Indians Clash With Police in Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Indians Clash With Police in Colombia

By MARGARITA MARTINEZ
Associated Press Writer

October 10, 2005, 11:10 PM EDT

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Clashes broke out Monday between Colombian police and Indians protesting a planned free trade accord with the United States, leaving one Indian dead and at least 15 wounded.

Some 8,000 Indians embarked Monday on a weeklong march in western Colombia to protest a trade deal that they say would only worsen Colombia's unemployment woes.

Alberto Wazorna, a protest leader, said rioting erupted after police provoked the marchers when they reached a major highway near Viterbo, 130 miles west of Bogota. "It was not necessary for the police to confront us, we were walking peacefully," he said.
(snip)

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-colombia-indian-protests,0,831860.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

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New direction in _Bush's friend Alvaro Uribe's arrangement with Colombian paramilitaries:

Colombia’s paramilitaries still wreaking havoc
Archive Recent Editions 2005 Editions Sept. 24, 2005
Author: Tim Pelzer
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 09/22/05 12:22


Luciano Enrique Romero Molina, a Colombian trade union leader and father of four, was found dead on Sept. 11 in his home city of Valledupar. His hands were tied behind his back. He had 40 stab wounds and extensive bruising, suggesting he had been tortured.

Romero, 45, was the leader of Sinaltrainal, a union representing food and beverage workers, including some who work at Coca-Cola bottling plants. As an outspoken defender of worker rights and a critic of his country’s employer-backed, right-wing paramilitary groups, Romero was no stranger to receiving death threats. In late 2004 and early 2005 he lived abroad under an international solidarity and protection program.

Even so, no one was prepared for the grisly news of his assassination. Romero is the 37th union activist murdered in Colombia so far this year.

The union blamed Colombia’s president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, the federal government and the paramilitaries for Romero’s death. “We condemn the government and its deceptive ‘Peace Dialogue’ with the paramilitary groups that continue to massacre the defenseless population,” the union statement said, referring to a much-touted government initiative to address the problem of vigilante terror.

A new report by Amnesty International (AI) supports Sinaltrainal’s charges that Colombian paramilitary groups continue to inflict a deadly toll. The study, “Paramilitaries in Medellin: Demobilization or legalization,” points out that the Uribe government has not dismantled the country’s feared paramilitary formations but has instead permitted them to reinvent themselves as private security companies and intelligence gathering networks.
(snip/...)

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/7772/1/287





_Bush and Uribe, paramilitary idiot Carlos Castano

helpless citizens.

[bemildred]

1. Yep. The Colombian "peace process" is working great still. nt