hopefully, chavez won’t take the bait. he hasn’t got the planes he ordered, ready to fly sorties. not that it would make much difference when the US marines come marching in.

what US marines would that be?

the one’s they can’t hustle up for Iraq and Afghanistan, per chance?

Sure, hopefully, Chavez won’t take the bait. But. There’s no question he doesn’t want to start dancing like a fairy right around now.

He’s withdrawn Venezuela’s ambassador to Colombia, sent 10 battalions to the border with Colombia and put Venezuela’s air force on stand by. Pero cuidada : The Corporations are clearly mounting an assault from the Colombia side. So I’d say as much total surveillance as you can swing is the beginning of a very good idea.

Correa has also withdrawn Ecuador’s Ambassador to Colombia.

Kick some Colombian ass Chavez! Viva Bolivar!

Yeah! Because war sucks, unless it’s one of our guys waging it!

Killing is pretty sweet this time. I can’t wait.

Sure, there’s rapings and pillagings….but it’s Bolivarian raping and pillaging! Woot!

Goooooooooooo team!

Korea was helpless. Vietnam was helpless. Afghanistan was helpless. Yugoslavia was helpless. Iraq was helpless. The Empire only strikes people it thinks are helpless.

Germany was an inside job.

Even North Korea isn’t helpless enough. LOL.

The Wiley Coyote State keeps thinking Lebanon is helpless.

Beep beep!

Here’s a thought form. They killed Reyes. Numero Two. Without worrying about the lives of any of the remaining hostages.

What’s wrong with THAT picture?

Seriously though, if you look at the kind of arms Chavez is buying, they don’t make sense for fighting the U.S (por exemplo), but would make more sense if they were for pounding his neighbors.

Chavez spends money on things like large troop-transport helicopters and Russian fighter jets… both things are absolutely worse than useless for fighting the U.S. Pero contra las Colombianas, quien sabe?

Seriously though, if you look at the kind of arms Chavez is buying, they don’t make sense for fighting the U.S (por exemplo), but would make more sense if they were for pounding his neighbors.

So a regional aggressor is better than a global one. If his ideology is correct. Awesome.

Those FARC hostages are starting to look more and more like Narco State hostages. What do you want to bet that each and every one of them crossed the wrong guy or served some sort of ulterior motive?

That rescue mission fiasco that took so many hostage lives a while back is starting to look VERY suspicious.

Check the public record, ask around.

a regional aggressor

Did I miss something? Who is the aggressor here? Colombia is the one dropping bombs in other peoples’ backyards — seems pretty similar to the reckless shit the US does in the Middle East and in Africa, among other places, in fighting the war on terror®. Chavez, on the other hand, is helping negotiate the release of FARC-held hostages, and his position in doing so is weakened by Colombia’s recent actions. Colombia obviously thinks cross-border military incursions are it’s right and he disagrees for either the sake of sovereignty or for his bargaining position, or a little of both.

I’m not a big Chavez fan, or a fan of nationalism in general, but this seems like a reasonable response to the situation. I’d wait until he starts lobbing missiles into Colombia to call him an aggressor.

Germany was an inside job

how so?

Has something to do with the Jews. I’m willing to bet.

dont it always?

Incidentally, I’m with Sis on this one. This seems like a no-brainer for Chavez, on par with him shutting down that media outlet that participated in the coup against him…

Whoa a regional aggressor??? lol….how is that even so? Venezuela (under Chavez) has never done anything to be called an aggressor…...because it bought weapons to defend itself against its corrupt puppet neighbors of the Empire? seriously though…im all about peace, but defense and yes even aggression is needed when no one is willing to stand up for truth and the voiceless who have never experienced justice; and im not talking about the U.S. “liberation” of Iraq but more like the Vietnamese liberation of Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge. I think hippie liberals are ok….because they’re hearts are in the right place but they are cowards, it takes strong leaders like Fidel and Hugo to stand up to our Anglo oppressors and deliver us from the servitude that has been in place since Columbus.

Onward

Did I miss something.. he moved tanks around inside his own country.. is that not allowed now without US permission?

, it takes strong leaders like Fidel and Hugo to stand up to our Anglo oppressors and deliver us from the servitude that has been in place since Columbus.

I wish I could get people to believe bullshit like this.

how is that bullshit? could you please explain your comment Mr. Snark? i would really like to hear it.

how is that bullshit? could you please explain your comment Mr. Snark? i would really like to hear it.

I said that because I do not believe that, bitchin and complaining while holding a picket with a sign will get us anywhere, neither will working within the system and voting for another politician who will promise us everything and deliver us nothing. It takes strong leaders to make a difference. you can judge that difference to be good(Fidel, Hugo, Zapata, Bolivar) or bad.

Snark, I formally request you stop burdening everyone with your stupidity.

“Did I miss something.. he moved tanks around inside his own country.. is that not allowed now without US permission?”

That is basically the DAMN point.

“I wish I could get people to believe bullshit like this.”

I take it your anglo? I take it you have little empathy, if any, for the people your governments have robbed of their national wealth. The global resistance to US empire is currently being waged in Iraq.

I hate hippie liberals. They’re usually middle class with conservative ideals. Anyone can talk about “fighting” to save the planet, or curb emissions. But would you pick up a rifle to change this?

Guerilla fighters are not pussies. They are people who have been coerced into picking up a rifle. They are people who are willing to die for their ideals. That is honorable.

Sometimes you have to fight, case in point the Paris Commune.

DR – The global resistance to US empire is currently being waged in Iraq.

Come again?

I hate hippie liberals. They’re usually middle class with conservative ideals. Anyone can talk about “fighting” to save the planet, or curb emissions. But would you pick up a rifle to change this?

I love internet guerrillas. They’re usually middle class with leftist ideals. Anyone can talk about “fighting” to save the planet, or curb emissions. But would you type on a keyboard to change this?

“I take it your anglo? I take it you have little empathy, if any, for the people your governments have robbed of their national wealth.”

I take it you haven’t looked at who your oppressors are lately. I’ts not longer just the Anglo’s holding you down, it’s the rich. once you realize that you might actually do something for a change instead of just further dividing the fight against those in power by alienating a huge segment of people who agree with you…

“I’ts not longer just the Anglo’s holding you down, it’s the rich.” – And this is something which has changed in the last 10,000 years?

Ecuador is sending additional troops to their border with Colombia, and now Colombia is claiming President Correa’s government has ties to FARC.

AP

Rainbow, lol, it was your own bloody post.

Ecuador has joined Venezuela in deploying troops to their borders with Colombia after Bogota bombed Colombian Farc rebels inside Ecuador.

OPEN QUOTE

Chavez accused Uribe of lying about the details of the operation that killed Reyes, calling it a “cowardly assassination” of a “good revolutionary”.

Chavez called Uribe a “criminal”, saying: “Not only is he a liar, a mafia boss, a paramilitary who leads a narco-government and leads a government that is a lackey of the United States … he leads a band of criminals from his palace.”

Ecuador questioned if Uribe lied when he initially explained that the strike was in response to cross-border fire. [Wow]

Ecuador expelled Colombia’s ambassador

The global justice movement needs its own functional equivalent of US AID’s Human Rights Watch.

See also : The Failure of Human Rights Watch in Venezuela and Haiti

What a bunch of swine.

In a response to Ecuador’s protest of violation of its territory, Colombia’s Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo sent a letter to his Ecuadorean counterpart laying out the course of events that led the attack. Colombia “never intended to disrespect the sovereignty or integrity of its brother nation‘’ the letter said.

Colombia apologized for sending its helicopters across the frontier. Still, Uribe’s spokesman Cesar Velasquez said computer files retrieved from a FARC camp in Venezuela showed Correa may have had ties to the guerrillas. He said the government would provide evidence.

...Chavez called for a moment of silence during yesterday’s television broadcast to honor Reyes, a member of the FARC’s seven-person ruling committee. In January, the Venezuelan leader asked governments around the world to remove the rebel group from their list of terrorist groups…”The Colombian armed forces are controlled by the Pentagon,’‘ he said yesterday.

...“We’re monitoring the situation,’‘ White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in Crawford, Texas, where President George W. Bush was spending the weekend. “This is an odd reaction by Venezuela to Colombia’s efforts against the FARC, a terrorist organization that continues to hold Colombians, Americans and others hostage.’‘

how is that bullshit? could you please explain your comment Mr. Snark? i would really like to hear it…..It takes strong leaders to make a difference. you can judge that difference to be good(Fidel, Hugo, Zapata, Bolivar) or bad.

I’ll agree with the latter, I suppose. I think it’s just that I regard most idealistic political leaders fighting for a cause to be utterly fucking terrifying – a mixture of wide-eyed naivite,and the steely, bloodless determination to act on it. And when other idealists hero-worship them, it makes me chilly. There have been far too many evil motherfuckers who say all the right things for me to take any of them seriously.

I hate hippie liberals. They’re usually middle class with conservative ideals. Anyone can talk about “fighting” to save the planet, or curb emissions. But would you pick up a rifle to change this?

Unless you are, right now, holding an AK and conscripted into either the Venezuelan or Cuban armies, kindly eat my shorts, Mr. Internet Guerrilla.

And no, I’m not picking up a rifle to change the planet. Because picking up a rifle, to change things, is fucking retarded. In fact, I think that “changing things” – in the revolutionary, guerrilla sense of “we’re going to remake the world, by force if necessary, in the idealized image described by our ideology and the great thinker who we hero-worship” – is fucking retarded too. Picking up a rifle is what you do when you want to kill somebody in the process of defending your family or your home. Picking up a rifle is an essentially negative act of violence and negativity, and expecting positive, creative things to come out of it is absolutely barking mad.

RE.: Cesar Velasquez said computer files retrieved from a FARC camp in Venezuela showed Correa may have had ties to the guerrillas. He said the government would provide evidence.

Let’s watch for that one.

I love the Gordon Johndroe’s “odd reaction” quote. Please do “monitor the situation” muchachos. The sooner you figure it out, the better.

I also had a few moments of silence, in the form of a heart attack. Reye’s assassination really came as a shock to me.

From nuestro Colombia Journal :

Colombia Assassinates FARC Commander Raúl Reyes

See also

Two Perspectives from the Colombian Left (July 2007)

OPEN QUOTE

The reports suggest that it was an assassination carried out in Ecuadorian territory, the type of assassination that the Israelis have committed in recent decades and are most recently accused of committing against Hizbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh. Indeed, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez noted the similarity, asking if Colombia was going to become the Israel of the Americas.

From Axis of Logic, Dogs of War Unleashed

Uribe will not try and negotiate a political deal and his form of running a peace process is to bomb any suspected FARC columns or encampments. “Defeat the FARC militarily” is the Uribe philosophy. This begs the question- where is Colombia’s role to bring peace to its own nation after 60 years of violence and civil war triggered by the assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on April 4th 1948 on a Bogotá street?

The Granda incident in Caracas and now a military incursion into Ecuador are clear signs of the policy of Bogotá/Washington to escalate tension and war in the region.

Israel bombs and slaughters Palestinians and Lebanese citizens with impunity in the Middle East and no UN Resolution has ever been passed against these violations of human rights by the Security Council. The US always uses its veto.

If a resolution at the OAS or the UN were to be tabled against Colombia for this military incursion into Ecuadorian territory, would that be vetoed as well? If so, this means that the US will have created another rogue state in South America, with Colombia being encouraged to act with impunity against its neighbors’ territory and sovereignty.

..With a potentially “new Israel” on the South American continent, The Dogs of War are about to be let off their leashes at anytime.

““I’ts not longer just the Anglo’s holding you down, it’s the rich.” – And this is something which has changed in the last 10,000 years?”

The rich are no longer just Anglos and saying “damn the white man” and shit like that just divides everyone further which is pretty retarded to do.

Reuters reports on Brazilian, Argentinean and Chilean mediation efforts, but alsomore info on Reyes:

France said Reyes was its contact in negotiations aimed at winning the release of Ingrid Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate who also holds French nationality. She has been held hostage in the Colombian jungle for six years.

They never were “just” Anglos ( though I prefer to call them sasnaigh (saxons))

From Venezuela Analysis:

Chavez has taken up the Israel line

“The Colombian government has turned into the Israel of Latin America,” said Chavez during his show on Sunday

You could cut the tension with a knife:

“This is very serious. If this were to happen in Venezuela it would be a cause for war,” said Chavez. “Don’t even think about it or I’ll launch an air attack”

double post

From the AP

Chilean president says the Colombian government should explain themselves:

“A situation like this requires an explanation from Colombia to Ecuadoreans, to the Ecuadorean president and to the entire region,” Bachelet said. “We are very worried“

Soldiers also found three wounded women at the camp — a Mexican philosophy student injured by shrapnel and two Colombians

Ecuadorean officials said they believe there were two bomb attacks on the camp

“The two documents, copies of which were obtained independently by The Associated Press, were apparently written by Reyes in the past two months and addressed to the FARC high command. An Ecuadorean government spokesman called the Colombian claims a lie”

Colombian Peso takes hit amid fears of conflict

Nice catch.

Here’s a piece by Richard Gott which points out exactly what this NarcoState raid was REALLY about :

OPEN QUOTE

The deaths of Raúl Reyes and Julián Conrado, two senior figures in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the Farc, is clearly a serious blow to the guerrilla organisation. It will also call a halt to the release of hostages held by the Farc in the jungle over many years, a process that had been proceeding slowly under the auspices of the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez.

END OF QUOTE

I wouldn’t be too quick to assume that the French really want the problem solved either. They sent Bernard, remember? Mr. NATO bombing of Yugoslavia — among other things.

Here Kouchner is with Wesley Clark and Mr. Kosovo Albanian Heroin Mafioso himself . . .

This things that’s bothering me about the Colombian Gvmnt claiming they found letters connecting the FARC to the Ecuadorian gvnmt is this:

Suppose for arguments sake that the claim is true, that the FARC do have ties with Correa, the Colombian gvmnt couldn’t have know this until they got the letters, ie after Reyes had been killed, which in turn implies that they didnt have any physical evdience of this before the bombing, meaning that it was conducted on nothing more than a hunch…..making it illegal no matter how close the FARC are to Correa

By my reasoning they seem to have shot themselves in the foot one way or they other

REUTERS Pictures — 1 week ago: France’s Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (L) and Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe shake hands after his arrival at the presidential palace in Bogota, February 21, 2008. Kouchner traveled to Colombia after meeting Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez in Caracas to talk over the release of hostages the rebels have held for more than five years in jungle camps. French Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt is one of high profile rebel captives.

Internet guerilla here.

LMAO. That’s a great statement, i’ll probably end up using that one.

And no, i havent picked up a rifle. I havent been fucked over as much as the those poor rural peasants in Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Guatemala, etc. However, they have, and THEY HAVE picked up weapons. I wasn’t referring to myself, as in, I’d pick up a rifle. It was in defence of people like Fidel, Tirofijo, Bolivar, Hidalgo, Zapata, Che and countless others who have chosen to fight for their ideals, even if it means death, rather than continue living and maintaing the status quo they despise. Thats honorable, fuck any of your childish antics.

“I’ts not longer just the Anglo’s holding you down, it’s the rich”

True, but in Latin America, those rich more often than not have anglo characteristics. Forgive my generalization, Im sure here in the United States, the situation is much much more different, i suppose.

In the US it boils down to class. Upper, middle, lower (in my opinion, they’re all working class however) classes. I still hate hippy pussy liberals. Middle class silver spoon fed babies. They all remind of Hillary Clinton, “conservative in mind, liberal at heart” bullshit she said. Middle class or so-called middle class in america have it too good to ask for any meaningful changes, your all still too attached to your chinese made products and status symbols. Many (not necessairly any of you) would rather let this driver-less train de-rail into the 6th mass extinction rather than put an end to your overtly consumption driven opulent lifestyles.

note that when i say pussy lhippy-liberals, im from downtown san diego,punk-rocker (punk attitude, not punk fasion here), who is in the process of attaining a formal education, in which everyday, i come across these so-called “hippy-liberals” who think america needs to end the war in iraq, and know next to shit about anything else. they think IM too radical, because i say our “democracy and freedom” ploy is bullshit. i dont know, maybe the term hippy-liberal has been infiltrated by mass media into being some type of anti war thing.

. . .

. . .

Incidentally, I’m with Sis on this one.

Sometimes no Peace

Oh, what a grand display of saber rattling and distraction. Watch the news for the next couple days. I smell something trying to slip under the radar.

Mr. Snark…...i can see where you are coming from. It is true that one cannot blindly follow a leader because it can lead to the deaths of millions as it did with Hitler(yes the third reich was sponsored by america) and stalin(socialization should be a process of patience and not forced in thirty years). But that is why we must read, research, and disect these leaders..and i have, and im sure many others have, and that is why i support Fidel, Hugo, Zapata, Bolivar. These men fought for justice and the dignity of their people and not capitol.

“Internet Guerrila” HA HA…wow nice little jab there. but some of us to use the internet as means to communicate our ideas and hopefully for networking….i live in Colorado and i hope to see many of you prove yourself and stand next to me in protest to the Democratic Convention that will be held here in the fall, if any of you remember the Thanksgiving protest….The Denver PD does not believe in treating those who protest humanely or with any dignity. So if any of you have talk big, i truly hope to see you next to me ready for the fight, I am not only encouraging you but challenging

Mr. Snark…...i can see where you are coming from. It is true that one cannot blindly follow a leader because it can lead to the deaths of millions as it did with Hitler(yes the third reich was sponsored by america) and stalin(socialization should be a process of patience and not forced in thirty years). But that is why we must read, research, and disect these leaders..and i have, and im sure many others have, and that is why i support Fidel, Hugo, Zapata, Bolivar. These men fought for justice and the dignity of their people and not capitol.

“Internet Guerrila” HA HA…wow nice little jab there. but some of us to use the internet as means to communicate our ideas and hopefully for networking….i live in Colorado and i hope to see many of you prove yourself and stand next to me in protest to the Democratic Convention that will be held here in the fall, if any of you remember the Thanksgiving protest….The Denver PD does not believe in treating those who protest humanely or with any dignity. So if any of you have talk big, i truly hope to see you next to me ready for the fight, I am not only encouraging you but challenging to stand up. This ofcourse does not quilify me as a guerilla but more just someone who is sick of this establishment and is taking the first step to hopefully change it. For those true guerillas in Latin America and throughout the rest of the world, they have my upmost respect, love, and support. My ultimate goal is to find a way of aiding them, and that is something that i am working on, and hopefully everyone is too….yes we can all write as much as we want and speak the truth…awareness is the first step to change…the second will be action either by picking up the rifle or by aiding those who do.

Dileted Rebel your right on with what you said.

Forever Forward

Has anyone heard anything about what Raul has to say about this?

I hope Colombia is taken back for the people very soon even if it’s neighbors have to do it.

GW – Incidentally, I’m with Sis on this one. – Sometimes no Peace

I have far more entertaining/silly quotes if you need, GW… Not sure why you’d pick that one out of the plethora of throw-away comments I’ve made on this site. Unless you are impressed, as was I, that I managed to spell ‘Incidentally’ correctly on the first go, and are just trying to remind everyone that I deserve credit for effort. Possibly a tiny gold star to wear on my lapel.

On Edit: And if that is the case- you ROCK!!!

Maybe he also is with sis on this one.

I don’t mean to offend anyone but I really breath an air of ignorance around the comments that some people have posted here.
It really seems to me as if there are not any Colombians or Venezuelans that have had to face the reality of the FARC and Chavez.
First, let me address a comment that someone made here: “I hope Colombia is taken back for the people very soon even if it’s neighbors have to do it.” That is ridiculous and I shouldn’t even take the time to answer to that post but I will anyway, just to educate this person a little.
Colombia is already for the people. The government is absolutely legitimate and counts with the support of 80% of the Colombian population. This is the most popular government that Colombia has ever had and based on this government “the people” decided to change the constitution in order to reelect Uribe (reelection was not constitutional before). Whoever has lived in Colombia understands how this government has contributed to the development of the nation and that Uribe will probably pass on as the best president that has ever governed the country. Puppet of the U.S. or not, the country is coming out of a huge hole that Pastrana left us in.
The FARC and ELN are recognized terrorists, mass murderers, kidnappers, extortionists, black mailers, drug traffickers, etc. At one point they had ideals. Today they have one: money. They are the largest cocaine producers of the world. They have killed thousands and thousands of innocent people that had nothing to do with politics, that were not rich, that never harmed anyone. They have more than 750 people currently kidnapped, but the international media only talks about the 2 or 3 that Clownvez supposedly helped liberate. Come on people! Open your eyes! Raul Reyes had a freaking Rolex on when he got killed! Yeah right, that is really working for the people: you kidnap them, call their families get all the money they have, and then kill the person anyway….and ask for ransom money for the body. Have you guys not heard about Elvia Cortes? Look it up…a lady in a small town that got vaccinated (term for when the guerrillas come to people out in rural areas and force them to pay a monthly amount of money or they kill them and their families). Well, Elvia couldn’t pay for one month and these ideologists came and made a nice little bomb necklace for the lady, and gave her a deadline and since she couldn’t come up with the money the bomb did boom. Look it up in google.
And what to say about Chavez or Clownvez, should I say. He is a smart guy. There is no question about it. But saying that he is working for his people? Only someone that has not been to Venezuela, and that doesn’t know any Venezuelans would think that. Because yes, he is smart in a sense of gaining media time by saying unfounded stupid things that uneducated and ignorant people believe. He is smart in cheating on the elections. Like foe example, it is pretty smart to send voting computers to the voting booths in which only one button works, and, oh surprise, is the one that reads: Hugo Chavez. Or coming out on TV few days after the elections with a black list of thousands of people that voted for the other candidate and firing them all from their jobs. Thousands of people that have not been able to work because they voted for the candidate they liked. Yeah, that is democracy. But you don’t hear too much about it.
The truth is that people are starving in that country. Goods are scarce. People cannot find milk, eggs, flour, toilet paper, etc. The whole country is miserable. It’s a rich country in natural resources that has gone to hell because of this guy, and you still defend him. And if he was really working for the people, what’s the deal with one of his ministers getting busted at the airport with $20,000 in cash for her vacation in Puerto Rico (which is part of the empire), and reservations in a 5 star hotel where the cheapest room is not under $500 a night. One thing is what this clown says, and another is what he practices.
The death of Raul Reyes is a motive of celebration all around Colombia, because he wasn’t looking for the peace he was another criminal that should not be forgiven for the tens of thousands of deaths that he is responsible for and for all the pain that he caused to our country and to all the innocent families that had to suffer because of him. Too bad we went into Ecuador, because that is not right, but if it is true that Correa was supporting this animals, well then screw him

Oh, I forgot…please don’t compare Che, Fidel, and Bolivar to Tirofijo….that’s just plain stupid

“The FARC and ELN are recognized terrorists, mass murderers, kidnappers, extortionists, black mailers, drug traffickers, etc. At one point they had ideals. Today they have one: money.”

The same could be said about the AUC, and other rightwing paramiiltary groups “terrorizing” civilians.

“They are the largest cocaine producers of the world. They have killed thousands and thousands of innocent people that had nothing to do with politics”

It’s capitalism brother, there’s a demans, well there is sure as hell going to be a supply.

“The truth is that people are starving in that country. Goods are scarce. People cannot find milk, eggs, flour, toilet paper, etc. The whole country is miserable. It’s a rich country in natural resources that has gone to hell because of this guy, and you still defend him. And if he was really working for the people, what’s the deal with one of his ministers getting busted at the airport with $20,000 in cash for her vacation in Puerto Rico (which is part of the empire), and reservations in a 5 star hotel where the cheapest room is not under $500 a night. One thing is what this clown says, and another is what he practices.”

People are starving in Mexico, Chile, Paraguay, Colombia and the United States too. What is want in Venezuela and elsewhere? Do you want the national wealth auctioned off for peanuts? Has the poverty rate in Venezuela not gone down?

Welcome back Izzy, we missed you!

U.S.-Colombia Pact Mired in Row Over Labour Abuses

OPEN QUOTE

Much of the opposition to the FTA among Democrats is based on Colombia’s position as the world’s leader in violence against organised labour. Since 1991, more than 2,200 trade unionists have been murdered there, largely by right-wing paramilitaries.

President Álvaro Uribe came to power in 2002*.

Since 2002 there have been just 50 convictions in cases involving attacks on organised labour, while at the same time more than 410 trade unionists have been murdered.

Overall, 98 percent of cases involving trade unionist murders have gone unsolved, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Labour Education in the Americas Project.

A 2006 U.S. State Department report on Colombia found that “freedom of association [is] limited in practice by threats and acts of violence committed by illegal armed groups” against labour unions, and noted that Colombian NGOs often complain that the government has “arbitrarily detained hundreds of persons, particularly social leaders, labour activists, and human rights defenders”.

Last year, the Cincinnati, Ohio-based fruit giant Chiquita was ordered by a U.S. federal court to pay a 25-million-dollar fine after executives at the company were found to have authorised payments to the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, a violent right-wing paramilitary group linked to labour violence. According to Vasquez, his organisation has found that the Chiquita case may only scrape the surface of the extent to which U.S. corporations have supported violence against organised labour.

“[T]here are other American transnational enterprises, for example Dole and Del Monte, in which we began to see evidence appearing of their links to these paramilitary groups and to anti-union violence,” Luciano [Vasquez, of the Medellin, Colombia-based labour group Escuela Nacional Sindical] said.

What Colombia needs, clearly, is humanitarian intervention. Both Argentina and Chile have Peacekeeping Forces. What they should do is go in and DMZ Colombia and launch real negotiations for a just peace. Councils should be set up wherever union murders are known to be taking place and the truth needs to come out on the global stage.

Donwhoever, yes Venezuela is most likely poor. The transition to a socialized ecomony does not come quick..it takes patience…do you remember when Stalin tried to speed up the process and what happened there?? millions died..we do not want this happening to our Venezuelen brothers. actually the average income in venezuela has risen, but yes they’re are still some short comings as is in most countries. But with time they will be solved.

and with that Venezualen government official being caught with all that money….this could be slander, if not that person should be tried by the Venezualen courts and if it was up to me, they should rot in prison for cheating their people.

FARC....a terrorist orginazation? Stop getting your news from the American media. The FARC is a respected group and army throughout the world. in the mid 90’s the leaders of the FARC were actually given a tour of Europe to show them different types of governments and how they actually work…..I have never seen anyone do this with Alqaeda(U.S. created…..just needed a famous “terrrorist orginazation”) The FARC does not produce cocaine…...the drug cartels do. but

Donwhoever, yes Venezuela is most likely poor. The transition to a socialized ecomony does not come quick..it takes patience…do you remember when Stalin tried to speed up the process and what happened there?? millions died..we do not want this happening to our Venezuelen brothers. actually the average income in venezuela has risen, but yes they’re are still some short comings as is in most countries. But with time they will be solved.

and with that Venezualen government official being caught with all that money….this could be slander, if not that person should be tried by the Venezualen courts and if it was up to me, they should rot in prison for cheating their people.

FARC....a terrorist orginazation? Stop getting your news from the American media. The FARC is a respected group and army throughout the world. in the mid 90’s the leaders of the FARC were actually given a tour of Europe to show them different types of governments and how they actually work…..I have never seen anyone do this with Alqaeda(U.S. created…..just needed a famous “terrrorist orginazation”) The FARC does not produce cocaine…...the drug cartels do. but the sad fact is that guerrilas have been paid off to give protection to the areas where they are grown. ...which i do not approve of.

about that rolex watch…..did you know that Che Guevarra used to wear 4 rolex watches at a time?? he would were watches confiscated from the rich bourgious, to show them that this so called badges of superiority were frivalous and in reality meant nothing.

I hope that the aggressions of puppet Colombia do not lead to war with its neighbors, but if so i hope our comrades smash that narco-cracy and hand it back to the people.

Colombia has 2 million internal refugees? That must be about mining and drilling rights, resources in addition to coca.. otherwise why depopulate?

Glyphosate (?) = ecocrime, ergo Uribe sucks.

donjuanfer

What you say about Columbia seems much more informed, albeit somewhat biased, than what you say about Venezuela. I assume you’re Columbian… have you been to Venezuela yourself?

Quality of Life for the sectors of Venezuelan society that you describe as ‘starving’ has greatly improved over the past eight years. While there is still a great deal of poverty in the nation, things are a lot better than they were under the former two-party neoliberal system. You rely far too much on opposition media… although I’m sure you believe what you’re saying. Try reading some third-party reporting on the subject… as you would likely dismiss anything released within the Venezuelan state media as propaganda. I recommend reading some of Nikolas Kozloff’s articles on the situation in that country.

As for Columbia… Uribe may be popular in your part of the country, but he is certainly not popular with all sectors of Columbian society – especially with the Columbian ‘left’, or large swathes of the country’s campesino population. He’s also cozy with the AUC and the Medellin cocaine cartel.

It’s quite hypocritical to point out all of Chavez’ supposed faults, while ignoring Uribe’s, based solely on the fact that he is ‘popular’ – seeing as the fact that Chavez is popular in his home country is undeniable.

I won’t argue with your description of the FARC, though. They are brutal… and there are lots of folks on here who are romanticizing them based on what they’d like to imagine them to be – rather than taking a good look at what they actually are.

It would be nice if the FARC (as well as the ELN and AUC) would lay down their arms and begin a process of political conciliation (including doling out justice to criminals on both sides)... but that’s certainly not going to happen now.

President Uribe’s Hidden Past –

“I won’t argue with your description of the FARC, though. They are brutal… and there are lots of folks on here who are romanticizing them based on what they’d like to imagine them to be”

The FARC’s brutality is not being questioned, and I’m not attempting to justify it by using the AUC’s and the Colombian military’s own brutality as the counter measure. But it is safe to say that without US meddeling in the region and billions in dollars spent, the FARC would have seized power in Colombia, long long ago.

the fact that American ground forces participating in rebel raids is fucking insane. it a goddam fucking dirty war. the US themselves are making money off of this whole drug war, which is a bunch of propaganda, and in reality is a wasteful bureaucratic facade to “secretly,” fight the rebel army.

it would be great if they layed down their arms, and set up a REAL democracy in Colombia, that will surely, on its own, go leftist in time. this is a trend in latin america, there are simply too many in poverty, with a very very small elite running the whole thing; remnants of colonial past. so as through democracy things are done for a common good, the elite would see it as their money their spending. they seize power with the army, and the population would have to form a new FARC to combat them and seize power and the whole process starts over, you see my point?

OPEN QUOTE

Meanwhile France, which has been hoping to negotiate the release of French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, said on Monday that Reyes had been their contact during delicate negotiations for her release.

“It is bad news that the man we were talking to, with whom we had contacts, has been killed,” Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, told French radio on Monday.

END OF QUOTE OPEN QUOTE

According to El Tiempo, Colombia’s national newspaper: “Reyes was killed in an intelligence operation that included the Army and Air Force, which intercepted a satellite phone call from the guerrilla chief, in recent hours that made it possible to find his exact location.”

END OF QUOTE

Well. Now. Why didn’t they ever intercept that satellite phone before? Perhaps because he’d just received it. As a special gift. From Bernard Kouchner. Emissary of Hugo Chavez himself.

I’m telling you, that’s what this guy does.

OPEN QUOTE

Colombia later said it had found documents in the rebel camp indicating that Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, had given the Farc group $300m.

END OF QUOTE

What do ya wanna bet it was an Iridium phone?

Reyes probably thought he was so on top of the world with his new “friends” and their Dick Tracy gezeeches.

Let’s Zoom out . . .

OPEN QUOTE

The US military fired missiles at a town in southern Somalia in the pre-dawn hours of Monday morning, killing and wounding civilians. Local officials in the town of Dobley told news agencies that at least three women and three children were killed in the attack and another 20 wounded.

The global eruption of US militarism is producing such “precision strikes” by Washington and its surrogates with increasing frequency in every corner of the globe. The attack on civilians in Somalia comes less than a week after the dispatch of warships to the coast of Lebanon, posing an ominous threat of US military intervention against opposition forces in Lebanon itself, as well as in support of Washington’s ally, Israel, as it employs US-supplied weapons to carry out devastating attacks on the Palestinian population of Gaza.

Meanwhile, in Latin America, the government of Colombia, the Bush administration’s principal regional ally—and the fifth largest recipient of US military aid after Israel, Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan—has brought the region to the brink of war by massacring leading members of the FARC guerrilla movement in a cross-border raid against their camp in Ecuador. The Colombian counter-insurgency forces operate under the supervision of US Special Forces “advisors” and utilize American intelligence to direct such attacks.

In other regions, the US administration proceeds with equal recklessness, as in the drive to sever Kosovo from Serbia and the continuous provocations against Iran.

All the while, the US military remains bogged down in the quagmires created by the US invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

There is, no doubt, an element of political calculation by the Bush administration in pursuing such policies as it enters its last ten months in office. The Republican Party intends to contest the November elections on the basis of a fear-mongering campaign, proclaiming the ubiquitous threat of terrorism and the need for strong “national security.” The greater the global instability created by US actions, the more fodder they will have for such an effort.

QUOTE CONTINUES

A resident of the town speaking by phone to the BBC said, “Right now—in full daylight—the planes keep flying over us. They are so low that we’re deafened by their engines. We are poor civilians living in a simple town. What have we done to deserve this bombing?”

END OF QUOTE

What did Korea do? Vietnam? Afghanistan? Yugoslavia? Iraq?

Welcome to Darwin’s World.

Zoom out my friends. Zoom out zoom out zoom out.

OPEN MISQUOTE

Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman told the media, “As we have repeatedly said, we will continue to pursue terrorist activities and their operations wherever we may find fabricate them.”

Yet another perspective, this time from the sociology department at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada.

OPEN QUOTE

The actions of March 1 took place days before a major international demonstration scheduled for March 6.

Promoted by The National Movement of Victims of State-Sponsored Crimes (MOVICE), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), and countless social justice-based organizations, March 6 has been set as an international day of protest against those tortured, murdered and disappeared by the Colombian state, their allies within the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) and the newly-reformed Black Eagles.

Recently, President Uribe’s top political adviser, José Obdulio Gaviria, proclaimed that the protest and protesters should be criminalized.

In addition, paramilitaries in the southwestern department of Nariño—not far from where the illegal incursions were carried out in Ecuador—have threatened to attack any organization or person associated with the protest activities.

It is believed that the Uribe and Santos administration is utilizing the slaughter of Commander Raúl Reyes and others as a method to deter activists and socially conscious peoples within and outside Colombia from participating in the March 6 events.

Numerous state-controlled or connected media outlets, such as El Tiempo—which has long-standing ties to the Santos family—have been parading photographs of the bullet-ridden and mutilated corpse of Raúl Reyes throughout the country’s communications mediums.

Such propaganda is clearly a tool to psychologically intimidate those preparing to demonstrate against the atrocities perpetrated by the state over the past seven years.

QUOTE CONTINUES

75 governors, mayors and Congressional politicians alleged or found guilty of having direct links to the paramilitaries—*including Vice-President Francisco Santos Calderón* and his cousin Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos and President Uribe’s brother Santiago and their cousin Senator Mario Uribe

END OF QUOTE holy FN cow batman!

They raided the camp while everyone was sleeping and one of the Colombian soldiers died in the raid. Colombia’s right wing press made a big deal about the funeral.

What do you wanna bet the Colombians shot one of their own men to create the spectacle and spin?

Kingofda1world,
what the hell makes you think that I rely on the media to call the FARC terrorists. I assume you have never been close to Colombia, never lived the terror that these animals have brought to our country. Not only for the rich, but for the innocent hard workers.
I see that obviously you rely too much on the left media that is trying to bring up the ideals that this group had back in the 60s and 70s, but forget that the only ones that may still have any ideals are Tirofijo and Alfonso Cano. It’s a business for them, they lost their ideals.
You probably have never had any of your family kidnapped for no reason, any relatives murdered and blackmailed, any innocent friends killed in bombs placed by these heartless freaks.
You probably have never lived the horror of driving from one town to another scared shitless because at any time the guerrillas might have a check point where they kidnap people first and ask questions later.
And Uribe…he could have killed his own mother in the past…I don’t care. He’s got Colombia marching the right direction, 80% of the people agree to that. And read carefully 80% of the people in a country wehre the poverty rate is a little under 60%. That means that there are a lot of poor people out there that support him. And you know what? No I don’t get that from FOX news or CNN or propaganda leftist media, I get that from talking to the people themselves, and to tell you the truth, I haven’t talked to one person that is in the 20%. The support for Uribe is unanimous. In the country side (where my family is from), in the cities (where I am from), anywhere you go. If he had links with Pablo Escobar in the past…I don’t care, Pablo owned 3/4 of the city where Uribe is from anyway, so probably I could even be proven to have links with Pablo Escobar and I was about 10 years old by that time.
And yes I have been to Venezuela as well. I have had to live the drama. And poverty has gone down….right….according to Chavez and the INE which is ran by him. The truth is poverty has gone up. A few anti-Chavez students have dissapeared (not as many as in other countries in past dictatorships, but it will probably get there), and in fact the stat that contemplates that Poverty has gone down, does not contemplate the thousands of people that have lost their jobs and access to any government benefits, that have gotten their money stolen by the government, for the simple fact that they did not vote for Chavez.
I also know people that are pro-Chavez that had a decent job before, but now are millionaires simply because they are with Chavez. When you ask them the reasons, it’s all about convenience. Things like “do you see that BMW out there? That’s because I voted for Chavez.” And supporters are behind Chavez not for his ideas, but because it benefits them personally.
No, poverty has not gone down in Venezuela. In fact, there are more people starving there today than ever. There didn’t use to be so many people begging for money at the stop lights, trying to clean your wind shield. And food is scarce. I’m not only saying that people are starving because they are poor. That too. But Chavez has managed to make food scarce. Try to get a gallon of milk anywhere… it’s impossible. People are trading food because you can’t find it. Things like “I trade six egs for a roll of toilet paper.” It’s no joke, you can see stuff like that on the internet chats. People have to network to find goods.
That’s why Chavez is so smart, because he manipulates this little facts that will make him look good in front of the international community, but the truth is different. Venezuela is going through a very difficult moment and it will not get better unfortunately. He is a populist that spends 8 hours a day in ront of the TV. When the hell does he get the chance to really see what’s going on with his country? Is it realy necessary to see him singing anddancing in front of the TV? I would think he would take that time to go and help “his people”. There’s a lot that can be done in 8 hours besides advertising himself.
It’s embarrassing that he is using Bolivar’s name to get to his people, because the ones that have really studied the ideals of Bolivar can all agree that what Chavez says and what Bolivar said are actually the complete opposite.

Did we know Amy was going to get around to addressing the raid on her show?

Voila

Today’s Amy Show

OPEN QUOTE

Tensions are high in the Andes following a Colombian military attack in neighboring Ecuador. A leading commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–FARC–and twenty other fighters were killed Saturday when Colombian troops crossed the Ecuadorian border in a pre-dawn raid. Colombia called the attack a major blow to the FARC rebels. The commander, Raul Reyes, had been viewed as a possible successor to FARC’s 77-year-old leader, Manuel Marulanda.

On Monday both Ecuador and Venezuela rushed troops to their borders with Colombia and said they would cut their diplomatic ties with Bogota. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro announced the expulsion of Colombia”s ambassador in Caracas.

Colombia said it found evidence in the FARC camp that Venezuela had given the rebels more than three-hundred million dollars. Colombia also accused Ecuador of supporting the rebels. Both Venezuela and Ecuador denounced the charges and accused Colombian President Alvaro Uribe of lying.

Mario Murillo, longtime journalist and author of “Colombia and the United States: War, Terrorism and Destablization.” He is Co-host of Wake-Up Call on the Pacifica radio station WBAI in New York. He joins me from the Hofstra University studio in Long Island, where he teaches media and communications.

Helga Serrano, Ecuadorian activist with the international network for the abolition of foreign military bases, No Bases. Speaking from Quito, Ecuador.

Arlene Tickner, Professor of International Affairs at the University of los Andes in Bogota, where she joins us on the phone.

Ecuador Crime Scene Evidence Nails Colombian Lies

OPEN QUOTE

the 18 killed were asleep in their undergarments; none of the guerrillas had the opportunity of fighting or surrendering. The arms in the camp were piled up. They did not have the chance even to reach for their rifles and grenades; they were massacred while asleep.

END OF QUOTE so yeh, Uribe’s Boots killed one of their own for show.

Brazil Under Pressure to Mediate Conflict

The Brazilian government’s position that the crisis should be dealt with at the level of the OAS runs counter to a widespread view among legislators and analysts who have called for broad, active mediation by Brazil in general, and not only in the current crisis.

The Brazilian government should take a proactive role in creating a group of Latin American countries that would mediate in the conflict, Senator Cristovam Buarque, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told IPS.

Acting on its own, “it would not be successful,” but the question must be resolved within the regional sphere, without the participation of countries from outside, especially the United States, he said.

now el Bush is announcing support for Colombia, whatever that might mean.

donjuanfer

He’s got Colombia marching the right direction, 80% of the people agree to that. And read carefully 80% of the people in a country wehre the poverty rate is a little under 60%. That means that there are a lot of poor people out there that support him.

The 80% approval rating that you’re talking about is the result of a Gallup poll of Columbia’s four largest cities. While I’m sure he’s extremely popular in the city that you’re from, your line of deductive reasoning is not necessarily correct, seeing as most polls in your country are done via phone, and many lower-class Columbians don’t own phones.

You probably have never lived the horror of driving from one town to another scared shitless because at any time the guerrillas might have a check point where they kidnap people first and ask questions later.

That’s certainly valid. Like I said… the FARC’s attacks on civilians are dispicable. There’s a flip side, though. You probably haven’t ever had to worry about being slaughtered by the AUC, cut up by a machete and left in the ditch because your father was a journalist writing an article on government corruption…. or a labour organizer. You talk about a couple of anti-Chavez student protesters ‘disappearing’ (they were actually arrested for attacking the police)... but ignore the fact that the Columbian government is one of the world’s leading killers of unionists. I know of a local Columbian journalist who publishes a journal called Se Informa that is living in exile here in Canada because his work in uncovering government corruption almost cost him his life at the hands of the Columbian ‘police.’

You may well say that people who don’t live in the country can’t fully grasp the gruesome realities of the Columbian civil war… and you’d be right. But viewing the situation from a distance tends to allow one to see both sides. Uribe is a criminal, and he should not be in office.

Dilated_Rebel

_The FARC’s brutality is not being questioned, and I’m not attempting to justify it by using the AUC’s and the Colombian military’s own brutality as the counter measure. But it is safe to say that without US meddeling in the region and billions in dollars spent, the FARC would have seized power in Colombia, long long ago _

Agreed. I wasn’t really talking about you in particular, DR. Just some of the other posts that seemed to paint the FARC as blameless revolutionaries.

Sure, there’s rapings and pillagings….but it’s Bolivarian raping and pillaging! Woot!

well you must admit Snarkums, that Venezuelian scorched and burned dead babies are mucho tastier than the Columbian variety, specially with salsa..

and btw

you Snark… are being a very bad boy

And Uribe…he could have killed his own mother in the past…I don’t care. He’s got Colombia marching the right direction, 80% of the people agree to that.

Enough said really. What a douche. Ends and means eh?

Donjuanefer,

I understand what your saying, and respect your opinion. I have not been to Colombia or Venezuela but i was born and lived in the beautiful nation of Mexico, I’m not sayin im for Nationalism, Im for a united Latin America, as was Simon Bolivar and more recently Che Guevarra. My nation was and is being exploited by Uncle Sam, the north is torn by the drug cartels and the south is brewing for a leftist revolution. all due to the forced hegemony the US has placed it under. and may we not forget the tens of millions that have been forced to migrate to the north due to inflation and the mid 90’s econamic collapse. all this is due to interferrence from the US. which is obvious in Columbia, but no longer in Venezuela. Venezuela now has hope to become self reliant. If Chaves is buying important officials, then it should be stopped…or proven…you feel me? Im not biased, i just see the truth with hope in mind. like i said before…...a socialist economy cannot be rushed. you cannot expect everyone to be living right in 8 years. thats just impossible and plain stupid, if that is what you ask for.

In regards to the FARC, im sur

Donjuanefer,

I understand what your saying, and respect your opinion. I have not been to Colombia or Venezuela but i was born and lived in the beautiful nation of Mexico, I’m not sayin im for Nationalism, Im for a united Latin America, as was Simon Bolivar and more recently Che Guevarra. My nation was and is being exploited by Uncle Sam, the north is torn by the drug cartels and the south is brewing for a leftist revolution. all due to the forced hegemony the US has placed it under. and may we not forget the tens of millions that have been forced to migrate to the north due to inflation and the mid 90’s econamic collapse. all this is due to interferrence from the US. which is obvious in Columbia, but no longer in Venezuela. Venezuela now has hope to become self reliant. If Chaves is buying important officials, then it should be stopped…or proven…you feel me? Im not biased, i just see the truth with hope in mind. like i said before…...a socialist economy cannot be rushed. you cannot expect everyone to be living right in 8 years. thats just impossible and plain stupid, if that is what you ask for.

In regards to the FARC, im sure the FARC have sadly committed attrocities, as most due in time of war. but the attrocities commited by the military and paramilitary groups that are funded by the US, should also be mentioned….in war one can only commit attrocities to each others enemies…the choice of good deeds and love it not an option.
As for the kidnappings, i have read plenty on these. But they do not kidnap peasants or campesinos…they kidnap government officials…..rich landowners ect…and in order for one to be rich, one must exploit an another….so let those mothafuckers burn.

If you want to keep exchanging ideas, email me, i dont like having to check up on this article when i log on just to check if some have tried to argue with me or whatever.

PEACE

Absolutely, the AUC are just another heartless bastards group. No question. However, let’s not forget that the reason they were created was because of the ineptitude of the past Colombian governments in eliminating the guerrillas. They decided to take justice in their own hands and use the same methods than the guerrillas use. Massacres were commited, but the people that got killed had some conexions with the guerrillas. Many of them didn’t have a choice…either the pay the “vaccine” or they get killed by the guerrillas. And then the AUCs would come and tell them that they were contributing to the guerrillas and bam!...they had no option. The moment the guerrillas approached them it was a life sentence. It was injust, absolutely. And then they turned into another mafia, just like the guerrillas.
But the cause of all this were the FARC and ELN.

kINGOFTHE1WORLD says “FARC....a terrorist orginazation? Stop getting your news from the American media. The FARC is a respected group and army throughout the world. in the mid 90’s the leaders of the FARC were actually given a tour of Europe to show them different types of governments and how they actually work…..I have never seen anyone do this with Alqaeda(U.S. created…..just needed a famous “terrrorist orginazation”) .”
That trip was fully funded by Andres Pastrana’s government, the most inept president that Colombia has ever seen, and that one really was U.S.A’s little puppet. This was part of an agreement they reached when the peace dialogues were taking place, and Pastrana in an attempt to get the colombian guerrillas recognized as a political party in order for them to turn in their rifles, similar to what happened to the M-19.
And yes I don’t doubt that there are still currupt members in the Colombian government. There are currpt members in almost every government unfortunately.

Massacres were commited, but the people that got killed had some conexions with the guerrillas

Cite please.