Just as the last post about the free trade agreement with Colombia went up on our website, I received the following urgent action alert from Global Exchange about the violent repression of anti-trade agreement protests in southern Colombia.
Cauca is a region with an incredible history of nonviolent resistance -- for background on the communities that are under attack, see "Cajibio and the Plan of Life."
In addition to contacting the Colombian authorities, please contact Senators Collins and Snowe and tell them that this kind of violence illustrates why it is impossible to have a truly "freee" trade agreement with Colombia.
URGENT ACTION!
Express concern for human rights violations against peaceful protestors in Cauca, Colombia
In Cauca, Colombia as more than 15,000 peaceful protestors gathered on Monday May 15 to exercise freedom of _expression guaranteed under Colombian law, the Colombian Armed Forces of the 26th Brigade, the local police and more than 500 police from an anti-riot squad that have been brought in from all over the country attacked and wounded 36 people. Six people are detained. One person has been killed and was a member of the indigenous peace guard, a nonviolent group that seeks to protect the community from all armed actors by carrying staffs endowed with ceremonial powers of peace and non-violence.
The protesters are concerned about the negative impact on their communities of a trade agreement with the United States, the repression against human rights leaders, the possible reelection of president Uribe, as well as the erosion of their recognized rights over their traditionally held territories.They gathered peacefully on May 15, at a national summit in Maria Piendamo, Cauca to ask that the government sit down to negotiate with them. Maria Piendamo carries special meaning because it was declared a zone for dialogue and negotiation in 1999 by Colombian civil society. But the government is refusing to negotiate with the summit participants, and the armed forces are responding with violence.
For two days now the protesters, from peasant, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities have been physically abused by the armed forces and the riot squads. In addition, Governors from Cauca and the neighboring province of Nariño, as well as the interior minister of Colombia have made unfounded accusations that the peaceful protestors are being organized by the largest leftist guerrilla group, the FARC, which is also considered a terrorist group. Actions that have only put the safety of the summit participants at stake.
American Friends Service Committee staff in the area are concerned because the government on two occasions on Wednesday, May 17 agreed to sit down and negotiate with the summit participants but instead of sending its negotiating team into the area it has sent more armed forces that have attacked the protestors and have led to more people wounded and arbitrary detentions. Of special concern are the elderly, children and pregnant women who are taking part in the summit and who are in designated places that the armed forces have entered and attacked them with tear gas and rubber bullets. We ask that you send a personalized appeal based on the sample text below to the officials listed at the end of this message. Personalized messages and subject headings make more effective emails, faxes, and letters.
Sample letter:
I am concerned about the current human rights situation in the province of Cauca, Colombia. I understand that indigenous and Afro-Colombian summit organizers are not involved with any armed group and are seeking to negotiate with the Colombian government in a peaceful way. I call on government officials to provide guarantees so that peasant, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities can exercise their right to life, and to freedom of _expression. In addition, I call on the government to protect and prevent the communities and summit organizers from being singled out as terrorists, arbitrarily detained, persecuted and or forcefully displaced. I look forward to hearing from you about your efforts to bring a peaceful solution to this situation.
Please send your appeals to:
Dr. Álvaro Uribe Vélez, President of Colombia Cra. 8 No.7-26, Palacio de Nariño, Bogotá, D.C., Fax: (+57 1) 566.20.71 E-mail: auribe@presidencia.gov.co
Dr. Jorge Alberto Uribe Minister of Defense El Dorado con Carrera. 52 CAN, Bogotá, D.C. Fax: (+57 1)222.18.74 E-mail: siden@mindefensa.gov.co , infprotocol@mindefensa.gov.co, mdn@cable.net.co
Dr. Edgardo José Maya Villazón, Attorney General for ColombiaCarrera 5 No. 15-80 Bogotá, D.C. Fax: (+57 1)342.97.23 E-mail: reygon@procuraduria.gov.co ; anticorrupcion@presidencia.gov.co
Dr. Carlos Franco, Presidential Program for Human Rights and Internacional Humanitarian Law Calle 7 No. 5-54 TEL: (+571) 336.03.11 FAX: (+57 1) 337.46.67 E- mail: cefranco@presidencia.gov.co; fibarra@presidencia.gov.co
Dra. Carmen Rosa Villa, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights United Nations.Calle 114 No. 9-45 Torre B Oficina 1101. Edificio Teleport Bussines Park. Bogotá, D.C. Teléfono PBX (57-1) 629 3636 Fax (57-1) 629 3637 E-mail: oacnudh@hchr.org.co
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Terrorism and Trade in Colombia
Daniel Cortez Cortez worked for the state electric company in a small city in the Department of Santander in north-central Colombia for 16 years. He remained active in his union even after right wing death squads linked to cocaine traffickers and the Colombian military took control of the region. His loyalty to the union cost him his life. On Sunday, April 2, a gunman shot Cortez in the face, killing him instantly. He left behind a wife and four children. Nearly 800 union activists have been murdered in Colombia since 2002. Few of the murders have been investigated, and only a handful have been prosecuted – even though in most cases the victims received repeated public threats from local death squad leaders in the weeks and months leading up to their murders. Lately the Colombian government has taken to arresting activists who report death threats, accusing them of fraud.
Now the Colombian press is reporting that between 2002 and 2005 the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), the intelligence agency that should have been helping to investigate the murders and break up the death squads, was instead supplying death squad leaders with lists of union leaders, leftists, and academics targeted for assassination. The charges come from a top DAS official, Rafael Garcia, now serving jail time for accepting bribes to change the files of drug traffickers, and have been corroborated by other sources. Our own government’s hands are far from clean in this matter. Documents uncovered by Texas-based investigative journalist Bill Conroy point to DEA and CIA collaboration with some of the same death squads and narco-traffickers. And U.S. embassy officials held secret meetings with death squad leaders in 2003 and appeared in public with death squad leader Salvatore Mancuso in 2004 despite the fact that the death squads have been listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department and Mancuso is wanted in the U.S. on cocaine trafficking charges.
Why does the U.S. condone the Colombian government’s collaboration with drug trafficking terrorists? In southern Colombia, the death squads have helped the military drive indigenous communities out of oil rich areas where Texas-based oil companies are now reaping huge profits. Colombian oil will become an even more attractive commodity as oil prices rise making the refining of heavier crude more cost effective. Throughout the rest of the country, death squads have been targeting union leaders who have been resist the privatization of Colombia’s schools, hospitals, utilities, and oil refineries – all services U.S. companies would love to buy out and administer.
The pressure to suppress that resistance has grown in recent weeks, after Colombia and the U.S. tentatively signed a bilateral trade agreement. According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative the agreement:
“requires that Colombia ensure that any private or public monopolies that they designate, and any state enterprises, are subject to disciplines designed to eliminate abuses of their special status that discriminate against or harm the interests of U.S. companies”
In other words, Colombia will be required either to privatize its state companies and public services or provide support for U.S. companies that want to compete with them. Tariffs will also be eliminated across the board. This will prove disastrous not just for Colombian workers, but for U.S. workers who will be forced to compete with Colombians whose wages are kept down by the violent union-busting drives of the death squads.
Gerardo Cajamarca, a Colombian union leader living in exile in Chicago, says: “This is not an agreement, its an imposition . . . [Colombian President Alvaro Uribe] has made this decision behind the backs of the people, a decision that will only benefit transnational corporations and a small group of people.” Tens of thousands have expressed the same sentiments in demonstrations and strikes across the country over the past year – and many have faced threats, attacks, and intimidation for speaking out.
There is nothing free about a trade agreement with a country where trying to organize a union can get you killed. Please contact Senators Snowe and Collins and urge them to oppose the bilateral trade agreement with Colombia.
-- Sean Donahue
Now the Colombian press is reporting that between 2002 and 2005 the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), the intelligence agency that should have been helping to investigate the murders and break up the death squads, was instead supplying death squad leaders with lists of union leaders, leftists, and academics targeted for assassination. The charges come from a top DAS official, Rafael Garcia, now serving jail time for accepting bribes to change the files of drug traffickers, and have been corroborated by other sources. Our own government’s hands are far from clean in this matter. Documents uncovered by Texas-based investigative journalist Bill Conroy point to DEA and CIA collaboration with some of the same death squads and narco-traffickers. And U.S. embassy officials held secret meetings with death squad leaders in 2003 and appeared in public with death squad leader Salvatore Mancuso in 2004 despite the fact that the death squads have been listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department and Mancuso is wanted in the U.S. on cocaine trafficking charges.
Why does the U.S. condone the Colombian government’s collaboration with drug trafficking terrorists? In southern Colombia, the death squads have helped the military drive indigenous communities out of oil rich areas where Texas-based oil companies are now reaping huge profits. Colombian oil will become an even more attractive commodity as oil prices rise making the refining of heavier crude more cost effective. Throughout the rest of the country, death squads have been targeting union leaders who have been resist the privatization of Colombia’s schools, hospitals, utilities, and oil refineries – all services U.S. companies would love to buy out and administer.
The pressure to suppress that resistance has grown in recent weeks, after Colombia and the U.S. tentatively signed a bilateral trade agreement. According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative the agreement:
“requires that Colombia ensure that any private or public monopolies that they designate, and any state enterprises, are subject to disciplines designed to eliminate abuses of their special status that discriminate against or harm the interests of U.S. companies”
In other words, Colombia will be required either to privatize its state companies and public services or provide support for U.S. companies that want to compete with them. Tariffs will also be eliminated across the board. This will prove disastrous not just for Colombian workers, but for U.S. workers who will be forced to compete with Colombians whose wages are kept down by the violent union-busting drives of the death squads.
Gerardo Cajamarca, a Colombian union leader living in exile in Chicago, says: “This is not an agreement, its an imposition . . . [Colombian President Alvaro Uribe] has made this decision behind the backs of the people, a decision that will only benefit transnational corporations and a small group of people.” Tens of thousands have expressed the same sentiments in demonstrations and strikes across the country over the past year – and many have faced threats, attacks, and intimidation for speaking out.
There is nothing free about a trade agreement with a country where trying to organize a union can get you killed. Please contact Senators Snowe and Collins and urge them to oppose the bilateral trade agreement with Colombia.
-- Sean Donahue
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
