... a stronger Colombian economy is required to create jobs and raise the standard of living for Colombia’s poor and disenfranchised, as well as to help fund the social infrastructure required to combat poverty and other determinants of violence in Colombia.

Increased economic engagement with Colombia can - - -        - - -increase our ability to influence Colombia in the area of human rights. As such, we support the principle of free trade with Colombia and will vote to send this legislation to committee for an in depth analysis.
(for the full text of letter from Micheal Ignatieff's office see very bottom of this email)

From: CPT Canada

Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 4:35 PM

Subject: CPT CanNet: Continued Pressure on Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement essential

Continued Pressure on Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement essential

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe will present to the House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade in Ottawa June 10^th in an effort to shore up support for Bill C-23, implementation legislation for the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

 

Debate on Bill C-23 stalled in the House of Commons this week after the opposition Liberals indicated a shift in their party’s position.   After a spirited discussion of the Bill on Monday, May 25^th, the government pulled the legislation from the order paper until further notice.  Debates scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday did not take place.

 

Liberal trade critic Scott Brison called Monday on the Harper government to conduct a formal independent Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) before allowing the enabling legislation to proceed.  (Updates on the status of C-23, plus the text of the legislation and major speeches in Parliament on it, can be found at  http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Sites/LOP/LEGISINFO/index.asp?Language=E&Session=22&query=5769&List=toc

 

Only last month, Brison had said that his party would not oppose the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement because “it’s easier to engage a country on human rights issues when you’re engaged on economic issues.”  The New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecoise have opposed the agreement from the beginning.

 

The struggle against the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement is far from over, however.  While members of the Colombia Trade Reference Group of the Americas Policy Group, to which CPT belongs, credit opposition to the Bill from civil society with having an impact on the Liberal position, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff’s office continues to circulate a letter stating that “we support the principle of free trade with Colombia and will vote to send this legislation to committee for an in depth analysis.” 

 

The letter claims that the widely-respected International Crisis Group (ICG) acknowledges that the human rights situation has improved under the current Colombian government.  In fact, ICG’s most recent report on Colombia, released May 25, 2009, states that “serious abuses, including of international humanitarian law, persist and in some instances are even increasing.”  (For the full report, see http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6112&l=1)

 

The CPT Colombia Team’s ongoing documentation of abuses in the Magdalena Medio and other regions supports the International Crisis Group’s findings.  (For the team’s most recent human rights report, see http://www.cpt.org/work/colombia/human_rights/2008)

 

CPT urges members and supporters to keep up the pressure on Liberal and other MPs to insist on a Human Rights Impact Assessment prior to any vote on Bill C-23.  Transportation to Ottawa to join the civil society protest against Uribe’s June 10th visit is currently being organized.  Watch for upcoming details and contact us to participate. Members and supporters are also encouraged to contact Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and other MPs by letter, e-mail, phone, and in person to draw attention to the ongoing violations of human rights that the CPT Colombia Team has documented, and their support for putting the human rights of Colombians before Canadian trade and investment interests. (For MP contact information: http://webinfo.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx?TimePeriod=Current&Language=E)

************************************

Christian Peacemaker Teams Canada
Équipes Chrétiennes d'Action pour la Paix Canada
25 Cecil St Unit 307
Toronto ON  M5T 1N1
Tel: 416-423-5525
canada@...
www.cpt.org

Dear Canadian friends and supporters,

Finally some good news! All your hard work has paid off! I have heard this now from a number of sources which I consider to be very reliable. It seems the Canada -Colombia Free Trade Agreement (bill C-23) before Parliament has been removed (but not yet defeated or amended so don't relax too much!), and will not likely be voted on for at least for the time being. It seems that the Conservative party lacks confidence that the the bill can be rapidly pushed through at this time. This should be celebrated!

Hopefully it won't be re-introduced before next fall. Hopefully by that time we will have built up even more opposition to ensure that it gets defeated at that time. I plan on being in Canada working with you all in the fall. As you well know I did not come to Colombia merely to document cultural genocide; I cannot stand idly by while my own government consummates agreements that will promote it. I hope you will join me!

Below is an article describing recent events that appeared on the Chiva website. (The graffiti on the wall reads "The FTA is killing us".)

Peace --Stewart

Canada-Colombia FTA removed from legislative agenda: Canada steps towards dignity

May 27, 2009
A joint statement from the La Chiva Collective, Pueblos en Camino, and Mingas-FTA

Public pressure has forced a victory in the fight to stop the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA). Sources from Canada’s three opposition parties have confirmed that the ruling Conservative Party has removed Bill C-23, implementing legislation for the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, from the government’s current legislative agenda.

The CCFTA has not been defeated: at this time, it appears to lack the political support needed to be rushed through the Canadian parliament as proponents had intended. With the high level of controversy and public doubt surrounding the motives and consequences of the CCFTA, it may not re-enter parliamentary debate until the Fall of 2009.

What this means is not that the struggle against the CCFTA is over but that Canadians are having their say and getting in the way of Prime Minister Harper’s reckless trade agenda.

As a result of a negative public reaction to the deal, the Liberal Party of Canada, which had made statements in favour of the controversial agreement, has become internally divided on the issue, with many members now insisting on an Independent Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) before Bill C-23 were to be ratified in the Canadian parliament.

Recognizing the Liberals’ reluctance on this issue, the minority Conservative government appears to have gotten ‘cold feet’ in extending their support for a regime that inflicts daily terror on its own people with impunity and affirming a deal that would 'make a bad situation worse' in Colombia.

An immense effort has been building from diverse sectors across North America and Colombia over the past several weeks. With countless letters and phone calls to Liberal MPs, participation in numerous rallies across the country, and the signing of petitions urging a halt to the CCFTA, the Canadian public has found its voice. This has been complemented with a strong and effective lobby effort by labour, human rights and citizens' advocacy organizations and numerous opposition parliamentarians who have strongly opposed this bill. It is clear that many Canadians are trying to move towards their country having a more dignified role in the world.

These Canadians are saying they stand up for human rights and oppose the kind of economic model represented by agreements like the CCFTA, which serve to protect the rights of transnational corporations and disregard the rights of communities, workers and average citizens. It is not trade that is opposed, but this particular brand of so-called ‘free trade’ that continues to be negotiated behind closed doors, imposed in the interests of a few and caused the ruin of our communities and economies.

Canadians have stood beside their Colombian counterparts because this so-called ‘free trade’ is damaging to all of us, even if there were no human rights abuses in Colombia.

This is a bad deal for Colombia and for Canada, but it is also an opportunity to stop being taken in the wrong direction and to make our own decisions based on what is good for us, our communities and our environment, rather than letting those who work for profit and greed continue to decide against us.

The Conservatives pulled this legislation off the table because they value their political survival more than the CCFTA. Many are also watching policy developments in the United States on this and other trade-related issues. Still, the CCFTA remains a danger, and Canadians must continue to be vigilant. No politicians, certainly not the Conservatives or Liberals, will do the right thing without pressure, and the government may yet try to get it passed under the table.

We must not now turn to silence.

On June 8, President Uribe is coming to Montreal. The Harper Government is more than willing to turn Canadian dignity into shame, and the Liberals have made statements in favour of the government’s interests. We stand with the Bloc Quebecois and the NDP, who have listened to the people. We will continue to say:

NO to Uribe’s presence in Canada!

NO to an FTA with the criminal regime!

YES to building relations of the peoples based on solidarity and dignity!



La Chiva: http://www.canadacolombiaproject.blogspot.com
Pueblos en Camino: http://www.en-camino.org
Mingas-FTA: http://www.mingas.info

Posted by La Chiva at 1:53 AM 0 comments

Topic: Canada, Colombia, Stop the CCFTA

Fourth Humanitarian Action: Damned when they didn’t and now damned because they did? –by Stewart Vriesinga

Under the leadership of the campesino organization CAHUCOPANA (Corporation for Coexistence and Peace in Northeast Antioquia) campesinos held their fourth Humanitarian Action, this time in Nuevo Puerto Eté (May 15-19). CPT agreed to provide international accompaniment. Members of Peace Brigades International and the International Peace Observatory were also present for much of the event, which was attended by bus-loads of folks from Bogotá, Medellín, Bucaramanga, Barrancabermeja and hundreds of campesinos from a large section of north-east Antioquia. Many of the outsiders in attendance were professionals, and workshops were held on gender relations, historic memory documenting, human rights, organic farming, analysis of the Doctrine of National Security, the threat posed by multinational corporations and other mega projects to the campesinos’ right to traditional lands and territory, etc. There were activities for the children, vaccinations, and a day-long clinic set up by the International Red Cross. Folks from the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, the National Ombudsman’s office and the Vice President’s office of Human Rights spent a day documenting denouncements of human rights abuses. Meals were provided and there was much music, dance, poetry and other cultural activities. The atmosphere was positively festive!

Reaching the site from Barrancabermeja required a short bus ride, several hours in the backs of four-wheel-drive pick-up trucks (which repeatedly got stuck in big mud-holes), followed by several hours in large canoes going up-river (which repeatedly got stuck on logs and sandbars). Guests arrived in Nuevo Puetro Eté about an hour after nightfall –one less day and 9 hours less of walking than the third Humanitarian Action in Lejanias (April of 2006).

In the previous 2006 Humanitarian Action there had been a constant military presence during the entire event. The fourth Humanitarian Action had none. Troops from Calabio Division of the 14^th Brigade were spotted just across the river and CPTers Chris Knestrick and Stewart Vriesinga were sent to ask them to keep their distance and respect the right to freedom of assembly and expression of all participants in the Humanitarian Action. They were joined by Delcy Ruiz of the Vice President’s Office on Human Rights, who further insisted that Sergeant Alfanzo Cualla and his troops not cross the river unless they had explicit orders to do so. They didn’t! (Calabio troops are under investigation for several “false positives” in the area –for extrajudicially assassinating civilians and later presenting them as guerrillas killed in combat.)

At the close of the five-day event, as the national and international participants prepared to leave, community members approached CPT with concerns about what would happen after we all left. They had heard rumours both before and during the event, suggested that Aguilas Negras –paramilitaries calling themselves “Black Eagles” –would come as soon as everyone left. The area is completely devoid of government services, including police services. Ironically the only state security force who could protect them from paramilitary violence is Calabio itself. Previous experiences indicate that Calabio’s presence in the area is almost as threatening as paramilitary presence!

The dilemma of the campesinos is the following: Their very low national and international profile allows legal and illegal armed groups to continue killing them with impunity; on the other hand, having the audacity to try to raise their profile by holding Humanitarian Actions may also get them killed! So far their increased visibility has not prevented further atrocities from being committed against them. They were damned when didn’t. We must not allow them to be damned because they do dare and are speaking out in defence of their right to life and territory!

Campesinos threatened with displacement by Bio Fuel Palm Industry

--by Stewart Vriesinga

At the request of a peasant organization CPTers Sarah Shirk and Stewart Vriesinga travelled by motorbike to Hacienda las Pavas –a plot of 1,235 hectors of land that has been occupied and worked by a group of 123 families of Campesinos (peasant farmers) mostly from the nearby town of Buena Vista. We were joined by Victor of the Human Rights Ombudsman’s office of Rioviejo. To get there we travelled for over an hour on the back of motorbikes through a very large Palm Oil plantation. The trails were dusty and soft due to the tractor and farm implement traffic. We travelled through mile after mile of mostly recently planted Oil Palm trees, and areas were the forest was being destroyed to prepare the ground for more trees. Just outside of the perimeter of Hacienda las Pavas there were dozens of recently planted Oil Palm trees.

The community and peasants association of Las Pavas were there to welcome and meet with us. They shared with us their dreams for the future, and were extremely grateful for our presence.

The situation of the peasants of Las Pavas was  reminiscent of Garzal. These campesinos  have occupied and worked the land in Las Pavas since 1993. The original land owner –an uncle of the infamous Cocaine Cartel leader Pablo Escobar—had abandoned the farm in 1993. Under Colombian law after occupying and working land for a period of five years or more squatters have the right to receive titles to their holdings –a requirement that the campesinos of Las Pavas clearly meet. As is the case of Garzal, the original title-holder “sold” the land, in this case to a huge Palm Oil plantation, as if the campesinos of Las Pavas had no legitimate claim to it. The Palm Oil Company went so far as to get an eviction order against the campesinos, scheduled to take place the day after CPTers arrived, but the community was able to have the eviction order lifted the day before our arrival. The original land seller had failed to disclose that his ownership of the land was in fact in dispute. By presenting photo, video and paper evidence of IMCODER’s (the government body in charge of land titles) earlier visit to visually inspect the land in question, the community managed to have the eviction order lifted. Although INCODER has never granted the campesinos titles, it has not officially denied the legitimacy of the campesinos’ claim to the land either. Since title of the land cannot be legally transferred to a third party until this issue is resolved, the eviction order procured by the Oil Palm Industry was overturned.

In addition to legal threats the community has suffered police harassment, has had their cocoa and lumber trees destroyed, and has had to stop working their land for an extended period due to threats by armed groups. There is also still no guarantee that INCODER won’t eventually rule in favour of the former title holder, thus enabling the sale to the Oil Palm Industry to go forward, which would then undoubtedly result in a new eviction order and consequent mass displacement.

The community of Las Pavas hopes to continue producing food for people (rather than bio fuel for cars) as well as preserve parts of the surrounding forest for wildlife. Please keep this community in your prayers and stand by to take further action if the need arises!

Get involved!                         CPT COLOMBIA ACTION & SOLIDARITY NETWORK    

Website:                                 http://www.cpt.org/work/colombia

Previous releases:              http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cptcolombia  and 

CPT  Colombia Action &  Solidarity Network Archives  

Informes en español:         http://espanol.groups.yahoo.com/group/ecapcolombia

The Canadian FTA with Colombia is best understood as a form of neo-colonization: --by Stewart Vriesinga, Sunday April 26th, 2009

In some circles –and I must include Canada’s Prime Minister Harper here—the human rights situation in Colombia has greatly improved, and Colombia has entered a post conflict era. Colombian victims of ongoing violence, however, strongly disagree. Colombia’s traditional victims of violence continue to be the victims of death threats, mass displacement, and extrajudicial killing. How can the Canadian Prime Minister then arrive at such different conclusion about the conflict in Colombia?

Whether or not one considers the conflict to be resolved depends largely on how one was experiencing the conflict. If Prime Minister Harper saw the conflict as problematic primarily because it presented a problem to Canadian business interests –especially the Canadian mining industry—then he is correct in his assessment that things have greatly improved. Canadian mining corporations  can now relatively safely enter the country and extract resources without fear of i) their workers being  kidnapped or  their property being destroyed by the left wing insurgency, or ii) having to meet cumbersome environmental, labour, tax and royalty requirements. The strength of the armed left-wing insurgency is greatly diminished, and foreign mining corporations can now count on military bases being built near their base of operations so there is little risk of having their personal kidnapped or their property destroyed. At the request of the Canadian government adjustments to Colombian laws have also been made that favour Canadian mining corporations.

Furthermore, the fact that Colombia has over 4 million internally displaced people, most of them displaced from the rural sectors, actually favours the mining industry. Many of the displaced were once occupying the very land that the mining corporations hope to exploit. Hundreds of thousands more –many of them small-scale artisanal miners and peasant farmers—face the prospect of future displacement when their mines and land is turned over to foreign mining interests. That the very same military charged with providing the foreign mining companies with security is under investigation for assassinating leaders of the organized artisanal miners, and has falsely accused them of being guerrillas and thrown them in jail; or that the leadership of artisanal miners and peasant organizations are  still being threatened and assassinated by paramilitary organizations which have been shown to have ties with the Colombian government actually facilitates the corporate take-over of Colombian resources. Even the aerial spraying of peasant food crops –along with the occasional coca plant—serves to depopulate the country side to make way for mega projects like mineral extraction and palm oil cultivation. It is now clear that the victims of future violence are likely to be limited to those who non-violently resist the neo-colonization of Colombia’s wealth and natural resources, not the workers of Canadian and other foreign corporations.  In this context it is not surprising that Prime Minister Harper and his government are not deterred by the overwhelming evidence of on-going human rights abuses in their rush to push through a free trade agreement with Colombia.

For Canadians and North Americans it is important to understand that this is a question of North-American-based corporations expropriating the wealth of Colombian campesino, Afro Colombian and First Nations’ communities –most of whom have never accepted neo liberalism, free trade or the western economic development model. Forcing them off their land is nothing short of cultural genocide.  Prime Minister Harper may well believe that free market economics is the best development model for Canada, and insofar as an FTA with Colombia would allow Canadian firms to colonize the wealth of Colombia’s marginalized peoples, it may well be economically beneficial for Canada. But that does not justify the robbery and plunder of Colombia’s most vulnerable peoples. (Nor the continued robbery and plunder of Canada’s own First Nation peoples for that matter!)

The dispossessed and soon-to-be dispossessed peoples of Colombia know that a free market economic development model, whether or not it increases the GDP of the country as a whole, is no good for them. (The considerable economic activity of rural peasant societies does not register in the GDP of the country since it is largely subsistence and is not tracked or monitored in any way.) Their access to even the most basic necessities such as food is in jeopardy since they will lose direct access to food when they lose their lands, and will not be able to find adequate employment to meet their and their children’s food requirements in the cities. Today’s paper cites the following statistic:

92% of displaced people work in the informal sector, of which only 11% have an income equal to or greater than the Colombian minimum wage. –p. 51, the Espectador, Sunday April 26^th, 2009.  

In Colombia, as in much of the world, free market economics does not provide employment for the people it physically and economically displaces. The security and future of Colombia’s peasant, Afro and First Nation communities are clearly not served by this neo-liberal economic development model. They should have the right to refuse it. As long as that right is not being recognized –and it clearly is not—they should not be threatened, displaced, imprisoned or killed with impunity for their refusal to comply. Their culture and way of life should be respected and left intact. If the Canadian government or any other government disrespects that right it is complicit in cultural genocide.

No more Victims in the Region

Statement to general public

Today at 10 AM in a place known as “Four” about 2 km  from the urban center of San Pablo, Bolívar, hit-men assassinated 36-year-old community leader EDGAR MARTINEZ RUIZ, shooting him five times in the head and killing him instantly. EDGAR is one more on a long list of assassination victims of the south Bolívar region. [Authorities] have made no effort to control these actions that threaten peoples’ lives in the region.

EDGAR MARTINEZ RUIZ was an esteemed leader dedicated to the rights of the communities. Therefore he was attentive to forums and events which provided opportunities to defend the rights of rural and urban campesinos of south Bolívar and to draw attention to violations of domestic and International Human Rights. HE WAS AN AUTHENTIC HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER.

He was recognized as a leader that participated in various organizations and initiatives in the area, including: representative of the “El Retorno” Community Action Council, spokesperson for the Communities in the San Pablo Social Transformation Roundtable, president of the Association of the Integration of Agro-mining Communities of South Bolívar, and member of the Southern Bolívar Commission for Dialogue with the Government and Southern Bolívar Roundtable for Dialogue.  In these he had the opportunity to confront State and national government institutions, not only about regional needs and problems, but also proposals for campesino development and protection of the civilian population. He was currently participating actively in the planning stage of a civil exercise of a process for Municipal Administration Accountability.

The campesino communities, social organizations, and community in general CONDEMN this assassination and all the violence that causes so much grief for civil society in San Pablo and the region.  [We] DEMAND that these acts be investigated, brought to trial, and punished; TO GUARANTEE HUMAN RIGHTS, END IMPUNITY.

WE CALL ON all people in solidarity regionally, nationally, and internationally to DEMAND that the National Government take appropriate measures to GUARANTEE the protection of the Life and Fundamental Rights of the civil population.

San Pablo, Bolívar, April 22, 2009

WRITTEN AND SIGNED BY:

Holistic Development Zone

Southern Bolívar Association of Farmers’ and Miners’ Communities

Association of Community Action Councils

Association of Farmers and Miners of South Southern Bolívar

Association of Community Stores

Program for Development and Peace in the Middle Magdalena (PDPMM)

Women’s Popular Organization (OFP)

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT)

Updated April 21) `Capitalism is putting an end to humanity and the planet' -- ALBA on the 5th Summit of the Americas

Translated by Federico Fuentes

Cumaná, April 17, 2009

The heads of state and governments of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela -- member countries of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA) -- consider that the proposed Declaration of the 5th Summit of the Americas is insufficient and unacceptable for the following reasons:

• It offers no answers to the issue of the global economic crisis, despite the fact that this constitutes the largest challenge faced by humanity in decades and the most serious threat in the current epoch to the wellbeing of our peoples.
• Unjustifiably excludes Cuba in a criminal manner, without mentioning the general consensus that exists in the region in favour of condemning the blockade and the isolation attempts, which its people and government have incessantly objected to.

For these reasons, the member countries of ALBA consider that consensus does not exist in favour of adopting this proposed declaration and in light of the above; we propose to have a thoroughgoing debate over the following issues:

1) Capitalism is putting an end to humanity and the planet. What we are living through is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural character and not just one more cyclical crisis. Those who think that this crisis will be resolved with an injection of fiscal money and with some regulatory measures are very mistaken.

The financial system is in crisis because it is quoting the value of papers at six times the real value of goods and services being produced in the world. This is not a “failure of the regulation of the system” but rather a constitutive part of the capitalist system that speculates with all goods and values in the pursuit of obtaining the maximum amount of profit possible. Until now, the economic crisis has created 100 million more starving people and more than 50 million new unemployed people, and these figures are tending to increasing.

2) Capitalism has provoked an ecological crisis by subordinating the necessary conditions for life on this planet to the dominance of the market and profit. Each year, the world consumes a third more than what the planet is capable of regenerating. At this rate of wastage by the capitalist system, we are going to need two planets by the year 2030.

3) The global economic, climate change, food and energy crises are products of the decadence of capitalism that threatens to put an end to the existence of life and the planet. To avoid this outcome it is necessary to develop an alternative model to that of the capitalist system. A system based on:

Solidarity and complementarity and not competition;

• A system in harmony with our mother earth rather than the looting of our natural resources;
• A system based on cultural diversity and not the crushing of cultures and impositions of cultural values and lifestyles alien to the realities of our countries:
• A system of peace based on social justice and not on imperialist wars and policies;
• In synthesis, a system that recuperates the human condition of our societies and peoples rather than reducing them to simple consumers or commodities.

4) As a concrete expression of the new reality on the continent, Latin American and Caribbean countries have begun to construct their own institutions, whose roots lie in the common history that goes back to our independence revolution, and which constitutes a concrete instrument for deepening the processes of social, economic and cultural transformation that will consolidate our sovereignty. The ALBA-TCP [TCP = Peoples Trade Agreement], Petrocaribe and UNASUR [Union of South American Nations], to only cite the most recently created ones, are mechanisms for solidarity-based union forged in the heat of these transformations, with the manifest intention of strengthening the efforts of our peoples to reach their own liberation.

In order to confront the grave effects of the global economic crisis, the ALBA-TCP countries have taken innovative and transformational measures that seek real alternatives to the deficient international economic order rather than strengthen these failed institutions. That is why we have put in [place] a Single System of Regional Compensation, the SUCRE, that includes a Common Accounting Unit, a Chamber of Compensations of Payments and a Single System of Reserves.

At the same time, we have promoted the constitution of grand national companies in order to satisfy the fundamental necessities of our peoples, establishing mechanisms of just and complementary trade, that leave to one side the absurd logic of unrestrained competition.

5) We question the G20’s decision to triple the amount of resources going to the International Monetary Fund, when what is really necessary is the establishment of a new world economic order that includes the total transformation of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO [World Trade Organisation], which with their neoliberal conditions have contributed to this global economic crisis.

6) The solutions to the global economic crisis and the definition of a new international financial architecture should be adopted with the participation of the 192 countries that between June 1 and 3, 2009, will meet at a United Nations conference about the international financial crisis, in order to propose the creation of a new international economic order.

7) In regards to the climate change crisis, the developed countries have an ecological debt with the world given that they are responsible for 70% of historic emissions of carbon accumulated in the atmosphere since 1750.

The developed countries, debtors with humanity and the planet, should contribute significant resources towards a fund so that the countries on the path towards development can undertake a model of growth that does not repeat the grave impacts of capitalist industrialisation.

8) The solutions to the energy, food and climate change crises have to be integral and interdependent. We cannot resolve a problem creating others in the areas fundamental to life. For example, generalising the use of agro-fuels can only impact negatively on the price of food and in the utilisation of essential resources such as water, land and forests.

9) We condemn discrimination against migrants in all its forms. Migration is a human right, not a crime. Therefore, we demand an urgent reform to the migration policies of the United States government, with the objective of detaining deportations and mass raids, allowing the reunification of families, and we demand the elimination of the wall that divides and separates us, rather than uniting us.

In this sense, we demand the repeal of the Cuban Adjustment Act and the elimination of the policies of ``wetbacks-drybacks'', which has a discriminatory and selective character, and is the cause of loss of human lives.

Those that are truly to blame for the financial crisis are the bankers who steal money and the resources of our countries, not migrant workers. Human rights come first, particularly the human rights of the most unprotected and marginalised sectors of our society, as undocumented workers are.

For there to be integration there has to be free circulation of people, and equal human rights for all regardless of migratory status. Brain drain constitutes a form of looting of qualified human resources by the rich countries.

10) Basic services such as education, health, water, energy and telecommunications have to be declared human rights and cannot be the objects of private business nor be commodified by the World Trade Organisation. These services are and should be essential, universally accessible public services

11) We want a world where all countries, big and small, have the same rights and where empires do not exist. We advocate against intervention. Strengthen, as the only legitimate channel for discussion and analysis of bilateral and multilateral agendas of the continent, the base of mutual respect between states and governments, under the principle of non-interference of one state over another and the inviolability of the sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples.

We demand that the new government of the United States, whose inauguration has generated some expectations in the region and the world, put an end to the long and nefarious tradition of interventionism and aggression that has characterised the actions of the governments of this country throughout its history, especially brutal during the government of George W. Bush.

In the same way, eliminate interventionist practices such as covert operations, parallel diplomacy, media wars aimed at destabilising states and governments, and the financing of destabilising groups. It is fundamental that we construct a world in which a diversity of economic, political, social and cultural approaches are recognised and respected.

12) Regarding the United States' blockade against Cuba and the exclusion of this country from the Summit of the Americas, the countries of the Bolivarian Alternatives for the People of Our Americas reiterates the position that all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean adopted last December 16, 2008, regarding the necessity of putting an end to the economic, trade and financial blockade imposed by the government of the United States of America against Cuba, including the application of the denominated Helms-Burton law, and that among its paragraphs notes:

“CONSIDERING the resolutions approved by the United Nations General Assembly on the need to put an end to the economic, commercial, and financial embargo imposed by the United States on Cuba and the decisions on the latter approved at several international meetings,

“DECLARE that in defence of free trade and the transparent practice of international trade, it is unacceptable to apply unilateral coercive measures that will affect the wellbeing of nations and obstruct the processes of integration.

“WE REJECT the implementation of laws and measures that contradict International Law such as the Helms-Burton law and urge the US Government to put an end to its implementation.

"WE ASK the US Government to comply with the 17 successive resolutions approved at the United Nations General Assembly and put an end to the economic, commercial and financial embargo it has imposed on Cuba.”

Moreover, we believe that the attempts to impose isolation on Cuba, which today is an integral part of the Latin American and Caribbean region, is a member of the Rio Group and other organisations and regional mechanisms, that carries out a policy of cooperation and solidarity with the people of the region, that promotes the full integration of the Latin American and Caribbean peoples, has failed, and that, therefore, no reason exists to justify Cuba's exclusion from the Summit of the Americas.

13) The developed countries have destined no less than US$8 trillion towards rescuing the financial structure that has collapsed. They are the same ones that do not comply with spending a small sum to reach the Millennium Goals or 0.7% of GDP for Official Development Aid. Never before have we seen so nakedly the hypocrisy of the discourse of the rich countries. Cooperation has to be established without conditions and adjusted to the agendas of the receiving countries, simplifying the procedures, making resources accessible and privileging issues of social inclusion.

14) The legitimate struggle against narco-trafficking and organised crime, and any other manifestation of the denominated “new threats,” should not be utilised as excuses for carrying out acts of interference or intervention against our countries.

15) We are firmly convinced that change, which all the world is hoping for, can only come about through the organisation, mobilisation and unity of our peoples.

As the Liberator Simón Bolívar well stated:

“The unity of our peoples is not simply the chimera of men, but an inexorable fate.”

[This translation first appeared at Bolivia Rising, edited by Federico Fuentes.]

Recommendations to the Government of Canada

Recommendation 1:

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada should not sign and implement a free trade agreement with the Government of Colombia until the Canadian government has taken into account the recommendations contained in this report, including those of the dissenting reports.

Recommendation 2:

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada maintain close ties with Colombia without signing a free trade agreement until there is confirmation that the improvements noted are maintained, including continued improvement as regards displacement, labour law and accountability for crime, and until the Colombian government shows a more constructive attitude to human rights groups in the country.

Recommendation 3:

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada draw on the work of the organization Rights and Democracy to give an independent body the mandate to conduct studies regarding the impact on rights and the environment when it is negotiating economic agreements with countries at risk, as in the case of the agreement with Colombia.

Recommendation 4:

The Committee recommends that an independent, impartial, and comprehensive human rights impact assessment should be carried out by a competent body, which is subject to levels of independent scrutiny and validation; the recommendations of this assessment should be addressed before Canada considers signing, ratifying and implementing an agreement with Colombia.

Recommendation 5:

The Committee recommends that any trade agreement with Colombia ensure that separate deals on labour and the environment exceed the template of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in order to set a higher standard for future negotiations. 

Recommendation 6:

The Committee recommends that any trade agreement with Colombia must be accompanied by legislated provisions on corporate social responsibility and reporting mechanisms to monitor the implementation of universal human rights standards by Canadian entities investing in Colombia.

Recommendation 7:

The Committee recommends to the Government of Canada (a) that any trade agreement with Colombia include a compliance and enforcement mechanism for both the environment and human rights, comparable to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) model, exceeding the template set by NAFTA; (b) that such mechanisms must be independent and objective, receiving adequate funding to complete their tasks and include a built-in inflation escalator; (c) that they should include a process that ensures public monitoring and input through such mechanisms as citizenship submissions.

Recommendation 8:

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada develop new social responsibility standards for corporations as regards compliance with universal human rights standards. Non-compliance with these basic standards could lead to Canada imposing penalties on these corporations.

How to find your Member of Parliament: using your postal code , or by the name of your Member of Parliament .

Prime Minister Harper named Lawrence Cannon as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Stockwell Day as Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway on October 30, 2008.

Liberal: Scott Brison - International Trade critic, Bob Rae - Foreign Affairs critic.

Additional contacts include:

*    Stephen Harper, HarpeS@parl.gc.ca, Prime Minister of Canada, Leader of the Conservative Party
*    Michael Ignatieff, ignatm@parl.gc.ca, Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada
*    Jack Layton, laytoj@parl.gc.ca, Leader of the New Democratic Party, NPD
*    Gilles Duceppe, DucepG@parl.gc.ca, Leader of the Bloc Québécois

Thank you for your support!

--Stewart Vriesinga

FTA –an urgent call to immediate action for all Canadians!  --by Canadian CPTer, Stewart Vriesinga

(Americans may be interested to know that some analysts have speculated that the Canada–Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was really a gift from the (Canadian) Harper administration to the Bush administration to help push a US–Colombia FTA through a democratic congress.)

The Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is likely to come before Parliament late this fall or early winter. It is important that this agreement not be ratified and that any notion of pushing it through without a vote in Parliament be forcefully opposed and pre-empted. (For talking points see below)

In Canada, in contrast to the United Sates, an FTA can be ratified by the Federal Government without the democratic encumbrance of holding a vote in the House of Commons, and on Saturday, June 7, the Canadian government announced that it had wrapped up negotiations with Colombia for a Canada-Colombia FTA.

"By making this announcement only days before the Standing Committee on International Trade report would have been completed, the government is clearly saying that it does not respect the work of parliament," –Liberal International Trade Critic Navdeep Bains. (See “Free Trade or False Logic?”)

However, if promises are kept, the agreement will be tabled for 21 days in Parliament, most likely shortly after Parliament reconvenes on Nov. 18^th. That does not necessarily mean the FTA with Colombia will go to a vote, or if it does, that that vote would be a free vote –party-discipline may be invoked for a confidence vote in which Conservative MPs would be obliged to vote with their party in favour of the agreement.

Therefore the time to act is now!

• Circulate petitions (Use talking points below to create petition).
• Write letters to the editor in national or local newspapers
• Contact your Members of Parliament.

(Meeting with her/him in person is best. Writing a letter with a follow-up phone call is good, faxing and emailing are also options. Bring/mail/fax your petitions if you have them.)

How to find your Member of Parliament: using your postal code , or by the name of your Member of Parliament .

• Contact the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Prime Minister Harper named Lawrence Cannon as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Stockwell Day as Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway on October 30, 2008.

Talking Points:

• Signing a FTA with Colombia at this point is unconscionable because it would send absolutely the wrong message to the Colombian government.  
• Although Canadian mining companies operating in Colombia feel they are being adequately protected by the Colombian Armed forces, the civilian population does not.  A little over a week ago—October 29^th 2008—President Uribe dismissed 20 of his top army officers for their complicity in the extrajudicial killing of civilians which, post-postmortem, they dressed up as FARC guerrillas before presenting them as guerrillas who had died in combat.

This phenomenon is not new. It is systemic. Hundreds of such extrajudicial killings purportedly committed by the Colombian military have been reported in recent years. CPT has reported on the military’s extrajudicial killing of the Alejandro Uribe, a leader spokesperson of the Small Miners Federation of southern Bolívar in their struggle for survival in the face of the encroachment of huge multinational mining conglomerates.

• Rather than negotiating for peace the Uribe government itself opts for using violence to deal dissidents, as they did in October when thousands indigenous demonstrators marched and blocked traffic in a bid to force dialogue and safeguard native rights, including rights to their territory in the face of, amongst other things, mining concessions be granted to multinational mining corporations. (See: Despite military assault against indigenous protesters, mobilizations continue in Colombia)
• The current Uribe government remains deeply embroiled in the Parrapolitics scandal, which has resulted in party members, congressmen, the head of the secret police, military officials, provincial governors and mayors being put on trial and convicted of collaborating with the right wing paramilitary death squads responsible for the killing of thousands of Colombian civilians. (See Amnesty International Report) The victims of Paramilitary human rights violations have yet to be compensated, while Paramilitaries continue to issue death threats and kill civilians.
• Millions of Colombians have been dispossessed of their land and livelihood through forced displacements, and today many are being displaced for a second time; in the absence job opportunities, displaced people often resort to hawking wares on the street. In an effort to “reclaim public spaces” municipalities are now displacing the displaced street vendors from the sidewalks and parks of their cities. Violent forced displacement also continues.

Since the restructuring that are part and parcel of all FTAs and neo-liberal development models do not contemplate nor provide a specific role for landless peasants or large numbers of unemployed a Free Trade Deal would only aggravate the problem through further economic displacement, thereby increasing social unrest through the marginalization of the poorest segment of the Colombian population.

The signing of a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia at this time would make Canada and Canadians complicit in the perpetuation and exacerbation of on-going violence and injustice in Colombia.  As Canadians our task and moral obligation is to insist that our own government respects our own democracy processes --that rather than encourage, reward or lend legitimacy to the policies of  the current Colombian administration, the Canadian government must firmly pressure and assist them to take the necessary steps towards negotiating and creating the conditions for justice, peace and prosperity for all Colombians.

Get involved!                         CPT COLOMBIA ACTION & SOLIDARITY NETWORK     New!   

Website:                                 http://www.cpt.org/work/colombia

Previous releases:              http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cptcolombia  and 

CPT  Colombia Action &  Solidarity Network Archives  New! 

Informes en español:         http://espanol.groups.yahoo.com/group/ecapcolombia

Reverend Salvador Alcántara –by Stewart Vriesinga

“I thought you were dead! I had orders to kill you! I knew you were a good man –a man of integrity—and I couldn’t carry out those orders, but I thought another one of my colleagues would!”  

  –a demobilized paramilitary

Reverend Salvador Alcántara, from Garzal township of Simití municipality in the southern Bolívar province, is a remarkable, exemplary and inspirational man. He is a husband, father, grandfather, pastor of a local church, farmer, president of the Garzal town council, and vice-president of ASPROAS – Association of Alternative Producers of Simití. That he is able to take on all these tasks and do them well has earned him the respect of both the larger community of Simití and his own smaller community of Garzal. His interpretation of his pastoral duties has led him to become involved in his community’s struggle to stay on their lands in the face of constant threats of forced mass displacement..

The much-heralded achievements of the Uribe administration –the demobilization of the paramilitaries and the recovery of large tracts of land once controlled by guerrilla groups, have failed to provide residents of Garzal with security. On the contrary: The government has refused to recognize them as the legal owners of the land and instead granted title to these lands to a drug trafficker. Most residents of Garzal have lived there since the early seventies and should have received squatters’ rights after only five years of occupation. (See photo essay) The title-holder left when his cocaine laboratory was raided in the late 1980s, and he wasn’t heard from until 2003, at which time he returned in the company of paramilitaries. He then presented local residents with an ultimatum: Leave or die. Some families fled, and Salvador as the local representative received both bribes and personal death threats. Years later Salvador ran into a now-demobilized paramilitary, he expressed shock at seeing Salvador alive:

“I thought you were dead! I had orders to kill you! I knew you were a good man –a man of integrity—and I couldn’t carry out those orders, but I thought another one of my colleagues would!”  

It seems that in addition to the respect of his local community and parish, Salvador has also gained the respect of some of his enemies. Salvador attributes his being alive to God’s providence.

In December of 2008 Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) received an accompaniment request because of fears that a large group of armed men gathering nearby had been contracted to carry out the original death threats.

Fortunately the much-feared forced displacement never happened. Maybe it was because the river had flooded its banks, and the armed group decided to wait for things to dry up a bit; or maybe it was because the military had sent planes to fly over the area and the armed groups dispersed; or maybe it was because the guardian angel God sent to protect Salvador prevented it. Or maybe it was a combination of all of the above.

Salvador, I know, sees God’s hand in all these things, and has chosen to look for ways in which he can actively collaborate with his God. He never allows his faith in God to become an excuse for doing nothing. May we all learn from his example!

(The May 26^th  - June 8^th, 2009 CPT International Delegation will be visiting Garzal.)          

Get involved!                         CPT COLOMBIA ACTION & SOLIDARITY NETWORK     New!   

Website:                                 http://www.cpt.org/work/colombia

Previous releases:              http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cptcolombia  and 

CPT  Colombia Action &  Solidarity Network Archives  New! 

Informes en español:         http://espanol.groups.yahoo.com/group/ecapcolombia

Hello friends and supporters,

If you are an Ontario resident read on! (If you are not an Ontario resident this may not interest you very much.)

Presentations in Ontario: I will be coming home to Ontario in the near future, and will be doing PowerPoint presentations on Colombia and my work with CPT in this country.  I have blocked out different weeks in which I will be in different parts of the province. They are:

• Feb. 9^th – 14^th, Toronto: During this time I will not be available from 5PM on Tues. Feb 10^th until Fri. Feb. 13^th because of a CPT workshop I will be attending at that time.
• Feb. 15^th – 26^th Lucknow, Clinton, Durham, Chatsworth, Owensound, Kitchener, London, etc: I realize this is a big area, and will take some coordination and accommodating weather, but there it is, so if you live in the region…
• March 2^nd – 6^th Peterborough, Belleville, Madoc, Tweed, etc.: This might include Trent U, Kawartha World Issues Centre, etc.
• March 8^th – 13^th Ottawa: These will hopefully include both Universities, perhaps a Quaker group, etc.

After that I should be preparing to return to Colombia.

Nothing has been firmly booked as yet, so I’m relying on you all to help out with this. . For the time being contact me directly ( svriesinga@... ). After that I may try to put different parties from each area in direct contact with each other. I am hoping that in addition to setting up speaking engagements you will also help to promote them. Those who can’t help set them up may still be able to help with the promotion –public event announcements in newspapers, posters, email, radio announcements, or whatever. It has often been during summer months when I have been in Ontario, so I haven’t done as may presentations as I would have liked.

The focus of my presentation will be the armed conflict in Colombia within the context of larger economic and political violence. I will describe the various areas in which we do accompaniment, and how with your help we can strengthen local non-violent forms of resistance. While guerrilla armed resistance is on the decline, the threats to life, livelihood and land entitlement remain on the increase. More and more people are being displaced and dispossessed of their lands and are unable to find alternative employment. The situation is being aggravated by military aid, proposed US and Canadian free trade deals, and the corporate takeover of local resources to make way for mega projects such as large-scale Palm-Oil products (used mostly for bio-diesel), large cattle ranches, and huge mining operations (in which the Canadian mining interests are heavily involved). The roots of the conflict are due to global trade practises and power imbalances, and cannot be addressed only at a national and local level.

My Bio: I (Stewart Vriesinga) am a graduate of the Comparative Development Studies program at Trent University (1990), and have worked as a volunteer with Peace Brigades International in El Salvador (1990 – 1991). I have lived and worked in a L’Arche community for the developmentally challenged (1993 – 1995), and been involved both as a facilitator and member of the collective of One World Global Education –a cross-class, cross-cultural experiential learning program (1995 – 2001), and for five of those years of which I was also primary care giver for my mother. In 2001 after my mother passed away I became a full-time volunteer with Christian Peacemaker Teams, and have served in Colombia, Grassy Narrows, and Iraq (2001 – 2004) and for the last four years (2005 – 2009) have been part of Christian Peacemaker Teams in Colombia. I am a member of the Lucknow Quaker Worship group, and consider the McQuail farm in Lucknow to be my home in Canada.

For further information please check out the links below.

Thanks!

Peace  --Stewart

From: Stewart Vriesinga

To: Stewart Yahoo group

Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 6:18 PM

Subject: [Stewart_in_Colombia] Happy New Year --and a reflection piece I wrote last night

Hello friends and supporters

    Happy New year!

I originally wrote the following reflection for our own internal Christian Peacemaker Team list-serve (GITW), and had not intended it for a larger audience. However several recipients have asked me for permission to forward to their own personal list-serves, so I thought maybe I should too. One recipient commented in the forward to his own list-serve subscribers that it was good food for thought as we enter in to a new year. Here it is.

---

Why does evil Triumph? –by Stewart Vriesinga

Some years ago during our strategic planning meeting, we on the Colombia team developed our own mission statement.(Thanks Robin!) It reads:

We work together on grassroots initiatives to expose and transform structures of domination and oppression through active nonviolence in order to make possible a world grounded in respect, justice and love, even of enemies.

I like our mission statement quite a lot. It really resonates with what I think our work and mission is all about –exposing and transforming structures of domination and oppression. We acknowledge that there are a variety of such structures including sexism, racism, classism and capitalism, to name but a few, and that these systems oppress, marginalize, disenfranchise and impoverish people. These structural evils account for the most lethal forms of violence and oppression, and are maintained through systems, ideologies and conventions that include, but are by no means limited to, the use of arms and physical violence. It is not only the use of violence in maintaining these structures that we seek to expose and transform, but the structures themselves which are inherently oppressive and evil.

Hello Kim

Here in Colombia the right to life and a livelihood is being denied to a large number of Colombians. Within the dominant global neo-liberal economic structures a large and growing segment of the population has no place or role to play in the national or global economy. They are neither valued as consumers (they have no or little money), nor as producers (there is virtually no demand for either their labour or their products). The land and spaces that they occupy, on the other hand, are considered to be very valuable in the global marketplace. Millions of people are being displaced from the countryside to make way for mega agro-industrial crops (bio-fuel palm trees for example), or by corporate international mining and oil interests. The rural displaced people are equally unwelcome in the cities, where unemployment is already high and street-vendors are being run out of town because they are “invading public spaces” –the parks and sidewalks of the cities.

Whether these people are being disenfranchised, dispossessed and marginalized because of some new trade agreement and corresponding piece of legislation and judicial process, or at the point of a gun, is largely irrelevant. Either way they will join the hundreds of millions on this planet who are completely superfluous in the predominant global economy, where they are only recognized insofar as they present a serious social problem and a liability. If they aren’t killed by a bullet they will die a slower more painful death as a consequence of being denied a livelihood. Such is the face of evil.

But why have we been unable to expose and transform the evil abuse and misuse of power that condemns and marginalizes so many of the world’s inhabitants?

Why does evil continue to triumph?

I want to be clear here that the mission as I understand it is not simply to find an alternative to war. In most cases armed conflict is the result of an unwillingness of one party to change or negotiate a solution when the other party considers the status quo to be unacceptable or untenable. In such a situation simply ending the armed conflict will not make the status quo more acceptable or tenable; an end to armed conflict should not be confused with success in terms of undoing structures of domination and oppression. In order to expose and transform structures of domination and oppression the non-violent direct actions of Peacemakers must demonstrate themselves able to change the status quo.

Here in Colombia neither the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people who for 500 years non-violently resisted their oppressors (who were joined by a handful of CPTers about 8 years ago), nor the half century or more of armed resistance efforts have been able to force their oppressors to come to the bargaining table. The structures of domination and oppression are well armed and funded by global elites and remain firmly entrenched. Cultural genocide continues, as small artisanal miners and farmers continue to be displaced from their homes and livelihoods, forced to compete for scarce jobs in urban centres with an oppressed an already largely unemployed and underemployed labour force. The guerrilla, who has in the past been able to at least slow the corporate takeover of some of the rural sectors, is now greatly diminished in both strength and numbers. Non-violent resistance seems equally ineffective at bringing the oppressor to the bargaining table or stemming the corporate takeover of peasant land and livelihoods.

Augmenting the non-violent resistance of 100s of thousands of Colombians with a dozen CPTers –or even with the tens of thousands that Ron Sider envisions—is not going to make much of a difference unless –here it comes—unless we are catalysts that motivate and mobilize millions of less marginalized people who have, but up until now have not been using, their full capacity to influence the global decision-makers and perpetrators of economic, social, psychological  and physical violence –the violence that is preventing God’s people from having life and having it abundantly.

It is imperative that our support base realize that we are not out here doing the work because they can’t, or because they don’t want to; we are out here to help our support base understand what the work is --what they must do and why. We are all in the field. The structures of domination and oppression encompass the entire globe. All who reject the status quo in favour of the World Order (Kingdom) of God must cease to cooperate with the existing world order, even if that means biting the hand that is feeding them. Until our adversaries (pacifists don’t have enemies, but we most certainly do have adversaries) become acutely aware that we oppose them nothing is ever going to change, and soon the land that once fed Colombians will be used to produce fuel for our cars in the north.

Once again, I want to be absolutely clear here: The mission is not simply to end war. It is to expose and transform structures of domination and oppression through active nonviolence in order to make possible a world grounded in respect, justice and love, even of enemies. As Ghandi once said, in the face of injustice if the only choices are between doing nothing and using violence, then choose violence. I agree. I consider those who are doing nothing to resist and overcome evil to be a bigger part of the problem than those who resort to violence to resist injustice.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing"

(Usually wrongly attributed to Edmund Burke)

"The Land Of Plenty"

…For the millions in a prison,
That wealth has set apart –
For the Christ who has not risen,
From the caverns of the heart –

For the innermost decision,
That we cannot but obey -
For what’s left of our religion,
I lift my voice and pray:
May the lights in The Land of Plenty
Shine on the truth some day.

            --Leonard Cohen

----- Original Message -----

From: Stewart Vriesinga

To: Cpt Colombia Yahoogroup ; Stewart Yahoo group

Cc: Stewart Vriesinga

Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 9:41 AM

Subject: [Stewart_in_Colombia] The Indigenous Continue to Walk

CPT --Christian Peacemaker Teams, Colombia
Barrancabermeja, Colombia
Email:                              cptco@...
Web Page:                     http://www.cpt.org/work/colombia
Tel:                                   7-621-8777
Fax:                                  7 602 3617

---

The Indigenous Continue to Walk

By Chris Knestrick, Kim Lamberty & Sandra Rincon

After marching for over a month, ten thousand representatives of Colombia's indigenous peoples from 102 towns arrived in Bogotá on November 20, where they camped on the grounds of the national university for 5 days. They sought a meeting with President Uribe and the Colombian government to demand that the respect the rights of the indigenous communities. They also wanted to build solidarity with other sectors of Colombian society to join the struggle for a more peaceful country.  

 This mobilization of the Indigenous Communities, or the “Minga,” which means a gathering of the peoples, started on October 10^th in the south of Colombia. Shortly after the “Minga” began in mid-October, the Colombian police opened fire on the marchers which according to the National Organization of Colombia Indigenous, resulted in 130 injuries and 3 deaths.  The marchers continued on saying, “We are peacefully exercising our rights to social and civil resistance and will continue to do so”. Even after President Uribe vowed to not allow the marchers to enter Bogotá, The Minga continued and on November 20^th, they entered the country’s capital. The following day, in an amazing show of solidarity, they were joined by thousands of students, social organizations, and unions in one of the largest marches in recent Colombian history.

A “Minga” is only called during a serious and important time. This particular “Minga” lifted the voices of Colombia’s indigenous peoples and brought two central messages to the people of the Colombia: First, that all the victims of the war in Colombia must raise their voices together to end this war and build a new Colombia that serves everyone.  Second, the government must stop giving Indigenous Communities land away to multinational corporations that exploit the nation's natural resources and destroy the land of Colombia.

The “Minga” has proposed specific actions in order to fulfill both of those demands: 1) Reject a free trade agreement with the US.  2) Form a joint commission to investigate and prosecute human rights abuses.  3) Honor all past agreements with the indigenous peoples.  4) A clear rejection of Plan Colombia.  5) An apology and reparations for the 3 people killed and the 130 injured during the “Minga” 6) A number of legislative and constitutional reforms that would guarantee sovereignty, peace, and co-existence for all peoples of Colombia.  For more information, please go to www.onic.org.co.

In an important show of solidarity, many of the social sectors agreed to the six points brought to the government by the Minga.  The individuals most affected by the war -the indigenous, women, Afro-Colombians, campesinos, and  laborers-  vowed to continue the work together for a more peaceful country.

The meeting with President Uribe never occurred. They met with other government officials until early December when the Minga leaders decided to not continue. “With our dignity and the conviction from our heart, La Minga returns to the regions of Colombia and will continue spreading around the word. Because of the lack of answers,  the continued lies and the irresponsible affirmations about us from the national government, we the spokespeople of the Minga of Social and Community Resistance return to our lands spreading our message by “Walking the Word” throughout the country and the world” said in their release. The “Minga” reminds people that the movement will continue in its struggle for Indigenous rights and the end of violence in Colombia and everyone is welcome to join.  

Sandra Rincon, Kim Lamberty, and Chris Knestrick are members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams Colombia and were accompanying the march from Sunday, November 16 to 24 .

---

MISSION STATEMENT: Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) Colombia is a community made up of trained volunteers from different cultures that forms part of the international, ecumenical organization, CPT. Our work is based in, though not limited to, the Middle Magdelena region of Colombia. We work together on grassroots initiatives to expose and transform structures of domination and oppression through active nonviolence in order to make possible a world grounded in respect, justice and love, even of enemies.

Get involved!                         CPT COLOMBIA ACTION & SOLIDARITY NETWORK     New!   

Website:                                 http://www.cpt.org/work/colombia

Previous releases:              http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cptcolombia  and 

CPT  Colombia Action &  Solidarity Network Archives  New! 

Informes en español:         http://espanol.groups.yahoo.com/group/ecapcolombia

Hello friends and supporters

    Happy New year!

I originally wrote the following reflection for our own internal Christian Peacemaker Team list-serve (GITW), and had not intended it for a larger audience. However several recipients have asked me for permission to forward to their own personal list-serves, so I thought maybe I should too. One recipient commented in the forward to his own list-serve subscribers that it was good food for thought as we enter in to a new year. Here it is.

Why does evil Triumph? –by Stewart Vriesinga

Some years ago during our strategic planning meeting, we on the Colombia team developed our own mission statement.(Thanks Robin!) It reads:

We work together on grassroots initiatives to expose and transform structures of domination and oppression through active nonviolence in order to make possible a world grounded in respect, justice and love, even of enemies.

I like our mission statement quite a lot. It really resonates with what I think our work and mission is all about –exposing and transforming structures of domination and oppression. We acknowledge that there are a variety of such structures including sexism, racism, classism and capitalism, to name but a few, and that these systems oppress, marginalize, disenfranchise and impoverish people. These structural evils account for the most lethal forms of violence and oppression, and are maintained through systems, ideologies and conventions that include, but are by no means limited to, the use of arms and physical violence. It is not only the use of violence in maintaining these structures that we seek to expose and transform, but the structures themselves which are inherently oppressive and evil.

Hello Kim

Here in Colombia the right to life and a livelihood is being denied to a large number of Colombians. Within the dominant global neo-liberal economic structures a large and growing segment of the population has no place or role to play in the national or global economy. They are neither valued as consumers (they have no or little money), nor as producers (there is virtually no demand for either their labour or their products). The land and spaces that they occupy, on the other hand, are considered to be very valuable in the global marketplace. Millions of people are being displaced from the countryside to make way for mega agro-industrial crops (bio-fuel palm trees for example), or by corporate international mining and oil interests. The rural displaced people are equally unwelcome in the cities, where unemployment is already high and street-vendors are being run out of town because they are “invading public spaces” –the parks and sidewalks of the cities.

Whether these people are being disenfranchised, dispossessed and marginalized because of some new trade agreement and corresponding piece of legislation and judicial process, or at the point of a gun, is largely irrelevant. Either way they will join the hundreds of millions on this planet who are completely superfluous in the predominant global economy, where they are only recognized insofar as they present a serious social problem and a liability. If they aren’t killed by a bullet they will die a slower more painful death as a consequence of being denied a livelihood. Such is the face of evil.

But why have we been unable to expose and transform the evil abuse and misuse of power that condemns and marginalizes so many of the world’s inhabitants?

Why does evil continue to triumph?

I want to be clear here that the mission as I understand it is not simply to find an alternative to war. In most cases armed conflict is the result of an unwillingness of one party to change or negotiate a solution when the other party considers the status quo to be unacceptable or untenable. In such a situation simply ending the armed conflict will not make the status quo more acceptable or tenable; an end to armed conflict should not be confused with success in terms of undoing structures of domination and oppression. In order to expose and transform structures of domination and oppression the non-violent direct actions of Peacemakers must demonstrate themselves able to change the status quo.

Here in Colombia neither the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people who for 500 years non-violently resisted their oppressors (who were joined by a handful of CPTers about 8 years ago), nor the half century or more of armed resistance efforts have been able to force their oppressors to come to the bargaining table. The structures of domination and oppression are well armed and funded by global elites and remain firmly entrenched. Cultural genocide continues, as small artisanal miners and farmers continue to be displaced from their homes and livelihoods, forced to compete for scarce jobs in urban centres with an oppressed an already largely unemployed and underemployed labour force. The guerrilla, who has in the past been able to at least slow the corporate takeover of some of the rural sectors, is now greatly diminished in both strength and numbers. Non-violent resistance seems equally ineffective at bringing the oppressor to the bargaining table or stemming the corporate takeover of peasant land and livelihoods.

Augmenting the non-violent resistance of 100s of thousands of Colombians with a dozen CPTers –or even with the tens of thousands that Ron Sider envisions—is not going to make much of a difference unless –here it comes—unless we are catalysts that motivate and mobilize millions of less marginalized people who have, but up until now have not been using, their full capacity to influence the global decision-makers and perpetrators of economic, social, psychological  and physical violence –the violence that is preventing God’s people from having life and having it abundantly.

It is imperative that our support base realize that we are not out here doing the work because they can’t, or because they don’t want to; we are out here to help our support base understand what the work is --what they must do and why. We are all in the field. The structures of domination and oppression encompass the entire globe. All who reject the status quo in favour of the World Order (Kingdom) of God must cease to cooperate with the existing world order, even if that means biting the hand that is feeding them. Until our adversaries (pacifists don’t have enemies, but we most certainly do have adversaries) become acutely aware that we oppose them nothing is ever going to change, and soon the land that once fed Colombians will be used to produce fuel for our cars in the north.

Once again, I want to be absolutely clear here: The mission is not simply to end war. It is to expose and transform structures of domination and oppression through active nonviolence in order to make possible a world grounded in respect, justice and love, even of enemies. As Ghandi once said, in the face of injustice if the only choices are between doing nothing and using violence, then choose violence. I agree. I consider those who are doing nothing to resist and overcome evil to be a bigger part of the problem than those who resort to violence to resist injustice.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing"

(Usually wrongly attributed to Edmund Burke)

"The Land Of Plenty"

…For the millions in a prison,
That wealth has set apart –
For the Christ who has not risen,
From the caverns of the heart –

For the innermost decision,
That we cannot but obey -
For what’s left of our religion,
I lift my voice and pray:
May the lights in The Land of Plenty
Shine on the truth some day.

By Chris Knestrick, Kim Lamberty & Sandra Rincon

After marching for over a month, ten thousand representatives of Colombia's indigenous peoples from 102 towns arrived in Bogotá on November 20, where they camped on the grounds of the national university for 5 days. They sought a meeting with President Uribe and the Colombian government to demand that the respect the rights of the indigenous communities. They also wanted to build solidarity with other sectors of Colombian society to join the struggle for a more peaceful country.  

 This mobilization of the Indigenous Communities, or the “Minga,” which means a gathering of the peoples, started on October 10^th in the south of Colombia. Shortly after the “Minga” began in mid-October, the Colombian police opened fire on the marchers which according to the National Organization of Colombia Indigenous, resulted in 130 injuries and 3 deaths.  The marchers continued on saying, “We are peacefully exercising our rights to social and civil resistance and will continue to do so”. Even after President Uribe vowed to not allow the marchers to enter Bogotá, The Minga continued and on November 20^th, they entered the country’s capital. The following day, in an amazing show of solidarity, they were joined by thousands of students, social organizations, and unions in one of the largest marches in recent Colombian history.

A “Minga” is only called during a serious and important time. This particular “Minga” lifted the voices of Colombia’s indigenous peoples and brought two central messages to the people of the Colombia: First, that all the victims of the war in Colombia must raise their voices together to end this war and build a new Colombia that serves everyone.  Second, the government must stop giving Indigenous Communities land away to multinational corporations that exploit the nation's natural resources and destroy the land of Colombia.

The “Minga” has proposed specific actions in order to fulfill both of those demands: 1) Reject a free trade agreement with the US.  2) Form a joint commission to investigate and prosecute human rights abuses.  3) Honor all past agreements with the indigenous peoples.  4) A clear rejection of Plan Colombia.  5) An apology and reparations for the 3 people killed and the 130 injured during the “Minga” 6) A number of legislative and constitutional reforms that would guarantee sovereignty, peace, and co-existence for all peoples of Colombia.  For more information, please go to www.onic.org.co.

In an important show of solidarity, many of the social sectors agreed to the six points brought to the government by the Minga.  The individuals most affected by the war -the indigenous, women, Afro-Colombians, campesinos, and  laborers-  vowed to continue the work together for a more peaceful country.

The meeting with President Uribe never occurred. They met with other government officials until early December when the Minga leaders decided to not continue. “With our dignity and the conviction from our heart, La Minga returns to the regions of Colombia and will continue spreading around the word. Because of the lack of answers,  the continued lies and the irresponsible affirmations about us from the national government, we the spokespeople of the Minga of Social and Community Resistance return to our lands spreading our message by “Walking the Word” throughout the country and the world” said in their release. The “Minga” reminds people that the movement will continue in its struggle for Indigenous rights and the end of violence in Colombia and everyone is welcome to join.  

Sandra Rincon, Kim Lamberty, and Chris Knestrick are members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams Colombia and were accompanying the march from Sunday, November 16 to 24 .

Get involved!                         CPT COLOMBIA ACTION & SOLIDARITY NETWORK     New!   

Website:                                 http://www.cpt.org/work/colombia

Previous releases:              http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cptcolombia  and 

CPT  Colombia Action &  Solidarity Network Archives  New! 

Informes en español:         http://espanol.groups.yahoo.com/group/ecapcolombia

Urgent Action! Husband of Colombian indigenous leader assassinated

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) is forwarding the following urgent action written by the Latin American Working Group (LAWG). CPT accompanied this march of indigenous people while they were in Bogotá. (See:  La Minga: Colombian Indigenous Peoples March Toward Bogotá )This assassination is not the first time violence has been used against indigenous leaders. (See:  LAWG Urgent action of October 27 ) Once again, it seems likely that this was a deliberate attack on the leadership of the indigenous peoples who are attempting to force dialogue with the government on land and human rights issues.  (See:  COLOMBIA:  "There Was No Checkpoint" Where Army Shooting Took Place ) 

Please voice your concern and make sure that this is the last !

Get involved!                         CPT COLOMBIA ACTION & SOLIDARITY NETWORK     New!   

Website:                                 http://www.cpt.org/work/colombia

Previous releases:              http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cptcolombia  and 

CPT  Colombia Action &  Solidarity Network Archives  New! 

Informes en español:         http://espanol.groups.yahoo.com/group/ecapcolombia

----- Original Message -----

From: Stewart Vriesinga

To: Stewart Yahoo group ; Robin Buyers ; "actions_and solidarity"@yahogroups.com

Cc: ECAP Colombia ; CPT Colombia

Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 2:58 PM

Subject: [Stewart_in_Colombia] FTA –an urgent call to immediate action for all Canadians!

CPT --Christian Peacemaker Teams, Colombia
Barrancabermeja, Colombia
Email:                              cptco@...
Web Page:                     http://www.cpt.org/work/colombia
Tel:                                   7-621-8777
Fax:                                  7 602 3617

---

FTA –an urgent call to immediate action for all Canadians!  --by Canadian CPTer, Stewart Vriesinga

(Americans may be interested to know that some analysts have speculated that the Canada–Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was really a gift from the (Canadian) Harper administration to the Bush administration to help push an US–Colombia FTA through a democratic congress.)

The Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is likely to come before Parliament late this fall or early winter. It is important that this agreement not be ratified and that any notion of pushing it through without a vote in Parliament be forcefully opposed and pre-empted. (For talking points see below)

In Canada, in contrast to the United Sates, an FTA can be ratified by the Federal Government without the democratic encumbrance of holding a vote in the House of Commons, and on Saturday, June 7, the Canadian government announced that it had wrapped up negotiations with Colombia for a Canada-Colombia FTA.

"By making this announcement only days before the Standing Committee on International Trade report would have been completed, the government is clearly saying that it does not respect the work of parliament," –Liberal International Trade Critic Navdeep Bains. (See “Free Trade or False Logic?”)

However, if promises are kept, the agreement will be tabled for 21 days in Parliament, most likely shortly after Parliament reconvenes on Nov. 18^th. That does not necessarily mean the FTA with Colombia will go to a vote, or if it does, that that vote would be a free vote –party-discipline may be invoked for a confidence vote in which Conservative MPs would be obliged to vote with their party in favour of the agreement.

Therefore the time to act is now!

• Circulate petitions (Use talking points below to create petition).
• Write letters to the editor in national or local newspapers
• Contact your Members of Parliament.

(Meeting with her/him in person is best. Writing a letter with a follow-up phone call is good, faxing and emailing are also options. Bring/mail/fax your petitions if you have them.)

How to find your Member of Parliament: using your postal code , or by the name of your Member of Parliament .

• Contact the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Prime Minister Harper named Lawrence Cannon as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Stockwell Day as Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway on October 30, 2008.

Talking Points:

• Signing a FTA with Colombia at this point is unconscionable because it would send absolutely the wrong message to the Colombian government.  
• Although Canadian mining companies operating in Colombia feel they are being adequately protected by the Colombian Armed forces, the civilian population does not.  A little over a week ago—October 29^th 2008—President Uribe dismissed 20 of his top army officers for their complicity in the extrajudicial killing of civilians which, post-mortem, they dressed up as FARC guerrillas before presenting them as guerrillas who had died in combat.

This phenomenon is not new. It is systemic. Hundreds of such extrajudicial killings purportedly committed by the Colombian military have been reported in recent years. CPT has reported on the military’s extrajudicial killing of the Alejandro Uribe, a leader spokesperson of the Small Miners Federation of southern Bolívar in their struggle for survival in the face of the encroachment of huge multinational mining conglomerates.

• Rather than negotiating for peace the Uribe government itself opts for using violence to deal dissidents, as they did in October when thousands indigenous demonstrators marched and blocked traffic in a bid to force dialogue and safeguard native rights, including rights to their territory in the face of, amongst other things, mining concessions be granted to multinational mining corporations. (See: Despite military assault against indigenous protesters, mobilizations continue in Colombia)
• The current Uribe government remains deeply embroiled in the Parrapolitics scandal, which has resulted in party members, congressmen, the head of the secret police, military officials, provincial governors and mayors being put on trial and convicted of collaborating with the right wing paramilitary death squads responsible for the killing of thousands of Colombian civilians. (See Amnesty International Report) The victims of Paramilitary human rights violations have yet to be compensated, while Paramilitaries continue to issue death threats and kill civilians.
• Millions of Colombians have been dispossessed of their land and livelihood through forced displacements, and today many are being displaced for a second time; in the absence job opportunities, displaced people often resort to hawking wares on the street. In an effort to “reclaim public spaces” municipalities are now displacing the displaced street vendors from the sidewalks and parks of their cities. Violent forced displacement also continues.

Since the restructuring that are part and parcel of all FTAs and neo-liberal development models do not contemplate nor provide a specific role for landless peasants or large numbers of unemployed a Free Trade Deal would only aggravate the problem through further economic displacement, thereby increasing social unrest through the marginalization of the poorest segment of the Colombian population.

The signing of a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia at this time would make Canada and Canadians complicit in the perpetuation and exacerbation of on-going violence and injustice in Colombia.  As Canadians our task and moral obligation is to insist that our own government respects our own democracy processes --that rather than encourage, reward or lend legitimacy to the policies of  the current Colombian administration, the Canadian government must firmly pressure and assist them to take the necessary steps towards negotiating and creating the conditions for justice, peace and prosperity for all Colombians.

---

MISSION STATEMENT: Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) Colombia is a community made up of trained volunteers from different cultures that forms part of the international, ecumenical organization, CPT. Our work is based in, though not limited to, the Middle Magdelena region of Colombia. We work together on grassroots initiatives to expose and transform structures of domination and oppression through active nonviolence in order to make possible a world grounded in respect, justice and love, even of enemies.

Get involved!                         CPT COLOMBIA ACTION & SOLIDARITY NETWORK     New!   

Website:                                 http://www.cpt.org/work/colombia

Previous releases:              http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cptcolombia  and 

CPT  Colombia Action &  Solidarity Network Archives  New! 

Informes en español:         http://espanol.groups.yahoo.com/group/ecapcolombia

FTA –an urgent call to immediate action for all Canadians!  --by Canadian CPTer, Stewart Vriesinga

(Americans may be interested to know that some analysts have speculated that the Canada–Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was really a gift from the (Canadian) Harper administration to the Bush administration to help push an US–Colombia FTA through a democratic congress.)

The Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is likely to come before Parliament late this fall or early winter. It is important that this agreement not be ratified and that any notion of pushing it through without a vote in Parliament be forcefully opposed and pre-empted. (For talking points see below)

In Canada, in contrast to the United Sates, an FTA can be ratified by the Federal Government without the democratic encumbrance of holding a vote in the House of Commons, and on Saturday, June 7, the Canadian government announced that it had wrapped up negotiations with Colombia for a Canada-Colombia FTA.

"By making this announcement only days before the Standing Committee on International Trade report would have been completed, the government is clearly saying that it does not respect the work of parliament," –Liberal International Trade Critic Navdeep Bains. (See “Free Trade or False Logic?”)

However, if promises are kept, the agreement will be tabled for 21 days in Parliament, most likely shortly after Parliament reconvenes on Nov. 18^th. That does not necessarily mean the FTA with Colombia will go to a vote, or if it does, that that vote would be a free vote –party-discipline may be invoked for a confidence vote in which Conservative MPs would be obliged to vote with their party in favour of the agreement.

Therefore the time to act is now!

• Circulate petitions (Use talking points below to create petition).
• Write letters to the editor in national or local newspapers
• Contact your Members of Parliament.

(Meeting with her/him in person is best. Writing a letter with a follow-up phone call is good, faxing and emailing are also options. Bring/mail/fax your petitions if you have them.)

How to find your Member of Parliament: using your postal code , or by the name of your Member of Parliament .

• Contact the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Prime Minister Harper named Lawrence Cannon as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Stockwell Day as Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway on October 30, 2008.

Talking Points:

• Signing a FTA with Colombia at this point is unconscionable because it would send absolutely the wrong message to the Colombian government.  
• Although Canadian mining companies operating in Colombia feel they are being adequately protected by the Colombian Armed forces, the civilian population does not.  A little over a week ago—October 29^th 2008—President Uribe dismissed 20 of his top army officers for their complicity in the extrajudicial killing of civilians which, post-mortem, they dressed up as FARC guerrillas before presenting them as guerrillas who had died in combat.

This phenomenon is not new. It is systemic. Hundreds of such extrajudicial killings purportedly committed by the Colombian military have been reported in recent years. CPT has reported on the military’s extrajudicial killing of the Alejandro Uribe, a leader spokesperson of the Small Miners Federation of southern Bolívar in their struggle for survival in the face of the encroachment of huge multinational mining conglomerates.

• Rather than negotiating for peace the Uribe government itself opts for using violence to deal dissidents, as they did in October when thousands indigenous demonstrators marched and blocked traffic in a bid to force dialogue and safeguard native rights, including rights to their territory in the face of, amongst other things, mining concessions be granted to multinational mining corporations. (See: Despite military assault against indigenous protesters, mobilizations continue in Colombia)
• The current Uribe government remains deeply embroiled in the Parrapolitics scandal, which has resulted in party members, congressmen, the head of the secret police, military officials, provincial governors and mayors being put on trial and convicted of collaborating with the right wing paramilitary death squads responsible for the killing of thousands of Colombian civilians. (See Amnesty International Report) The victims of Paramilitary human rights violations have yet to be compensated, while Paramilitaries continue to issue death threats and kill civilians.
• Millions of Colombians have been dispossessed of their land and livelihood through forced displacements, and today many are being displaced for a second time; in the absence job opportunities, displaced people often resort to hawking wares on the street. In an effort to “reclaim public spaces” municipalities are now displacing the displaced street vendors from the sidewalks and parks of their cities. Violent forced displacement also continues.

Since the restructuring that are part and parcel of all FTAs and neo-liberal development models do not contemplate nor provide a specific role for landless peasants or large numbers of unemployed a Free Trade Deal would only aggravate the problem through further economic displacement, thereby increasing social unrest through the marginalization of the poorest segment of the Colombian population.

The signing of a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia at this time would make Canada and Canadians complicit in the perpetuation and exacerbation of on-going violence and injustice in Colombia.  As Canadians our task and moral obligation is to insist that our own government respects our own democracy processes --that rather than encourage, reward or lend legitimacy to the policies of  the current Colombian administration, the Canadian government must firmly pressure and assist them to take the necessary steps towards negotiating and creating the conditions for justice, peace and prosperity for all Colombians.

Get involved!                         CPT COLOMBIA ACTION & SOLIDARITY NETWORK     New!   

Website:                                 http://www.cpt.org/work/colombia

Previous releases:              http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cptcolombia  and 

CPT  Colombia Action &  Solidarity Network Archives  New! 

Informes en español:         http://espanol.groups.yahoo.com/group/ecapcolombia

CPT Colombia has concluded that its URGENT ACTION system and system for other calls for action on behalf of Colombians is almost completely ineffective, beyond repair, and has therefore been replaced with the all new CPT COLOMBIA ACTION & SOLIDARITY NETWORK. Your active participation is needed! Please click on the link and sign up now!!

We, the Christian Peacemaker Team in Colombia, have come to realize that the system we have been using to communicate urgent actions and other calls to action is largely ineffectual and in need of a major fix. For instance, the CPT Colombia team issued a request for letters of support for the people of Garzal, who may well be dispossessed of their land if something doesn’t change soon. That call to action, complete with sample letters, went out on both of the team’s Yahoo list-serves (Spanish and English), CPTnet and is also on the CPT Colombia Web Page. That request generated a mere 7 letters!!?! (Much thanks and apologies to those seven people who did respond. The people of Garzal have those 7 letters, and despite the small quantity, will use them in their struggle to attain titles for the land they have occupied for decades.)

While CPT’s occasional physical presence in that community may temporarily deter violence against their threatened leaders, and create an illusion of international solidarity, it is only the tangible response of the international community that will create the conditions for peace and justice for this and other communities of marginalized and oppressed peoples in Colombia. Your active participation is needed.

The new system –CPT COLOMBIA ACTION & SOLIDARITY NETWORK—is a Yahoo Group interactive list-serve that will be used exclusively for Urgent Actions and other calls to action:

               Subscribers will no longer have trouble spotting the occasional URGENT ACTIONS and other calls to action which currently come into their inbox mixed in with a host of informative and reflection pieces by CPT Colombia and other team members. (There is no assumption or expectation that subscribers are committing to respond to every action request that they receive. Some calls to action will be directed to US citizens, others to Canadians, and others will be general.)

Þ       Subscribers will be empowered and encouraged to post on the list-serve, which will:

o        enable them to inspire and encourage the team and fellow subscribers through sharing of how they responded to a particular request for action.

o        encourage the communities and organizations CPT accompanies, who will be both relieved and delighted to know their voices are being heard and that things are being done on their behalf.

o        provide the CPT Colombia team with feedback that allows them to gauge how large a support base the team has for calls to action (the number of subscribers); provide our Colombian partners and the communities and organizations we accompany with feedback and encouragement; and monitor and measure the effectiveness of our calls to action system and make necessary adjustments.

Þ       contribute to making the structural changes in their own countries and here in Colombia that are prerequisites to sustainable peace with justice and an end to violence in Colombia.

For its part the CPT Colombia team commits to providing subscribers with:

Þ       issues that need your attention and solidarity

Þ       suggestions (in consultation with those we accompany) about how subscribers might respond.

Þ       current information about whether an issue has been resolved or whether further action is required.

Together we can go beyond violence reduction and actually contribute to Peace-building –helping replace oppressive structures of marginalization and domination with ones that allow for life with dignity –abundant living—for all Colombians. Please subscribe to the CPT COLOMBIA ACTION & SOLIDARITY NETWORK!

Get involved!                         CPT COLOMBIA ACTION & SOLIDARITY NETWORK

Website:                                 http://www.cpt.org/work/colombia

Previous releases:               http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cptcolombia

En español:                           http://espanol.groups.yahoo.com/group/ecapcolombia

 (*New!: I have enabled "reply to all" if you want to comment on anything you see or read.)

Subscribe: CPT in Colombia:      cptcolombia-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Throughout history emperors, tyrants, presidents and kings, often endorsed by the Church, have created a god in their own image –the vengeful, uncompromising, exclusionist, genocide-advocating, racist, sexist, homophobic tyrannical god so often described in the Old Testament. Such a god is easily co-opted into the service of emperors, tyrants, presidents and kings. Let us not be complicit in the character assassination of God. Let us move forward, rather, on the assumption that God is in fact Christ-like! A Christ-like God is not so easily co-opted. Therein lays our liberation.

Southern Bolívar’s ignored and oppressed population forced to take desperate measures –by Stewart Vriesinga

On Thursday, October 16^th, representatives of the mining and agricultural communities of Southern Bolívar decided that unless the government agrees to resume meaningful dialogue by Monday, October 20^th, they will mobilize thousands of their members in a bid to force the government back to the bargaining table. The decision comes after national and state government representatives failed to appear on Wednesday, October 15^th, at a meeting in Santa Rosa that they themselves had scheduled –and rescheduled and rescheduled. As happened in San Pablo on September 15^th of this year, the governmental representatives did not communicate their decision to cancel until 900 community members had already traveled at great effort and expense, in some cases for days, through knee-deep mud, by foot, mule, four-wheel drive trucks, boats and buses in hopes of having their voices heard and their concerns addressed.

Amongst those futilely awaiting the government’s arrival were the mayors of Santa Rosa and Morales, both of whom committed to stand with their constituents in a bid for justice and the right to be heard. Other attendees included representatives of the Government Ombudsman’s Office, the Vice President’s Office on Human Rights, the Organization of American States, the Program for Peace and Development in the Middle Magdalene, and international accompaniment organizations, including Christian Peacemaker Teams.

Being ignored is nothing new to local citizens. Apart from military presence, there is little state presence or infrastructure in most of the area –very few schools or teachers, roads, health-clinics, electricity, telephone service, etc. Further, despite previous occasions in which governmental representatives have come to the table, the government has yet to implement any decision or policy addressing the specific concerns or demands of the local population.

The primary concerns of the communities and their representatives are the right to life with dignity, and protection from being dispossessed of or displaced from their homes, communities and livelihoods. Community and local organization leaders have been threatened by paramilitaries, assassinated by government security forces, and unjustly accused of treason and arrested. Small miners and small land owners, denied titles to their mines and the lands they have occupied for decades, are in danger of being dispossessed by encroaching agro-industry (oil palm plantations etc.) and multinational mining interests. The latter, ironically, is receiving land titles and/or exploration and mining rights as well as state protection.

The violence against the indigenous people of Cauca in the north highlights the risks the Southern Bolivar mining and agricultural communities face as they take their struggle to larger urban centers in an effort to force negotiation. Three days ago indigenous organizations in Cauca, taking similar measures to have their rights respected and their voices heard, came under direct attack from government security forces—illustrating how dissidence and non-violent resistance are not tolerated in this country. The indigenous organizations have suffered casualties but gained strength in terms of support and numbers.

Christian Peacemaker Teams has regularly accompanied and supported the non-violent initiatives for justice and peace of several of these organizations and communities for years –the Southern Bolivar Agricultural-Mining Federation, Micoahumado, Tiquisio, and Garzal. We also visit many of the other communities affected and will continue to do so.

As a first step, please urge your political representative to push the Colombian government for a negotiated peaceful solution to the urgent concerns of the people of south Bolívar and all of Colombia. Please be prepared to take further action on short notice, since the situation remains volatile and is evolving rapidly.

Hi Stewart,

 

Just listened to your interview on podcast and actually I did hear that on the radio when it was broadcast. Quite exciting to get some airtime for CPT!! 

Hope you have  some good R & R before returning.

 

shalom,

Ena & Lippe de Haan

Exeter

----- Original Message -----

From: Stewart Vriesinga

To: Stewart Yahoo group

Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 1:18 PM

Subject: [Stewart_in_Colombia] Update and Podcasts

Hello Friends and supporters

I have not been on team in Colombia since about mid-June, but while I was attending my nephew's wedding in Golden British Colombia the CBC ran some interviews that Pierre Shantz and I had a hand in when Connie Watson --CB C's Latin American reporter-- came to Colombia along with a delegation of Canadian Parliamentarians to "investigate" proposed (and now approved)  bi-lateral Free Trade Deal with Colombia. Connie Watson and Luis came to Barrancabermeja and the Magdalena Medio to find out the other side of the story. The team and yours truly set up several interviews in Barranca and the surrounding area. The material was supplied to the CBC --the program Dispatches used some of it, in a June 9th broadcast, and The World this Weekend used other parts of it on July 20th while I was attending my Nephew's wedding. The Team --mostly myself, Pierre Shantz and others spent several days with the CBC crew and arranged (and had to re-arrange) a trip to rural areas so that the reporters would get a first-hand sense of what was going on in rural sectors. Only small portions of the interviews appear in these broadcasts.

The Dispatches podcasts can be found at:

Connie's Documentary: http://www.cbc.ca/dispatches/media/080609_watson.ram

We were very instrumental in setting up the interviews that take place in Barrancabermeja and the Magdalena Medio Region.

The World this Weekend's podcast can be found at:

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/twtw_20080720_6724.mp3

I prefer the World this Weekend's report, not only because I am personally interviewed, but I think it gives a better overview of the situation in Colombia and the work of Christian Peacemaker Teams in that context. The part on Colombia doesn't start until about minute 9:40 in the podcast, so scroll over to there if you don't want to hear unrelated stories.

The rural community the reporters visited is called Garzal. I have earlier posted a photo journal about Garzal which can be seen at:

http://cpt.org/gallery/album223

A national delegation the CPT team hosted also visited Garzal and did a Public Action in Barranca to pressure government officials to grant Garzal residents land titles. Photos of that can be seen at:

http://cpt.org/gallery/Garzal-Delegation-Action

I have been travelling quite a bit visiting friends and family since I left the team in mid-June, but expect to be back in Colombia in early September after attending the CPT -full-timers retreat next week.

Peace  --Stewart

P.S. Please let me know if the links and or pictures are not working for you.

--
Subscribe to my list serve:          Stewart_in_Colombia-subscribe@yahoogroups.com 
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List owner:                                svriesinga@...
View previous posts:                  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Stewart_in_Colombia/messages

 (*New!: I have enabled "reply to all" if you want to comment on anything you see or read.)

Subscribe: CPT in Colombia:      cptcolombia-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Throughout history emperors, tyrants, presidents and kings, often endorsed by the Church, have created a god in their own image –the vengeful, uncompromising, exclusionist, genocide-advocating, racist, sexist, homophobic tyrannical god so often described in the Old Testament. Such a god is easily co-opted into the service of emperors, tyrants, presidents and kings. Let us not be complicit in the character assassination of God. Let us move forward, rather, on the assumption that God is in fact Christ-like! A Christ-like God is not so easily co-opted. Therein lays our liberation.

 –Stewart Vriesinga

---

Connie's Documentary: http://www.cbc.ca/dispatches/media/080609_watson.ram

We were very instrumental in setting up the interviews that take place in Barrancabermeja and the Magdalena Medio Region.

Clerical trio leaves Tiquisio in the face of death threats

--by Stewart Vriesinga

CPTers (Christian Peacemaker Team members) Jonathan Stucky and Stewart Vriesinga shared the bitter-sweet experience of witnessing the last three days of, and attending the last mass held for (and partially conducted by) Padre Rafael, Saith and Marta. The trio was forced to displace from El Coco, Tiquisio due to death threats. Padre Rafael has spent the last 30 years in Southern Bolivar, 8 of them in Tiquisio, and had, we were told, planned to die there of old age; Saith and Marta each spent 3 years living in and working with the local community and had hoped to continue their work there indefinitely. The three left for Bogotá with no idea of what the future holds for them, or how or where they will continue the struggle for justice and peace in Colombia. Wherever they may end up there is absolutely no doubt that they will continue to work for God’s justice and peace for the people of Tiquisio and others in Colombia.

The experience was bitter in the sense that these folks who had done so much and  invested so much of themselves in community formation and development in Tiquisio were being forced to leave a community and people whom they profoundly love and care about; a community who in turn came to deeply love and care about them. There were many tears shed and many puffy eyes as people said their goodbyes.

The experience was sweet because it made apparent the legacy of the trio –a well-organized determined community with many projects on the go and many more in the works. During the final Mass speaker after speaker reiterated their appreciation of and commitment to this work. They spoke of how conditions have improved with the introduction of community development projects, the community-based radio station, etc. They described how many who displaced because of violence and death threats in the 1990s were returning because of improved prospects for a safe and productive future in Tiquisio. The leadership and self-confidence exhibited by the various speakers bore testimony to success of the trio’s community and leadership formation efforts.

Almost every speaker took the opportunity to thank and request the continued support of the Peace and Development Program, the Mayor’s office, and the Personaria (a governmental human rights office), all of whom were in attendance. All pledged their continued support for present and future security and community development efforts.

While observing the community’s response to the forced displacement of their beloved spiritual and community leaders I remembered what someone in El Salvador once told me: “Despair is a first world luxury.” The people of Tiquisio seem to agree. As one member of the local youth group put it when he addressed the community during the mass:

“Father Rafael is only a man –a man who did the work of God. We too are men and women. Now it is up to us to continue the work that Padre Rafael, Saith and Marta began.”

I have no doubt that they will. And thanks to the work that the now displaced trio has done, while their absence will be felt, their legacy will continue.

The three are amongst those named in the latest death threats (see CPT Colombia releases Urgent Action: Death threats sent to CPT partners and Human Rights organizations and Renewed Death Threats in South Bolivar ). The three are not the first to have displaced because of these death threats, and may not be the last. But what those who issue these threats don’t seem to realize is that while they can threaten, displace or even kill community leaders, in the absence of justice new leaders will always emerge to take their place.

Renewed Death Threats in South Bolivar

Today –Monday April 21^st 2008—Paramilitaries renewed their death threats against the leaders of organizations and organizations with which the team has worked closely for years: the Magdalena Medio Peace and Development Programme –‘Programa de Desarrollo y Paz del Magdalena Medio’; Members of the trade union organization The Agro- mining Federation of the South of Bolívar department –FEDEAGROMISBOL (La Federación Agrominera del Sur de Bolívar); Catholic priests working in the municipalities of Tiquisio, Arenal and Regidor, in the department of Bolívar; and Members of the human rights organization –Corporación SEMBRAR. (See CPT Colombia Urgent Action or Amnesty International Urgent Action ) This time the newly reiterated threat includes a list of specific people –some of which are very well-known to CPT Colombia team members and have become our dear friends.  

After naming various people the threat continues:

…we will start with you, and afterwards the others until there is not one left, plague of FARC sons of bitches, we will finish you off.

For a Colombia free of guerrilla sons of bitches

comandante Camilo 

Bloque Norte de Colombia [Northern Colombia Paramilitary Front]

Please respond to the Urgent Actions and keep these folks in your thoughts and prayers!

The United States’ War on Drugs:

A colossal waste of tax-payers’ money? Or part of a sinister strategy to expropriate valuable land and mineral resources from poor campesinos?

 --by stewart Vriesinga

Once again the residents of La Conformidad are in economic crisis. Their coca fields –the crop which forms the basis of the local economy—has been completely destroyed. In March of this year about one hundred workers, escorted by twice that number of military personal, manually pulled up all their coca plants.

This was not the first time the residents of La Conformidad were faced with similar economic crisis. Last year, and two years before that, their crops and livelihood were destroyed by aerial spaying of coca crops. Some displaced and left to start over elsewhere. Most, with nowhere else to go and without the economic means to invest in viable alternative crops, planted new coca plants at the first opportunity. Alternative crops such as coffee, cacao, or sugar cane all require significant capital investment –capital the residents of La Conformidad don’t have. Furthermore, it would take several years before the yields of these alternative crops reached a point where peasants would realize any returns on their investments. Coca, on the other hand, can be harvested as soon as 6 months after it is planted. In the past growers have survived by buying food on credit with interest in small local stores –stores whose own survival depends directly on the economic survival of the local campesinos. Without economic assistance the only alternatives to growing coca is joining the ranks of the 3.8 million internally displaced Colombians already vying for non-existent jobs in the major cities of Colombia. Despite the inevitable hardships of displacement, some local residents have already chosen this option. Unless economic assistance for alternative crops is made available immediately, the remainder, despite the risks of future crop destruction, will probably resort to planting coca again.

The residents of La Conformidad were never rich to begin with. Apart from the leaky-roofed local elementary school there are no government services and there is no running water, although the homes close to the power lines do have electricity –a luxury few rural communities enjoy. The elimination of their only economic means of survival –the coca plants—is devastating.

“Had they come with money in hand that would allow us to invest in alternative crops we would have gladly eradicated the coca crops ourselves!” one of the local victims dejectedly told CPTers Julian Gutierrez and Stewart Vriesinga. Instead a military spokes-person accused leaders of the larger community –Micoahumado—of redirecting Plan Colombia funds designated for crop substitution in La Conformidad. In fact Micoahumado has never received Plan Colombia funding. Through the Peace and Development Micoahumado has received funding from the European Economic Community, which has been invested in various community development projects throughout the region, including la Conformidad. Falsely accusing Micoahumado’s leadership of appropriating Plan Colombia funds intended to help the residents of La Conformidad can only be intended to create divisions and friction between La Conformidad and the larger Micoahumado community.

What is happening in La Conformidad is by no means unique. Other communities of Morales –the municipality in which La Conformidad and Micoahumado are located—have repeatedly had similar experiences. Indeed this phenomenon is being repeated throughout the southern Bolivar Province and other areas of Colombia. If it isn’t manual eradication it is the even more devastating aerial spraying, which also destroys food crops, waterways fauna and the health of those subjected to the wind-borne vapors. While the residents of La Conformidad have not escaped the economic violence of having their livelihood wiped out, they have been more fortunate than other communities insofar as the economic violence has not escalated into physical violence, as has been the case in areas where the guerrilla planted landmines or directly engaged government troops in an effort to prevent coca eradication.  

The case of La Conformidad is illustrative. Spending billions of dollars destroying coca crops in the name of the “War on Drugs”, be it through aerial spraying or manual eradication, is a colossal waste of U.S. taxpayer money. In the absence of providing coca-growers with the comparatively inexpensive means and incentives to grow economically viable alternative crops, coca cultivation will doubtlessly continue.

The consistent failure to acknowledge this fact generates serious doubts about the true objectives of the so-called “War on Drugs”. Although coca is cultivated in southern Bolivar, the area is also known to be rich in mineral resources –gold, uranium, oil, etc.—as well as productive farm land coveted by agro-industrialists –the palm-oil industry, cattle ranchers, etc. The neo-liberal economic development model being promoted by the US and Colombian governments does not envision a role for the hundreds of thousands of peasants and tens of thousands of small-scale miners that that currently inhabit and derive their livelihoods from these lands. Since the economic activities of southern Bolivar’s inhabitants are in large part subsistence, they barely register in the country’s economic growth figures and contribute little to the gross domestic product.

The inhabitants of the area consider efforts to eliminate coca production as a part of an integrated plan to appropriate their lands. Like the military’s extrajudicial killing of community leaders and members and the paramilitaries’ death-threats and extrajudicial killings (local residents make little or no distinction between the military and paramilitary), the unjustified incarceration of small-miners and peasant organizations’ leadership, the state’s refusal to invest in local infrastructure and basic community services, the aerial spraying and manual eradication of coca, all serve one single purpose: to depopulate the region and appropriate the land, thus opening up the territory for mega mining and agro-industrial projects. In the context of the “War on Drugs” the repeated costly aerial spraying and/or eradication of coca and the resulting economic devastation makes no sense to the residents of the south of Bolivar, but in the context of a “War on Campesinos” everything begins to add up and fall into place.

It is hard to argue with them. And if they are right, American taxpayers are being duped into thinking that their hard-earned tax dollars are being spent to protect their local population from the scourge of cocaine addiction, while in fact the military objective all along was to appropriate the territory of  poor peasants, small-scale miners and loggers, and yes, small-scale coca cultivators –all in the name of Plan Colombia, economic development, and if powerful business and political interests have their way, a US–Colombia free trade agreement.

Please do what you can to protect the residents of south Bolivar’s right to life with dignity and their right to stay on their lands! Oppose Plan Colombia. Oppose the proposed Free Trade Deal with Colombia and neo-liberal economic development plans that marginalize and exclude the poor peasant farmers. Oppose military aid to Colombia. Oppose aerial spraying of coca crops. And insist that manual coca eradication always be accompanied by financial and social supports allowing which would allow cultivators to develop viable alternative crops such as coffee, cacao or sugarcane.

Urgent Action: Death threats sent to CPT partners and Human Rights organizations

On April 10^th 2008 several social and human rights organizations received a threatening email from a paramilitary group called "Águilas Negras, Bloque Norte de  Colombia" ( Black Eagles, North Division of Colombia) declaring as military targets (targeted for assassination) members of the Southern Bolivar Agricultural-Mining Federation (the Federation), Sembrar Corporation (a human rights organization), the Program for Development and Peace in the Middle Magdalena (Programa) and the parish priests of two rural communities, Tiquisio and Regidor, in southern Bolivar province.  CPT works in close partnership with these organizations and communities and asks that you respond to this call for action.

The email threat reads "We wish to warn you that as of this moment you are military targets of our organization and that your names are on the national government's list of undesirables who must be eliminated.  We, former combatants of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) believe that we must free our towns, neighborhoods and country from people like you… guerrilla fighters dressed as civilians."   

The threat comes shortly after the people mentioned in the email were gathered in Tiquisio for the Federation's regional assembly from March 26 to 30, 2008.  During this time the Colombian military and National Police tried on several occasions to enter the area where the assembly was being held in an effort to identify the leaders. The people gathered spoke with the authorities asking them to respect their space and right to gather.  After much pressure to enter the authorities left.  The military has assassinated several members of the Federation and community leaders in the Southern Bolivar region and then later claimed that they were guerrilla fighters killed in combat (see http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2006/09/29/colombia-urgent-action-ask-colombian-government-meet-miners).  The military has also mounted legal cases against leaders in the area to have them arrested and weaken the social struggle (see http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2007/04/28/colombia-miners039-federation-president-arrested).  CPT was present during the assembly and witnessed the threatening harassment from the police and military. 

The Federation assembly was followed by two days (April 1-2) of meetings in the city of Barrancabermeja between the Southern Bolivar Roundtable for Dialogue (composed of many other community processes including the Federation) and institutions of the local, regional and national governments.  Issues discussed were security in the region, legal and military harassment of leaders in the area and legal recognition of small miners among others.  During these meetings the government officials present said that "Due to the troubling human rights situation in the Southern Bolivar region the Ministry of Mining and the Governor of Bolivar commit to organizing a meeting as soon as possible with the office of the Vice-President, Attorney General's office… to deal with the problems and adopt measures to overcome the existing crisis."  To this date no meeting has been arranged and no measures have been taken to overcome the crisis.  CPT was also present during these two days of meetings with the Colombian government and witnessed the commitments made to the Roundtable. 

Given the seriousness of the threats we ask you to call, fax or email the Colombian authorities listed bellow to demand:

1. Security and freedom of the Southern Bolivar Agricultural-Mining Federation, Sembrar Corporation, the Program for Development and Peace in the Middle Magdalena (Programa) and the parish priests of the two rural communities of Tiquisio and Regidor, especially those directly mentioned. 
2. The calling of the meeting that was agreed to on April 2 2008.
3. An end to the military and judicial harassment of legitimate and legally constituted social and human rights organizations and church representatives in the Southern Bolivar province. 

Also we call upon all people to hold in prayer the people mentioned in the threats and all the residents of the Southern Bolivar region who live in fear of daily violence from armed actors or multinational companies who use the tools of war to exploit the wealth of the land. 

Phone calls or faxes are most effective, although they may be expensive and phone calls require fluency in Spanish. 

E-mail messages should be short and to the point.  Identify yourself and where you are from, and demand for a full investigation of the recent threats.

Sample letter in Spanish:

Respetado Dr. (or Coronel) ______________:

 
Reciba un saludo cordial de ____(your name)____ de ___(your state or province and country)___

 
Gracias por el trabajo que usted o su oficina esta haciendo para investigar las amenazas hechas en contra de la Federación Agrominera del Sur de Bolívar –Fedeagromisbol-, Corporaci­ón Sembrar, Programa de Desarrollo y Paz del Magdalena Medio organizaciones sociales defensoras de derechos humanos, que trabajan en el Sur de Bolívar y los sacerdotes de Regidor y Tiquisio Sur de Bolívar, el día 10 de abril de 2008 por el grupo paramilitar llamado "Águilas Negras." Tambi­­én quiero animarle que su gobierno trabaje decididamente en el desmonte real de los grupos paramilitares que amenazan, atentan y asesinan a los ciudadanos y ciudadanas que no comparten sus aberrantes métodos de control social.  

Solicito:

1. Que se garantice el derecho a la vida, libertad, integridad personal y asociación de los integrantes de la Federación Agrominera del Sur de Bolívar – Fedeagromisbol, la Corporación Sembrar, el Programa de Desarrollo y Paz del Magdalena Medio y los integrantes de las Diócesis de Magangue y Barrancabermeja, en especial los directamente amenazados.
2. Sean detenidamente investigados los hechos aquí denunciados, procediendo a la sanción de los autores de los mismos.
3.  Por parte del Procurador General de la Nación, se inicie, a la mayor brevedad la revisión y depuración de los archivos de inteligencia de la Fuerza Pública en la región, en tanto los mismos como hoy se evidencia, son un factor de riesgo para los habitantes de la región.
4. Se convoque a la mayor brevedad, la reunión que fue acordada con los delegados del Ministerio de Minas, Ingeominas y Gobernación de Bolívar en la ciudad de Barrancabermeja el pasado 2 de abril de 2008.

A través de mi apoyo a los Equipos Cristianos de Acción por la Paz, conozco los procesos comunitarios del Sur de Bolívar y me preocupa que estas últimas amenazas sean una forma de cerrar el espacio de construcción comunitaria que han ido ganando estas organizaciones.  

Por este motivo le pedimos que haga todo lo posible para investigar estos crímenes y llevar a justicia los responsables.

Muchas gracias por la atención prestada,

___(your name)____

Addresses:

Dr. Alvaro Uribe Velez
President of Colombia
Fax. 5662071
Email: auribe@...

Dr. Francisco Santos
Vice-president of Colombia
Email: fsantos@...

Dr. Carlos Franco
Director of Vice-presidency Human Rights Programs,
Fax: 011 (571) 565 97 97 ext. 744
E-Mail: cefranco@...

Dr. Juan Manuel Santos Calderón,
Defense Minister,
Email: siden@..., infprotocol@..., mdn@...

Dr. Mario Iguarán Arana
Fiscal General de la Nación (Attorney General)
Telephone:  011 (571) 570 20 00 Fax: 011 (571) 414 9108
E-Mail: denuncias@...

Dr. Edgardo Jose Maya Villazón
National Solicitor General
Telephone: 011 (571) 336 00 11
E-Mail: cap@..., quejas@...