The Joel Sierra Regional Human Rights Committee Foundation has reported a wave of recent murders in the municipalities of Arauquita, Tame and Saravena in the eastern Colombian department of Arauca. On July 27 in Tame, meat vendor Alberto Tovar Trujillo… Read moreColombia: wave of killings in Arauca
from Weekly News Update on the Americas
Some 22,000 residents of the northeastern Ecuadoran province of Orellana began a “progressive strike” on June 28 to protest environmental damage by the French oil company Perenco and repression by the military. The protest began with residents of the provincial capital, Francisco de Orellana, blocking roads leading to one of Perenco’s installations and threatening to block all the roads in the province, where much of the country’s oil production is concentrated. “The number [of protesters] will grow with the actions, because the communities will no longer put up with disrespect from the government and the oil companies,” Orellana province prefect Guadalupe Llori told the media.
Confrontations between the protesters and some 300 soldiers increased after protesters seized the area around the Coca airport and blocked the roads leading to it. Llori charged the military had violated the law by entering Francisco de Orellana, where it had no jurisdiction, and using rubber bullets and tear gas “against an unarmed civilian population”; two people were wounded. “[T]he soldiers made an attempt on my life,” Llori said. “They nearly killed me when they aimed a gun at me; the truth is, I don’t know how I escaped.” Later the soldiers deployed outside Coca municipality, where residents said they detained three local people.
The protesters were demanding that Perenco leave the province and pay for the damage they say it has caused. They also wanted the military to end a “state of exception” (state of emergency) it had enforced in the province for 105 days and to release human rights activist Wilmer (or Wilman) Jimenez Salazar.
According to human rights groups, the police seized Jimenez near a Perenco facility on June 19 when he was acting as a human rights observer at a protest by some 200 local campesinos, who were blocking access. Jimenez was one of two people wounded by rubber bullets. The police turned him over to military authorities, who held him for two days before notifying his family and defense attorneys. Joint Task Force #4 commander Gonzalo Meza denied a habeas corpus petition, saying Jimenez was “encountered in a fragrant act” (an error for “flagrant act”). The army says he will be tried for sabotage before a military tribunal. (El Comercio, Guayaquil. June 28; Prensa Latina, June 29; Univision, June 28 from EFE; El Universo, Guayaquil, July 1)
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, July 2
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Aug. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution
from Weekly News Update on the Americas
In the early morning of June 28 Peru’s Congress voted 79-14 with six abstentions to ratify the Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA, known locally as the Free Trade Treaty, or TLC), a trade pact Peru signed with the US in December. Some 1,000-2,000 protesters began a march in the streets of Lima to reject the TLC, which they said will destroy Peruvian agriculture and industry through competition with US products. The night before, as Congress was debating the ratification, a group of political leaders from the party of nationalist former presidential candidate Ollanta Humala pushed their way into the Congress building and forced legislators to suspend the session for a half hour.
At the June 28 march, Congress member Javier Diez Canseco, leader of the Socialist Party, said that “struggle and social pressure” were ways of attacking the accord but that he would work on legal action to have the ratification declared unconstitutional.
Other politicians pushed for legislation to mitigate the effects of the TLC. Congress has approved bills providing $171 million worth of compensation for the agricultural sector, and other measures are under discussion. Legislators from the social democratic Peruvian Aprista Party (PAP) voted for the TLC, but PAP leader Alan Garcia, who takes office as president on July 28, has promised to renegotiate parts of the accord. (Punto de Noticias, Venezuela, June 28 from AFP; Univision, US, June 28 from EFE; Prensa Latina, July 1)
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, July 2
Peruvian campesinos blocked roads and held street demonstrations on July 4 to protest the TLC. In the southern city of Pisco, police used tear gas to disperse protesters who were blocking the Panamerican South highway with stones. Campesinos in the south said on July 5 they would continue an open-ended strike and road blockades to protest the TLC.
Some 500 people marched on July 4 through the center of Lima to protest the TLC. The protesters later rallied peacefully outside the bunker-like home of US ambassador James Curtis Struble, which was guarded by 1,000 police agents, while inside the complex President Alejandro Toledo praised the TLC at an event honoring US independence day. (El Nuevo Herald, Miami, July 5 from AP; AFP, July 4; Prensa Latina, July 5; Adital, July 5) Toledo flew to the US on July 9 to begin lobbying members of the US Congress to approve the trade pact. (El Comercio, Peru, July 9)
The US hopes that AFTA will eventually include Colombia and Ecuador.
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, July 9
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Aug. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution
from Weekly News Update on the Americas
Thousands of Paraguayan campesinos continued to occupy estates and block roads during the week of July 17 to demand that the government of President Nicanor Duarte Frutos address the problems they face. The protests began on July 12 as part of a National Campaign for Integral Agrarian Reform.
On July 19, at least 800 campesinos from the National Coordinating Committee of Campesino Organizations (MCNOC) blocked Route 8 at a crossroads in Numi district, on the border between Guaira and Caazapa departments. Police responded with violent repression: in a communique issued the same day, MCNOC reported that eight people were badly hurt and taken to the hospital in Villarrica, Guaira, including a man with a serious head injury; 51 people were detained at the Villarrica police station, including children, a pregnant woman and two MCNOC leaders; and 200 campesinos, men and women, “were savagely tortured for more than two hours, naked, face down,” by police and possibly soldiers. (MCNOC communique, July 19 via Minga Informativa de Movimientos Sociales; Adital, Brazil, July 20; La Nacion, Paraguay, July 20)
The Paraguayan daily La Nacion reported that 38 people were arrested–including nine infants and children, detained with their parents–and 12 people were injured in the police crackdown at Numi. Villarrica prosecutor Perla Caceres de Bataglia issued the order to forcibly remove the protesters, and police from Guaira and Caazapa carried it out. Caceres is threatening to bring charges against the campesinos for organizing the blockade of the route, and to charge parents for allegedly using their children as “shields.”
In Itapua department, campesinos said they would blockade Route 6 in the area of Maria Auxiliadora to impede participation in a mayoral primary election for the ruling Colorado Party. Between 300 and 1,000 campesinos have been blocking Route 6 intermittently on a daily basis near the 8 de Diciembre settlement in Tomas Romero Pereira district. There have also been intermittent blockades of Route 7 in Jose Domingo Ocampos district, Caaguazu department. (LN, July 20)
Also on July 19, some 3,000 campesinos from the MCNOC marched along Route 10 in Capiibary, San Pedro department, to protest a police attack on protesters there the previous week which left several people injured. Among those hurt was Fidelina Aquino, who was eight months pregnant and lost her unborn child as a result of the attack. (LN, July 20; Prensa Latina, July 20)
Meanwhile, more than 300 indigenous people from the Mbya Guarani nation have been camped out since July 6 in the main plaza of the city of San Juan Nepomuceno, Caazapa department, demanding “land and freedom” as well as autonomy for indigenous peoples. The protesters are from Karumbey, Kokuere Guazu and other communities in Caazapa. They are also demanding the removal of missionaries from their communities. (Adital, July 21)
From Weekly News Update, July 23
The occupations began on July 12, when some 5,000 landless families invaded 20 estates owned by Paraguayans and foreigners in seven of Paraguay’s 17 departments, in a coordinated action to demand a speedy agrarian reform. “The occupation of private properties is a legitimate action; it may not be legal, but it’s the only way to get the attention of the authorities,” said Luis Aguayo, a leader of the MCNOC. (AP, July 12)
The owners’ claims to the 20 properties occupied by MCNOC members on July 12 are of “spurious origin,” said Aguayo, since the lands were “adjudicated to characters connected with the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989),” and many lack legal titles. The occupied estates are located in the departments of Caaguazu, Caazapa, Itapua, Canindeyu, Misiones, San Pedro and Paraguari. The date of the land invasion was chosen because July 12 marks the 20th anniversary of the murder of two campesinos by soldiers, Aguayo noted. (Notimex, July 12)
Aguayo said that a year ago the MCNOC presented President Duarte Frutos with a plan for expropriating large tracts of idle lands owned by foreigners. “We did the same with the legislators, but we haven’t received a favorable response, so we have no other option than to occupy the lands,” Aguayo explained. There are 300,000 landless families in Paraguay, according to Aguayo. (AP, July 12) Official statistics show that 80% of the land in Paraguay is in the hands of less than 10% of the population. (Adital, July 14)
Duarte reacted to the land occupations on July 12 by holding a meeting with Agriculture Minister Carlos Santacruz; Santacruz then announced that the government would increase a credit line for campesino cotton producers who had suffered drought losses. (Notimex, July 12)
Virgilio Barboza, chief of public order for the National Police, said his agency was implementing “dialogue as a way to avoid frictions or violent actions; through conversations with the campesino leaders we are trying to persuade them to start leaving the private properties peacefully.” Barboza said the police had managed to peacefully end two of the occupations so far.
“We won’t use force because it won’t be the solution, besides which the National Police doesn’t have enough agents to control all the invasions,” said Barboza. (AP, July 12) However, according to press reports, some 100 police agents intervened to remove a group of 3,000 campesinos from the MCNOC who were blocking a highway in Capiibary, San Pedro department. Two people were arrested and nine injured. The campesinos have camped out nearby and say they will invade other estates. (Adital, July 14)
U.S. MARINES BLAMED FOR DEATHS
On July 12, Paraguayan campesino groups and social organizations held a press conference to announce that US Marines and special groups acting as paramilitaries “are responsible for more than 30 disappearances and deaths” since April of workers and campesinos in Paraguay. “In less than three months there were more than 30 disappearances and several deaths, all at the hands of the landowners of each place,” Nicolas Barreto of the Paraguayan Campesino Movement (MCP) told the Argentine news agency Telam. (Telam, July 12)
Paraguayan armed forces spokesperson Col. Elvio Antonio Flores Servin told Telam the charges were untrue: “There is not a single US Marine here in Paraguay,” he said. But according to Barreto, “in Paraguay, the army and the paramilitary groups act in the evictions with brutal repression against campesinos, leaving people wounded, dead and disappeared, with the direct control and intervention of [US] marines. (Territorio Digital, Posadas, Misiones [Argentina], July 14)
“Recently the boy Silvino Talavera died in Itapua from toxic agrochemicals, his mother reported it and in vengeance they dismembered her brother and threw him out there so everyone could see what these people are capable of doing,” Barreto explained. That incident apparently took place in Mariscal Estigarribia, where activists charge the US Southern Command has posted a force of 2,800 Marines. In the same area, the Paraguayan government has created a Citizen Security Guard, a special group that acts as a sort of legalized paramilitary group. Barreto said the paramilitary groups recruit their members from among the children of the campesinos. When human rights groups recently called on the government to dismantle the groups, deputy interior minister Commissary General Mario Agustin Saprisa responded: “in the United States and Colombia [similar groups] exist and have had good results.”
Barreto said the violence has emerged in response to stepped-up campesino struggles. “With his announced zero tolerance policy, President Duarte Frutos militarized the struggle and gave it a framework of unusual violence,” said Barreto. “To such a point that the Marines participate in the repression and even occupy agricultural schools. That is, they act like a true occupation army.” (Telam, July 12)
“The Marines are the ones who are instructing the Paraguayan forces for repression, linking campesino organizations with terrorist cells whose existence has never been proven,” agreed Vidal Acevedo of the Peace and Justice Service (SERPAJ) of Paraguay. Acevedo said the repression consists of “a joint action to stop campesino organizations.” (TD, July 14)
The US Southern Command had permission to stay in Paraguay until the end of 2006, but Vice President Luis Castigilione announced that the permission has been extended for an additional year. In Mariscal Estigarribia, a 3,800-meter-long airstrip has been built to handle large planes. Mariscal Estigarribia is in the Chaco region of northwestern Paraguay, close to lithium mines in Argentina’s Salta province and the largest gasfields in the region, across the border in the Bolivian department of Tarija. (Telam, July 12)
The US embassy in Asuncion responded to the criticisms on July 12 with a communique, insisting that the US soldiers in Paraguay are carrying out “humanitarian and medical assistance to poor communities as well as military training,” and that the US “has no intention whatsoever to establish a military base anywhere in Paraguay.” (Agencia Periodistica del Mercosur, July 13) US Embassy press attache Bruce Clainer told Telam the accusation about the military base “is a complete myth.” (Telam, July 12)
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, July 16
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On June 8, Peruvian campesinos held a day of protest against the Andean Free Trade Agreement (known in the region as the Free Trade Treaty, or TLC) which Peru’s government signed with the US last December. (The regional pact includes Colombia and Ecuador, but the US has carried out negotiations with each country separately, and the talks with Ecuador have been suspended since March.) Hundreds of campesinos marched on the Panamerican South highway in Chincha, Ica region, blocking traffic for hours. The campesinos are demanding that Peru’s Congress make changes to the pact so it won’t hurt small-scale farmers, especially those producing cotton and corn. More than 3,000 campesinos marched to the central plaza of Tarapoto, in San Martin region, from areas including Altomayo and Huallaga Central. They threw rice during the protest to draw attention to the negative impact the TLC will have on Peruvian rice producers. (Cadena Peruana de Noticias, June 8) On June 7 or 8, before the protests began, the Constitution Commission of Peru’s Congress ruled out holding a referendum on the TLC. (Adital, June 8)
Campesino leader Jose Villanueva told the Cadena Peruana de Noticias radio network: “[President-elect] Alan Garcia in his initial speech said the signing of that treaty was irresponsible, yet now that he won the elections he is in favor and it seems he won’t say anything in the face of its ratification.” (Cadena Peruana de Noticias, June 8)
According to official results reported on June 10, with 99.77% of the ballots counted, Garcia of the Peruvian Aprista Party won the June 4 presidential runoff election with 52.6% of the vote, compared to 47.4% for nationalist candidate Ollanta Humala, who has come out more strongly against the TLC. Earlier reports showed Garcia with a lead of more than 10 percentage points over Humala. (La Jornada, Mexico, June 6 from AFP, DPA, Reuters; El Nuevo Herald, June 10 from AP) Based on the results from the April 9 general elections, Humala’s Union for Peru party will have the largest bloc in Congress, with 45 of the 120 seats, compared to 36 for Garcia’s Aprista party. (El Nuevo Herlad, Miami, June 8 from AP)
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 11
PROTESTERS BLOCK MACHU PICCHU
As part of an ongoing series of protests against the Andean Free Trade Agreement, Peruvian campesinos in the southeastern region around Cusco shut down tourist visits to the Machu Picchu ruins on June 21. The campesinos used tree trunks and boulders to block railroad tracks outside Cusco; others blocked streets inside the city. The company PeruRail, which operates the only rail service to the ruins and normally carries 1,200 tourists a day, suspended operations for the day.
Peru signed the TLC in December. On June 6 the government of outgoing president Alejandro Toledo sent the 1,000-page document to Congress for ratification. He is pushing for the accord to be finalized before July 28, when a new Congress will be seated and Toledo’s successor, former president Alan Garcia (1985-1990), will take office.
The General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP) called for the June 21 action. “The TLC [creates] the cruelest unfair competition between our Andean products and highly subsidized US products; it will plunge us into poverty, destroying our agriculture and our national manufacturing sector in its early stages.” (El Nuevo Herald, June 22 from AP)
The Struggle Against the TLC National Coordinating Committee, an umbrella organization for labor and campesino groups, has scheduled another protest for July 4. On June 22 former presidential candidate Ollanta Humala, a nationalist who lost to Garcia in a June 4 runoff election, announced his support for the anti-TLC protests. Nelson Palomino, the leader of the Confederation of Peruvian Cocaleros [coca growers], who spent three and a half years jailed in the Yanamilla prison in Ayacucho, announced his intention to march at the head of the protests and demanded a meeting with Garcia to discuss the TLC. Garcia, who was on a visit to Chile, said his party didn’t unconditionally support the accord. His government would push for an “improvement…of the conditions that Mr. Toledo negotiated,” he told the Chilean radio state RPP. (Cadena Global/EFE, June 22; Cadena Peruana de Noticias Radio, June 23)
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 25
CAJAMARCA: STRIKE AT GOLD MINE
Some 1,000 workers at Yanacocha mine in the Cajamarca region of Peru went on strike April 15. The mine, owned by the US-based Newmont Mining Corp. and the Peruvian company Buenaventura, is Latin America’s largest gold mine. The union said the strike shut down operations at the mine on April 17; the company claimed only 100 workers walked out and the mine kept running on a contingency plan. On April 17, the company announced that the union had “unconditionally lifted” the strike and the workers would return to their jobs on April 18. The union said the strike was to demand benefits such as free healthcare, education and housing which the company had promised to the workers.
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, April 30
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Some 200 Ecuadoran campesinos occupied the roads leading to the Coca-Payamino installation of the French oil company Perenco on the morning of June 19 to protest the company’s “indifference” to the environmental damage they said it had caused. The campesinos came from three communities–15 de Abril, Asociacion Campesina Payamino and Asociacion Campesina Punino–in Orellana province in northeastern Ecuador. The campesinos said company representatives repeatedly failed to come to meetings called to resolve the problems.
During the morning the approximately 20 Ecuadoran soldiers that had been guarding the facility for the last three weeks were reinforced by 20 soldiers arriving in helicopters and by six local police agents coming on foot, according to local residents. The governor of Orellana and a ranking military officer also arrived and ordered the removal of the campesinos at noon. “The police and military forces repressed the campesinos by hurling a large number of tear gas grenades and shooting rubber bullets, resulting in two people wounded, two arrested and the end of the occcupation of the oil installation,” the Human Rights Office of the Coca reported.
One of the people injured was Wilman (or Wilmer) Adolfo Jimenez Salazar, a member of the Orellana Human Rights Committee who was acting as a human rights observer when he was shot six times with rubber bullets at close range, in the leg, arm and abdomen. He was then arrested. He was taken to the Orellana Civilian Hospital for treatment, but Orellana judicial police agents later removed him. Human rights groups and the municipal government of Francisco de Orellana designated Jimenez a “disappeared person” and filed a habeas corpus petition for his release.
Orellana prefect Guadalupe Llori told the Associated Press she was attempting to mediate the situation. Although the campesinos were removed on June 19, “I think they’ve gone back to reoccupy” the area, she said on June 20. “They play cat and mouse. Today they’re removed, tomorrow they’re back.” Perenco has been operating in Ecuador since 2002, exploring and drilling in the Amazonian region, according to its website. (Yahoo Noticias Argentina, June 20; El Nuevo Herald, Miami, June 20 from AP; Diario Hoy, Ecuador, June 20 from AFP; Francisco de Orellana press release, June 20)
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 27
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On June 1, Colombian chief federal prosecutor Mario Iguaran announced that an army platoon had deliberately killed 10 agents from a US-trained anti-narcotics unit of the Judicial Police Department (DIJIN) on May 22 in the village of Potreritos, Jamundi municipality, in Valle del Cauca department. “This was not a mistake, it was a crime–a deliberate, criminal decision,” said Iguaran. “The army was doing the bidding of drug traffickers.”
The police agents had arrived at the site of a planned raid when a platoon of 28 soldiers ambushed them. A ballistics investigator found that the soldiers fired 150 bullets and seven grenades at police. A civilian informant who led police to the raid scene, promising they would find a large stash of cocaine, was also killed with a bullet to the head. Gen. Carlos Alberto Ospina, the top commander of Colombia’s armed forces, claimed the attack was an accident, and that soldiers had mistaken the agents for leftist rebels. But ballistic investigators said some of the victims were shot in the back and at a range of only a few yards. And when police reinforcements arrived at the scene with lights flashing, they were driven back by gunfire.
On June 1, the day Iguaran announced his findings, seven soldiers and their unit commander, Col. Bayron Carvajal–who was not at the scene but is believed to have planned and directed the ambush from Cali, the departmental capital–were arrested in connection with the killing. Seven more soldiers were ordered to turn themselves in on June 17. All will face charges of aggravated homicide.
According to an article by Miguel Suarez, Director of Radio Cafe Stereo, the massacre likely stems from a conflict between DIJIN director Oscar Naranjo Trujillo–described by AP as “one of Washington’s most trusted allies in the war on drugs”–and powerful drug trafficker and paramilitary leader Diego Fernando Murillo, known as “Don Berna.” Naranjo is the brother of drug trafficker Juan David Naranjo, arrested in Germany last May 3. (AP, June 17/; article by Miguel Suarez posted on Colombia Indymedia, June 18)
In Washington on June 9, the US House of Representatives voted 174-229 against an amendment introduced by Rep. James McGovern (D-MA), which would have cut US aid to Colombia’s military and police next year by 5%, $30 million. (AP, June 17)
MEDELLIN: COMMUNITY LEADER MURDERED
On June 13, former community activist Gerardo Gonzalez left his home in the Llanadas neighborhood of Medellin, Colombia, to make a phone call. After he stopped on the street to talk with a local vendor selling arepas (a Colombian staple food made from corn), four armed men arrived and sprayed Gonzalez and the vendor with bullets, killing them both.
Gonzalez and his wife (whose name was omitted from an action alert to protect her safety) were community leaders in the municipality of El Penol, Antioquia, in 2000 when paramilitary groups unleashed a campaign of repression there. A number of leaders were killed, including Carlos Andres Buitrago, Gonzalez’s stepson. The persecution forced the Gonzalez family and other community leaders and their families to flee El Penol. In 2004, the paramilitaries filed a formal accusation with the attorney general’s office, accusing Gonzalez and other community leaders of being leftist guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). More than 10 of the displaced leaders from El Penol were arrested on July 29, 2004, in connection with the charges. The court eventually threw the charges out for lack of evidence, but the community leaders were unable to return to El Penol and instead had to permanently relocate to Medellin. The persecution by paramilitaries continued in Medellin, and on April 23 of this year Jhon Henry Hincapie and Arley Garcia–both former El Penol residents named in the court case–were disappeared. Their whereabouts remain unknown.
On June 5, Gonzalez and his wife, along with other people who had been arrested on the false charges, filed a formal complaint with the Antioquia prosecutor’s office, charging that a group of paramilitaries led by Jorge Ivan Alzate (alias Claudio Redondo) had been harassing them with threatening calls and surveillance of their homes. At one point, three heavily armed individuals arrived at the Gonzalez home in a white Ford pickup truck with polarized windows. Alzate claims to work with government security forces such as the Judicial Investigations and Intelligence Service (SIJIN) of the National Police, and the Unified Action Group for the Liberty of Persons (GAULA), a combined police and army unit allegedly focused on rescuing kidnapping victims. (Colectivo de Derechos Humanos Semillas de Libertad-CODEHSEL, June 14)
According to official figures, a total of 30,944 right-wing paramilitaries have demobilized. But on June 16, Colombian Defender of the People Volmar Perez reported that armed right-wing paramilitary groups have regrouped “in the department of Valle del Cauca; in Catatumbo, on the border with Venezuela [in Norte de Santander department]; in Montes de Maria [in the northern departments of Bolivar and Sucre] and areas of [the northern departments of] Magdalena, Cesar and Sucre.” (Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias-ABN, Caracas, June 17) According to a confidential report revealed at the Defense Ministry’s May 30 National Intelligence Board summit, 22 new illegal armed groups have emerged, boasting 2,500 armed members currently and likely to expand. (Revista Cambio, June 16)
Paramilitary leaders are warning that more of their members will likely regroup because of a May 18 Constitutional Court ruling which overturned part of the “Peace and Justice Law” that allowed their demobilization. The high court overturned a clause that would have set an eight-year limit on prison terms for demobilized paramilitaries convicted of crimes such as drug smuggling, massacre and torture. The ruling is retroactive, requiring those who were sentenced prior to the law’s passage to serve their full original terms. (El Tiempo, Bogota, June 16; Reuters, June 14; statement from Movement of Victims of State Crimes, May 24)
SANTANDER: ANTI-PRIVATIZATION PROTESTS
On June 14 nearly 1,500 people marched to the municipal building in Barrancabermeja, in the northeastern department of Santander, to reject plans to privatize Aguas de Barrancabermeja, the municipal water and sewer company. (Vanguardia Liberal, Bucaramanga, June 14)
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 18
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, July 1, 2006
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The dust is being blown off one of the more bizarre schemes to emerge from Washington’s so-called “War on Drugs”—which is really a war on plants, on biotic life. Jeremy Bigwood writes for In These Times, June 6: On April… Read moreUS revives Colombia bio-war plan
Violent student protests in the historic town of Merida in Venezuela’s high Andes seem to have accrued little international coverage. This very opinionated account from the very pro-Chavez Venezuela News Bulletin, May 31: Riots and ‘guarimbas’ are running wild in… Read moreVenezuela: student protests rock Merida
from Weekly News Update on the Americas
Some 5,000 people marched in Quito on May 9 to demand that the government cancel its contract with the US oil company Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) within 15 days, and end all negotiations on the Andean Free Trade Agreement which the US is promoting with Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. Most of the marchers came from Ecuador’s Amazon region and were also demanding approval of a law that would increase oil revenues to the six Amazon provinces by $0.50 per barrel. A group of about 100 protesters broke through police lines at the Carondelet presidential palace and tried to sing the national anthem in front of Independence Monument. But 300 riot police agents attacked the group, shoving journalists and spraying several protesters with some kind of colored liquid tear gas. (El Diario- La Prensa, NY, May 10 from EFE; Altercom, May 9)
On May 10, Eduardo Delgado of the Common People Movement and Luis Macas of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) filed a lawsuit against Energy Minister Ivan Rodriguez Ramos for illegitimate omission of public authority for having failed to cancel Oxy’s contract. (Altercom, May 10)
According to Britain’s Financial Times, Petroecuador, the state oil company, sought to revoke Oxy’s operating contract because the US company improperly transferred a 40% interest in its fields to EnCana of Canada in 2000. In March of this year, the Ecuadoran government rebuffed Oxy’s offer to settle for a package worth more than $1 billion in back taxes, social programs, investments and extra revenues in return for a seven-year extension in its operating contract. Occidental is now thought to have upped the offer to $1.7 billion. On May 8, Energy Ministry Rodriguez gave Petroecuador until May 22 to negotiate an agreement. (FT, May 10)
On Sept. 13 of last year, EnCana announced it had reached an agreement to sell all of its interests in Ecuador for approximately $1.42 billion. (EnCana News Release, Oct. 26, 2005)
Government negotiator Manuel Chiriboga said on May 13 that Ecuador’s talks with the US government over the Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA, or TLC in Spanish)—suspended at the end of March—were unlikely to resume. Uncertainty over the legal battle with Oxy and attempts to reform Ecuador’s hydrocarbons law have been stumbling blocks in the negotiations, said Chiriboga. Chiriboga also said the US has engaged in sneaky tricks; in the case of Colombia, the final text of the treaty differed from what Colombian negotiators had agreed on. (Prensa Latina, May 13)
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, May 14
On May 15, Energy Minister Rodriguez announced that Petroecuador was canceling its contract Oxy. The decision to cancel the contract–and reject an offer from Oxy to settle the case—was based on the fact that Oxy had violated the terms of its contract by transferring 40% of its shares in Block 15 in the Ecuadoran Amazon to EnCana on Nov. 1, 2000. Cancellation of the contract means Oxy must immediately return to Petroecuador all the areas under its control, as well as hand over without cost and in good condition all equipment, machinery, installations and transportation etc. used in its oil operations in Ecuador.
Humberto Cholango, leader of Confederation of the Peoples of Kichua Nationality of Ecuador (ECUARUNARI) called the decision a triumph of the indigenous and social movements. The next step is the nationalization of Ecuador’s oil, said Cholango. Before Oxy leaves Ecuador, the company should be investigated for environmental damages in the regions where it operated, warned Esperanza Martinez of the grassroots environmental group Accion Ecologica.
The US Embassy was said to be pressuring hard behind the scenes for a settlement that would allow Oxy to stay; the cancellation of Oxy’s contract is expected to further chill negotiations between Ecuador and the US over the Andean Free Trade Treaty, stalled since March. Rejection of the trade pact is another major demand of Ecuador’s grassroots movements. (Servicio Informativo “Alai-amlatina,” May 16) In a statement on May 16, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said it was “very disappointed with Ecuador’s decision” to cancel Oxy’s contract. USTR spokesperson Neena Moorjani told CNN: “At this time we don’t foresee new conversations” with Ecuador over the trade pact. Moorjani said the administration of US president George W. Bush would ask Ecuadoran president Alfredo Palacio for “immediate explanations” and details about how Oxy would be compensated. (El Barlovento, Mexico, May 16, quotes retranslated from Spanish)
On May 18, Petroecuador assumed 100% control of Oxy’s oil fields in Ecuador. Oxy reported the previous night that it had transferred all its Block 15 operations to Petroecuador, and that on May 18 a technical unit would take over operations of the Limoncocha wells in Sucumbios province. Oxy has meanwhile filed an international trade suit against the Ecuadoran government with the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington. (El Barlovento, May 18)
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, May 21
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Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html
See also WW4 REPORT #121
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“Ecuador Boots Oxy,” May 24
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, June 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution
from Weekly News Update on the Americas
On May 1, in a ceremony at the San Alberto oilfield in Carapari, Tarija department, Bolivian president Evo Morales Ayma signed supreme decree 28.701, ordering the nationalization of the country’s hydrocarbons resources. “The looting is over,” Morales announced as he ordered the armed forces to seize control of all the oil and gas fields. With the decree, the Bolivian state “recovers the property, possession and total and absolute control of these resources,” said Morales. Foreign companies now have six months to renegotiate their oil and gas contracts with the government; in the meantime they must give up control of their facilities and channel all sales through the newly refounded state oil company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB). Morales also ordered the confiscation of the shares necessary to guarantee more than 50% state control of the oil companies operating in Bolivia. (Resumen Latinoamericano, May 1; New York Times, May 2)
“If the negotiations do not go well, we could go to the next step, expropriation,” said energy minister Andres Soliz Rada. He said companies would be compensated. But the first step, said Soliz, is an audit of foreign company documents. “It’s time to open the black boxes of the petroleum companies.” (NYT, May 4)
Nationalization of Bolivia’s resources, especially gas and oil, had become the main consensus demand of the country’s grassroots movements following the popular protests that ousted ex-president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. Sanchez was responsible for selling off the country’s hydrocarbons to transnational corporations at extremely unfavorable rates for Bolivia. The contracts were never ratified by Congress, as the Constitution requires, making their legality questionable. (Resumen Latinoamericano, May 1)
At a May 4 summit in the northeastern Argentine province of Misiones, the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Venezuela confirmed their interest in moving together towards regional energy integration. The meeting was called to discuss the impact of the Bolivian nationalization. After a three-hour meeting, the four presidents held a joint press conference in the Casino Hotel in the town of Puerto Iguazu. Argentine president Nestor Kirchner said it was “one of the best meetings” he has taken part in as president.
The gathering was called by Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva; Brazil’s Petrobras is the largest foreign investor in Bolivia’s natural gas industry. A full 67% of the gas consumed by industry in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s industrial and financial center, comes from Bolivia. Before the nationalization, Petrobras had control of Bolivia’s two refineries, its biggest gas fields, a chain of gas stations and a pipeline running from Bolivia to Brazil. Petrobras will now have to negotiate a new contract, at a higher price. Although the presidents did not discuss prices, they acknowledged that they had agreed that gas supplies would be guaranteed. (Inter Press Service, May 4 via CorpWatch)
From Weekly News Update on the Americas, May 14
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Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html
See also WW4 REPORT #117
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“Bolivia hosts hemispheric indigenous conference,” April 9
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, June 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution
A “Secret Formula” Against Colombia’s Guerillas?
by Paul Wolf
The US State Department has developed the secret formula to dismantle the armed groups of Colombia’s war. Or so it believes. It is believed that the demobilization of 28,000 members of the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) was the result of threatening its leaders—notably Salvadore Mancuso and Don Berna—with extradition to the US.
Fear of extradition, accompanied by promises of amnesty, convinced large numbers of paramilitaries to lay down their arms, confess their crimes, and put their faith in the government to restore order in Colombia.
Now, the same strategy is being tried on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), an insurgency with roots in Colombia’s civil conflict of the 1940s (“La Violencia”) and greatly influenced by the Cuban revolution. The FARC has grown over the decades, despite concerted efforts by the Colombian and US governments to destroy it, including the use of death squads, forced displacement of its supporters, and the most modern technologies of surveillance and counter-terrorism.
Top 50 FARC Leaders Indicted
On March 29, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced the indictment in the US of the top 50 leaders of the FARC on drug charges. According to the indictment, the FARC not only taxes Colombian coca growers, but also operates cocaine processing laboratories, and enforces a monopoly on the purchase of the drug in areas it controls. According to Gonzales, and to Justice Department press releases, the FARC is responsible for 50% of the world’s cocaine, worth more than US $25 billion.
This staggering figure cannot represent the true income of the FARC, however. The FARC has an estimated 18,000 fighters—this would be more than one million dollars per guerrilla. That’s a lot of money for people who live in the jungle, sleep in hammocks, and live on a diet of yucca, rice and chicharĂłn (pork fat).
A different estimate was made by the Information and Financial Analysis Unit of the Colombian government’s Ministry of Land, which it is said that the FARC receive about 30% of their income from drugs: 8.5 million US dollars per year in “tribute” from coca farmers, and about 3 million from the sale of cocaine.
Even multiplying this figure by the ten years the US says the FARC have been in the cocaine business, the US estimate exceeds that of Colombia by a factor of 200. The US government has offered $75 million in rewards for information leading to the capture of FARC leaders.
Same Evidence, Different Defendants
The FARC indictment supercedes the 2002 indictment of “Negro Acacio”, a case that has languished in DC District Court for the last four years. The new evidence apparently implicating the Estado Mayor (central command) of the FARC, consists of captured documents, witness testimony, and intercepted radio transmissions which allegedly show the complicity of the FARC leadership in the production and trafficking of vast quantities of coca paste and cocaine. The physical evidence, however, is the same “five or more kilograms of a substance containing a detectable amount of cocaine” in the original indictment of 2002.
In addition to Negro Acacio, several other FARC members are already on trial in the US for drugs and terrorism, including Carlos Bolas, Simon Trinidad, and Omaira Rojas (“Sonia”). According to the DEA, three others await extradition at Combita prison: Jorge Enrique Rodriguez Mendieta (“Ivan Vargas”), Erminso Cuevas Cabrera (“Mincho”), and Juan Jose Martinez Vega (“Gentil Alvis Patino”). These three are accused of having significant personal involvement in the production and trafficking of thousands of kilograms of cocaine.
While one might assume that Colombia would agree to their extradition, Colombia does not recognize the 1982 extradition treaty with the US, and has the discretion to either extradite or not. Colombia might try to use the threat of extradition to put pressure on the FARC to demobilize. At Gonzales’ press conference in March, the first thing said by Colombian Ambassador Andres Pastrana was that “[t]he indictment of 50 leaders of the FARC guerrillas is a decision taken by the Department of Justice of the United States.” This appears to leave the door open for Colombia to negotiate this point, if the FARC have any interest in it.
The belief that the FARC leaders fear extradition, and can be convinced to demobilize, is held by the US, but not the Colombian government. This is clearly Washington’s policy, and not Bogota’s. Nevertheless, Colombia is likely to go along with it, since its own policy is to defeat the insurgency through pressure and force of arms.
The indictment describes the FARC as being substantially in control of most of the cocaine production in Colombia. While it has been acknowledged for many years that the FARC tax the coca trade, and fight with the AUC to control rural parts of Colombia, the indictment accuses the FARC of operating cocaine laboratories, as well as killing coca growers who sell to anyone other than themselves. It does not, however, accuse the FARC of trafficking drugs outside of Colombia, although guns-for-drugs transactions have allegedly occurred on the Colombia-Brazil border.
All of these prosecutions will have to overcome a serious hurdle; that is, in order for any extradition to be valid, there must be some connection between the crime and the United States. In the case of drug trafficking, the defendants must intend that the drugs are shipped to the US. Even if it is true that the defendants have produced hundreds of thousands of kilograms of cocaine, as the indictment alleges, if they didn’t know, or didn’t care where the drugs went, then they would not have had the intent to send the drugs to the US, and could not be extradited here.
If there is no intentional connection with the United States, no US law would have been violated. In this respect, the threat of extradition may be an empty one. On the other hand, the threats of being held in solitary confinement for many years, and of inadequate legal representation in the face of a government with unlimited prosecutorial resources, are very real. Even the well-known FARC guerrillas Simon Trinidad and Sonia have been represented by public defenders with limited resources. For example, in Sonia’s case, the defendants were provided with over 100 compact disks of intercepted communications to review themselves in prison, to prepare their own defense, and more than 10,000 documents that the prosecution might use in the trial. In the Trinidad case, between 20-25 witnesses will be flown up from Colombia to testify in the drug trafficking trial alone.
The Prosecution of Simon Trinidad
Simon Trinidad, the well-known negotiator for the FARC during the peace process of the Pastrana administration, was captured in Ecuador two years ago, and extradited to the US on charges of drug trafficking, kidnapping, and providing material support to a terrorist organization. The case has attracted the attention of the Latin American press, but none whatsoever in the US, despite the fact that the case will test numerous traditional legal principles as applied in the new paradigm of the “war on terror.” It also appears that Trinidad will be the first of the FARC members to be prosecuted in the new program announced by Gonzales, although nowhere in the FARC indictment does Trinidad appear in the leadership of the FARC organization.
The first case against Trinidad stems from the crash or shoot-down of a surveillance plane operated by California Microwave, a US military contractor. After a firefight at the crash site, three North Americans were taken captive by the FARC, who are still holding them. To date, the prosecution has not tried to show that Simon Trinidad gave the order to shoot down the plane. Neither is there any evidence that Trinidad was involved in the decision to take the North Americans as prisoners. It appears that Trinidad’s only involvement in the incident was to travel to Ecuador to try to arrange their release, supposedly in concert with the UN.
It would be hard to find Simon Trinidad guilty under these facts. Any crime, even one involving a conspiracy, requires that the defendant have the necessary mental state to commit the crime. The intent to commit one crime, such as rebellion against the government, cannot be substituted for the intent to commit another, nor can the commission of one crime be the basis of guilt for another crime requiring a different intent merely because the harm flowed from the first crime. In other words, if Simon Trinidad was not involved in taking the North Americans captive, his efforts to negotiate their release should not make him criminally liable for their capture.
A second argument, already made by Trinidad’s public defenders, is that the incident occurred in the context of an armed conflict. Taking prisoners in a war is not a war crime. Ironically, the prosecution has emphasized the fact that Trinidad is seen in various photos wearing a FARC uniform, as evidence of his membership in the group. The US contractors, accused by columnist Robert Novak of working for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), did not wear uniforms, and their surveillance of the FARC could be considered as espionage. As a lawful combatant in uniform, Trinidad would be entitled to the protection of the Geneva Conventions, while the US contractors, as spies, would not.
Judge Thomas Hogan, who is hearing the case, however, has ruled that because the United States is not at war with the FARC, Trinidad is not entitled to combatant immunity.
One interesting development in the case will be whether the defense is able to learn, from the court-ordered production of US government documents, what exactly the contractors were doing flying over the Colombian jungle. Was the surveillance plane looking for coca plants, or intercepting FARC radio transmissions and reporting on FARC positions? If the latter is the case, then the defense will have the opportunity to prove at trial that the US was participating in the war between the Colombian government and the FARC.
Of course, these arguments do not apply to the drug trafficking charge against Trinidad. Drug trafficking is still a crime during a war. Trinidad’s drug trafficking trial will begin shortly after his kidnapping trial ends, sometime around January of 2007.
Disregarding the Defendant’s Human Rights
Simon Trinidad is being held incommunicado, and without access to his lawyer, in Washington, DC. As these hearings progress, numerous other legal cases against Trinidad are proceeding in Colombia, where he is being tried in absentia. This is in clear contravention of his basic rights, guaranteed by the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Article 14(3)(e) of the Covenant guarantees the right to “be present in the proceeding and to defend personally or to be assisted by counsel of his choice.” Nevertheless, Judge Hogan has said that under the US Constitution, the rights to be present in a criminal proceeding, and to have effective legal representation, do not apply to proceedings outside of the US. Hogan has failed to consider that international treaties like the ICCPR have the force of law in US courts, regardless of whether provisions of the US Constitution apply.
The public defenders assigned to Trinidad’s case had to sign agreements with the US government, called Special Administrative Measures, promising not to communicate any information between their client and the outside world. These measures clearly violate the defendant’s right to counsel. One might ask whether attorneys agreeing to these conditions are a part of the problem, particularly when Trinidad’s chosen lawyer, Oscar Silva, is not permitted to meet with him unless an FBI agent is present.
The case is full of problems with evidence, the jurisdiction of the court, and the political nature of the charges. But most important are the fundamental rights of the defendant. Trinidad has the right to be present for the cases against him in Colombia, and to have an attorney of his choice where he is judged.
Mistake to Ignore These Cases
Although the FARC may benefit from boycotting Colombian elections, or from enforcing a “paro armado” (armed blockade) in concert with union strikes, it makes an error if it ignores the trials of its own members. The FARC should defend them in court. Regardless of the fairness or political nature of the trials, they do provide a forum for the FARC to explain its policies and make the case that it is an insurgent group rather than merely a drug trafficking organization. If the FARC doesn’t make these arguments, no one will. The trials will proceed with or without the participation of the FARC, and even the most liberal observers will have little to say as FARC members are minimally defended by overworked attorneys paid by the US government. It seems unlikely that the FARC will be intimidated by the new extradition program, or that any demobilization will be forthcoming, but this doesn’t mean the FARC should simply ignore what is happening.
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Paul Wolf is an attorney in Washington, and may be contacted at paulwolf@icdc.com.
SOURCES:
Report of the Unit of Financial Information and Analysis (Uiaf) of the Treasury Department, cited in “El Transito de las Farc al narcotrafico” (The Passing of the FARC to Drug Trafficking), Colprensa, March 25, 2006
“United States Charges 50 Leaders of Narco-Terrorist FARC In Colombia With Supplying More Than Half Of The World’s Cocaine,” US DEA press release, March 22, 2006.
See also:
“COLOMBIA QUAGMIRE DEEPENS
FARC Indictments Spell Escalation in Andean Oil War”
by Peter Gorman
WW4 REPORT #121, April 2006
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, June 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution
