Statement on the RNC from the Colombia Action Network:

March on the RNC: Stop the war on Iraq! End Plan Colombia!

The Colombia Action Network encourages the Latin America solidarity movement to come to St. Paul, Minnesota on September 1, 2008 to demonstrate against the Republican Party agenda towards Latin America & Iraq.

The U.S. role in Colombia:
Since 2000, the U.S. has spent almost 5 billion dollars funding a right wing government that uses our dollars to kill trade unionists, human rights workers, and campesinos (peasants). The paramilitaries are armed, trained, and directed by the Colombian military and their U.S. Military advisors. The paramilitaries are funded by Colombian and American narco-traffickers and U.S. corporations like Coca-Cola, Chiquita, Drummond Coal and Occidental Oil. Colombian graduates of the SOA commit war crimes and atrocities against peasants, workers, and Leftists. Their paramilitary cohorts cut off the heads of peasants with machetes and dismember bodies with chain saws to display as a warning to other people.

No Blood for Oil!
As in Iraq, Colombia has oil. A substantial amount of the oil the U.S. uses comes from México, Venezuela and Colombia. Corporations like BP Amoco and Occidental Oil want to increase their holdings in Colombia, however it is not a 'safe place for investment' due to its long-standing civil war in which the FARC are gaining. The FARC, other guerilla armies, and the local social movements feel that Colombians should receive the economic benefits of their natural resources, not U.S. corporations. Because of this they use a variety of tactics to fight against the oil industry's expansion into new territory – and the theft of indigenous and campesino lands.

In addition, U.S. corporations are stealing more than just the oil of Colombia. Colombia is rich in minerals and agricultural products– including coal, emeralds, silver, bananas, and other fru its, and the Amazon rainforest is rich in water sources and medicinal plants. Colombia is rich in minerals – including coal, and the Amazon rainforest is rich in water sources and medicinal plants. U.S. corporations want a free trade agreement (FTA) to make it harder for Colombia to have sovereignty over their resources and therefore easier for the corporations to exploit those resources. A free trade agreement would also further weaken Colombian labor and environmental protections.

The Republican agenda: An agenda for war!
The Republican Party has a track record of warfare in both Afghanistan and Iraq. However, their bloody foreign policy is not exclusively in the Middle East. Although Plan Colombia was a Democrat initiative, the Republicans have made it their own plan for war. The Republican Party has loudly defended Colombian President Uribe from charges that his government violates human rights. Presidential candidates, including Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, have called for closer US – Colombian relations and an expedited FTA – despite international exposure of Uribe's government's connections to paramilitary death squads. Republicans have thwarted the Latin America solidarity movements efforts to close the School of the Americas. This party has defended the use of torture in Iraq, at the SOA, and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Lastly, they are committed to continuing the attacks on Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez. The attacks on Chavez' attack the entire Bolivarian Revolution and the great gains made under Chavez for the people. The U.S. has built three military bases on Colombia's border with Venezuela to threaten Venezuela's progress. The Republican Party justifies increased cooperation with Colombia in the form of continued military aid and an FTA with Colombia, Panama & Peru because of the 'danger' of Chavez.

March on the RNC!
The people of Colombia, like the people of Iraq, need us in the streets protesting at the Republican Convention. We need to stop the U.S. sponsored war in their country, to stop spending working peoples tax dollars to prop up a corrupt narco-trafficking regime.

The American public is increasingly aware of the U.S. atrocities in Iraq and becoming more adamantly anti-war. This public outrage will manifest itself at the RNC. We have an opportunity to educate the 100,000 plus people who will come to St. Paul, MN to demonstrate at the RNC about how the U.S.' effort in Iraq is not the only example of this country's quest for empire causing death and destruction.

Your organization can see the call and endorse the demonstration at protestrnc2008.org. Consider organizing a bus, vans or a car caravan to the demonstration. Lastly, please bring literature, signs, and a table to promote awareness about the U.S.' role in Latin America.

Colombia Action Network * info@colombiasolidarity.org * colombiasolidarity.org