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

US builds up its bases in oil-rich South America

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:09:16 -0800

From the Caribbean to Brazil, political opposition to US plans for 'full-spectrum operations' is escalating rapidly

by Hugh O'Shaughness, The Independent. Monday, November 23, 2009

The United States is massively building up its potential for nuclear and non-nuclear strikes in Latin America and the Caribbean by acquiring unprecedented freedom of action in seven new military, naval and air bases in Colombia. The development – and the reaction of Latin American leaders to it – is further exacerbating America's already fractured relationship with much of the continent.

Address by Miguel d'Escoto to the U.N. responding to the Coup in Honduras

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:24:38 -0700

To the Plenary Session on the Situation in Honduras
UN Headquarters , New York, 29 June 2009

Excellencies,

It is with a heavy heart and deep personal outrage that I open this plenary session to consider the coup d’etat that interrupted the democratic and constitutional rule of President Manuel Zelaya in the Republic of Honduras yesterday, the 28th of June.

The Dark Side of Plan Colombia

Thu, 28 May 2009 15:03:06 -0700

Is Plan Colombia subsidizing narco-traffickers to cultivate biofuels on stolen lands?

By Teo Ballvé
The Nation, May 27, 2009

On May 14 Colombia's attorney general quietly posted notice on his office's website of a public hearing that will decide the fate of Coproagrosur, a palm oil cooperative based in the town of Simití in the northern province of Bolívar. A confessed drug-trafficking paramilitary chief known as Macaco had turned over to the government the cooperative's assets, which he claims to own, as part of a victim reparations program.

SIGN PETITION TO STOP THE CANADA-COLOMBIA FTA!

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:59:58 -0700

April 17, 2009

Dear friends:

The Canadian Parliament is about to consider ratification of a “free trade” agreement with Colombia. The text of the agreement is nearly identical to the US-Colombia trade agreement and would have the same kinds of disastrous consequences for millions of Colombians.

Big gold mining interests are destroying Marmato

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:24:28 -0800

Jorge Enrique Robledo, Bogotá, January 16, 2009

On November 13, at the time when the Mining Company of Caldas owed
salaries and benefits to its workers, a number of trucks arrived at the facilities owned by the Canadian transnational Colombia Goldfields to haul off to Medellín the "calculating equipment, furniture, implements, materials and the rest". The reason? To sell them to the highest bidder to pay off --according to the company-- their labor and commercial debts. In the following days they abandoned their operations in Marmato and fired the last of 200 workers, without honoring their commitment to pay on December 10 many of these workers for services rendered.

Awas unite to fend off threats

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:20:27 -0800

by Luis Ángel Saavedra
1/22/2009
Indigenous groups on both sides of the border need each other to protect their land and autonomy.

Members of the Awa indigenous people of northern Ecuador and southern Colombia say that despite the political border dividing them they need each other to fight a common threat: the appropriation of their lands.

Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, gives her opinions about Colombia

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:17:23 -0800

During her confirmation hearing last week before the Senate, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the following about Colombia when questioned by Republican Senator Richard Lugar.

January 21, 2009

Please provide your views regarding President’s Álvaro Uribe’s desire to continue in power for a third consecutive term

Hillary Clinton: As you are aware, the Colombian Congress is in the process of addressing the question of re-election. I do not believe it is proper for the United States to attempt to dictate the result of any internal democratic process in the region.

Colombia and Venezuela: Testing the Propaganda Model

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:40:23 -0800

Dec 19 2008
Kevin Young – Media Accuracy on Latin America (MALA)

U.S. news coverage of parallel political events in Colombia and Venezuela offers an opportunity to test the usefulness of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s “propaganda model,” developed in their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (Pantheon, reissued 2002). The model predicts that the news media will look favorably upon the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe, a close U.S. ally, while consistently vilifying the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez, whom the U.S. government frequently identifies as an antagonist. If the model holds, U.S. media outlets will be found to portray the Uribe government as relatively democratic, progressive, and peaceful, while casting the Chávez government as authoritarian, regressive, and militaristic.

Colombia Indians face down violence

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 18:44:27 -0800

By Chris Kraul
January 11, 2009

Rebels, drug traffickers, and soldiers may battle around them and encroach on their lands, but tribes hold on to their peaceful ways to resolve conflicts.

COLOMBIA: Secret Documents Show US Aware of Army Killings in 1990s

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:55:35 -0800

By Constanza Vieira

BOGOTA, Jan 12 (IPS) - Declassified U.S. documents show that the CIA and former U.S. ambassadors were fully aware, as far back as 1990, that the military in Colombia -- the third largest recipient of U.S. aid after Israel and Egypt -- were committing extrajudicial killings as part of "death squad tactics."

Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi from Colombian Organizations

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:45:33 -0800

November 20, 2008

Congresswoman
NANCY PELOSI
Speaker of the House of Representatives

The network of Colombian organizations that have signed this letter would like to express our thanks and recognition of your concern for and interest in Colombia, in particular in relation to human rights, as expressed by your decision to postpone indefinitely the debate in the US Congress around the Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

The Walk of Our Word: Colombia Will Walk the Minga!

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:40:30 -0800

Translation of the Final Working Document from the Social and Community Minga in Colombia

November 21, 2008
Bogotá, Colombia

The Minga LIVES, may the MINGA LIVE! We call for a Colombia of the people without owners; all the wisdom, all the pain, all the experience, all the words, all our grandmothers and our memories guide us. We are going to live because we are forever tired of the pain, death and greed of those that
continue to rob us of a life of peace.

Ecuador Defaults on Foreign Debt

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 08:27:26 -0800

Written by Daniel Denvir, 12 December 2008 *

Rafael Correa declared on Friday that Ecuador would not make a $30.6 million interest payment on $510 million in bonds due in 2012, calling the debt illegal.

The default on the Global Bonus 2012 bonds means that Ecuador is also defaulting on Global 2015 and 2030 bonds. The default totals $9.937 billion, 19 percent of the country's GDP. Ecuador has assembled a legal team to fight expected lawsuits and hopes to use the default as leverage to renegotiate the debts.

Indigenous People Rising: Historic Changes Across Latin America

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 21:35:51 -0800

By James Cockcroft
Counterpunch, Weekend Edition, November 28-30, 2008

Indigenous peoples in Indo-Afro-Latin America, especially Bolivia and Ecuador, are rising up to take control of their own lives and act in solidarity with others to save the planet. They are calling for new, yet ancient, practices of plurinational, participatory, and intercultural democracy. They champion ecologically sustainable development; community-based autonomies; and solidarity with other peoples locally, regionally, and internationally – what they describe as “unity in diversity.” Their values are often different than those of the United States or Europe. One indigenous leader has stated: “We give what money we have not to banks to collect interest but to others – and their gratitude is the interest we receive.”

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.