Bulletin archive

Women on the Front Line

2008-09-09T17:36:50Z

16 Members of the Colombia Solidarity Campaign participated in the International Caravan to Save the Lives of Colombian Workers, in June 2004. Below is the first of several reports in this bulletin on organisations that we met.

Operation Dragon THE DARK FORCES HAVE A FACE

2008-09-09T17:35:55Z

Terrorist Plan to assassinate opponents of the current administration discovered

Congressmen Alexander L�pez held an emergency press conference on 28th August in the national Capitol building in Bogot�. Five days previously he had received a tip-off that a hit squad had been contracted and was already in motion to kill him.

The start of a new genocide

2008-09-09T17:34:26Z

Interview with Luis Hernandez, President of SINTRAEMCALI, London 18th September 2004

The start of a new genocide in Colombia directed by the national government and the military and paramilitary forces has been confirmed. In two raids carried out on 25th August the Attorney General discovered documents that provide evidence of clear participation of the military forces who filtered documents to the paramilitaries, but also that the authorities had full knowledge of this plan to exterminate trade unionists.

Fumigations, Military Occupation, Life and Death in Arauca

2008-09-09T15:43:58Z

In recent years, people in the Arauca region of Colombia have suffered some of the worst excesses of repression. In September 2002 the Government of Alvarro Uribe declared the region a Zone of Rehabilitation. Over one weekend in August the authorities detained 42 trade unionists and other social leaders this figure later to rose to 75. At the same time the Colombian military announced the commencement of fumigations of the coca crop in the western part of the region, close to the Venezuelan border.

El pa?s que quiere existir

2008-09-09T15:43:15Z

Eduardo Galeano

Una inmensa explosi�n de gas: eso fue el alzamiento popular que sacudi� a toda Bolivia y culmin� con la renuncia del presidente S�nchez de Lozada, que se fug� dejando tras s� un tendal de muertos.

BOLIVIA: THE COUNTRY THAT WANTS TO EXIST

2008-09-09T15:41:56Z

By Eduardo Galeano

A gigantic gas explosion: This was the popular uprising that shook all of Bolivia and culminated in the resignation of President Sanchez de Lozada, who fled, leaving behind him a trail of corpses.

FINE TUNING THE REPRESSION

2008-09-09T15:40:38Z

Colombia�s armed forces have fine-tuned their repression in order to avoid international criticism. Grotesquely, vice-president Santos boasts of an improvement in the human rights situation with only (!) 60 trade unionists assassinated last year compared to 184 in 2002.

Dos Agendas, Muchas Voces, Una Lucha

2008-09-09T15:39:30Z

�Nuestro objetivo con la Zona de Libre Comercio de las Americas es de garantizar el control de los negocios norteamericanos sobre un terriotorio que se extiende del Artico hasta el Antartico, el acceso gratuito en la totalidad del emisferio sin ninguna dificultad u obstaculo para nuestros productos, servicios, tecnologia y capital�. Colin Powell, Secretario de Estado de los Estados Unidos

Two Agendas, Many Voices, One Struggle

2008-09-09T15:38:44Z

"Our objective with the Free Trade Area of the Americas is to guarantee control for North American businesses over a territory which stretches from the Arctic to the Antarctic, free access over the entire hemisphere without any difficulty or obstacle for our products, services, technology and capital." Colin Powell, US Secretary of State

COLOMBIAN REFUGEES IN THE FRONTLINE

2008-09-09T15:34:25Z

On 1 June 1997, Amnesty International issued a report "Panama/Colombia Refugees: the right to escape from death" urging the Panama authorities not to resume forced repatriation of refugees to Colombia where they faced near certain death. Weeks earlier the New Labour government was elected in Britain, promising an asylum policy that would be faster, firmer and fairer.