The Struggle Against U.S. Military Bases in Colombia: Solidarity Delegation Members Report Back

Upon returning from their August 2009 solidarity delegation to Colombia, students and trade unionists from Colombia Action Network and Campaign for Labor Rights are giving media interviews and touring campuses, trade union halls, and churches across the country to spread the message of solidarity with the Colombian people, share eyewitness reports about the facts on the ground in Colombia, and build the movement to halt the proposed seven U.S. military bases in Colombia.

“I knew what I heard in the U.S. media about the benefits of U.S. tax money and aid to Colombia was true only for the rich. I wanted to see for myself what the reality is for Colombians,” said Jeremy Miller, a member of the Colombian Action Network when explaining his decision to go on the delegation.

Hosted by Colombia’s largest farmer and farm worker union, FENSUAGRO, the two groups comprised of six U.S. delegates and one Canadian delegate traveled for ten days in August throughout rural Colombia as well as Cali and Bogotá. They learned about the people's struggles against the U.S.-Colombia FTA, Plan Colombia, and the proposed U.S.-Colombian military bases.

“I was shocked to hear the stories of the university students in Bogotá. They are doing the same kind of activism we are here in the U.S., but because of it, they are facing death threats, they are being imprisoned or assassinated,” said delegation member Sarah Buchner of Students for a Democratic Society.

Colombia is the recipient of billions of dollars in U.S. military aid and its government has one of the worst human rights records in the world. The Uribe government maintains its grip on power through tactics of repression and fear. Working hand-in-hand with paramilitary forces, the Uribe government has attacked and killed members from Colombia's vibrant social movements - labor organizers, peasant farmers, student activists, and many others.

The U.S. military aid project, Plan Colombia, is a failure. That is why the U.S. is now proposing to take over 7 military bases and run the war directly. The Colombian military disgraced itself with the 1200 "false-positives" - they murdered men and then dressed them up as FARC guerrilla fighters to try to demonstrate "success" in the war against the FARC. Now the U.S. is trying to take further control of the dirty war and run it more directly, instead of giving money to Colombia's corrupt government and military.

The delegation met with farmers, farm workers, political prisoners, students, and human rights activists and lawyers, and heard testimony from Afro-Colombian Communities, displaced peoples and communities, and many that had experienced paramilitary violence first-hand. The delegation met with leaders and rank-and-file organizers in the Colombian people's struggles, and has a broad range of perspectives about the effects of U.S. intervention in Colombia.

Members of the delegation are available for interviews: please contact us.