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The truth and the lies about a heroic guerrilla movement

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo for February 8. See original here and related articles here and here.]

By Miguel Urbano Rodrigues

There is no hiding the fact these days that the Juan Manuel Santos administration is not interested in having the Havana peace talks attain the objective of the agreement sketched out in Oslo with the sponsorship of Norway and Cuba. On the contrary, it makes an effort to prevent their leading to an end of the conflict and to the peace that the Colombian people want.

The head of the Bogotá delegation, Humberto de la Calle, repeatedly finds pretexts for threatening to end the talks, preventing the discussion of items on the agenda from moving forward.

The capture of two police officers in the Valle department, supposedly by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and the Ejército Popular (EP), is the latest of these pretexts. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Carta Maior of São Paulo, Brazil, for October 25. See original here.]

By Marcel Gomes

In the face of slow progress in the negotiations between the government of Colombia and the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) in Oslo and Havana, economist Héctor-León Moncayo, a member of the Instituto Latinoamericano para una Sociedad y un Derecho Alternativos (ILSA), one of the most important NGOs in Bogotá, points out that the “Colombian agrarian question,” one of the reasons the insurgency exists, is also one of the main obstacles to the achievement of peace.

In the past few years, the country has seen a new wave of investment in agriculture and mineral extraction, threatening areas traditionally occupied by small producers and indigenous peoples. The greater part of the armed ranks of the FARC come from these sectors of society. (more…)

Timochenko accuses Santos of creating false hope

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for September 20. See original here.]

Bogotá, September 19 – The top commander of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), Rodrigo Londoño, known as Timochenko, says no deadline for reaching an agreement in the near future should be placed on the peace process with the government that is to begin next month, according to statements released today.

Timochenko told the weekly Voz, organ of the communist party, that President Juan Manual Santos has made a point of saying that the process should last “months and not years,” which could create false expectations.

The guerrilla chief stated that in the secret meetings held by the two sides in Cuba between February and August there was never talk of how long the negotiations, which are to begin in Oslo, Norway, on October 18, might last. (more…)

[Translation of an article from El Clarín of Santiago, Chile, for April 21. See original here.]

By Marcos Roitmann Rosenmann

Measures taken to nationalize and to recuperate basic riches in Latin America or Africa or Asia have always suffered the ire of colonial centers and the enterprises affected. There is no shortage of examples: Lázaro Cárdenas, Jacobo Arbenz, Fidel Castro, Omar Torrijos, Velasco Alvarado, Salvador Allende, Evo Morales, Hugo Chávez; the list is long.

Accustomed to ordering and to being in charge, arrogant empires are unfamiliar with the concepts of independence and sovereignty. They are reluctant to deal as equals. Paternalism, based on positions of strength, shapes the discourse of imperial haughtiness. To declare oneself opposed to paternal authority and the established order usually brings on exemplary punishment: blockades, destabilizing processes, economic strangulation, assassinations of leaders or coups d’état. These days, the expropriation of a private company, Repsol YPF, whose interests are those only of their stockholders and whose objective is to obtain profits at the cost of any ethical, judicial or environmental consideration, awakens the ire of the hegemonic powers, their institutions and principal political leaders. (more…)

Santos distances himself from Uribe in response to US pressure

[Translation of an Agence France Presse article as published in Vanguardia of Bucaramanga, Colombia, on November 1. See original here.]

“The country knows very well the reasons we have decided to take this step,” said President Santos as he announced Monday evening the elimination of the agency. “It is not a transformation, it is not a reform. In the case of the DAS (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad – Administrative Security Department) it is liquidation. DAS is being eliminated,” the president declared.

During the Uribe administration (2002-2010), DAS was involved in scandals over infiltration by paramilitary groups.

One of its former directors, Jorge Noguera, was convicted of homicide and complicity with these extreme right groups, which were demobilized between 2003 and 2006, and former vice director José Miguel Narváez is also charged with homicide. (more…)

At least 41 candidates have been assassinated by guerrillas or by paramilitaries during the campaign

[Translation of an article from Nueva Tribuna of Madrid, Spain, for October 28. See original here.]

By Javier M. González

This Sunday, October 30, Colombians will choose local and regional officials in the first elections under the presidency of Juan Manuel Santos. Between February 2 and October 20, 41 candidates were assassinated by diverse violent groups, according to a study by the independent NGO Misión de Observación Electoral (MOE – Electoral Observation Mission). This figure is practically double the number of deaths recorded in the last regional elections, in 2007.

The guerrillas, especially the FARC, rightist paramilitary groups, drug traffickers and other criminal groups are also competing in these elections, through the buying of candidates or the assassination of possible adversaries. For the different violent organizations, of the right or the left, tied or not to drug trafficking or other illegal activities, the control of mayors, city councilors and even governors is an objective that assures them impunity for their activities. And, in many cases, access to security information vital to their survival. (more…)

(("Education is not for sale" -- El Colombiano photo))

[Translation of an article from Página/12 of Buenos Aires for October 12. See original here.]

University leaders, inspired by the Chilean protests, warn that the educational reform reveals the privatizing spirit of the government of Juan Manuel Santos. The president claims the law is intended to improve the system.

By Katalina Vásquez Guzmán

Wearing leather shoes, because it’s a long walk, Kevin gets ready to march against the education reform that the Juan Manuel Santos administration is steering through Congress. Today workers and teachers will join students in the national strike to pressure the executive to give up the bill and to draw up a new proposal in conjunction with student groups and university leaders. The student federations that called on the more than 500,000 students in Colombian public universities to strike regard Santos’ reform as a threat, without consent. This would be one of the most important national protests since Álvaro Uribe’s successor assumed the presidency. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Revistazo of Tegucigalpa for April 12. See original here and "First Part" here.]

by Tomás Andino Mancía

Second part

As for President Hugo Chávez, we can reject the hypothesis that he was taken by surprise, like a naïve dove, by the cold and calculating Colombian president, since Chávez has confirmed in his statements that he has been making efforts for some time, and that he will continue making them, to advocate Honduras’ return to the OAS. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Revistazo of Tegucigalpa for April 11. See original here,  "Second Part" here and related article here.]

by Tomás Andino Mencía

First Part

The Honduran population in resistance has still not gotten over its surprise at the unexpected turn in international politics concerning the coup d’état in our country, not so much because of the well known cynicism of the Honduran oligarchy in blessing today whom it demonized yesterday as the worst monster in the world, but because of the political recognition and support the regime of President Hugo Chávez offered to the coup’s successor regime, as much for the sake of its return to the OAS as to enable it to receive the benefits of PetroCaribe. (more…)

[Three articles. Under newly elected President Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia renewed diplomatic relations with Venezuela last August after ties had been broken over accusations by former President Álvaro Uribe that Venezuela was harboring guerrillas of the FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and Santos and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez have since made a show of harmony. In the meantime, Colombia has been hit with serious flooding in recent weeks, resulting in some 138 people dead, 208 injured, 22 missing and 1.3 million homeless. The United States has pledged $150,000 in relief funds, in sharp contrast to the seven billion dollars the US has spent on Plan Colombia in the ten years since the US began participating in the effort, most of it directed to financing the Colombian military in its pursuit of the FARC.]

Venezuela and Brazil to send aid after winter storms

[Translation of an article from Vanguardia Liberal of Bucaramanga, Colombia, for November 28. See original here.]

The president of the republic, Juan Manuel Santos, reported yesterday that his counterparts in Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, and in Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, have made a commitment to provide aid in response to the harsh winter weather the country is experiencing, as they informed him during the UNASUR (Union of South American States) heads of state summit held last Friday in Georgetown, Guyana. (more…)

Persecuted for more than a year, this electrician is just one of the Colombian government’s victims

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo, Brazil, for October 6. See original article here.]

by Patrícia Benvenuti

Thirty-seven-year-old Colombian electrician Carlos Alirio Peña García no longer feels safe at home, in the municipality of Barbacoas, in the department of Nariño, in the south of the country, where he lives with his wife and daughter. He is afraid that at any moment the police, who a year ago tried to make him pay for a crime he did not commit, will come back.

García’s case is just one example of the crimes the Colombian government perpetrates against the civilian population, who have to deal with the consequences of the alleged war against terrorism and narcotrafficking. (more…)

[Abridged translations of two articles, the first from the Venezuelan website TeleSUR, the second from El Nuevo Siglo of Bogotá, both from September 3.  See the original articles here and here.]

New outbreak of armed conflict in Colombia aggravates human rights situation

The renewal of the armed conflict Colombia is living through has aggravated the human rights situation in the country, the Consultoría para los Derechos Humanos y los Desplazamientos of the country declared on Friday.

“The Colombian tragedy really consists of the fact that the war continues, we are not in any post-conflict state,” Marcos Romero, a member of the Consultoría, affirmed during an exclusive interview with TeleSUR.

According to Romero, despite the iron-fisted policy imposed by the Colombian government for eight years, there are still remnants of paramilitary groups in almost all regions of the country.

“We have had eight years of an iron-fisted policy and this policy has resulted in the cornering of the guerrillas but there are heirs to the paramilitary groups in almost all regions of the country,” he stated… (more…)