Colombia the mask has slipped

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia the mask has slipped
Tuesday 12th Nov 2013

MARIELA KOHON says despite an international charm offensive the Manuel Santos regime is continuing to persecute peaceful protesters and violently repress trade unionists and activists

The progressive mask of Colombia's Juan Manuel Santos administration has been torn away by recent events.

On August 25 Huber Ballesteros, a renowned trade union leader, member of the Colombian TUC executive and a leading organiser of the Patriotic March opposition movement was arrested the day before he was due to pick up his visa to travel to address Britain's TUC conference as a guest of Justice for Colombia.

He joins some 7,000 political prisoners held in horrendous conditions in Colombian prisons, a living example of the way that the Colombian state represses critical views.

He has been accused of rebellion and terrorism. His only crime is to have organised Colombian workers.

More:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-665d-In-Colombia-the-mask-has-slipped#.UopG8urnbJU

[Vincardog]

1. Is it a crime is to organize Colombian workers?

[Judi Lynn]

2. It's a crime as far as the corporations, and the bribed politicians are concerned,

and apparently considered a crime, too, by the professional ghouls they all hire to murder them, the paramilitaries.

This is always foretold in the many death threats they deliver first, of course, to their victims, to put them through hell, along with their families, as they practice their psychological torture before they move in for closer terrorization and the actual murder.

Creating as much terror as possible along with the murders is always part of the plan, in order to send the message to the community of human beings who might, themselves, consider stepping forward to fill the shoes of the deceased out of outrage, a need for revenge, or simply because they know it's right.

[Bacchus4.0]

3. no, its not. It is a crime to finance the FARC though and that is the accusation

against him. Whether he did that or these are trumped up charges, I do not know, but it is definitely a crime to finance an insurgency whose goal is to overthrow the government.

[Vincardog]

4. It is a crime to try to overthrow any government?

[Bacchus4.0]

5. I'm talking about the legitimate democratically elected government of Colombia

and Colombia only.