Ecuador May Become The Next Country To Decriminalize Drug Use

Ecuador May Become The Next Country To Decriminalize Drug Use
The Huffington Post | By Carly Schwartz
Posted: 04/20/2015 6:04 pm EDT Updated: 3 hours ago

Ecuador is in the process of considering a groundbreaking piece of legislation that would decriminalize the use of illegal drugs, including marijuana and cocaine, according to GlobalPost.

"Treating the drug phenomenon in a repressive way, as was done in the 1980s and 1990s when prison was the only destination for the drug consumer, is absurd," Carlos Velasco, who chairs the Ecuadorean congress’ Commission of the Right to Health and who authored the bill, wrote on his Facebook page earlier this month.

Rather than punishing illicit drug users with jail time, the measure would create a system to provide treatment and rehabilitation services for addicts. Velasco added on Facebook that educating Ecuador's citizens about the harmful effects of drug abuse is also key.

Should the bill pass, Ecuador would be the second Latin American country to take a dramatic step toward reform in a region of the world that's been devastated by the war on drugs for the past several decades. Uruguay, which legalized marijuana in 2013, is in the process of implementing a government-run system of growing, distributing and regulating the plant.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/20/ecuador-drug-laws_n_7103618.html

LBN:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141072741

In Puerto Rico, a push to revive indigenous culture

In Puerto Rico, a push to revive indigenous culture
By DANICA COTO, Associated Press | April 19, 2015 | Updated: April 20, 2015 1:36am

SAN LORENZO, Puerto Rico (AP) — In Puerto Rico's misty, bamboo-studded mountains, elementary school students are studying a nearly extinct language, beating on drums and growing native crops like cassava and sweet potato as they learn about the indigenous people who lived on the island before Christopher Columbus.

The children in four towns in the island's southeast corner play a ceremonial ball game that was called batey by the native Tainos, who were all but wiped out during colonial times. The boys and girls also learn words from the local Arawak language, which was in part rebuilt with help from linguists, and still exists in varying forms among other native groups in the hemisphere.

Now, a group of academics and educators hope to expand the Taino education program to other public schools around the U.S. territory in an effort to teach children this little known part of the territory's history.

"If you don't know your roots, you don't know yourself," said anthropologist Carlalynne Yarey Melendez, director of the Taino cultural organization that runs the educational program. "There are so many communities and schools that want the classes, but I can't keep up with the demand."

More:
http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/In-Puerto-Rico-a-push-to-revive-indigenous-6210429.php

US Supreme Court Rejects Terror Claims Against Chiquita

Source: Common Dreams

Published on Monday, April 20, 2015

by Common Dreams

US Supreme Court Rejects Terror Claims Against Chiquita

Ruling 'allows U.S. corporation to finance terrorism without accountability,' says human rights group

by Nadia Prupis, staff writer

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from relatives of thousands of victims of conflict in Colombia aiming to sue Chiquita Brand International.

In its decision, the court referred to a 2013 Supreme Court ruling which limited attempts by foreigners to use U.S. courts to seek retribution for human rights abuses abroad under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS).

"By declining to hear the case, the Supreme Court has created yet another obstacle in the path of victims seeking remedies for abusive corporate actions abroad, and allows a U.S. corporation to get away with financing terrorism without accountability to its victims in U.S. courts," said EarthRights International (ERI), an environmental and human rights legal nonprofit.

ERI continues:

From 1997-2004, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, or AUC), used Chiquita’s financial support to spread fear in the banana-growing region of Urabá, Colombia. The AUC tortured and killed thousands of villagers, labor leaders, and community organizers who were suspected of favoring leftist guerrillas or making trouble for the plantation owners.

Recent killings in Bogota believed to be racially motivated

Recent killings in Bogota believed to be racially motivated
Apr 17, 2015 posted by Talor Gruenwald

Seven afro-colombians have been killed in Bogota in the last month, leading community leaders to denounce what they see as an alarming increase in racially motivated murders, newspaper El Espectador reported on Thursday.

The most recent murders occurred on April 9 in the impoverished southern part of the city.

The victims, identified as Edward Samir Murillo and Daniel Perlaza, were each 20 years old and were dancers with group “Son del Yeme”, specializing in afro-colombian dances.

The suspects in the murders were said to have driven by on a motorcycle while opening fire on the two victims.
Witnesses to the occurrence claimed that the suspects shouted, “It’s time to get rid of these blacks”, as they rode by.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/recent-killings-in-bogota-believed-to-be-racially-motivated/

From death threats to limbo: A Colombian refugee's 12 years of waiting in Canada

From death threats to limbo: A Colombian refugee's 12 years of waiting in Canada

Human rights activist Luis Alberto Mata was granted asylum in 2003 but has waited for permanent residency for 12 years.

By: Nicholas Keung Immigration reporter, Published on Thu Apr 16 2015


For years, Luis Alberto Mata has helped hundreds of newcomers build a new life in Canada and integrate into the community.

Ironically, the Toronto immigrant settlement counsellor himself is not a permanent resident, let alone a Canadian citizen.

Although Mata and his family were granted asylum in Canada in 2003 owing to the danger they faced for his human rights activism in Colombia, he has remained merely a “protected person” in Canada because immigration officials still haven’t rendered a decision on his permanent residence application.

Canadian authorities would not reveal what caused the 12-year delay, but the family’s lawyer and supporters believe it’s a result of him being mislabeled as a “guerrilla sympathizer and collaborator” in propaganda by previous Colombian authorities.

More:
http://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2015/04/16/from-death-threats-to-limbo-a-colombian-refugees-12-years-of-waiting-in-canada.html

Federal judge allows lawsuit to proceed in slaying of Chilean folk singer killed after 1973 coup

Source: Washington Post

Federal judge allows lawsuit to proceed in slaying of Chilean folk singer killed after 1973 coup
By Nick Miroff April 17 at 3:19 PM


[font size=1]
A woman in Santiago waves a flag with a portrait of Chile's slain folk singer Victor Jara in 2009. Florida is set to reopen a trial in Jara's 1973 slaying. (AP)
[/font]
One of Latin America's darkest Cold War-era crimes is being reopened in Florida, where a U.S. judge has allowed a lawsuit to go forward against a former Chilean officer accused of torturing and murdering folk singer Victor Jara in 1973.

Jara's grisly death in the days following Gen. Augusto Pinochet's U.S.-backed coup d'etat remains an open wound in Chile. The killing became an early symbol of the cruelty of Pinochet's 17-year military rule, in which some 3,000 Chileans were slain or forcefully disappeared.

Scores of murder and torture cases from the Pinochet era remain under investigation, including Jara's. In 2012, several former soldiers implicated in Jara's murder named an ex-lieutenant, Pedro Barrientos, as the commanding officer and triggerman.

Barrientos has been living quietly in central Florida since 1989, according to local media accounts, and had obtained U.S. citizenship.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/17/florida-reopens-trial-in-slaying-of-chilean-folk-singer-who-opposed-u-s-backed-dictatorship/?tid=hpModule_04941f10-8a79-11e2-98d9-3012c1cd8d1e

Open Veins, Healing Wounds, in Latin America

Open Veins, Healing Wounds, in Latin America
Thursday, April 16, 2015


By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan

For the first time in more than half a century, the presidents of the United States and Cuba have had a formal meeting. Barack Obama met with Cuban President Raul Castro at the 7th Summit of the Americas, held this year in Panama City. Cuba’s participation has been blocked by the U.S. since the summit began in 1994. This historic moment occurs with some sadness, however: Eduardo Galeano, the great Uruguayan writer who did so much to explain the deeply unequal relations between Latin America and the U.S. and Europe, died as the summit ended.

Galeano’s best-known book is “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent.” It was published in 1971, and was among the first to explain the impact of colonial domination of the hemisphere, across the broad sweep of history. Galeano himself was swept away by events as well. He wrote the book “in 90 caffeinated nights,” he said, “to interlink histories that have been before told separately and in this codified language of historians or economists or sociologists. I tried to write it in such a way that it could be read and enjoyed by anyone.”

The book’s success made him a target, as U.S.-sponsored coups toppled democratic governments in the region. He was imprisoned in Uruguay, then, after release, began a life in exile. He settled in Argentina, where he founded and edited a cultural magazine called Crisis. After the U.S.-backed military coup there in 1976, Galeano’s name was added to the list of those condemned by the death squad. He fled again, this time to Spain, where he began his famous trilogy, “Memory of Fire," which rewrites North and South American history.

And now, a piece of that history is being rewritten, between the United States and Cuba. President Obama has sent a State Department report to Congress, which recommends that Cuba be removed from the official U.S. government list of nations that sponsor terrorism. The peace group CODEPINK applauded the move, saying in a statement, “The infamous U.S. terror list includes only three other nations: Iran, Sudan, and Syria and curiously omits North Korea.

More:
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2015/4/16/open_veins_healing_wounds_in_latin

Good reads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016120434

San José de Apartadó: Lessons from Colombia’s Peace Community

San José de Apartadó: Lessons from Colombia’s Peace Community
Written by Chris Courtheyn
Wednesday, 15 April 2015 08:04

On March 23rd, the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó celebrated its 18 year anniversary. This community of campesinos , located in the war-torn northwestern Urabá region of Colombia, refuses collaboration with any of country’s armed groups, including guerrilla, paramilitary, and State forces.



The celebration followed February’s annual commemoration pilgrimage to the villages of Mulatos and La Resbolosa, where eight people, including Community leader Luis Eduardo Guerra and three children, were massacred in a joint military and paramilitary operation in February 2005. These two anniversaries testify to San José’s amazing resistance to war over18 years, in which they have committed to constructing peace through collective farming, autonomy, and solidarity. I first visited the Peace Community in 2008 as a Fellowship of Reconciliation Peace Presence accompanier. To honor their 18th anniversary, I wish to share a series of lessons about social change that I have learned from them over the past seven years.*

Lesson 1) The experience of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó unmasks the modern State.

Since 1997, the Peace Community has demanded the right to live as campesinos without the presence or control of armed groups.

One might imagine that such a community of 1,300 farmers wanting to live nonviolently and with autonomy by expelling guerrillas and paramilitaries — that the government claims to combat — would be welcomed by the Colombian State, even if this also means the retreat of its own military forces, since such a retreat would reflect a step towards peace. However, the State’s reaction has been the opposite, as illustrated by 186 assassinations of civilians attributed to army soldiers and paramilitaries over the past 18 years, in addition to 24 killings the Community attributes to guerrilla groups.

The violence in San José de Apartadó is linked with the region’s abundant natural resources — water and mineral reserves — targeted for extraction. Private and public corporations that profit from such exploitation covet these resources, but in the process, they destroy the land and forcibly displace the people that live there through armed intimidation. Such processes have occurred in many parts of Colombia and the world: nearby areas in Chocó and Córdoba where black and campesino communities were displaced in the 1990s have been transformed into mass oil palm plantations and the Urrá hydroelectric dam, respectively. The majority of human rights violations in Colombia today are committed in zones of mining and oil extraction.

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/5282-san-jose-de-apartado-lessons-from-colombias-peace-community

Argentine farmers say Monsanto soy contract breaks local law

Wed Apr 15, 2015 4:39pm EDT

Argentine farmers say Monsanto soy contract breaks local law

BUENOS AIRES, April 15 | By Maximilian Heath

(Reuters) - Argentine farm groups on Wednesday asked soy export companies to stop inspecting cargoes for bootlegged biotechnology at the behest of U.S. seed company Monsanto, the latest move in a long conflict between the country's farmers and Monsanto.

Growers in Argentina, the world's top exporter of soymeal livestock feed, have signed agreements with Monsanto Co. for inspections of soybean shipments to ensure the company receives royalties for beans grown with its Intacta technology.

Under the contracts, farmers must pay the royalties if they use saved seed from prior harvests of the genetically modified beans. Monsanto's Intacta soybeans have a gene that allows the soybean plant to protect itself against crop-devouring worms.

In their statement Wednesday, the farm groups said their crops should not be subject to inspection by anyone but the state.

"Monsanto is trying to control all soy production in Argentina by forcing the payment of royalties under a system that runs contrary to the Argentine legal system," said the statement by the country's top farm groups including the Argentine Rural Confederation (CRA) and Rural Society (SRA).

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/15/argentina-soybeans-monsanto-idUSL2N0XC2I720150415?rpc=401

San Francisco board approves wild animal performance ban

Source: Reuters

San Francisco board approves wild animal performance ban
Source: Reuters - Wed, 15 Apr 2015 22:35 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO, April 15 (Reuters) - San Francisco's Board of Supervisors has voted unanimously to ban performances of wild or exotic animals for public entertainment, including appearances in circuses or on the sets of movies, television shows and commercials.

The measure, approved 11-0 by the board on Tuesday and expected to be enacted in a final vote next week, would make San Francisco the largest city to adopt such a sweeping prohibition on the commercial use of wild animals for public amusement, supporters said.

The ordinance would not apply to domesticated animals, including dogs, cats, horses and other livestock or pets. Educational activities or exhibitions accredited by certain zoological and museum organizations would also be exempt.

But the measure bars any public showing, carnival, fair, parade, petting zoo, ride, race, film shoot or other undertaking in which wild or exotic animals "are required to perform tricks, fight or participate as accompaniments for the entertainment, amusement or benefit of an audience."


Read more: http://www.trust.org/item/20150415223616-23mfk/