Anti-Uribe Protests in Colombia and the World

[Judi Lynn]

March 10, 2008

Remembering March 6
Anti-Uribe Protests in Colombia and the World
By JAMES J. BRITTAIN

A significant rise in international opposition toward the militaristic policies of the Colombian state, under President Álvaro Uribe Vélez and Vice-President Francisco Santos Calderón (2002-2010), has been realized over the past week. Much of this opposition has been centred on an illegal military campaign carried out under the direction of Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, which saw Colombian forces deploy an air and ground assault against members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo, FARC-EP) shortly after midnight on March 1, 2008. The illegal clandestine mission, conducted by a special forces wing of the Colombia military via intelligence support from the United States, resulted in the deaths of Raúl Reyes, Julian Conrado, and twenty other combatants associated with the FARC-EP. Quickly, these events led both the President of Ecuador Rafael Correa and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to denounce the Colombian state’s blatant violation of international law and agreements established through the Organization of the American States (OAS) and the Andean Parliament, which prevent a nation’s sovereign territory from being violated.

Virtually every country in Central and South America, including the Caribbean, has denounced the Colombian state’s aggressions. During meetings of the OAS, state officials and representatives from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, and Nicaragua, condemned the assault. Critics of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, such as Peruvian President Alan Garcia and Paraguay’s President Nicanor Duarte, have put aside their ideological positions and agreed that the Uribe and Santos administration not only overstepped their boundaries but must effectively guarantee that such a flagrant violation of international law cannot, for the good of the region, transpire again. Unsurprisingly, one of the only backers of the illegal military incursion was the US vis-à-vis President George W. Bush and J. Robert Manzanares, the United States’ representative during the OAS meetings.

While a consistent distain toward the Colombian state continues to resonate throughout various Latin American countries so too has a considerable opposition been witnessed within Colombia itself. A domestic condemnation appeared this past Thursday. Colombians from all walks of like not only protested the illegal incursion of their country’s forces on Ecuador’s territory but denounced human rights abuses against sectors of the Colombian populace at the hands of the Uribe and Santos administration and their links to the Colombian paramilitary.

In the past year, just under 80 governors, mayors, and Congressional politicians have been alleged or found guilty of having direct connections, meetings, and/or contracts with the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC), which led to oppositional political opponents being targeted for assassination, trade-unionists threatened, and various community organizers disappeared. Included in this list is Colombia’s Vice-President Francisco Santos Calderón, his cousin Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos, President Uribe’s brother Santiago and their cousin former-Senator Mario Uribe.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/brittain03102008.html

[Doctor_J]

1. How long before our own emporer denounces this emporer's aggression

and, of course, without a trace of irony.

[Judi Lynn]

2. He doesn't realize how insubstantial his ties to the U.S. actually are. You recall how Bush #41

treated former Panamanian ally Manuel Noriega, of course.

It would be an hour and a half well spent watching this online documentary, the Academy Award winner for Documentaries, narrated by Elizabeth Montgomery, "The Panama Deception:"

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-446387292666223710

[Joanne98]

3. K&R

[Judi Lynn]

4. COLOMBIA: THOUSANDS COME OUT FOR ANTI-PARAMILITARY MARCH

COLOMBIA: THOUSANDS COME OUT FOR ANTI-PARAMILITARY MARCH
Helda Martínez

IPS
07 March 2008

Bogota, Colombia (IPS) - “I will march against the members of the security forces who have betrayed the honour of the military and the police, and have betrayed their fatherland, by selling themselves out to paramilitaries and drug traffickers to serve their interests,” said Colombian Senator Juan Manuel Galán in a speech given at the spot where his father was assassinated in 1989.

He was addressing hundreds of protesters on their way to take part in Thursday’s demonstration that paid “homage to the victims of paramilitarism, parapolitics and crimes of the state” in more than 20 Colombian cities and another 100 around the world.

The peaceful nationwide demonstration took place without incident. But it basically went unreported by the mainstream media, by contrast with the heavy international coverage of the global Feb. 4 march against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas.

People displaced by Colombia’s four-decade civil war paid tribute Wednesday to former Liberal Party presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán in the main square of Soacha, a poor suburb south of the capital where he was killed in 1989.

Soacha was one stop along their march, which began Tuesday in the fishing village of Flandes, 150 km southwest of the capital. On Thursday morning they continued on to the Plaza de Bolívar in central Bogotá, where they joined people affected by the war and by the U.S.-financed Plan Colombia counterinsurgency and anti-drug strategy in remote rural regions of the country.

Between 1982 and 2005, nearly four million people were forcibly displaced and lost their land, and at least 15,000 people fell victim to forced disappearance, according to a local human rights group, Justice and Peace.

More:
http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2008/03/10/1680/