URUGUAY: ECO-PROTESTS ROCK IBERO-AMERICAN SUMMIT

from Weekly News Update on the Americas:

On Nov. 3, environmentalists in the cities of Gualeguaychu and Colon in the eastern Argentine province of Entre Rios blocked the border bridges leading to Uruguay to protest continuing efforts to build a paper pulp mill in Fray Bentos, on the Uruguayan shore of the river that divides the two countries. The protesters in Gualeguaychu built a wall of brick and cement on national highway 136, 15 kilometers from the border bridge, to symbolize the hard position taken by the Finnish company Botnia and by the governments and international institutions in refusing to halt construction of the pulp mill. Environmentalists say the project will contaminate the river and the surrounding ecosystem and destroy the livelihoods of local residents. (La Jornada, Mexico, Nov. 4, 5; El Nuevo Herald, Miami, Nov. 4 from AP) The Spanish company Ence has already backtracked in its plans to build a similar pulp mill along the river.

The action was timed to coincide with the Nov. 3 inauguration of the 16th Iberoamerican Summit in Montevideo, where the Spanish government tried to initiate a dialogue between Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez and Argentine president Nestor Kirchner; the two leaders’ relations have been significantly chilled by the paper mill conflict. In Gualeguaychu, two protesters dressed up as Vazquez and Kirchner cut the tape to inaugurate the symbolic wall. Later in the evening, several assembly members from Gualeguaychu spoke on the radio, inviting the heads of state from the summit to attend “a meeting that’s more fun, and with faces that are less sad, on the banks of the Uruguay river, where there are still birds and life.”

Hundreds of local residents came on Nov. 4 to see the symbolic wall and support the anti-pulp mill protests. The protesters expected to end their blockade and take down the wall after the summit ended on Nov. 4, but they said they would keep carrying out actions until they get results. (LJ, Nov. 4, 5)

In Montevideo, some 400 activists from leftist and grassroots groups took part in a Nov. 3 mobilization against the summit. They marched to the “security zone” and faced off against a heavy contingent of riot police. There were only a few minor incidents. (Uruguay Indymedia, Nov. 4; LJ, Nov. 4)

The 22 participating countries closed the Iberoamerican Summit on Nov. 4 with the approval of a 45-point consensus statement protesting both the US embargo against Cuba and a new US law—signed by President George W. Bush on Oct. 26—which authorizes construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border. “We consider the building of walls to be a practice incompatible with relations of friendship and cooperation among states,” read the statement. “We believe that the construction of walls doesn’t stop undocumented migration, the flow of migrants or the trafficking of people; it incites discrimination and xenophobia and favors the emergence of groups of traffickers who put people in greater danger.” (LJ, Nov. 5)

Argentine foreign minister Jorge Taiana spoke at the summit about his country’s “Great Homeland” program, which allows any citizens of the expanded Mercosur trade area to regularize their immigration status in Argentina simply by showing proof of their nationality. They are then eligible for the same benefits and rights as Argentines. The expanded Mercosur area includes Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. (LJ, Nov. 4)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Nov. 5

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Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also:

WW4 REPORT #126, October 2006
/node/2580

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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Dec. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingURUGUAY: ECO-PROTESTS ROCK IBERO-AMERICAN SUMMIT 

BOLIVIA: WHITHER NATIONALIZATION?

Still Waiting for Public Control of Hydrocarbons

by Gretchen Gordon, Upside Down World

On May 1, the day the Bolivian government announced the “nationalization” of the country’s vast oil and gas reserves, I went out to witness the symbolic takeover of a former Bolivian refinery that was privatized in the late 1990s.

A cheering crowd looked on as a young employee of Bolivia’s state oil and gas company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), strung a YPFB banner over the metal letters spelling out the name of the Brazilian company Petrobras. Another banner hung on the front gate proclaimed “Nationalized: Property of Bolivia.”

The Gualberto Villaroel refinery on the outskirts of the city of Cochabamba is emblematic of Bolivia’s radical oil and gas privatization a decade past, and the recent faltering attempts of the current government to recover state control of this its most valuable resource.

Last week, five months after President Evo Morales’ nationalization decree, I went back to the refinery to see how things have progressed.

Standing on the entrance road of the refinery complex, David Zambrana, a worker in YPFB’s industrialization division, gives me the lay of the land. Surrounding us are the massive round tanks where unprocessed gas and liquid materials are stored, a building where gas for household cooking is bottled in small yellow tanks, various administrative offices and the heart of the complex—a giant fuels and lubricants plant.

“This is YPFB’s, this swath here,” says Zambrana, pointing to a cluster of offices and the gas bottling facility. “All the storage tanks back there and this part here belong to another company, CLHB.” Turning to face what looks like a small city of metal ducts and steam, he points to the massive fuels and lubricants plant. “That over the fence, that’s Petrobras.”

We’re standing in the middle of three different entities that before Bolivia’s oil and gas privatization were all part of YPFB, the country’s most profitable public enterprise. The boundaries are visibly awkward, having no logic in the industrial landscape of a refinery where the functions of storage, refining and bottling are all inter-dependent.

As we walk up to take a picture through the metal fence around Petrobras’ fuels plant, a worker from across the drive whistles and waves us away. Zambrana calls to him. “They‚re just taking a picture of the sign. The ‘access restricted’ caught their attention,” he says, a hint of defiance in his voice.

The privatization of Bolivia’s oil and gas industry during the 1990s was part of an ambitious economic overhaul, a condition of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) restructuring plans implemented by the government of then-President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. Along with five other key state industries, YPFB’s exploration, drilling and transportation operations were turned over to private foreign control. A few years later, the subsequent government of Hugo Banzer completed the dissolution of YPFB by selling off the country’s refineries and pipelines at bargain prices. Brazilian Petrobras paid $114 million for the Cochabamba refinery and an additional refinery in Santa Cruz. Zambrana argues that if you subtract the millions of dollars in materials, gas and derivatives thrown in for free, Petrobras actually only paid $50 million to control 90% of Bolivia’s refining capacity—the rights, the land, the machinery, even YPFB staff.

“The land alone is worth more than that,” says Zambrana. “Basically, we gave it away.”

When Sánchez de Lozada sold his privatization plan to the people of Bolivia, they were promised a road to prosperity and were assured that the Bolivian government would remain in the driver’s seat. Instead, through a series of backroom deals with foreign corporations, Bolivians watched as someone else drove off with their gas.

It was this clash between promises and reality that ignited the explosive popular demand for nationalization that brought down two Bolivian governments in the last three years and made possible Evo Morales’ historic election victory last December.

Morales’ nationalization decree promised to rewrite history, to use the second-largest natural gas reserves in South America to flip the fortunes of this, its poorest country.

Functionally, the decree includes several components: an industry-wide audit of oil and gas companies operating in Bolivia; the re-negotiation of export prices with Argentina and Brazil; increased production taxes on the country’s two most productive gas fields; and the re-negotiation of all foreign oil and gas contracts. The crux of the decree, however, is the rebuilding of YPFB into a functioning company active in all aspects of the chain of production, from exploration to commercialization. YPFB’s rebirth is to be made possible by purchasing a majority shareholding in the five different consortiums that once made up the state company, but which are now under private control.

In Bolivia’s nationalization media show back on May 1, soldiers marched in to secure oil and gas fields, and “Nationalized” banners were unraveled. The government was quick to claim victory: “This is the third and definitive nationalization of oil and gas,” announced President Morales. “We’ve completed what we promised.”

“From today onward the oil and gas will belong to all Bolivians. Never again will it be in the hands of the transnational corporations,” assured Vice President Alvaro García Linera.

The international media was more than willing to corroborate the government’s story with reports of the “seizure” of oil and gas fields and corporate assets—and warnings of mass capital flight.

As I watched outside the refinery that May Day, a Bolivian brass band played while Saul Escalera, an YPFB engineer, calmly closed out the evening and dispatched the crowd. “We have now recovered this refinery—You may now all return home.”

Five months later, the soldiers have left the gas fields. The YPFB directors overseeing the “nationalized” companies have gone back to their offices. The government has not been able to reach an agreement with private investors to buy back majority control of any of the former YPFB entities. Government regulators have had difficulty inspecting private oil and gas facilities and gaining access to financial records necessary for the audits. YPFB suffered a political scandal, and the oil and gas minister resigned, citing frustration with the lack of progress in implementing the decree.

With the October 27 deadline for the re-negotiation of contracts fast approaching, the Achilles heal of the government’s policy has been laid bare. Rather than expropriate the privatized industry, the government tried to negotiate its “nationalization.” And those negotiations have not gone very well.

Critics on the Bolivian left attribute the lack of progress to the moderate nature of the government’s approach, which technically isn’t a nationalization at all. They argue that without an expropriation, YPFB is left without capital or infrastructure and is therefore unable to be a producer, or even an effective regulator. It has no real control, and must haggle for every inch of change. From the most critical viewpoint, the country’s most valuable resource is just as firmly in the hands of foreign corporations as before, and the desperate hope of many Bolivians—that they might finally benefit from the wealth beneath their feet—remains unfulfilled.

Driving around the perimeter of the refinery along a dusty unpaved road, we approach the back of Petrobras‚ territory to take a photo of several holding tanks on the other side of the fence, Zambrana exchanges glances with the driver. He reaches up and removes the YPFB sign from the front window, placing it on the floor of the van. “You can take a picture, but take it through the window,” he says. “They’ve got a guard out.”

Though it’s been rough going, the struggle to implement Bolivia’s nationalization decree has not been entirely without successes. Despite the initial warnings of imminent capital flight or international arbitration, the government has been able to keep foreign investors engaged and even win some significant gains: a higher gas export price negotiated with Argentina will bring in an extra $110 million this year; the increased tax rate on two gas fields has generated an additional $32 million a month; and YPFB has attracted a range of new investors for several large-scale industrialization projects. But in terms of the reconstruction of YPFB, the key to the dramatic change Bolivians were promised, the government is stuck at the negotiating table.

The Cochabamba sun beats down brightly as we finish up the tour of the refinery grounds. Zambrana remains optimistic and eager about the promised changes. “When do you think the government will be able to purchase the shares from Petrobras?” I ask.

“The end of this month,” he replies, referring to the October 27 deadline in the nationalization decree. “We’re ready when the takeover comes,” he adds firmly. “We’ve got the information and the technical capacity. Almost all the workers are Bolivian, and most are ex-YPFB employees; they’re proud about the refinery returning to Bolivia.”

But negotiations with Brazil have been put on hold. Brazilian President Inacio Lula da Silva faces a runoff election October 29, and politically can’t be seen caving in to Bolivia. Waiting until after the election has stalled negotiations for four weeks, by which time the nationalization decree will have reached its six-month expiration date.

“Yeah, I read about that. But I haven’t heard anything more,” says Zambrana. “Now we’re just waiting.”

As we drive out past the refinery entrance, the bright metal letters of Petrobras glint in the afternoon sun; the YPFB sign has been removed. On the front gate, the other now somewhat disheveled banner still proclaims, “Nationalized: Property of Bolivia.”

Several feet in front of it, a Petrobras security guard stands watch.

———

Gretchen Gordon is an oil and gas researcher at the Cochabamba-based Democracy Center and a contributor to a forthcoming Democracy Center book on Bolivia and globalization.

This story first appeared Oct. 19 on Upside Down World
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/466/1/

See also:

“Evo Seizes the Gas: Bolivia’s Nationalization by Decree”
by Gretchen Gordon
WW4 REPORT #122, June 2006
/node/2027

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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Nov. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingBOLIVIA: WHITHER NATIONALIZATION? 

THE FARC ON TRIAL

Simón Trinidad Prosecution as Terror War Test Case

by Paul Wolf, WW4 REPORT

Ricardo Palmera, a Colombian guerrilla better known as Simón Trinidad, is on trial in Washington D.C. for hostage-taking and related charges of conspiracy, aiding and abetting, and providing material support to a terrorist organization. Trinidad is well-known in Colombia for his role as a negotiator for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist guerrilla army that has battled the Colombian government for more than 40 years.

The charges stem from an incident on Feb. 13, 2003, in which a Cessna 208 surveillance aircraft crashed in a FARC-controlled region of the Colombian jungle. After the crash, and the execution of two occupants of the plane, the FARC took three other occupants captive, and have held them ever since, along with about 60 Colombian police, military, and political figures they are holding somewhere in the dense Colombian jungle. The three Americans were employed by California Microwave Systems, a US military contractor. The FARC consider them to be prisoners of war.

In January 2004, Simón Trinidad was apparently sent by the FARC leadership to Quito, Ecuador, to meet with James LeMoyne, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special representative for Colombia-FARC negotiations. The meeting was not to be. Trinidad was tracked by Colombian and US authorities and arrested by Ecuadoran authorities shortly after arrival. There he stated that he was a member of the FARC on a humanitarian mission to discuss the exchange of prisoners, and asked for the protection of the Ecuadoran government. He was shortly sent to Colombia, interrogated by the FBI, and then extradited to the US to face criminal hostage-taking charges stemming from the Cessna incident.

It’s conceded that Simón Trinidad has been a member of the FARC since 1987, working in the Caribbean Bloc in the northwest of the country. It is not alleged, however, that Trinidad had any involvement in the Cessna incident itself. He did not give the order to shoot down this plane, and was not involved in the decision to take the Americans as prisoners. It appears that Trinidad’s only involvement was to travel to Ecuador to attempt to lay the groundwork for talks on their release.

Although the Colombian government has successfully entered into negotiations with another guerrilla organization, the National Liberation Army (ELN), and with the right-wing Colombian Self-Defense Forces (AUC), no progress has been made during the administration of President Alvaro Uribe with respect to the FARC. The Colombian government has in principle agreed to negotiations under the auspices of three friendly countries, Switzerland, France and Sweden, but its position has been that a prisoner exchange would only be part of broader talks on demobilizing the FARC. Public pressure, however, forced the Colombian government to raise the issue of a separate humanitarian exchange with the FARC. The FARC responded by stating its terms for the exchange, which include the creation of a small demilitarized zone, which would be limited in duration to what would be required to exchange the prisoners.

The issue of a prisoner exchange has loomed in the background of peace negotiations since at least 1998, when Andres Pastrana was elected president of Colombia with promises of ending the war with the guerrillas. Although Pastrana’s experiment, granting the FARC a large demilitarized zone to rule as their own, ultimately ended in failure, the prisoner exchange issue has survived. In 2003, the FARC released hundreds of captives in exchange for a dozen FARC members held in Colombian prisons. Although US and Colombian officials are quick to term the prisoners as “criminals” and “hostages,” respectively, the reality is that both sides consider them canjeable—a Spanish word meaning exchangeable.

With the capture of the three Americans, and their inclusion on the list of canjeables, all this would come to an end. Trinidad’s mission to Ecuador would be met with his arrest, and extradition to the US for hostage-taking. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe gave the FARC an ultimatum: release all the prisoners, including the three Americans, or face extradition to the dreaded North America, where the harsh treatment of terrorist suspects has become legendary. The ultimatum went unanswered, and Trinidad was flown to Washington DC aboard John Ashcroft’s private jet, with an entourage of FBI agents and heavily-armed guards.

The possibility of a canje, with Trinidad himself part of the exchange, came to an abrupt end last week, one week after Trinidad’s trial began, when a car bomb injured 20 people inside the military academy in Bogotá. President Uribe not only called off negotiations with the FARC, but also announced that the Colombian military would undertake a mission to rescue the 60 prisoners held by the FARC. The announcement drew little support in Colombia, particularly among the prisoners’ family members. Nicholas Burns of the US State Department quickly arrived, announcing US support for a rescue attempt. Whatever the fate of the prisoners may be, negotiations with the FARC have hit an impasse.

Breaking New Legal Ground

The prosecutors of Simón Trinidad are breaking new legal ground, in the form of a broad expansion of US criminal conspiracy laws to hold members of a designated “terrorist” organization responsible for crimes committed by other members of the group. The FARC is being described not as an insurgent army, or even as an army of unlawful combatants, as is the case with the Guantanamo detainees. In Trinidad’s case, the prosecutor characterizes the FARC as a criminal “hostage taking conspiracy” of some 20,000 co-conspirators. Members of the designated “foreign terrorist organization” become co-conspirators through their status as members of the organization. The case represents an experiment by the Department of Justice to try a foreign insurgent using ordinary criminal conspiracy laws.

Simón Trinidad originally had a “co-defendant” in the case—the entire FARC organization. Thomas Hogan, the Chief Judge of the D.C. District Court, went so far as to summon the organization to appear in his courtroom, publishing notices in Colombian newspapers and shortcutting the extradition process. For whatever reason, this unique approach to terrorism was abandoned. The co-defendant army was dropped from the case, and the top 50 leaders of the FARC indicted separately in a drug case hailed as the largest prosecution in US history. Simón Trinidad is not a defendant in that case, nor does he show up in Colombian intelligence documents used to prepare “The FARC Indictment,” or in seized FARC documents which describe the organization’s leadership. These intelligence reports and captured documents, if admitted into evidence in Trinidad’s trial, put the government in the position of convicting a rank-and-file member of an insurgent army as a co-conspirator for crimes he could not have ordered, or even influenced.

The trial began Oct. 17 in Washington DC, and is expected to last several weeks. What is odd about this trial is that very few facts are in dispute. There is no argument that Simón Trinidad is a member of the FARC. There is no doubt that the three Americans were taken captive by the FARC, who are still holding them. There is no doubt that Trinidad knew that the FARC takes and holds prisoners. These are the elements of the charge of conspiracy to commit hostage-taking. This evidence is undisputed, but presented in the form of a slick multimedia presentation, using video clips, computer images of documents, and recordings of radio transmissions. It is supported by some 20 witnesses flown in from Colombia. The jury will not only be convinced, but impressed and perhaps even entertained. It is only the rarest of trials that is interesting to watch.

What the jury will not get to decide is whether US laws against hostage-taking should apply to this situation at all. Or whether it is appropriate to use judicial proceedings as a bargaining chip in peace negotiations. The jury will have no idea that their verdict in the trial could have far-reaching implications that go well beyond the fate of the individual defendant. They will not know the context, or the reason this prosecution is occurring. They will not know that there are some 80 cases pending against Trinidad in Colombia, in which he is being tried in absentia for other FARC activities, or that he is not permitted a private attorney of his choice. After hearing the evidence, they will be given a simple set of rules to follow, called “jury instructions.” The mechanical application of these instructions can only result in finding the defendant, and the entire 15,000-member FARC organization, guilty of hostage-taking.

Yet the prosecution’s efforts have resulted in some leakage of information, perhaps enough to confuse some jurors. The prosecution’s proof of the FARC’s “demands” for the release of the Americans—in actuality the FARC’s response to the government’s initiative—has opened the door to some mention of the prisoner exchange issue lurking behind this trial. There is no room in the jury instructions to consider these factors, and the defense’s efforts to ask witnesses questions about the subject have been cut off by the judge at every instance. Yet, it only takes one person to hang the jury, and these jurors are being asked to vote on a very abstract idea: whether the negotiator for a “foreign terrorist organization” can be held criminally responsible for the actions of his organization. It would only take one juror to say no, and the outcome is far from certain.

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Paul Wolf is an attorney in Washington, and may be contacted via his websites:

http://www.paulwolf.org

http://www.international-lawyers.org

See also:

“The Politics of the FARC Indictment:
A ‘Secret Formula’ Against Colombia’s Guerillas?”
by Paul Wolf
WW4 REPORT #122, June 2006
/node/2029

“FARC leader captured in Ecuador”
WW4 REPORT #95, February 2004
/static/95.html#andean11

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Special to WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Nov. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution

World War 4 Report Deconstructing the War on Terrorism http://ww4report.com

Continue ReadingTHE FARC ON TRIAL 

BOLIVIA: COCA WARS CONTINUE

Campesino Movement Meets the New Boss?

by April Howard, Upside Down World

A conflict between the Bolivian military and coca growers led to the death of two coca growers on the morning of September 29. The confrontation marks an unanticipated turn of events under the administration of President Evo Morales.

Morales is a long-time leader of a coca grower union in the Chapare region and stated enemy of violent eradication of the crop. He campaigned on negotiated eradication and legalization of coca.

Historically, the US-led War on Drugs has involved the militarization of Bolivia’s coca-growing areas, purportedly to prevent the production of cocaine. Such operations have involved forced eradication of crops, often resulting in egregious violations of human rights. The coca leaf is part of traditional indigenous culture in Bolivia, and while some of the leaf does become cocaine, much of it is consumed nationally in traditional and religious practices. In many ways, Morales’ rise to power is based on his experience as the president of the Six Federations coca growers’ union, a position which he still holds. In a recent event in the city of Santa Cruz, Morales himself admitted that “the coca leaf made me president.”

The unions and the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), Morales’ political party, were founded during pro-US presidencies as instruments of resistance against the War on Drugs. They focused on protecting the coca growers’ rights to produce the leaf in peace. Now, however, not only is the history of violent eradication repeating itself with Morales on other side of negotiating table, but the government’s details of the September deaths are vague and cloaked in rhetoric. There is a frightening irony in the way that this operation was carried out: without negotiated eradication, but with the use of military force and the familiar rhetoric of the War on Drugs.

The coca growers, Ramber Guzmán Zambrana, 24, and Celestino Ricaldis, 23, were killed by Bolivian police and military eradication forces, the Joint Task Force (Fuerzas de Tarea Conjunta, or FTC), in Carrasco National Park in the Yungas de Vandiola region. Both the farmers and the land where they planted coca fall outside of the territory of the Six Federations of unionized coca growers with which the government usually negotiates. So far, details of the event from coca growers and the military are contradictory, and human rights leaders in Bolivia are calling for a full investigation.

Kathryn Ledebur of the Andean Information Network (AIN) was in the area when the event was reported. According to Ledebur, the tragedy highlights the need for dialogue and negotiated solutions between eradication officials and coca growers, instead of the use of the military. She cites the case as a continuation of violent conflicts between coca growers and eradication forces in remote areas, which have historically been under-investigated, leading to impunity for soldiers who have killed farmers. Ledebur is concerned about the lack of clear detail regarding the circumstances of the situation, and emphasizes the need for more concrete information than that provided by the military.

The AIN is especially concerned that the government is characterizing the coca growers as externally influenced and involved in trafficking. “This is not a problem of narcotrafficking,” Ledebur stated, “this is a problem of subsistence farmers trying to survive.”

Contradictory Accounts

According to government reports, a military contingent was sent by the government to eradicate illegal coca crops in the national park. However, according to coca grower representative Nicanor Churata, the area is a traditional growing area, not a part of the zone where coca growing is prohibited. According to the government, the area is included in an agreement signed with former president Carlos Mesa, in which coca is not allowed to be grown in national parks.

Part of the difficulty in clarifying events is due to the extreme remoteness of the area, which has no roads and is only accessible by foot or helicopter. Many landless subsistence farmers live in remote areas and grow coca as their only plausible cash crop due to the fact that it will not spoil while being transported to markets in the nearest towns. Traditional uses of coca are widespread and transcend class. While miners and farmers chew coca as a source of energy (similar to coffee) and to suppress hunger, coca is also an excellent source of vitamins and is a popular tea. Even the US Embassy’s website suggests using it to cure altitude sickness. However, according to the ministers of defense, Walker San Miguel and Alicia Muñoz, the remoteness of the area means that the coca grown there has no access to markets, and is therefore only being used in the production of cocaine. The defense ministers also claimed that the coca growers were armed by foreign narcotraffickers—a claim denied by coca leader Nicanor Churata.

According to the military reports, between 8 and 9 AM, the eradication contingent was ambushed by 200 coca growers armed with guns and dynamite, and the soldiers shot back in self defense. However, according to Churata, the growers had requested dialogue with the government for the last month, and when they were ignored, they decided to patrol the area to defend their crops. Churata states that the growers were armed only with sticks and stones. His statement is corroborated by local coca grower leader Emilio Caero.

The two coca growers were killed in the initial confrontation, which also left two soldiers, Germán Carlos Chipana Quispe and Eleuterio Ramos, and once citizen, Calixto Policarpio Licona, injured by gunfire. All three were later treated at a clinic in the city of Santa Cruz. In response to the confrontation, the military took coca grower Romy Monzón Saire hostage, as well as two other men and a woman. Coca growers took two soldiers and nine police hostage. The coca growers sent a message to the military leaders requesting that troops be withdrawn until a dialogue could be arranged.

Hostage Exchange

At 7 PM that evening, Arsenio Ocampo, a human rights representative in Chimoré negotiated the release of the military and police hostages in exchange for the bodies of the two coca growers who were killed, as well as the four hostage coca growers. A forensic doctor who accompanied Ocampo examined the bodies and stated that the dead men were shot with large caliber bullets, not pellets—which brings the intent of the military operation into question, as pellets would have been a more appropriate tool for crowd control. The coca growers kept their hostages’ guns, which they say they will return when one of the hostages taken by the military, currently in a hospital in Santa Cruz, is released.

Since the incident, the coca growers have been asking the government for help transporting the bodies of the two men who were killed to the town of Totora, where their families were. Due to the decomposition of the bodies, and lack of response, the men were buried in one of the communities. A helicopter did come to transport two injured coca growers to a clinic.

Marginalization and Lack of Recognition

Since the event, Morales has not indicated any likelihood of real negotiation with the coca growers in the park, maintaining that they and their crops are illegal. As of October 2, the government proposed to dialogue with five groups of coca growers to discuss the confrontation, but also plans to continue with the eradication of 1,110 acres of coca and 1,750 illegal settlements in the national park.

In a meeting on September 30, with the chief of state, the vice-minister of social defense, Felipe Cáceres, said: “Their hands won’t tremble or flutter in making sure that the law rules in Carrasco National Park, a protected area, where coca cannot be grown or cocaine made.” Cáceres also stated that the law would not be negotiated with the coca growers, who he called “narcotraffickers” and their “peons.” He emphasized the government perspective that the squatters and coca growers are illegal, and that the armed forces would continue to be used in eradication following the government’s strategy in natural parks, where the policy is “zero cocaine.”

This is an abrupt change in vocabulary from the administration of a president who campaigned with the coca-positive slogan “Coca Yes, Cocaine No.” As a candidate, Morales promised non-violent, negotiated eradication that, when possible, would be carried out by growers themselves.

Morales met with the representatives of the Six Federations on October 3. At the meeting, Morales proposed the creation of a tax on legal coca plots. The revenue raised by the tax would ostensibly be a move against the US government, by showing the international community that the coca leaf is a legitimate medium of support for the national treasury. Morales also warned growers against planting more than the legal limit, a cato (40 square meters).

The deaths in the national park were addressed at Morales’ meeting with the Six Federations, but the discussion centered on protecting the legitimacy of “legal” coca production in comparison to non-unionized growers in places such as the park. The Six Federation union leaders, who are not affected by the continued eradication in national parks, resolved to “support the politics of the fight against narcotrafficking and the control of the government our friend Evo Morales over coca plantations,” according coca leader Asterio Romero. “We will not permit more plantations in national parks and we will add ourselves to the eradication efforts made by the army and the police.”

The president of Bolivia’s Permanent Assembly of Human Rights, Guillermo Vilela, said that his institution would send a letter to defense minister Alicia Muñoz requesting clarification of the situation. Waldo Albarracín, Defender of the People, an office created to investigate human rights abuses, has said that he will request an investigation, but reportedly has taken no steps to investigate the situation himself. The Andean Information Network is forthcoming with a more detailed report on the incident.

Politics have provided citizens all over the world with too many examples of populist candidates who come to office only to turn on their most faithful followers. The government of Evo Morales does indeed need to convince the world that coca is a legitimate crop, with much more to offer than an illegal drug. However, military violence against citizens excused by anti-drug rhetoric is only the continuation of a failed US policy. It is not the creative and nonviolent approach that will bring peace to the region and convince the international community to decriminalize the leaf that put Morales in office in the first place.

——

April Howard is an editor at UpsideDownWorld.org and is currently based in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

This story first appeared Oct. 3 on Upside Down World
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/450/1/

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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Nov. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingBOLIVIA: COCA WARS CONTINUE 

ARGENTINA: RULING IN DIRTY WAR “GENOCIDE”

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On the evening of Sept. 19, in front of an overflow crowd of public spectators, the No. 1 Federal Oral Court in the Argentine city of La Plata, Buenos Aires province, sentenced former police investigations director Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz to life in prison for the crimes of wilful homicide, illegal privation of liberty and application of torture. Etchecolatz must serve his sentence in a common prison; he will continue to be held at the Marcos Paz prison, where he has been detained since shortly after the trial began in June.

The court treated the charges as crimes against humanity in the context of genocide, ruling that the kidnappings, torture and murders carried out by Etchecolatz were part of a systematic extermination plan by the state. It was the first official court recognition that the actions of Argentina’s military regime (1976-1983) constituted genocide. An estimated 30,000 people were detained and disappeared by the regime, and presumably murdered, though most of the bodies were never found.

Etchecolatz was the director of investigations for the Buenos Aires provincial police, which operated under the armed forces during the dictatorship. As his defense, he claimed he was merely following orders–specifically that he was carrying out a decree issued on Feb. 5, 1975, by the constitutional government of Isabel Peron, which ordered the military to use any necessary means to neutralize rebels operating in Tucuman province. (Adital, Sept. 21; Justicia Ya – La Plata, Sept. 19)

On the morning of Sept. 18, Jorge Julio Lopez, a member of Argentina’s Association of the Ex-Detained-Disappeared, was scheduled to appear at the municipal building in La Plata to observe the Etchocolatz trial as a witness and plaintiff in the case. But the 77-year-old Lopez failed to appear at the hearing, and when he was still missing at the end of the day, his colleagues quickly became alarmed; they filed habeas corpus petitions with the appropriate authorities and began a massive search effort.

Lopez had testified in the trial that he saw Etchecolatz shoot to death two detainees, Patricia Dell’Orto and her husband, Ambrosio De Marco, in the clandestine prison known as Pozo de Arana. Lopez had also identified Etchecolatz as a member of the gang that illegally detained him at his home in October 1976. Lopez, who had worked as a bricklayer, was tortured while detained at Pozo de Arana and the Fifth Police Station of La Plata.

The Association of the Ex-Detained-Disappeared reports that a number of its members have suffered intimidations and threats during the course of the Etchecolatz trial, and they are concerned that Lopez’s disappearance could be related to his testimony against the former police chief. Association member Nilda Eloy, another survivor who testified against Etchecolatz, received phone calls on the night of Sept. 16 in which recordings of torture sounds were played. Activists were further spooked by the Sept. 20 discovery of a burned corpse at a site known as Camino Negro, where authorities frequently dumped their victims during the dictatorship. The body turned out to not be that of Lopez–though it remains unidentified–but Lopez’s lawyer, Guadalupe Godoy, called the incident “symbolic and threatening; when we found out, we understood the message.”

The Association of the Ex-Detained-Disappeared has formed a coalition with other human rights groups, Justice Now – La Plata, which is leading the campaign to demand Lopez’s safe return. Human rights supporters, union members, students and others held a vigil on the night of Sept. 20 in the San Martin plaza in La Plata to demand that Lopez be found alive and well. Another demonstration was held the next evening, Sept. 21. Supporters held another, larger march for Lopez on Sept. 22 in La Plata.

On Sept. 21, the Buenos Aires provincial government announced a 200,000-peso ($64,541) reward for anyone providing information about the whereabouts of Lopez. (Communiques from Asociacion de ex Detenidos Desaparecidos, Sept. 19, 20, 22 via Red Solidaria por los Derechos Humanos-REDH; Pagina 12, Buenos Aires, Sept. 20, 22; Diario Hoy, La Plata, Sept. 20; Clarin, Buenos Aires, Sept. 22; Argentina Indymedia, Sept. 23)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Sept. 24

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See also:

WW4 REPORT #119, March 2006
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“Argentina: ex-agent gets 25 years”
WW4 REPORT, Aug. 8, 2006
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PERU: POLICE ATTACK COCALEROS

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On Sept. 11, Peruvian police agents entered the community of Sion, San Martin department, in the Alto Huallaga region, and physically attacked a group of campesino coca growers (cocaleros). The agents fired tear gas canisters, shot weapons into the air and beat residents. At least 30 cocaleros were injured, one of them seriously. Sion mayor Nestor Sallago Mateo said three community members were detained by police and their whereabouts are unknown.

Initially, the government blamed the cocaleros for the clash in Sion, but on Sept. 14 Nancy Obregon, Peru’s top cocalero leader and member of Congress with the Union for Peru party led by Ollanta Humala Tasso, gave reporters a videotape of the incident showing clear evidence of excessive force on the part of police.

On Sept. 14, Interior Minister Pilar Mazzetti acknowledged that she had seen the video–Obregon showed it to her on Sept. 12–and that it confirmed police had committed “excesses” in Sion following “an eradication operation that went out of control.” According to Mazzetti, eradication agents are supposed to limit their actions to coca plantations, and cannot intervene in towns or use tear gas in residential areas. Calling the incident “inadmissible,” Mazzetti announced she had fired the director of the Alto Huallaga coca control and reduction program (CORAH), Jose Yale Morales, transferred six police officers who were in charge of the operation and ordered an investigation to determine responsibilities. Mazzetti also ordered the temporary suspension of coca eradication operations in the area, and said the government was reevaluating its eradication plans. Cocalero leaders were set to meet on Sept. 18 with Agriculture Minister Jose Salazar to discuss crop substitution programs. (AP, Sept. 14; AFP, Sept. 15; El Comercio, Lima, Sept. 12, 14; La Republica, Lima, Sept. 15)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Sept. 17

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WW4 REPORT #125, September 2006
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BOLIVIA: CHAOS IN CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

In the early hours of Sept. 1, a fight broke out in Bolivia’s Constituent Assembly in the Gran Mariscal theater in the city of Sucre. The Assembly was elected on July 2 and inaugurated on Aug. 6 to write Bolivia’s new Constitution. Witnesses say Assembly member Ignacio Mendoza, the body’s secretary, was reading proposed internal debate rules when Assembly member Gamal Serhan of the right-wing Democratic and Social Power (Podemos) party planted himself in front of Mendoza and tried to block him from continuing. Assembly members from the ruling left-wing Movement to Socialism (MAS) tried to pull Serhan away, and more Podemos delegates jumped into the fray. A shoving match ensued, and Roman Loayza, leader of the MAS bloc in the Assembly, fell from the stage and suffered a severe head injury. Loayza, longtime leader of the Only Union Confederation of Bolivian Campesino Workers (CSUTCB), was treated at a nearby hospital in Sucre, and later transported to a hospital in Santa Cruz, where as of Sept. 3 his condition had improved slightly but was still considered critical. (Argenpress, Sept. 1 from Agencia Boliviana de Informacion; El Mundo, Santa Cruz, Sept. 3)

The proposed internal rules that sparked the controversy allow assembly decisions to be adopted by simple majority. The rules were approved on Sept. 1 by a vote of 139-1 with 10 abstentions after most of the opposition stormed out of the session. The MAS holds a simple majority in the 255-seat Assembly, but less than two thirds. The rules must still be ratified in a second vote. The rules require the final Constitution to be approved by a two-thirds vote, as laid out in the law convening the Assembly, but also provide that if in three votes the Constitution is not approved, it is to be put to a popular referendum. (La Jornada, Mexico, Sept. 2; EconoticiasBolivia, Sept. 1)

PROTESTS SURGE

A series of strikes and protests swept Bolivia during the week of Aug. 28. On Aug. 29, President Evo Morales Ayma managed to negotiate an agreement with bus drivers, putting an early end to a 48-hour transport strike that shut down the cities of La Paz, Cochabamba and Sucre that day. On Aug. 30, Morales tried to defuse a protest by the Civic Committee of Chuquisaca department, where protesters shut down the Sucre airport and civic leaders began a hunger strike on Aug. 29. Morales responded to their demands with decrees to build a new airport in Sucre and provide potable water for campesinos in the department’s rural areas.

Alfredo Rada, Vice Minister of Coordination with Social Movements, said an agreement was signed to appease residents of border towns in southern Tarija department, whose protests were supported with an Aug. 29-30 civic strike by the Tarija Civic Committee. Since Aug. 24, residents of San Jose de Pocitos and Yacuiba had been protesting the Argentine government’s restrictions on small-scale merchants who transport goods across the border. On Aug. 29, the demonstrators forced workers on the Transredes gas pipeline, owned by an affiliate of the British companies Shell and Ashmore, to shut down the pumping of gas to Argentina. Police and soldiers intervened and got the pumps running again 12 hours later.

The combative urban teachers’ union began a 48-hour strike on Aug. 29 in the cities of La Paz and El Alto; teachers in Santa Cruz joined the strike on its second day, Aug. 30. The teachers are demanding better wages, a new congress on education and the removal of Education Minister Felix Patzi. In a counter-protest against the teachers’ strike, the Federation of Parents of El Alto organized a march of thousands of people from El Alto to the government’s headquarters in La Paz.

Workers at the National Health Department (CNS) held a three-day strike Aug. 30 to Sept. 1 to protest the agency’s restructuring and demand the rehiring of three former union members fired for alleged corruption. (La Jornada, Aug. 30, 31; El Nuevo Herald, Miami, Aug. 31)

As of Aug. 30, members of the Assembly of the Guarani People (AGP) continued to occupy a gas pipeline station of the Transierra company in Santa Cruz department, and were threatening to take over two more facilities. (LJ, Aug. 30)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Sept. 3

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See also:

WW4 REPORT #125, September 2006
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“Bolivia: Evo caught between opposing hardliners” WW4 REPORT, Sept. 26
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COLOMBIA: GOLD MINING LINKED TO STATE TERROR

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

BOLIVAR: ARMY KILLS MINING UNION LEADER

On Sept. 19 troops from the Colombian National Army’s Nueva Granada Anti-Aircraft Battalion murdered campesino leader and [independent, small-scale] mining union activist Alejandro Uribe in a rural mining area in the south of Bolivar department. Uribe was president of the Community Action Board of the village of Mina Gallo, in Morales municipality, and a member of the Agromining Federation of the South of Bolivar (Fedeagromisbol). He was killed while returning to Mina Gallo from the rural community of Las Culebras, in Montecristo municipality. Uribe had gone to the mining association’s farm in Las Culebras that morning with Emiliano Garcia, an official with the Agromining Federation and legal representative of the Mina Gallo Association.

On Sept. 20, after Garcia and Uribe failed to return home as planned, a commission from the communities of Mina Gallo and Mina Viejito went looking for the two leaders. On the road they found Uribe’s clothes, and were told by local residents that army troops had transported Uribe’s body on a mule, apparently to the military base at San Luiquitas, in Santa Rosa municipality.

Some 600 residents of the area then traveled to San Luquitas to demand that Nueva Granada Battalion personnel hand over Uribe’s body. On Sept. 21, members of the battalion threatened the protesting residents, saying: “This is not the only corpse you’re going to have, there will be more dead leaders.” Members of the battalion had previously warned that they had a list of local leaders and members of the Agromining Federation, and that they were hoping to find the listed individuals alone on rural roads.

The Nueva Granada Battalion troops who killed Uribe were commanded by Capt. Blanco under the orders of Benjamin Palomino, the battalion’s Official Captain of Operations. The battalion, which is attached to the army’s Fifth Brigade, had already been accused of a series of abuses in Mina Gallo and elsewhere in the mining region of southern Bolivar.

On Sept. 7, less than two weeks before he was killed, Uribe had gone with representatives of human rights groups to the Office of the Defender of the People to report that the battalion’s troops had executed local resident Arnulfo Pabon on Aug. 18 in the rural village of Bolivador, Arenal municipality.

On Sept. 8, Uribe took part in an assembly in Mina Gallo of more than 18 mining communities of southern Bolivar, accompanied by representatives from the Office of the Defender of the People and human rights organizations, to analyze the human rights situation in the region and adopt protective measures. The meeting also served as a pre-hearing assembly for the Permanent People’s Court, which is to be held in Medellin Nov. 11-12. Participants discussed the army’s recent abuses and suggested they may be an effort to clear the way for the multinational company Kedahda S.A.–an affiliate of Anglo Gold Ashanti–to engage in mining operations in southern Bolivar. Uribe and other mining union leaders in the region oppose the company’s presence.

In a radio interview, Gen. Jose Joaquin Cortes Franco, commander of the army’s Fifth Brigade, claimed that his troops had killed an armed leftist rebel from the National Liberation Army (ELN), only to discover later that he was a local community leader. Cortes would not confirm that the man killed was Alejandro Uribe; he said the attorney general’s office was in charge of determining the person’s identity. Cortes claimed the man was in a “hostile position” when killed in combat, and that five other men were with him but managed to escape. Cortes confirmed that the man killed was wearing civilian clothing. (Joint Communiques from Corporacion Sembrar, Federacion Agrominera del Sur de Bolivar, Coordinador Nacional Agrario, Red de Hermandad y Solidaridad con Colombia, Sept. 20, 22 via dhColombia; Communique from the Diocese of Magangue, Sept. 22)

Cortes served as an instructor at the US Army’s School of the Americas (SOA) in Fort Benning, Georgia, from January 1993 to January 1994, while he was a major. In 1976, as a 2nd lieutenant, he took a course in “small unit infantry tactics” at the school, then located in Panama. (SOA Graduates List from soaw.org) [SOA was forced to shut down its Panama location in September 1984; it reopened at Fort Benning, Georgia, in January 1985.]

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Sept. 24

ARMY ATTACKS MINING TOWN

On Aug. 17, soldiers from the Colombian army’s Nueva Granada Anti-Aircraft Battalion arrived at the village of Mina Central, in Morales municipality, in the south of Bolivar department. The soldiers occupied six homes, insulted the inhabitants and forced the women to cook for them. On Aug. 18, the same troops arrived at a home in Bolivador village, Arenal municipality, where local resident Arnulfo Pabon, known as “Lulo,” handed a pistol and communications radio over to the soldiers without offering any resistance. The soldiers ransacked the home and stole personal belongings, money and the identity documents of Bibiana Marin, Cosme’s partner. They grabbed Marin, dragged her outside the house and threatened to rape her in front of Cosme and the couple’s three-year old son.

The soldiers released Marin but detained, beat and tied up Cosme, and took him into the woods, where about an hour later local residents heard gunfire. Hours later several soldiers appeared with Cosme’s dead body, claiming he was a guerrilla, and forced several residents to help tie the corpse to a pole to carry it around the village to intimidate other residents. Witnesses noted that Cosme’s body had a single bullet wound at the base of the skull.

The soldiers also detained three local residents, two women and a man known as “Picas”. The women were questioned and released but the soldiers took “Picas” away. The soldiers then took a mule from a local resident, mounted Cosme’s body on it, and took it on a tour of the communities of Mina Viejito and Mina Central, urging residents to “greet their friend Lulo.” The soldiers also brought “Picas” on the tour, insulting and beating him as they forced him to walk with his hands and neck tied and carrying a military suitcase on his shoulders.

On Aug. 4, troops from the same battalion, accompanied by hooded individuals, abducted a campesina woman known as “La Cachaca” and her son and a young miner known as “Guaranda” in the hamlet of Mina Esperanza, in Mina Gallo village, Morales municipality. The three were taken away in an army helicopter and their whereabouts remain unknown. “Picas” remains missing as well, and the whereabouts of Cosme’s body are also unknown. (Corporacion Servicios Profesionales Comunitarios Sembrar, Aug. 29 via dhcolombia.info)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Sept. 10

BOGOTA: DISPLACED, OBSERVERS ARRESTED

On Sept. 4, more than 300 displaced Colombians took over an abandoned slaughterhouse owned by the district of Bogota to demand that the district government fulfill its promises to provide them with housing. Many of the participants in the protest action had taken part in a larger occupation a year ago at the Riveras de Occidente housing development in the Patio Bonito sector of western Bogota’s Kennedy neighborhood. The displaced people say the national and district governments have failed to fulfill the commitments they made when they signed an accord to end that occupation on Sept. 7, 2005. The accord committed the government to take measures guaranteeing the displaced people’s health, education, housing, humanitarian aid, accompaniment and safe return to their places of origin. Before carrying out the Sept. 4 occupation, the displaced families produced a lengthy communique detailing the government’s specific failings on each of the accord’s points.

Almost as soon as the occupation began, troops from the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) of the National Police and agents of the Metropolitan Police arrived at the slaughterhouse in four armored vehicles and began attacking the displaced protesters with tear gas, beatings and verbal aggression. Nearly 200 people were detained, and at least 26 were also seriously injured. Fifty people, including a number of women and children who were beaten or affected by tear gas, were taken to the Family Police Station; the other 150 were detained at the Permanent Justice Unit (UPJ) facility.

Plainclothes agents from the Judicial Investigations and Intelligence Service (SIJIN) of the National Police detained four members of the International Peace Observatory (IPO), an organization which since August 2004 has provided accompaniment to Colombian communities nonviolently resisting armed conflict and social injustice. The police presented the four international detainees to the press as “instigators” of the protest. The four internationals were taken to SIJIN headquarters, then to an Administrative Security Department (DAS) immigration office “with the purpose of verifying the legality of their presence in the country.” All four–Alex Juanmarti of Catalonia (in Spain), Marianna Garfi of Italy and US citizens Carmen Rivera and David Feller–were released 11 hours later.

Col. Yamil Hernando Moreno Arias, head of the No. 2 Operative Command of the Metropolitan Police of Bogota, told the media that the intention of the demonstrators was to seize the Health Department of Bogota, that the four foreign nationals “are not international observers” and that they had participated in an occupation by displaced people of the central plaza in Bosa, in the south of Bogota, several weeks earlier. (Agencia Prensa Rural, Sept. 4, 7; Adital, Sept. 6; Movimiento de Victimas de Crimenes de Estado Communique, Sept. 4, posted on www.peaceobservatory.org; Report from Colectivo de Abogados ‘Jose Alvear Restrepo’ posted Sept. 9 on Colombia Indymedia)

Until November 2005 Col. Moreno served as police commander in Uraba, where he was apparently in charge of trying to undermine the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado. While there, Moreno admitted that one of his men was a known paramilitary, Wilmar Durango. (APR, Sept. 4) Durango has been accused of carrying out numerous threats and actions against the Peace Community.

Col. Moreno is apparently only opposed to certain types of foreign intervention: at an April 2005 meeting in Carepa, Antioquia, with representatives from the US-based Colombia Support Network he bragged of having had extensive training at a number of places in the US. (Notes from Sept. 20 Interview with Col. Moreno posted on ttp://colombiasupport.net) In February 1994, when still a captain, he served as an instructor at the US Army’s School of the Americas (SOA). (SOA Watch List of Graduates)

Ironically, one of the arrested IPO observers, Carmen Rivera, was once a national organizer with SOA Watch, a Washington-based organization which works to close the school (now called WHINSEC) and expose the actions of its graduates. (SOA Watch News & Updates, Sept. 6)

District Security Under-secretary Andres Restrepo told the media that the four foreigners’ “life histories were being analyzed to proceed with their deportation” since their actions were “altering the citizen coexistence.” (APR, Sept. 7)

In a Sept. 5 communique, the volunteers wrote that “IPO did NOT at any time participate in the displaced community’s legitimate action to reclaim their rights, much less did we organize the protest. The community of displaced people requested IPO’s presence so that we could produce a documentary about the action, as was done last year during the nonviolent takeover at Patio Bonito. IPO volunteers arrived at the site of the takeover, the old district slaughterhouse, at 7:30 AM, just after the police had fenced in the protest inhibiting us from entering.”

Moreno’s assistant, Maj. Mendez, later “falsely declared to Coronel Moreno and to the members of the media that IPO volunteers had arrived at the protest at 6:30 AM, that we had organized the action, and that we had falsely identified ourselves as United Nations officials,” the volunteers wrote.

“We repudiate this tactic used to distract national and international attention from the critical condition of displaced people in this country, people who struggle to reclaim their rights from a government that has repeatedly denied them,” the statement continued. “We stress that there are two Colombian nationals facing charges because of their participation in the protest and one Colombian national who was disappeared from the site, in addition to the hundreds of people imprisoned and wounded due to the Colombian government’s unwillingness to respond peacefully to the situation. While national and international attention has focused on us and on the absurd tale invented by the police, hundreds of homeless families continue to go hungry.” (IPO Communique, Sept. 5 posted on www.peaceobservatory.org)

The Movement of Victims of Crimes of State is demanding that district and national authorities fulfill their obligations under the accords they signed a year ago with the displaced families, follow the Constitutional Court’s 2004 ruling (T 025) on the vulnerability of the displaced population and respect the right of the victims to peaceful and legitimate protest. (Movimiento de Victimas de Crimenes de Estado Communique, Sept. 4, posted on www.peaceobservatory.org)

PROFESSOR SHOT, COMMUNITY LEADER MISSING

Early on Sept. 1, university professor Edgar Fajardo was taken from his apartment by several individuals and shot to death at the entrance of the residential complex where he lived, in Soacha municipality, on the southern edge of Bogota. Fajardo was a member of the Colombian Communist Party. An unidentified young man was also killed in the incident. (Diario VEA, Caracas; Vientos del Sur, Sept. 2 via Colombia Indymedia)

On Aug. 16, community leader Walter Alvarez Ossa disappeared while returning to his home in the city of Guadalajara de Buga, Valle del Cauca department. As of Sept. 6, his whereabouts and fate remain unknown. Alvarez is a founder and member of the board of directors of the Buga section of the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CPDH). For over 30 years he has led efforts to win basic rights and alternative development for the most vulnerable sectors of Buga and Valle del Cauca. In 2004, he was arbitrarily detained by the Attorney General’s office. In February 2006, Alvarez was threatened with death in a flier written by individuals who identified themselves as members of the rightwing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Despite the flier, neither departmental nor municipal authorities took any measures to protect his life.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders urges people to demand the safe return of Alvarez to his community; full protection for him, his family and all CPDH members in Valle del Cauca; and a full investigation into his disappearance. Letters can be sent to President Alvaro Uribe Velez (auribe@presidencia.gov.co); Vice President Francisco Santos (fsantos@presidencia.gov.co); Defender of the People Volmar Antonio Perez Ortiz (secretaria_privada@hotmail.com); Attorney General Mario Hernan Iguaran Arana (contacto@fiscalia.gov.co); Procurator General Edgardo Jose Maya Villazon (cap@procuraduria.gov.co); Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos Calderon (siden@mindefensa.gov.co); and Carlos Franco, director of the Presidential Program of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (cefranco@presidencia.gov.co). (Adital, Sept. 6)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Sept. 10

CAUCA: ARMY GRENADE KILLS KID

Close to midnight on Sept. 16, Colombian army troops fired a mortar grenade at the indigenous village of Zumbico in the southern department of Cauca. The troops were from the National Army’s Pichincha Battalion, part of the Third Brigade, camped in the urban area of Jambalo. The grenade landed 40 meters from the site where more than 2,500 indigenous people were celebrating at a fundraiser event, and five meters from the residence of Bautista Yule Rivera, where the explosion killed 10-year-old Wilder Fabian Hurtado and badly wounded Yule Rivera. A number of people at the celebration were also injured.

It was not the first such incident in the indigenous communities of Cauca department. On June 9, a mortar grenade lobbed by the same troops caused serious injuries to Robinson Ullun in the community of Moterredondo. On several other occasions, mortar grenades have landed close to homes. The Indigenous Council of Jambalo responded to the latest attack by calling a public hearing of the indigenous court for Sept. 19. (Cabildo Indigena de Jambalo-Cauca, Sept. 17)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Sept. 24

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Continue ReadingCOLOMBIA: GOLD MINING LINKED TO STATE TERROR 

ECUADOR: CAMPESINO RESISTANCE TO ASCENDANT COPPER

Canadian Mining Project Tainted by Rights Abuses

by Cyril Mychalejko, Upside Down World

“Welcome to Ascendant Copper, a socially responsible corporate citizen,” states the Canadian mining company’s website. Ascendant also boasts of being a member of the UN Global Compact. Ironically it was officially accepted into the group on July 12, the same day that several hundred residents of the village of Intag marched in Quito to protest the company’s mining project.

The Global Compact is a voluntary initiative developed by the UN to streamline the human rights agenda into the day-to-day practices of global corporations. There is no monitoring or enforcement of declared standards, which relegates the compact to nothing more than a public relations tool for corporations, helping to put a human face on often inhumane business practices, such as those carried out by Ascendant.

Now welcome to Intag, Ecuador, home to Ascendant’s Junin Project, where one sign (among many) posted on a local road reads: “The Communities of Junin, Cerro Pelado, Barcelona, El Triunfo and Villaflora do not permit mining.” The company is awaiting confirmation from the Ecuadorian government to begin the exploration phase for a potential open-pit copper mine in these areas.

According to human rights organizations and lawyers representing many residents of the region, the company’s activities in the area are anything but socially responsible and even amount to complicity in human rights abuses with the Ecuadorian government.

The company’s most recent press release on Sept. 19 described opponents of its project as “eco-terrorists”, “extremists” and “radicals.” This accusation is a reaction to a conflict in which company employees, one armed with a pistol, trespassed in Junin’s community reserve to conduct tests that the company alleges were meant to support its environmental impact study (EIS), which is complete and awaiting approval by Ecuador’s Ministry of Energy and Mines. However, the approval can only be granted if a local court fails to rule in favor of local communities that filed a suit charging that the company didn’t follow standards set by Ecuadorian law in its EIS.

Two of the employees were detained by local residents after they were discovered trespassing. The employees were fed and treated well–they testified as much to the police. Subsequently, without a warrant or evidence, the police arrested two individuals on charges of kidnapping. The local campesinos arrested weren’t even present when the company workers were detained. The men were held in jail for eight days before being released Sept. 21. The judge released them without requiring bail, which suggests a lack of evidence for their arrest.

The arrest “was completely unlawful,” says Isabella Figueroa, a human rights lawyer who represents residents of the region affected by the company’s activities.

Ascendant, however, stated in its press release that “two of the kidnappers have been arrested, arraigned, and are in prison awaiting sentencing.” Company president, Gary E. Davis, is apparently unaware that, as in the United States, the accused in Ecuador are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. By stating that these individuals are not only kidnappers but terrorists, he potentially violated Ecuadorian law protecting citizens from slander. The law, called Injuria Calumniosa, protects citizens from claims such as responsibility for a crime before being convicted by a judge or jury.

According to David Cordero Heredia of the Ecumenical Comission of Human Rights (CEDHU), Davis’ remarks might put him in front of a judge, even though he is a foreign national and didn’t issue the statement in Ecuador. “The consequences of Davis’ words are present here in Ecuador,” said Heredia. “The people whose reputations were injured are here.”

In addition, the company’s press release is in violation of Article 12 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. It states that “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.” Furthermore, the police violated Article 9 which prohibits arbitrary arrests and detention.

Opponents of the mine believe that the company is using this rhetoric to persuade the government to crack down on any mining opponents.

Subsequent events turned ugly when the company sent several truckloads of workers to block the road to Junin, thus preventing food trucks from entering the community. Local residents from all over the region walked or drove to Junin to support the community in its struggle against the company, with numbers reaching close to 200. Residents of Junin were worried about being able to feed themselves and supporters. The police were no help in diffusing the standoff, allowing company workers (some with family members) to continue the road blockade. In addition, two truckloads of Ascendant workers drove into the community of Junin–where they are unwelcome–and started a fight with community members. No serious injuries were reported.

The failure of the police to respond appropriately has created the perception among many area residents that police are working with the company.

Human Rights Dismissed

The UN Declaration of Human Rights embodies the principals of the UN Global Compact which the company professes to follow. The Compact also uses other international human rights treaties as a guide for companies on how they should behave as global “corporate citizens.”

According to a legal suit filed in the Eight Civil-Law Court of Imbabura, the company is in violation of the Protocol of San Salvador, the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights, the Declaration of Rio on Environment and Development, the Inter-American Democratic Charter and Convention 177 of the International Labor Organization. Ecuador is a signatory to these treaties and the country’s constitution guarantees that these international laws will be recognized and enforced.

In June the Intag Solidarity Network (ISN) presented a 12-page denouncement of the company’s activities in the region to the Canadian embassy. ISN is a grassroots organization which maintains an international human rights observer program in the region at the request of the community of Junin. Its human rights program is recognized and endorsed by Alexis Ponce, director of Ecuador’s Asamblea Permanente de Derechos Humanos, as well as Pablo de la Vega, director of Centro de Documentación en Derechos Humanos “Segundo Montes Mozo S. J.”

ISN denounced company activities including:

* The use of death threats against mining opponents.

* Employing armed guards who don’t wear visible identification or uniforms when operating in public spaces.

* The misprepresentation of company activities and local realities in Intag through misleading statements and press releases.

* The use of children in its propaganda and “socialization” campaign.

* Trespassing on community property (as in Junin), despite the presence of signs explicitly stating company personnel are not welcome.

* The refusal to honor the demands of local communities that the company leave.

Had the Canadian embassy and the Ecuadorian government acted on ISN’s report, the most recent events in Intag could have been avoided.

In addition, the company is a past employer of Cesar Villacís Rueda, a former army general with deep ties to Ecuador’s military intelligence, who also studied at the School of the Americas. The former general is known to have said that he believes that people who work for human rights, indigenous rights and workers’ rights form a “triangle of subversion.” The company is also accused of senidng employee Betty Sevilla into Junin, posing as a “freelance journalist,” to gather information on mining opponents.

According to CEDHU’s Heredia, investors should be concerned because it’s their money that is enabling and encouraging the abuse against the communities of Intag and the threat to the region’s pristine environment.

“If they want to have a clear conscience they will not invest in this company,” he added.

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Cyril Mychalejko is assistant editor of UpsideDownWorld.org and is currently based in Ecuador. He was recently questioned by the police and warned to stay out of the politics of the country.

This story originally appeared Sept. 27 on Upside Down World
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/438/1/

RESOURCES:

Ascendant Copper, SA
http://www.ascendantcopper.com/

United Nations Global Compact
http://www.unglobalcompact.org/

Intag Solidarity Network
http://www.intagsolidarity.org/

Also by Cyril Mychalejko:

“Guatemala: Indigenous Resistance to Glamis Gold Project”
WW4 REPORT #114, October 2005
/node/1142

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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Oct. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingECUADOR: CAMPESINO RESISTANCE TO ASCENDANT COPPER