, won 18 of 19 contested elections in a country whose electoral system was described by former US president Jimmy Carter as "the best in the world".

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mark-taliano/venezuela-politics_b_4948047.html

World Bank facing renewed pressure over loan to Honduran palm oil firm

World Bank facing renewed pressure over loan to Honduran palm oil firm

Campaigners want support for company accused of links to murder, kidnapping and forced evictions to be withheld

John Vidal
theguardian.com, Wednesday 12 March 2014 10.17 EDT

World Bank directors will be urged by Honduran peasant leaders and civil society groups to withdraw support for a major palm oil company accused of links to killings, kidnapping and the forced eviction of small farmers.

The bank's European directors, meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, will be handed a report by Human Rights Watch, published last month, that suggests the Honduran government and police have failed to investigate 29 murders and kidnappings in the Bajo Aguán region since 2009. Human Rights Watch said evidence suggested the involvement of private security guards working for palm oil companies in 13 of the killings and one case of abduction.

The region of northern Honduras has been the setting for long-running, violent land disputes for nearly 10 years, with large tracts of farmland contested between campesino groups and agro-industrial businesses growing palm oil. A total of 92 people have been killed since 2009. The majority of the victims have been campesinos, but security guards employed by private firms have also been killed.

The alleged involvement of guards working for Dinant – a company that makes palm oil and has received $15m (£9.03m) to develop its plantations from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank's private lending arm, with the promise of a further $15m – prompted an investigation last year by the bank's internal watchdog, the Office of the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO).

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/mar/12/world-bank-honduras-loan-palm-oil-company-dinant

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
From an earlier thread:

WikiLeaks Honduras: US Linked to Brutal Businessman

Miguel Facussé, a biofuels magnate entangled with the drug trade, is waging a bloody war against campesinos—with American support.

Dana Frank October 21, 2011

Since 2009, beneath the radar of the international media, the coup government ruling Honduras has been collaborating with wealthy landowners in a violent crackdown on small farmers struggling for land rights in the Aguán Valley in the northeastern region of the country. More than forty-six campesinos have been killed or disappeared. Human rights groups charge that many of the killings have been perpetrated by the private army of security guards employed by Miguel Facussé, a biofuels magnate. Facussé’s guards work closely with the Honduran military and police, which receive generous funding from the United States to fight the war on drugs in the region.

New Wikileaks cables now reveal that the US embassy in Honduras—and therefore the State Department—has known since 2004 that Miguel Facussé is a cocaine importer. US “drug war” funds and training, in other words, are being used to support a known drug trafficker’s war against campesinos.

Miguel Facussé Barjum, in the embassy’s words, is “the wealthiest, most powerful businessman in the country,” one of the country’s “political heavyweights.” The New York Times recently described him as “the octogenarian patriarch of one of the handful of families controlling much of Honduras’ economy.” Facussé’s nephew, Carlos Flores Facussé, served as president of Honduras from 1998 to 2002. Miguel Facussé’s Dinant corporation is a major producer of palm oil, snack foods, and other agricultural products. He was one of the key supporters of the military coup that deposed democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, 2009.

Miguel Facussé’s power base lies in the lower Aguán Valley, where campesinos originally settled in the 1970s as part of an agrarian reform strategy by the Honduran government, which encouraged hundreds of successful campesino cooperatives and collectives in the region. Beginning in 1992, though, new neoliberal governments began promoting the transfer of their lands to wealthy elites, who were quick to take advantage of state support to intimidate and coerce campesinos into selling, and in some cases to acquire land through outright fraud. Facussé, the biggest beneficiary by far of these state policies, now claims at least 22,000 acres in the lower Aguán, at least one-fifth of the entire area, much of which he has planted in African palms for an expanding biofuel empire.

Honduras: Indigenous Tolupanes Return to Their Territory With IACHR Orders of Protection

Honduras: Indigenous Tolupanes Return to Their Territory With IACHR Orders of Protection
Wednesday, 12 March 2014 11:35
By Greg McCain, Upside Down World | News

A caravan makes it's way up the dusty winding road into the mountains of the department of Yoro. It is heading toward San Francisco de Locomapa, one of the territories of the Tolupane people, an indigenous tribe that has been in existence for over 5,000 years. San Francisco is also the site of a massacre that occurred on August 25, 2013. Armando Fúnez Medina (46), Ricardo Soto Fúnez (40), and Maria Enriqueta Matute (71) were murdered by Selvin Matute and Carlos Matute (no relation to Enriqueta). The latter two are hired guns for the Bella Vista Mining Company, which has been extracting antimony from the surrounding mountains without the consent of the community and with a mining concession that is in dispute. The two men also hire themselves out to illegal loggers that deforest the mountainsides. The three victims were members of the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ, in its Spanish acronym), which has been protesting the mining and illegal logging and the installation of a hydroelectric dam on Tolupane territory. The community had begun a roadblock on August 12, 2013 stopping trucks that were loaded with illegal timber and antimony and then reporting it to the local police who essentially let the illegal trucks and their cargo go.

The caravan carries members of MADJ, as well as representatives of: the Women's Forum of Life of San Pedro Sula; ERIC-SJ/Radio Progreso from El Progreso; Counsel of Grassroots Organizations of the Aguán (COPA); the Permanent Observatory of Human Rights of the Aguán; members of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH); the Women's rights group Academic Feminists; the Coalition Against Impunity, and International Human Rights Observers from PROAH; and the Honduran Solidarity Network. They are all there to accompany six returning MADJ members of the San Francisco community who, along with twelve others, fled the territory six months ago after the massacre.

It is a bittersweet reunion. The tears of the joyous reunion are mixed with those of grief for the three that were gunned down. MADJ has convened this convocation to both honor the martyrs and to formally have official representatives of the Republic of Honduras sign the Act of Implementation of Protective Measures that were ordered on December 19, 2013 by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR). The District Attorney from the Public Ministry of Yoro is present as is a representative of the National Commission of Human Rights, the Sub-Commander of the National Police of Yoro and The Department of Human Rights of the Inspector General. Indeed, after decades of indifference to the plight of the Tolupanes it was not until the IACHR intervened that anyone from the Honduran government paid any attention. This new attention is a testament to the dedication of MADJ and the members of the community that have maintained the struggle to defend their natural resources. Some 38 members of the community are protected by this act, but it is a hollow gesture if the representatives of the government don't abide by it, which has historically been the case in Honduras.

~snip~

Numerous indigenous activists have been killed with impunity by gunmen evidently in the pay of large landowners—at least 43 in the last five years alone, according to indigenous and Honduran rights organizations—and in a number of cases there has been evidence of involvement of military and police personnel. Murdered activists have come from a number of different indigenous groups, including the Lenca, Maya-Chortí, Tolupán, Xicaque, and Garífuna.

More:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/22424-honduras-indigenous-tolupanes-return-to-their-territory-with-iachr-orders-of-protection

UPDATE: Brother of Slain Honduran Journalist Threatened After Demanding Justice

UPDATE: Brother of Slain Honduran Journalist Threatened After Demanding Justice
By Larry Ladutke
March 10, 2014 at 8:00 AM

Back in December, Amnesty activists responded to an Urgent Action on the murder of Honduran journalist Juan Carlos Argeña. Not only has there not been any progress in this case, Amnesty has had to issue a new Urgent Action on behalf of Mario Argeñal, Juan Carlos’ brother.

Unidentified men have threatened and intimidated Mario in response to his public statements about the killing of his brother and his calls for justice in the case.

At the opening of the latest session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on March 3, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon stated, “No one should have to risk their life for standing up and speaking out on violations of human rights.”

Remind the Honduran authorities of their obligation to protect Mario Argeñal and others who speak out for justice, as well as their obligation to identify and prosecute those responsible for the murder of human rights defenders such as Juan Carlos Argeña.

Unfortunately, the Argeñal brothers are not the only Hondurans suffering human rights violations. In February, Amnesty International issued a written statement to the 25th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council calling for “urgent measures” to address the “deteriorating human rights situation in Honduras“.

More:
http://blog.amnestyusa.org/americas/update-brother-of-slain-honduran-journalist-threatened-after-demanding/

El Salvador presidential runner-up wants vote annulled

El Salvador presidential runner-up wants vote annulled
By Noe Torres
SAN SALVADOR Wed Mar 12, 2014 4:14am EDT


(Reuters) - The runner-up in El Salvador's presidential election asked the electoral tribunal on Tuesday to annul the tight contest and threatened to go to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Norman Quijano of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena) trailed Salvador Sanchez Ceren of the ruling leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in Sunday's vote by 0.22 percentage points, or fewer than 7,000 votes.

On Tuesday, about 2,000 Quijano supporters waving red, white and blue Arena party flags marched to barricades in streets around the hotel where the tribunal is counting the votes.

"We cannot allow such a blatant fraud," said Prudencia Aparicio, a 25-year-old owner of a cake shop.

The tribunal is checking that records from polling stations match electronic tallies from a preliminary count on Sunday night, but not recounting individual votes.

More:'http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/12/us-elsalvador-election-idUSBREA2B03O20140312?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=401