Across the Americas - Cruzando las Américas | Através dos Americas | Acrooss e Amériques

History Repeats Itself For Indigenous Communities in Colombia

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:57:37 -0800

By Mario Murillo

(Bogotá, Colombia; October 14, 2008)

As I write this, over 12,000 indigenous activists and representatives of other popular and social sectors of southern Colombia are urgently congregating in the "Territory of Peace and Coexistence" in La Maria Piendamó, in Cauca, confronting a massive presence of state security forces who have been ordered to dislodge them.

Colombian Trade Unions Stand Up to Uribe’s State of Emergency

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:13:52 -0700

Faced with the situation generated by the declaration of a State of Emergency [lit. Interior Commotion], the CUT has met with trade unions and social organizations and as a result concluded that once again the Uribe Government seeks to take away the minimum democratic guarantees and, especially, strike down the trade union movement and other social organisations.

Betancourt makes emotional plea to EU parliament

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:50:08 -0700

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Former hostage Ingrid Betancourt made an emotional appeal to EU lawmakers Wednesday to work for the release of other captives, saying nations must drop long-held taboos against talking with terror groups.

She said isolating such groups made no sense anymore and did little to address root causes of terrorism such as poverty.

Betancourt said that seeking "dialogue was indispensable" to ending conflict. "When I say we have to negotiate with terrorists, I say it's the best way to save lives."

Bush Seen As Out of Touch on Latin America

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 21:37:38 -0700

by Ali Gharib

(IPS) -The policies of the George W. Bush administration lag behind public opinion on a host of issues relating to Latin America, according to a new poll of likely voters across the U.S.

The poll, released Friday by Zogby International, polled over 2,700 people and found that most of them are in favour of revising policies towards Cuba and think the "war on drugs" is a failing effort.

The Andean Forum in Response to Large Mining: Community, Indigenous and Worker Alternatives

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 07:27:59 -0700

The Bogotá Declaration, September 27 2008

Following a broad debate, peoples and indigenous communities from the Andean and Amazonian region, mining workers, small and medium miners in Colombia, together with social movements and fraternal organizations from Guatemala and the United States, who have coexisted ancestrally with mountains and clear waters according to ways of life founded on a good life for all that is both complementary and values reciprocity and who are today affected by mining and brought together by the Andean Forum in response Large Scale Mining, declare:

The Battle Over PEMEX

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 09:44:16 -0700

by Rick Arnold, Common Frontiers coordinator *

Mexicans vote to continue their public ownership

On July 27th more than one and a half million Mexicans in nine states and the capital city voted on proposed legislation that would see Mexico’s nationalized energy sector opened up to foreign investment. Over 80% voted against President Calderon's privatization plans in the first of three consultations, with the next two scheduled for August 10 and 24. In Mexico City 826,000 people cast their ballots at some 5,600 voting booths. In the nine participating states, with results still trickling in from remote areas, a similar number of voters had turned thumbs down on the government's pending legislation.

Regarding "The Return Directive"

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:55:50 -0700

by Evo Morales Ayma, President of the Republic of Bolivia

Until the end of the Second World War, Europe was a continent of emigrants. Tens of millions of Europeans came to the Americas to colonize, escape
hunger, financial crisis, wars, European totalitarianisms and the persecutions of ethnic minorities.

Today, I am following with deep concern the approval process of the so-called "Return Directive". The text, validated on June the 5th by the Home Affairs Ministers of the 27 European Union countries, has to be voted on June 18th in the European Parliament. I consider that it drastically hardens the detention and expulsion conditions of undocumented immigrants, regardless of the length of their stay in the European countries, their employment situation, their family ties, their will or their achieved integration.

HSA Bulletin June 6, 2008

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:42:43 -0700

HEMISPHERIC SOCIAL ALLIANCE
ALIANZA SOCIAL CONTINENTAL
http://www.asc-hsa.org

1) The new referendums in Bolivia were marked by a high level of abstention
2) Peru’s proposal about Decision 486 will be voted on June 21st
3) Ecuador: An audit of the external debt continues
4) Mexico: Food for Mexico’s campesinos: Hunger doesn’t wait
5) Central America: U.S. objectives move forward in Plan Puebla Panama and the Mérida initiative
6) Colombia: Government represses indigenous social mobilization with lethal weapons

Evo Morales’ 10 Commandments to save the Planet

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:17:11 -0700

(PL and ABI New York, April 21, 2008) -- Bolivian President Evo Morales said today that to save the planet requires putting an end to the capitalist model and for the North to pay its Ecological Debt. This was the first of 10 points presented by Morales at the inauguration of the UN’s VII Indigenous Forum, in a long address acclaimed by participants at this annual gathering.

Morales Ayma proposed 10 commandment to save the world, life, and all of humanity, making reference to respect for the earth, renouncing war, bilateral relations without impositions, water and land as human rights, clean energy, no to biofuels, basic services, prioritizing what is produced locally, promoting cultural diversity, and the notion of "living well" through communitarian socialism and in harmony with mother Earth.

The president affirmed that there remain two paths toward saving humanity, life, and the plant Earth: either recovering a way of life in harmony with mother Earth and all of life, or following the path of capitalism and death.

Morales insisted that the only way to save the world is to put an end to this way of thinking that promotes individualist selfishness and a thirst for profits. He asked indigenous peoples, peasants and governments of the world to consume what is necessary, giving priority to what is produced locally and avoiding waste and luxury.

What does "NAFTA-gate" mean for social movements?

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 10:27:59 -0700

by Blair Redlin March 13, 2008

On March 5 – the day after the Ohio Democratic primary in which the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was such a vote determining issue – activists, legislators and academics from Mexico, the U.S. and Canada gathered at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington D.C. to take a critical look at NAFTA and the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) and what might be done about them.

Why Marmato is Being Displaced

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:22:32 -0800

Regarding a large-scale gold mining project in Colombia
by Jorge Enrique Robledo. Bogotá, 11 January, 2008

Millions of Colombians are living at risk. For decades, every winter, more and more inhabited areas are flooded and face crushing landslides, while others await catastrophe at the base of active volcanoes and occupy buildings constructed without anti-seismic techniques, constituting 80 percent of the total. In Armero, 25,000 people died in a foretold slaughter that could have easily been averted. In Manizales, for example, 2,700 homes were constructed on mountains that should never have been developed. Not one person has been held responsible for many disasters described as "natural" but which, in reality, are political and social and manipulated in impassioned appeals to the public's emotions, ignoring the victims.

Bogotá continues to the left

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:56:25 -0800

Nov 4, 2007 -- The leftist Alternative Democratic Pole held on to the mayoral office in the Colombian capital with the Oct. 28 election of former Sen. Samuel Moreno Rojas.

Moreno, grandson of former dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (1953-57), captured 43.7 percent of the votes despite attacks from President Álvaro Uribe, who supported right-wing candidate Enrique Peñalosa, who served as Bogota’s mayor between 1998-2000. Peñalosa won just 28 percent.

Pelosi, Hoyer, Rangel, and Levin Statement on Trade: "We cannot support the Colombia FTA at this time"

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 16:35:40 -0700

06/29/2007 -- “We believe there must first be concrete evidence of sustained results on the ground in Colombia, and Members of Congress will continue working with all interested parties to help achieve this end before consideration of any FTA. Consequently, we cannot support the Colombia FTA at this time." Read the full statement.

Colombia’s President Uribe and the Para Scandal

Tue, 15 May 2007 11:43:36 -0700

This analysis was prepared by COHA Senior Research Fellow Dr. W John Green, May 15th, 2007, http://www.coha.org

Just months after Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Vélez’s landslide re-election in May 2006, some critics began pointing to ‘cracks in the pedestal’ of his popularity. The ongoing brouhaha surrounding the evident connections between the Uribe government and the paramilitary organizations, however, make that claim seem like so much wishful thinking. Uribe’s millions of supporters have long been aware of his ties to the paramilitaries but have chosen to ignore them, though they realize that they made a deal with the Devil. Without question, a majority of voting Colombians want to stay the course.

More than complicated

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 12:15:19 -0700

by Alfredo Molano, elespectador.com, 04/05/07. Translated to English by CIP.

Looking ahead, the way that big businessmen do, the Pacific coast and the eastern plains are the country's most promising regions in terms of value and profitability, taking into account the FTA [free trade agreement] and the paramilitaries' “reinsertion.” Or as the youngsters in Planning [the presidency's Department of Planning] might say, in the future soybeans, oil palm, corn, and sugarcane should displace the obsolete extensive cattle-ranching, bananas and basic food crops. And this project has been underway for several years now.