Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America

[Joanne98]

A Response to the Muder of Raúl Reyes in Ecuador
Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America
By JAMES J. BRITTAIN
and R. JAMES SACOUMAN

A few weeks after the Ecuadorian and Venezuelan state called on the Colombian government to respect the need for peace and negotiation with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP), the administration of Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010) supported an extensive armed air and land assault against the insurgency movement--not within Colombia's borders but rather on the sovereign territory of Ecuadorian soil.

On 1 March, 2008 the Colombian state, under the leadership of Uribe and Vice-President Francisco Santos Calderón (and his cousin Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos), illegally deployed a military campaign within Ecuador, which resulted in the deaths of Raúl Reyes, Julian Conrado, and fifteen other combatants associated with the FARC-EP. Such actions are a clear display of the (US-backed) Colombian state's open negation of international codes of conduct, law, and social justice.

The actions of Saturday 1 March took place days before a major international demonstration scheduled for 6 March, 2008. Promoted by The National Movement of Victims of State-Sponsored Crimes (MOVICE), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), and countless social justice-based organizations, March 6th has been set as an international day of protest against those tortured, murdered, and disappeared by the Colombian state, their allies within the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) and the newly reformed Black Eagles. Recently, President Uribe's top political adviser, José Obdulio Gaviria, proclaimed that the protest and protesters should be criminalized. In addition, paramilitaries in the southwestern department of Nariño (not far from where the illegal incursions were carried out in Ecuador), have threatened to attack any organization or person associated with the activities scheduled for Thursday.

It is believed that the Uribe and Santos administration is utilizing the slaughter of Comandante Raúl Reyes and others as a method to deter activists and socially conscious peoples within and outside Colombia from participating in the March 6th events. Numerous state-controlled or connected media outlets, such as El Tiempo (which has long-standing ties to the Santos family), have been parading photographs of the bullet ridden and mutilated corpse of Raúl Reyes throughout the country's communications mediums. Such propaganda is clearly a tool to psychologically intimidate those preparing to demonstrate against the atrocities perpetrated by the state over the past seven years.
http://www.counterpunch.org/brittain03042008.html

[islandmkl]

1. it's a small world...

i was Juan Santos' room-mate as freshmen in college...

[bemildred]

2. Nicaragua says Colombia is a threat to region

MANAGUA, March 3 (Reuters) - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a former leftist guerrilla fighter, accused Colombia on Monday of becoming a threat to Latin America by killing a top rebel commander in Ecuador and disputing territory.

Colombian troops killed Raul Reyes, the No. 2 of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, on Saturday, in a severe blow to Latin America's oldest guerrilla insurgency.

Reyes was killed in Ecuador in an operation that included air strikes and fighting with rebels across the border.

"Colombia is becoming a factor of ... uncertainty for Latin America," said Ortega, a former Marxist revolutionary and U.S. Cold War foe who was voted back to power in late 2006.

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN04420712

[bobthedrummer]

3. The Colombia Documentation Project

from The National Security Archive

"The National Security Archive's Colombia Project seeks to identify and obtain the release of documents from secret government archives on United States policy in Colombia and to disseminate these records through publications, conferences and the Archive's web site.

Major themes of the project include security assistance, human rights, impunity and counternarcotics programs."

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/colombia/index.htm

[Judi Lynn]

5. Very interesting learning what was actually discussed at that meeting during Pastrana's Presidency.

Good to see a complaint noted in official documents concerning the fact information published for public consumption about the Colombian conflict as represented by the corporate media has been invariably untrue. DU'ers have known this forever.

Thanks for discovering and sharing this document so quickly.

[judasdisney]

4. Uribe's got death squads & mass graves. Chavez doesn't.

Imagine if Hugo Chavez or Evo Morales or Rafael Correa had mass-graves of their own citizens (as Colombia & Alvaro Uribe do).

Imagine if Hugo Chavez or Evo Morales or Rafael Correa had military-linked Death Squads (as Colombia & Alvaro Uribe do).

Imagine if Hugo Chavez or Evo Morales or Rafael Correa had violated a neighboring country's borders, as Uribe just did.

Where's Simon Romero, Larry Rohter or Juan Forero of the New York Times? They write hit-pieces on Chavez once per week.

Where's Ian James or Christopher Toothaker of the Associated Press? They write hit-pieces on Chavez twice a week, sometimes more.

Next time you hear the attacks on any Latin American democratically-elected leader, ask them about Uribe's death squads and mass graves.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Those names are attached to absolutely dishonest writing. What a knife in the back they are to the

purpose of journalism. They only serve as right-wing propaganda outlets. No integrity whatsoever. Not a shred.

Welcome to D.U., judasdisney. :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: