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Dear Friends, here is our monthly update on Colombia, U.S. policy in Latin America, and work to demilitarize life and land in the Americas:
Take a Step...
...to walk the roads of memory in Colombia
The National Movement of Victims of State Violence in Colombia (Movimiento Nacional
de Víctimas the Crímenes de Estado -- MOVICE) is a coalition that since 2005 has been fighting for the rights to truth, justice and reparations. MOVICE consists of more than 5,000 victims of state violence and 300 human rights and political organizations. Since 2008, MOVICE has proclaimed March 6 as an international day of solidarity with victims of state violence. This year MOVICE is organizing actions between March 6 and March 11 around the right to land. Over the past 20 years, more than 4 million farmers, indigenous people and Afrocolombians have been expelled from their lands in Colombia, most to make way for economic interests such as oil, mining and oil palm plantations.
The Colombian government has proposed a law regarding victim's rights and land restitution without consulting with victims. MOVICE believes that this proposal does not respect the minimum national and international standards on victims' rights.
MOVICE asks people, organizations, groups and social movements around the world to show their solidarity with victims of state violence by sending a picture of their foot and/or feet by today, March 6, to m6vida@gmail.com. Let them know where you are sending your photo from. The photos will be used to accompany legal and symbolic actions, to be held between 6 and 11 March.
Use your feet and join MOVICE in its struggle against impunity and unequal land distribution. For land and dignity, MOVE towards the 6th of March!
Watch photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/m6vida
More info: http://www.movimientodevictimas.org
Please, spread the word!
Colombian Senator Demands Explanation
for Pentagon's Military Base Construction in Colombia
Last month, FOR revealed that the Pentagon has signed contracts for construction of an "Advanced Operations Base" in Colombia, despite a Constitutional Court ruling that the U.S.-Colombia base agreement is non-existent. Colombian Senator Robledo responded by demanding information from Colombia's Defense Minister.
El Espectador, February 17, 2011
In July 2009 an agreement that would allow U.S. soldiers to operate from seven bases in Colombia - as a strategy to fight drug trafficking and terrorism - was about to be signed by the Colombian and U.S. governments. When details of the agreement were revealed, it was a Trojan Horse. Then-President Álvaro Uribe described it as "the most convenient thing for the country"; armed forces commander General Fredy Padilla had to send a conciliatory message to neighboring Venezuela and Ecuador, who saw the agreement as a threat, and opposition sectors spoke of "violations of sovereignty."
Uribe even had to give explanations to the Union of South American Nations during a special meeting in August 2009. A year later, the Constitutional Court gave the final word by declaring the agreement illegal. The opinion, written by Justice Jorge Iván Palacio and supported by the majority of the court's members, established that the document was not an agreement but a treaty that had to pass through the Congress. The decision took effect immediately, and the legislature was ordered to consider legislation for a treaty that, if approved, would allow the use of national military bases by U.S. soldiers.
But it seems the story didn't end there. Senator Jorge Robledo of the Democratic Pole, in a letter sent to Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera, asks for an explanation for why the U.S. Army has signed 126 contracts for more than $12 million for construction on Colombian military bases, some of which were apparently signed after the Court's prohibition. The senator drew on information published by the U.S. government itself, in September 2010, with statistics of public expenditures.
He says that the U.S. army signed agreements for nearly $5 million to construct facilities on Colombian bases in Tolemaida, Larandia, and Málaga Bay. In addition, there is an agreement signed September 30 by the Defense Department with the HCS Group, to provide services for an "advanced operations base center of the Special Operations Command South, in Tolemaida." According to Robledo, the aim of these contracts is the same as the treaty overturned by the Court.
U.S. soldiers and contractors in Colombia, 2009-2010
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In response, the Defense Minister stated that, effectively, the U.S. government has financed with aid the construction of facilities and infrastructure on Colombian bases, with the purpose of strengthening the national military's capacity, that in no case implies that U.S. soldiers may carry out operations on the facilities. "The United States Armed Forces are developing work of advising and training the Colombian military, in compliance with the agreement regarding an Army mission, a Naval mission, and Air mission of the United States Armed Forces in Colombia of 1974," he explained from his office.
The work by U.S. soldiers is conducted in the Professional Soldiers School in Nilo, Cundinamarca; the Armed Forces Joint Helicopter School in Melgar and Flandes; The Marine Transportation Battalion in Malagana, Bolivar; and in military bases in Larandia, Caquetá and Málaga Bay. The majority of them, the ministry said, are part of Plan Colombia. [Click on map to see locations of U.S. soldiers and contractors in Colombia, according to the Defense Ministry.]
In any case, questions and responses announce a debate. For former Constitutional Court magistrate Alfredo Beltrán Sierra, the building of infrastructure by a foreign government constitutes "a clear violation of national sovereignty," more so when these are military structures. "Remember that the government already tried to justify the establishment of U.S. troops with a disguised agreement that the Court finally overturned."
Beltrán explained that the only way to allow this work to be carried out by foreign governments is by an international treaty that must comply with all the requirements of the law. "If this is really occurring, it is a flagrant violation of sovereignty and the president, as the chief executive, must come out to respond and give an explanation," he concluded.
Between Hope and Femicide
By Victor M. Quintana
Seventy-two hours has been enough to show the two faces of reality in Ciudad Juárez, the state of Chihuahua, and all of Mexico. On Saturday and Sunday January 29 and 30, a pluralistic, committed, nonviolent and deeply active and reflective citizen participation marked the first Event for Justice, which has its epicenter in this border, with parallel mobilizations in Chihuahua and Mexico City.
With fasting at the [Benito] Juárez Monument, in the neighborhood of Villas de Salvárcar, at the Gandhi monument in Mexico City, and at the site in Chihuahua where [human rights activist] Marisela Escobedo was shot to death [in December], social and civic organizations and unaffiliated citizens remember the first anniversary of the massacre of 18 youth in Villas de Salvárcar, as well as celebrating the passing of Bishop Samuel Ruiz [who died January 24] and commemorate Mahatma Gandhi [on the anniversary of his death] in action and reflection. Hundreds of protesters unite at the point where the wire fence divides the town of Anapra, Chihuahua from Sunland Park, New Mexico to proclaim: “No to blood, no to violence, no to femicide.”
The weekend undoubtedly has been the most intense, visible, pluralistic and united event that citizens have done, especially in Ciudad Juárez, to demand justice that brings a dignified peace. This mobilization managed to capture the attention of the press and public opinion nationally and internationally. It brings together hundreds of very diverse kinds of activists: anarchists, trotskyists, supporters of [Mexican PRD leader] López Obrador, feminists, Christians, cultural activists, social and nongovernmental organizations, associations in struggle, such as that of the doctors… etcetera. The Paso del Norte Human Rights Center, the initial organizers, has received more than 2,000 letters of support via email. In cyberspace, for sure, especially on social networks, there is also a gigantic mobilization.
Nevertheless, the good feelings of hope generated by this event had not dissipated, when the Chihuahua media reported, in the 48 hours from Sunday to Tuesday, several murders of women:
On January 30 the Federal Police again mark with an M for muerte [death] its path through Ciudad Juárez: at a checkpoint they kill with six shots a youth, Karina Ibeth Ibarra Soria, 16 years old, who dies a few hours later. In the south of the state nar Parral, the bodies of three teenaged girls between 15 and 17 years old are found, beheaded. In the town of Santa Isabel, a drunk man threatens and then attacks policewoman María del Refugio Nevárez Villalobos, dragging her for 75 meters and destroying her body. And in Juárez on January 31, Maribel Hernández, 31 years old, a distributor of the newspaper El Diario, is murdered by close-range shooting in the very center of the city. So the number of femicides in the first month of 2011 rises to 29, 7.25% more than in the same month last year, according to the organization Justice for Our Daughters.
On the same days, Inegi reports that Chihuahua State leads in the rate of femicides, with 13.09 per 100,000 women in 2009. This shameful statistic continues in Chihuahua because the continuous high-profile efforts of women’s organizations to apply the Alba Protocol to the search for disappeared women, or to declare an Alert on Gender Violence have been ignored by the authorities at all levels.
Violence in Chihuahua doesn’t diminish, neither in femicides nor in the murders of youth. Neither do the attacks on human rights by the Federal Police and Army. Precisely for this reason it is urgent to respond to and broaden the citizen mobilizations such as last weekend’s. It is necessary that the seeds Juárez is planting flourish throughout the country in vigorous civic and ethical insurgency that drubs the powers that continue to impose their strategy of violence, death, impunity, and injustice.
 To broaden this insurgency it is necessary to revisit some of the lessons from this first event for justice: pluralistic organizing, high ethical content, without partisan or electoral touches; ideological, political and religious diversity; rotating and new leadership; diversity of expression in actions: fasts, marches, speeches, songs, “fairs” of physical and mental health services to participants, music, poetry. In addition, action coordinated with United States activists; intensive use of social networks in the organizing, combined with effective street mobilization. Calls to local, regional, national and international public opinion.
If in Tunisia, if in Egypt, the multitudes have gone into the streets to end single-person dictatorships, can we not in Mexico generate a large civic revolt to end the dictatorship of violence and of blood?
Victor M. Quintana is a Legislative Deputy in the State of Chihuahua. Translation by FOR.
"Consolidation of What?"
Colombia's Displacement Crisis Keep Burning
"Approximately 280,041 people (about 56,000 homes) were displaced in Colombia in 2010 as a result of the armed conflict or other manifestations of social and political violence," the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement, CODHES, the principal non-governmental organization monitoring forced displacement in Colombia, reported in February. Referring to the Colombian government's policy of "Democratic Consolidation," CODHES called its report, "Consolidation of What?"
"The most notable fact is that 32.7% of this population, at least 91,499 peple (18,300 homes) come from areas where the 'national plan of territorial consolidation' is developed, a flagship program of the government, conceived in 2007 'with the purpose of fulfilling the objectives of consolidation of the Democratic Security policy, maintain investor confidence and advance effective social policy.'"
These zones, called Centers of Coordination and Integrated Attention (CCAI, for its Spanish acronym), are heavily supported by the United States, with both military and civilian assistance. The CCAIs have been criticized because they blur the lines between military and civilian roles, effectively militarizing development programs.
"Of the 100 municipalities with the highest levels of forced displacement in Colombia last year, 44 were in CCAI zones, including six massive displacements that affected more than 2,684 people," CODHES reported.
"In 2010, in 62 of the 86 municipalities with CCAI zones, at least eight paramilitary groups contiued operating (between old paramilitaries, rearmed ones, and new structures), while the FARC [guerrillas] maintained or reactivated its presence in 30 [CCAI] municipalities and the ELN continued acting in another four," CODHES says.
Nineteen massacres occurred in the CCAI zones last year, they reported, with another 176 selective killings.
"It is clear that violence is the primary cause of displacement, but it is also clear that, behind the armed actions and intimidation by armed groups against the population, and the inability of the State to protect it, powerful economic interests move through the territories that are the object of the consolidation policy."
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