President Uribe
McCain's visit to Colombia
The Colombia Action Network is issuing the following call for protests at John McCain's campaign events and at the Republican National Convention, September 1-4 in St. Paul, MN. McCain arrived in Colombia on Tuesday and is promoting his close relationship to death squad leader Colombian President Uribe as a campaign issue. Drummond and the US have Blood on their Hands! Stop Plan Colombia!
In northwestern Colombia in 2001, the president and vice president of the mining union Sintramienergetica were taken off a Drummond bus and shot to death by paramilitary death squads hired by the corporation. Later that year, paramilitaries also killed the new president. These men were all killed during negotiations with Drummond.
NPR: Colombia Tied to Paramilitary Murders of Unionists
Colombia's intelligence services compiled lists of union activists and gave them to right-wing paramilitaries, who then carried out assassinations, according to captured documents and a key witness.
The U.S. Congress is considering a proposed trade agreement with Colombia, and news of the government-paramilitary collaboration has put passage of that legislation in further jeopardy.
Aerial fumigation is contributing to the worst recent humanitarian crisis in Colombia, experts say
The Colombian Department of Nariño is experiencing one of the worst protection and humanitarian assistance crisis since Colombian President Alvaro Uribe began his second term in office. The U.S. financed aerial herbicide spray program (fumigations) compounds and exacerbates the myriad of hardships that Afro-Colombian communities are already facing: racism, disadvantaged access to state programs, food insecurity due to the internal armed conflict, internal displacement and vulnerability to human rights violations by the armed groups.
Condemn the Repression of Campesino Activists
The Colombia Action Network has signed onto this letter circulating in
support for the Cimitarra River Valley Peasant Association. The CAN was
hosted by the CRVPA in 2004 & 2005 on delegations to Colombia. The letter
and the report from the International Peace Observatory explain the
repression faced by the CRVPA.
- Meredith Aby for the CAN
colombiasolidarity.org
Dear President Uribe:
We are writing to you today to express our deep concern for the present
situation of the civilian population and farmers' organizations in the
Antioquian Northeast, the Cimitarra River Valley and the Sur de Bolívar
