"We teach life, Sir!" • Rafeef Ziadah

Palestinian peace activist Rafeef Ziadah will be in Newcastle upon Tyne on the afternoon of Friday, 8th March 2013.

See here for details of the event.

And watch one of Rafeef's powerful, moving performances:

Urgent Action for Hana Shalabi, Palestinian hunger striker

Amnesty International Urgent Action Update – Palestinian hunger striker’s health declines
Further information on UA: 71/12 Index: MDE 15/013/2012 Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories, Date: 13 March 2012
Amnesty International calls for URGENT ACTION as Palestinian hunger striker’s health declines
Hana Shalabi’s detention order has been reduced to four months, but an Israeli military judge has yet to rule on her appeal. She has been on hunger strike since her arrest over three weeks ago. Her health is deteriorating.
Following a judicial review on 29 February 2012, a military judge decided on 4 March to reduce Hana Shalabi’s six-month administrative detention order by two months. Her detention order now ends on 16 June 2012 but could be renewed. She remains on hunger strike, which she initially began to protest against ill-treatment during her arrest on 16 February 2012 and then continued in protest at her detention without charge or trial. On 23 February, she was ordered to spend a week in solitary confinement as punishment for her hunger strike, but after four days was put in a cell with other detainees where she remains.
Her lawyers appealed the four-month order and a hearing was held at the Military Court of Appeals on 7 March 2012. However, the military judge postponed a decision after the military prosecution objected to the request for her release, citing “secret evidence” justifying Hana Shalabi’s detention, which they refused to reveal for “security reasons”, making it impossible for her to effectively exercise her right to mount a legal challenge.
A doctor from Physicians for Human Rights – Israel visited Hana Shalabi on 8 and 12 March 2012. The doctor reported that she is growing weaker by the day, that her muscles have begun to atrophy and that she is suffering from spells of dizziness and loss of consciousness.
Hana Shalabi has not been allowed family visits since she was arrested. Her father was prevented from attending the military court hearing on 7 March, and was thus unable to see her.
Please write immediately, before 20 April 2012, in English or your own language [remember, polite and calm is more effective, and you may wish to incorporate extra information given below]:
• Calling on the Israeli authorities to release Hana Shalabi and other Palestinians held in administrative detention immediately, unless they are promptly charged with an internationally recognizable criminal offence and brought to trial in full conformity with international fair trial standards;
• Urging them to allow Hana Shalabi regular access to her lawyers, family and independent medical care, and to ensure she is treated humanely at all times and not punished in any way for her hunger strike, such as by being placed in solitary confinement.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 20 APRIL 2012 TO:
• Military Judge Advocate General
Brigadier General Danny Efroni
6 David Elazar Street
Hakirya, Tel Aviv,
Israel
Fax: +972 3 569 4526
Email: avimn@idf.gov.il
Salutation: Dear Judge Advocate General
• Commander of the IDF – West Bank
Major-General Nitzan Alon
GOC Central Command
Military Post 01149
Battalion 877
Israel Defense Forces,
Israel
Fax: +972 2 530 5724
Salutation: Dear Major-General
• And copies to:
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence
Ehud Barak
Ministry of Defence
37 Kaplan Street, Hakirya
Tel Aviv 61909,
Israel
Fax: +972 3 69 16940
+972 3 691 7915
Salutation: Dear Minister
• Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country.
Please check with amnesty international if sending appeals after the above date. This is the first update of UA 71/12.
Further information: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE15/013/2012/en

*****

Additional Information on URGENT ACTION (UA 71/12):
Palestinian hunger striker’s health declines
Hana Shalabi is from the village of Burqin, near Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank. According to her family, she had plans to study nursing at al-Rawda College in Nablus before she was arrested on 16 February 2012. She was taken to Salem detention centre for interrogation and transferred the next day to HaSharon detention centre in northern Israel. On 23 February 2012, she was given an administrative detention order, signed by a military commander, stating that she would be detained for six months. A military judge who reviewed the order reduced it to four months on 4 March. According to her lawyer, the Israeli military authorities allege that Hana Shalabi is involved in activities that pose a security threat to Israel.
Hana Shalabi was previously arrested by the Israeli authorities on 14 September 2009 and spent 25 months in administrative detention without charge or trial. In a response to Urgent Action letters from activists, the Israeli Embassy in the UK wrote that Hana Shalabi received an administrative detention order on 29 September 2009 “based upon intelligence information regarding her involvement in dangerous activities including planning to commit a terrorist suicide attack”. She was released on 18 October 2011, a few days before the order was due to expire, in the Israeli-Hamas prisoner swap which saw the phased release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. She has never been charged with any offence.
Hana Shalabi went on hunger strike to protest at being detained without charge the day she was arrested. According to her lawyer, Hana Shalabi says that she began the hunger strike to protest at being strip-searched by male Israeli soldiers after her arrest.
According to her lawyer, Hana Shalabi was kept in solitary confinement from 23 until 27 February as punishment for her hunger strike. Hana Shalabi’s lawyer filed a request to the Israel Prison Service (IPS) to transfer her to the Ramleh prison hospital where she could receive medical treatment.
Under the system of administrative detention, detainees’ rights, as guaranteed by Articles 9 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Israel is a state party, including their rights to be informed promptly and fully of the reasons for their detention, to be presumed innocent, to examine and have examined the witnesses against them, and to be tried in public, are consistently flouted. The evidence against the detainee is heard by a military judge in secret, without either the defendant or their lawyer being given access to the evidence or able to challenge it, whether at the first judicial review of the administrative detention order, at the Military Court of Appeals if an appeal is filed, or at the Supreme Court of Israel if an appeal for a hearing is filed there. Furthermore, no prisoner or detainee should be forced to undergo a body search conducted by members of the opposite sex , which constitutes a violation of the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and the right to privacy and is also in breach of international standards relating to the rights of detainees and prisoners, including the UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders.
Amnesty International has long called on the Israeli authorities to end the practice of administrative detention. Administrative detainees held on account of their non-violent political opinions or activities should be released immediately and unconditionally; others should be released or charged with an internationally recognizable criminal offence and promptly tried according to international standards.
According to the IPS, there were 309 Palestinian administrative detainees as of 31 January 2012, though the number may have increased since. There are currently 24 Palestinian Legislative Council members in administrative detention. One man has been held in administrative detention for five years.

Amnesty International, International Secretariat
Peter Benenson House, 1 Easton Street
London WC1X 0DW
United Kingdom

Colombia: Human Rights Defender, David Ravelo Crespo, in detention

Hi there

Just found this message on the pbi website (where it's published in Spanish, so the following is my own translation):











15 Sep 2010

News Flash: 

Human Rights Defender, David Ravelo Crespo, in Detention

Social Forum of Barrancabermeja and Magdalena Medio [Colombia], 15 Sep 2010

Today, on 14 Sep 2010, at 3:05pm, various officers of the Fiscalía General de la Nación, the Colombian General Attorney, arrived at the headquarters of CREDHOS, the Regional Corporation for the Defense of Human Rights, in the city of Barrancabermeja, presenting a warrant for the arrest of Human Rights Defender, David Ravelo Crespo, a member of the CREDHOS management committee and outstanding community leader in the Magdaleno Medio region of Colombia.

[…]

In our view, the prosecution and detention of David Ravelo Crespo is part of the Colombian state's strategy to legally prosecute social leaders and human rights defenders in an attempt to silence those it has not been able to intimidate by weapons. Therefore, the state resorts to other strategies to weaken their resolve to fight on for social justice. In return for cash and the benefits afforded by the so-called "Law for Justice and Peace", paramilitaries detained in Colombia's prisons have been making false, libellous and injurious allegations against leaders of social, community and unionist movements, against human rights defenders, against victims' and small-holding farmers' organisations.

Moreover, according to the latest bulletins issued by the General Attorney, we have been able to ascertain that the DAS – Administrative Department for Security – has ordered to push for the legal prosecution of male and female defenders of human rights, using construed, fictitious accusations, in order to put behind bars those who are opposed to the national government.

We, the social organisations, defenders of human rights, labour unions, associations of victims, communities and small-holding farmers in Barrancabermeja and Magdalena Medio, trust that due process will be observed and that David Ravelo Crespo's rights as a citizen will be respected.

We express our solidarity with and unconditional support of David Ravelo Crespo and his family. We know that David is someone deeply committed to human rights and to the victims of the political, social and armed conflict that has been afflicting Colombia.

Barrancabermeja, Magdalena Medio, 14 Sept 2010"

Human rights defender under threat in Colombia

Hiya again

One of my pbi friends posted this video on facebook. It's a short documentary about a human rights defender in Barrancabermeja, an oil town in Colombia, who has received many death threats:




Thank you for supporting the cause of PBI – Peace Brigades International – who have been providing unarmed accompaniment to David Ravelo and his organisation, CREDHOS.

Colombia: Protecting Human Rights and Improving Security

Hello again

I've been busy taking my parents around these lovely parts for the past nearly two weeks. We've had a great time and photos will follow as soon as I've had time to catch up a bit. It's not all that easy being chauffeur, tour guide, blogger and - last but not least - business owner... But great fun, even if the weather did not always cooperate fully (mostly did, though).

Here comes the latest report from the International Crisis Group, received yesterday. This information needs to be read by as many people as possible, so I'm posting it in full, quoting from **** to *****. Click on the title of this post to be taken to their website:
****
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP - NEW BRIEFING
The Virtuous Twins: Protecting Human Rights and Improving Security in Colombia
Bogota/Brussels, 25 May 2009: Colombia’s government must urgently address human rights abuses to enhance its security policy and bring lasting peace to the country.

The Virtuous Twins: Protecting Human Rights and Improving Security in Colombia,* the latest policy briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the security gains made by the Uribe administration over seven years and warns that immediate steps are needed to address human rights concerns. The government argues that the human rights record has improved with its “democratic security policy”, but serious abuses, including of international humanitarian law, persist and in some instances are even increasing.
“The Uribe administration promotes an optimistic vision of Colombia on the verge of overcoming its internal conflict, but the conflict is evolving, not ending”, Mauricio Angel Morales, Crisis Group Senior Analyst, says. “It should make a much stronger commitment to protecting human rights, not least to preserve and expand the security gains”.
The Uribe administration has focused on the military struggle against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN) and paramilitary and new illegal armed groups (NIAGs) – all responsible for multiple atrocities against civilians. But forced displacement and violence against vulnerable sectors, including ethnic minorities and women, remains widespread. NIAGs, at times with acquiescence of security personnel and some government officials, have stepped up intimidation and violence against civilians; the government’s early warning system to prevent abuses is inefficient; and the sluggish justice system is an ineffective deterrent.
In an effort to curb violations by security forces, especially against the rural and urban poor, the government has issued a human rights policy, increased human rights training for security forces and taken other measures, including holding to account military officers involved in extrajudicial killings of innocent civilians. These are important initial steps, but security forces still have a long way to go regarding accountability, professionalism and full commitment to human rights.
The government and the human rights community need to overcome mutual distrust by dialogue and concrete actions, starting with an end to officials’ efforts to link human rights organisations with the guerrillas. The U.S., Canada and the EU should actively promote rapprochement between the security forces and human rights advocates.
“The priorities of the government and human rights defenders are not mutually exclusive, but reinforcing”, says Markus Schultze-Kraft, Crisis Group’s Latin America Director. “Ending the internal armed conflict urgently requires improved security with full respect for Colombians’ fundamental rights”.
*****

Colombia: Threats to Human Rights Defenders and Social Organisations in Barrancabermeja

Hiya again

Those who know me also know that a big part of my heart beats for the fantastic country of Colombia. By marriage on my brother's side, I have family there. But I also studied Spanish language and literature (longer ago than I care to remember) and have been fascinated by the literature of Ibero-America, especially Colombia.

Not long ago, the country made big headlines when a branch of the armed forces under the current government of Alvaro Uribe Vélez managed to liberate several long-held hostages, including the Colombian-French former presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancour -- everyone must have heard of that near-magical feat of subterfuge. [Addendum on July 25: Since I wrote this, I learnt that the "near-magical feat" involved pretending to be a Swiss human rights organisations, which I think is tantamount to abuse. Some papers reported that the liberators pretended to be from the Red Cross, but I've not seen it confirmed in an interview with one analyst from the International Crisis Group, who was recently interviewed in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung-NZZ (see http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5588&l=1 ). So I'm deleting the word "deeply" in the next sentence.] Although I am highly sceptical of Uribe's government, I must admit that I was ------ impressed with the way this liberation was achieved -- no bloodshed, no violence. That is quite a feat in a country that has known so much of both in the past forty years (and much longer). Anyone can take a leaf out of that particular book (the peaceful, non-violent liberation of the hostages, not the violence...).

However, all is far from well in what could easily be one of the wealthiest countries on earth. The government is staunchly right-wing, arch-liberalist and totally anti-human rights (except where its own cronies are concerned).

That is why I am today forwarding to you a call for urgent action on behalf of OFP - the Popular Women's Organisation of Barrancabermeja. Last July 20th [2008], these courageous women "celebrated" the 36th anniversary of the foundation of their organisation to defend freedom and social justice and gender equality (luchando por la libertad, la justicia social y de género).
Because the OFP (and other social and labour organisations) are a thorn in the fascist side of the paramilitaries, that -- to say the least -- enjoy the tacit protection of the Uribe government, the OFP have for more than ten years had to rely on the "unarmed bodyguards" of pbi - Peace Brigades International.

Read for yourself/yourselves. The following is an edited version of the English call for urgent action that I found in my in-box this morning.

*****
BARRANCABERMEJA, MIDDLE MAGDALENA (Magdalena Medio Dept.), COLOMBIA:
THREATS TO SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

URGENT ACTION

The Space of Social Workers and Human Rights Defenders in Barrancabermeja and the Middle Magdalena denounces and publicly rejects the wave of assassinations of male and female members of the community, as well as the death threats against five social organizations and human rights defenders in the city of Barrancabermeja. We call on the regional, national and international community to come to our assistance and to call on the government of Colombia to put a stop to these nefarious events.
The victims of recent threats and attacks have been the Regional Corporation for the Defense of Human Rights (Credhos), the Popular Women's Organisation (OFP), the Corporation for Development and Peace of Magdalena Medio (CPDMM); the Workers' Labour Union (USO), and the labour unions SINDISPETROL and FERTICOL.
We are deeply concerned that "structures of death" (aka death squads) continue to operate in the city and region of Barrancabermeja while the state's civil and military authorities declare their complete ignorance of such presence, and fail to use their legal powers of action and constraint; nor do we any see action to break up such structures.

SOME FACTS:
[In Barrancabermeja, in just three days from July 18 to 21, 2008, five people were killed, one man in intensive care with serious injuries after an assassination attempt, and one premature baby also in intensive care whose young mother was murdered:]
• July 18, 2008, in the "22nd March" neighborhood, commune 3: a young couple were murdered: ALEXIS ARMANDO CASTILLO BALANZA (18) and his GERALDIN JIMENEZ POSADA (15). She was seven months pregnant and rushed to the Magdalena Medio Clinic, where she died. (Her baby was saved and is in intensive care.)
• July 18, 2008: stabbed to death, Diego Fernando QUIROGA BETANCURT (27). His assassin gave himself up to the authorities, stating that he killed D.F. Quiroga because he violated his two young daughters, 5 and 4 years of age.
• July 19, 2008, ca. 8:30 p.m., in the so-called "UNO" section: murder of NIVALDO MARBLE ZAPATA (39), resident of “The Chicó” neighbourhood.
• July 19, 2008, 9:30 p.m., in the “San Jose obrero” neighbourhood: murder of JAVIER DÍAZ ROOMS (40), resident on the Road to “Pozo Siete”, opposite the "Torres" neighbourhood.
• July 19, 2008, 9:30 p.m., in the "Corales" neighbourhood: ELIAS GUTIERREZ (39) attacked and seriously injured; he is in intensive care.
• July 21,2008, "Buena Vista" Neighbourhood, commune Four: leaflets containing the following death threat were distributed:

"ANTIOQUIA, JULY 20, 2008 -- COMMUNIQUE
"OUR ORGANIZATION AFTER DOING AN EXHAUSTIVE INVESTIGATION HAS DECIDED TO TAKE BARRANCABERMEJA BY BLOOD AND FIRE IN ORDER TO APPEASE HER OF ALL WHO CAUSE VIOLENCE.
"IN THIS SENSE WE DECLARE THE FOLLOWING TO BE MILITARY TARGETS: THE FARC, LEFT-WING SOCIAL AND HUMAN-RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS (OFP, CREDHOS, PDP), DISARMED PEOPLE [former paramilitaries who surrendered their weapons against fairly substantial state support to be "reinserted" into civil society], LABOUR UNIONISTS (USO, SINDISPETROL, FERTICOL), THE SO-CALLED “AGUILAS NEGRAS” ["Black Eagles", a notorious paramilitary organisation] AND ANYONE WHO COMMITS ILLICIT [DEEDS] TO THEIR OWN BENEFIT.
"THIS RECAPTURE OPERATION WAS INITIATED ON JULY 01 OF THE PRESENT YEAR AND WE HOPE THAT THE COMMUNITY WILL LEND US ITS SUPPORT SO WE MAY NOT NEED TO TAKE REPRISALS AGAINST IT.
"FOR A BARRANCABERMEJA IN PEACE THROUGH BLOOD AND FIRE“
"DON MARIO, COMMANDER [of] HEROES OF CASTAÑO [Castaño is a notorious paramilitary leader]"

We hold responsible the civil and military authorities, by omission, of the events that have occurred in Barrancabermeja and the region

We hold responsible the Colombian state, and its civil and military authorities for any [harm] that may be done to the life and integrity of the members of threatened organizations.

We demand State protection, in fulfillment of its constitutional duty, for the threatened organizations, their members and relatives; as well as for the victimised communities.

We demand investigation of these facts, and the adoption of the necessary and appropriate measures against the persons responsible for these actions.

We call on the International Community to be watchful and to ensure this serious matter is pursued, and to lodge their complaints with the national Government [of Colombia] against these facts that affect the life and integrity of the victimised communities and of the threatened organisations.

SPACE OF MALE AND FEMALE HUMAN RIGHTS WORKERS
BARRANCABERMEJA, MIDDLE MAGDALENA, COLOMBIA
JULY 23, 2008.

Please send your e-mails and letters of concern to the following addresses:

Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Presidente de la República, Cra. 8 # 7-26, Palacio de Nariño, Santa Fe de Bogotá.
Fax:+57.1.566.20.71; E-mail: auribe@presidencia.gov.co

Sr. Francisco Santos, Vicepresidente de la República,
Téls. (+571) 334.45.07, (+57310) 7720130; E-mail: fsantos@presidencia.gov.co; buzon1@presidencia.gov.co

Programa DDHH de Vicepresidencia: ppdh@presidencia.gov.co

Observatorio DDHH de Vicepresidencia: obserdh@presidencia.gov.co

Dr. Volmar Antonio Pérez Ortiz, Defensor del Pueblo, Calle 55 #10-32, Bogotá.
Fax: +57.1.640.04.91; E-mail: secretaria_privada@hotmail.com; agenda@agenda.gov.co

Doctor Mario Hernán Iguarán Arana, Fiscal General de la Nación,
Diagonal 22-B # 52-01, Bogotá.
Fax: + 57.1.570.20.00; +57.1.414.90.00, Extensión 1113; E-mail: contacto@fiscalia.gov.co; denuncie@fiscalia.gov.co

Dr. Edgardo José Maya Villazón, Procurador General de la Nación, Cra. 5 #. 15-80, Bogotá.
Fax: +57.1.342.97.23; +571.284.79.49; +57.1.342.97.23; E-mail: cap@procuraduria.gov.co; quejas@procuraduria.gov.co; webmaster@procuraduria.gov.co; cap@procuraduria.gov.co;

reygon@procuraduria.gov.co; anticorrupcion@presidencia.gov.co
Fax: +57.1.342.97.23

Dr. Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, Ministro de la Defensa, Avenida El Dorado con Cra. 52 CAN, Bogotá.
Fax: +57.1.222.18.74; E-mail : siden@mindefensa.gov.co; infprotocol@mindefensa.gov.co; mdn@cable.net.co

Dr. Carlos Franco, Director del Programa Presidencial de Derechos Humanos y de Derecho Internacional Humanitario (DIH).
Fax. +57.1.337 46 67; E-mail: cefranco@presidencia.gov.co, Clle 7 N° 5–54 Bogotá, D.C.

Dr. Fabio Valencia Cossio , Ministro del Interior y de Justicia, Avenida El dorado con Cra. 52 CAN, Bogotá Fax. +57.1.222 1874; E-mail: ministro@minjusticia.gov.co

***

Thank you!
Peace! Paz!

RTFC – Raise Tibetan Flag Campaign - Exhibition at Tibet Museum, Dharamsala, April 7-19, 2008

Hello again

I'm trying to keep my head above water -- sometimes wondering why I'm doing this to myself but always knowing, deep down, that I'm doing the right thing and that, if I don't make this move now, I never will and it will always prey on my mind: what if...? -- I'm talking of moving my life, my business to Oban -- leaving behind so many of my wonderful friends and family here in Switzerland. That'll be a wrench!
Right now it all feels pretty painful and chaotic but I'm already catching glimpses of relief at jettisoning some of the material ballast I've been dragging around with me for far too long. And I know that true friendships will last.

But enough of me. Here's a press release from RTFC -- a friend of mine is currently living and working in Dharamsala, Nepal, assisting the Tibetans there in their peaceful struggle with his beautiful photography and artwork. RTFC – Raise Tibetan Flag Campaign merits everyone's support.

For what it's worth, I'm proud to be able to pass on the word about it, especially on the day on which the Olympic torch was flown to Beijing, which is excellent news for the Chinese government, terrible for universal human rights.

Nuff said. Peace!

The Tibetan flag is raised high on Münsterplatz in Bern on Monday, March 24, 2008. © Photo: MPJ

PS
Since the Press Release was written, a video has been compiled for RTFC which you can view at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0zs-icVGts

And the date of the opening has had to be shifted. Here's the note that just came in from one of the organisers: "... after meeting with the Tibetan Parliament this afternoon, we secured part two of our Exhibition at the Tibet Museum from April 7th to the 19th. The opening will still be held at the TCV day school."
******
March 31, 2008 -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Raise Tibetan Flags Campaign hosts its inaugural Peace Exhibition in
Dharamsala

Dharamsala, India – Since the Chinese annexation of Tibet in 1949 and more recently, in the wake of the events in Tibet and within the Tibetan exile community, Raise Tibetan Flags Campaign (RTFC) was initiated as an outlet for peaceful and proactive demonstrations.
As a result, RTFC has coordinated a Peace Exhibition featuring the work of 17 photographers, painters, multi-media and video artists, performance artists and musicians from 9 different countries across the world.
The purpose of the Exhibition is to portray ideas and reflections about Tibet, united by the themes of peace, freedom and justice through art and music while fundraising for RTFC. The opening Exhibition will begin at 11 am at the TCV Day School on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 and continue at the Tibet Museum until April 19th.
Admission will be free at the opening Exhibition and 5 Rs. at the Tibet Museum.

RTFC is a movement which aims to promote peace and awareness through raising Tibetan flags worldwide. The ultimate objective of RTFC is to create a platform for Tibetans to express their right to raise Tibetan flags. Raising a Tibetan flag is a simple yet powerful act of solidarity for both Tibetans and Tibet supporters alike. Since not one Tibetan flag is allowed in Tibet, we will raise millions everywhere throughout the world.
All proceeds from donations and the sale of art works from the Exhibition will go towards the further distribution of Tibetan flags; RTFC is run entirely on a voluntary basis.

The Raise Tibetan Flags Campaign is also organizing ongoing Peace Exhibitions which will continue from Dharamsala to Delhi, Seoul, Kathmandu, Bangkok, London, Los Angles, Minneapolis, Kumamoto and various cities throughout the world. By organizing international Exhibitions, our goal is to promote the message of peaceful expression far and wide while opening the dialogue about Tibet amongst the citizens of the world. In addition to Tibetan-themed artwork, each Peace Exhibition we host will also include speakers and musicians who will help spread awareness and understanding about the current situation in Tibet. Free Tibetan flags will also be available at each Peace Exhibition so that all attendees can carry on the promotion of peace and awareness through the raising of a Tibetan flag.

For more information, please contact:
Tenzing Jamyang – Campaign Founder
(for Tibetan and Hindi correspondence: mobile 9805236959)
Wen-Yan King – Campaign Co-founder
(for English correspondence: mobile 9816273240)
Je Min Lee – Exhibition Founder
(for Korean correspondence: mobile 9218807616)

peace@tibetanflags.org
www.tibetanflags.org


NOTES TO EDITORS
Raise Tibetan Flags Campaign (RTFC) was established one week after the events of the 49th anniversary of the March 10th, 2008 commendation of the Tibetan Uprising. The ultimate objective of RTFC is for Tibetans to have the right to raise Tibetan flags inside Tibet. Within the first week of RTFC's establishment, we raised over 4,000 Tibetans flags through free public distribution in McLeod Ganj. By mobilizing Tibet supporters across the world, we will continue raising Tibetan flags to promote peace and awareness while paying homage to those who have suffered or died for freedom and justice in Tibet. RTFC also aims to preserve Tibet's unique cultural heritage through the mass raising of Tibetan flags worldwide.

Upon its inception, RTFC has existed as an apolitical movement which aspires to unite all Tibet support groups in Dharamsala and abroad under the Tibetan flag. It is RTFC's aspiration for all Tibet supporters to stand in solidarity for promoting peaceful resolution and open dialogue about Tibet.

RTFC's website, www.tibetanflags.org is currently under construction but will available soon. A press kit with detailed information about RTFC will be made available at the press conference at 10am on April 6th, prior to the commencement of the Exhibition. Please RSVP at peace@tibetanflags.org if you plan on attending the press conference. In the meantime, please contact us for any questions or suggestions. We look forward to hearing from you.
****

Appeal against death sentence handed down to Afghan journalist

Hello again

Very late in the day, but hopefully not too late, I'd like to encourage you to join me in an appeal to Afghan President Hamid Kharzai. The death penalty is always wrong, no matter what. It is particularly wrong when it comes to punishing or threatening people who exert their right to speak out.

Thank you for joining me in the effort to save this young man's life.

****
International PEN

AFGHANISTAN: Journalist Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh sentenced to death for blasphemy.

Author(s): Cathy McCann - WiPC Asia and Middle East Researcher
Date: 24th January, 2008

RAN 02/08

The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN is shocked by the death sentence handed down to journalist Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh on 22 January 2008 for blasphemy. International PEN calls upon President Hamid Karzai to personally intervene in this case as a matter of urgency, and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of journalist Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh in accordance with Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

According to PEN’s information, twenty-three year-old Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, journalism student at Balkh university and reporter for the local daily Jahan-e-Naw (The New World), was arrested on 27 October 2007 in Mazar-i-Sharif, Balkh province, northern Afghanistan for distributing allegedly anti-Islamic literature. He was detained by National Directorate of Security (NDS) forces on blasphemy charges after downloading and giving to friends an article that allegedly said the Prophet Mohammed ignored women’s rights. He was not the author of the article. He was also reportedly accused of possessing allegedly anti-Islamic books and starting un-Islamic debates in his classes. Whilst Kambakhsh admits to circulating the article, he denies the accusations of blasphemy.

Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh was tried by an Islamic court in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Balkh Province, on 22 January 2008, and sentenced to death. The trial was reportedly held behind closed doors, and he had no legal representation. Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh is feared to be targeted for association with his brother, prominent journalist Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, who works for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting and has been under escalating pressure for his critical reporting on local officials and warlords.

Please send appeals:

- Expressing shock at the death sentence handed down to journalist Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh on blasphemy charges;
- calling for President Karzai to intervene to secure his immediate and unconditional release in accordance with Afghan law and Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Please send courteously worded appeals to:

His Excellency Hamid Karzai
President of the Islamic State of Afghanistan
Kabul
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

If possible please send appeals c/o the Ambassador for Afghanistan in your country.
***

P.S.: in Switzerland, the address is:

Afghanistan Consulate, Switzerland
63, rue de Lausanne
1202 Geneva
Switzerland

Phone: +41-22-7311449
Fax: +41-22-7314510
e-mail:

Why does this not make the headlines?

The Latin American Axis of Evil


From: jkarteaga, 1 month ago





Axis of Evil? We need to be well informed to make our own minds up!

Slide comments in English are as follows:

1 I might not agree with them, but…
2 Do you know who is president of Guatemala? of El Salvador? of Honduras?
Do you know how many TV stations have been shut down in these countries?
Why does this not make the headlines?
3 Did you know that two TV stations were shut down in Peru?
Did you know that was in April 2007?
If you look at the map, you'll see that the "Venezuelan dictatorship" is right next door...
Why did this not make headlines?
4 Did you know that in Ciudad Juárez (Mexico) over 400 women have been raped and murdered?
Did you know that some of them are 12-year-old girls?
Did you know that journalists investigating these crimes are being killed?
Why does this not make headlines?
5 Did you know that Fox’s election campaign (for president of Mexico) was funded by illegal drug money?
Maybe the crimes of Ciudad Juárez are not being investigated because the rapists and murderers are the
ones who provide funding …
Why does this not make headlines?
6 Did you know that indigenous people are murdered in Chiapas (Mexico) every day?
Why does this not make headlines?
7 Did you know that cyanide and mercury from western multinational companies poison the Central
American rivers that provide the population’s drinking water?
Why does this not make headlines?
8 Did you know that the Colombian government and multinational companies have been funding
paramilitaries?
Yes, my friend; STATE CRIMES!
Why does this not make headlines?
9 These are just a few (very few) examples of Latin-American reality
Don't let them do your thinking for you! [logos of tve, cope, antena3, elmundo.es, cuatro, cadenaSer,
telecinco, elpais.com]
10 Still want more?
11 Did you ever see "communication" media criticize "Corte Inglés" [a big retail chain]? (The banner strung
across the "El Corte Inglés" logo reads: "Capital is exploitative – intermittent workers are rebelling")
12 Did you know that "Zara" [the fashion chain] kill labour unionists in Asia?
13 Still want more? Search for information on your own initiative; don’t wait for big business to feed it to you.
Don’t let big economies and big companies filter and distort reality and truth.
14 fight reflect think investigate participate get involved criticize act insist be active be critical express
yourself move find out the truth defend yourself resist
15 … but above all else: pass this on!


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Everything is connected: Israeli mercenaries in Colombia

Hello again!

Just in, on the sixth anniversary of 9/11, a report from ISN Security Watch concerning links between Colombia and Israel. Seems that Israel is now Colombia's chief source of weapons, armament and even so-called counterinsurgency personnel. Both countries, you may know, are heavily subsidised by the U.S. Sometimes I wish that country would just stop all funding to foreign governments. It'd be interesting to see what would happen...

PS: I can understand the thousands of people attending memorial services in NYC and Washington etc. But who is holding memorials for the tens of thousands, if not millions, of people killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the world in armed conflicts fuelled by US/European/Russian/... greed?

****
ISN Security Watch

3 September 2007

Colombia, Israel and rogue mercenaries

Outside assistance with Colombian 'counterinsurgency' efforts in the form of Israeli 'expertise' has created dangerous rogue mercenaries and prolonged a bloody conflict.

By John C K Daly for ISN Security Watch (03/09/07)

Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos has acknowledged that Bogota had quietly hired a group of former Israeli military officers to advise local defense officials on their counter-insurgency tactics against leftist Fuerza Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) guerrillas, the Colombian daily Semana newspaper reported on 10 August.

FARC - founded in 1964 and the Western hemisphere's longest-running guerrilla movement - countered that Israeli mercenary commandos were actually involved in combat against their insurgents in Colombia's jungles.

The Israeli advisors - reportedly consisting of three senior generals, a lower ranking officer, an unnamed Argentinean officer and three translators - were hired under a reported US$10 million contract by the Colombian Defense Ministry to advise on how to improve the army's intelligence gathering capabilities. Santos reportedly approached former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami last year about the deal.

The Israeli group operates from Tolemaida in Cundinamarca Department, 240 kilometers from the capital Bogota, where the Colombian army runs its "Lancero" counterinsurgency training course, with Colombian army instructors being assisted by US military personnel.

The Israeli forces specialize in debriefing former guerrillas; previously, the interrogations were handled by civil servants without specialized knowledge, while the Israelis provide specialized interrogation techniques to improve the flow of intelligence from the de-briefings.

The program has its critics, many of whom wonder why the government did not resort to private groups or the US or the UK, which already cooperate with Bogota on intelligence matters. The government's explanation is that the Israeli mission is highly specialized.

However, Colombian security expert Laude Fernandez is not convinced. "It would have had been [sic] better to rely on the British, who have a good system of intelligence and a better standard in human rights," Fernandez told the Colombian daily Semana on 4 August.

But Deputy Defense Minister Sergio Jaramillo said the Israelis' assistance was invaluable: "They are like psychoanalysts; they ask us the material questions and help us see all the problems we weren't aware of before," according [to] a 10 August report from the Israeli news service Ynet.

Israeli assistance: Gray areas

Israel is now Colombia's top weapons supplier, with the bulk of the armaments being used against FARC and another leftist group, the Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (National Liberation Army or ELN.) Israeli weaponry includes drones, light arms and ammunition, surveillance and communication systems and specialized bombs capable of destroying coca fields.

The irony is that Colombia's armed forces occasionally clash with right-wing paramilitaries and drug cartel gunmen trained in the late 1980s by rogue Israeli mercenaries, one of whom was detained in Russia earlier this week on an Interpol warrant.

The news throws a most unwelcome spotlight on the Colombian government's efforts to avail itself of Israeli expertise. In 1987, right-wing paramilitaries hired Israeli former Lieutenant Colonel reservist Yair Klein and members of his private "security" company Hod He'hanitin (Spearhead Ltd.) as advisors on the country's leftist insurgency with tacit approval from the government of President Virgilio Barco Vargas.

Klein's activities two decades ago now have caught up with him. On 27 August, Klein was detained at Moscow's Domodedovo airport on an Interpol warrant issued by Colombia after attempting to board a flight bound for Tel Aviv with an altered passport after apparently attending to Spearhead Ltd. business in Moscow.

A spokesman for the Russian Interior Ministry told journalists in Moscow that the Prosecutor-General's Office had received an official request from Colombia on 29 August asking for the arrest and extradition of Klein.

Klein is wanted by Colombia's law enforcement agencies after being convicted for training a terrorist group in 1990 - a group supported by Colombian drug dealers. The former Israeli army lieutenant colonel was convicted of terrorist activities and the training of gunmen from among local residents on territory not under the control of the official authorities."

Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo told reporters that Bogota would formally petition Russia for Klein's extradition, while Moscow said has said little outside of acknowledging the request.

The Israeli daily newspaper Ha'aretz reported on 29 August that Klein was being detained based on Israeli police data, which informed Colombia of Klein's intention to return to Israel from Russia. The press secretary of the Israeli Embassy in Moscow, Aleks Goldman-Shaiman, told the daily that the embassy was currently negotiating for access to Klein.

Following news of Klein's detention, Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos said, "Hopefully they'll hand [Klein] over to us so he can rot in jail for all the damage he's caused Colombia," local newspapers reported.

Klein was a former paratrooper and commando in the Israeli Army who left military service in 1985. His involvement in Colombia's interminable guerrilla war began in 1987 when Colombia's former justice minister Jose Manuel Arias Carrizosa approached Israeli contacts. Carrizosa had been named president of the Asociacion de Bananeros de Colombia (AUGURA,) and its members in Uniban, Colombia's main banana and plantain export company, were looking for a way to cope with extortion by FARC guerrillas.

Contacts were made with former Israeli Defense Force (IDF) Lieutenant Colonel Yitzhak "Mariot" Shoshani, who in turn recommended Klein. Shoshani was well-known to the Colombian military as he had represented Israel's ISREX company. ISREX, founded in 1968, had sold military goods to Colombian armed forces for many years.

In emphasizing its Latin American connections the company states on its website: "Isrex conducts its business and marketing through its wholly owned subsidiaries - Isrex Argentina (2000), Isrex Peru and Isrex International SA, as well as through delegations and associated companies such as Istelcom Do Brazil (Brazil) and others."

Over the next two years, Klein and his personnel trained right-wing vigilante paramilitaries belonging to affluent landowners, who would eventually become the nucleus of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC.)

AUC quickly moved beyond its original intent of providing protection to wealthy landowners to becoming deeply involved in drug trafficking, and had support from elements in the army and the police, and Klein apparently shifted to providing expertise to the drug traffickers as well.

Dealing with devils

Klein was hardly the sole Israeli that the Colombian government was dealing with at the time. In April 1988, Israel agreed to purchase two million tonnes of Colombian coal over the next three years, while Colombia committed itself to buying 14 Israeli Kfir fighters for US$60 million from the Israel Security Defense System company.

The coalescence of the landowners' vigilante groups into AUC and its deepening involvement in the cocaine trade eventually troubled the US and became a liability, as many AUC leaders were either wanted in the US on drugs charges or accused of serious human rights violations.

Like the AUC members, Klein's drift into the drug trade eventually transformed him from a foreign advisor approved by the government into a rogue criminal. Colombian lawyers in 1988 asserted that he was allegedly one of four Israelis hired by drug trafficker Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha. Rodriguez (also known as "El Mexicano") died in a shootout with Colombian security forces in December 1989. He was one of the Medellin cartel's most violent bosses.

According to a Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad report, beginning in December 1987, Rodriguez hired both Israeli and British ex-Special Air Services mercenaries to train his personnel.

Klein eventually acknowledged having led a team of instructors for Rodriguez's forces in Puerto Boyaca in early 1988. A subsequent search of Rodriguez's home uncovered 200 Israeli assault rifles, which the Israeli government stated were part of a 400-weapon contingent that they had sold to Antigua's government, which had apparently then been transferred to the Medelin cartel.

Colombian internal security chief General Miguel Marquez in 1989 publicly named Klein as training and providing arms to the Medellin cartel's sicarios (death squads). Colombian authorities assert that Klein was also involved in training the security detail of Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, head of the Medelin cocaine cartel in the 1980s. Gaviria was killed in 1993.

Freelance Israeli activities in Colombia apparently did not end with Klein, as in May 2000 Colombian intelligence arrested two Israelis and a Colombian suspected of attempting to smuggle more than 50,000 weapons to guerrillas.

In 1990, an Israeli court convicted Klein after he pled guilty to illegally exporting military arms and information to Colombian insurgents and fined him US$13,400. Serving a year in prison, Klein denied all charges, but worse was to come when in 1998 the Colombian judiciary officially indicted Klein on charges of training illegal paramilitary units.

Klein next surfaced in Sierra Leone, where in 1999 he was arrested on charges of smuggling weapons to rebels there and served a 16-month prison sentence, after which he fled to Israel. Two years later, a Colombian court convicted Klein in absentia of training paramilitaries and drug cartel gunmen and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

Earlier this year, Klein's Colombian shenanigans attracted the attention of Interpol, which on 3 April responded to a Colombian request and issued an international arrest warrant for Klein and Israeli nationals Melnik Ferri and Tzedaka Abraham, with the warrants alleging that the trio was involved in criminal conspiracy and instruction in terrorism.

The Colombian government has made persistent but unsuccessful attempts to extradite Klein from Israel. In a March interview with Colombia's private Caracol TV channel, Klein asserted that the Colombian police sought his assistance in order to train its members, and in an extraordinary display of chutzpah, stated he would like to return to Colombia in order to assist Colombian security forces in neutralizing FARC guerillas.

Military options not a solution

Justice will apparently come slowly, as the head of Colombia's DAS intelligence agency, Andres Penate, who is involved in Klein's detention, said his extradition could take up to a year.

There are a few glimmers of hope in this grim picture. Since 2004, AUC paramilitaries have largely honored a ceasefire and thousands have handed in their weapons, but President Alvaro Uribe has come in for harsh criticism for granting too many concessions to the right-wing paramilitaries.

Two issues seem to emerge from this convoluted situation. First, after 40 years of conflict, a political situation addressing the insurgency seems to be the best hope for ending the conflict. The timeline parallels that of the British presence in Northern Ireland, which eventually produced such an outcome.

Secondly, "outside" assistance, whether in the form of financial assistance or military expertise, has not produced a solution, but instead seem to have prolonged the conflict. As distasteful as it might be to the Uribe administration, discussing the issues fueling the conflict might lead to a cessation of hostilities, since military options have at best produced a stalemate and created rogue mercenaries providing expertise that, far from ending the conflict, prolonged it.

---

Dr John C K Daly is a Washington DC-based consultant and an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author only, not the International Relations and Security Network (ISN).

Interesting news from El Cerrejón coal mine, Colombia

Hello again
Having published some very critical information concerning the huge open-pit coal mine at El Cerrejón, La Guajira department, Colombia, I feel it is fair today to follow up with an official statement published in Bogotá on August 27, 2007, by Carbones del Cerrejón Limited. So here goes:


Cerrejón Announces Independent Social Review

Carbones del Cerrejón Limited ("Cerrejón"), the largest coal mining company in Colombia, and its shareholders, Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Xstrata Coal, have commissioned an independent social review of Cerrejón's past and current social engagement. The review will be conducted by a multi-stakeholder, independent panel, comprising five internationally recognized experts in social development.

León Teicher, President of Cerrejón said: "We have initiated this review of Cerrejón's social performance to benefit from an independent assessment of our social engagement to date and to gain strategic guidance to enhance Cerrejón's future performance. The review will be conducted independently of Cerrejón management by a highly credible group of independent members with specific experience of social development both from within Colombia and from an international perspective.

"The committee's report will allow us to evaluate Cerrejón's past and current social engagement within La Guajira and to receive recommendations that ensure Cerrejón ranks amongst the best international performers in this field. This review underlines our commitment to address the priorities of our stakeholders in the region and to international best practice in social engagement.

Cerrejón is an important contributor to the local, regional and national economy, creating over 10,000 direct jobs and many more indirectly. Cerrejón makes a significant and beneficial contribution to the sustainable development of local communities and has implemented leading practices in human rights policies.

The independent committee is chaired by Dr. John Harker, President of Cape Breton University, Canada.
Its members comprise:

 Salomón Kalmanovitz, Dean of Economics and Business Administration of Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, Colombia and a former member of the Board of directors of the Colombian Central Bank;

 Elena Serrano, Casa de La Paz Foundation, a non-governmental organization based in Chile which promotes peace, social development and environmental awareness;

 Daniel Gagnier, Chair of the Canadian not-for-profit organization International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and former Senior Vice-president, ALCAN Inc.; and

 Nick Killick, International Alert, a UK-based, international non-governmental organization focused on peacebuilding and security in developing countries.

Cerrejón and its shareholders recognize the independence of the committee and will provide all relevant information and full access to the company's facilities, staff and records. The committee will be supported by Social Capital Group, an internationally recognized consultancy that will undertake the fieldwork required for the review and will report directly to the committee.

At the end of the process, the independent committee will present a comprehensive report to Cerrejón and its shareholders that will include specific recommendations on current and future community engagement practices, including addressing legacy issues. The review process is expected to be completed within six months and an executive summary of the report will be made publicly available.

The review forms a critical part of Cerrejon's Corporate Social Responsibility strategy and will inform the future development of the company's policies and practice in this area.

Bogotá D.C. August 27, 2007

(see also http://www.cerrejoncoal.com/secciones/CERWEB/ENGHOME/MENUPRINCIPAL/SALADEPRENSA/NOTICIAS/doc_137_HTML.html?idDocumento=137)
****

I, for one, very much look forward to seeing the review and report. But all the reporting will be of no use if recommendations are not implemented. Events in the distant and recent past do not bode terribly well. Watch this space!

Mining giant accused of profiting from abuse by Colombian army

Hello,
I'm still hugely busy and should really be focusing on (paid) work, but have to share with you a report from this week's Guardian Weekly (p. 8/comment p. 18):



Mining giant accused of profiting from abuse by Colombian army

• Soldiers protecting Anglo American's interests
• Attacks on protesters 'part of pattern of global abuse'

Sibylla Brodzinsky in Bogotá
The Guardian, Friday August 3, 2007 / The Guardian Weekly, August 10, 2007, p. 8: Mining giant 'profiting from army abuses in Colombia'

The British mining giant Anglo American has been accused of profiting from the persecution, intimidation and killing of miners in Colombia who oppose the company's operations.
The international charity War on Want says in a report released yesterday [Aug 2, 2007] that Anglo American and its subsidiaries benefited from army operations in areas where the company is prospecting, which have forced families off their land and intimidated community leaders. It is part of a "pattern of global abuse" in countries where Anglo American operates, it says.

[... the article continues at http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2140798,00.html]

*****

Painful extraction
A British mining firm linked to abuses around the world is banking huge profits at Africa's expense

Mark Curtis
The Guardian, Friday August 3, 2007 / The Guardian Weekly, 10.08.07, p. 18 [Comment & Debate: A UK mining firm linked to abuses is profiting at Africa's expense]

It all has a depressingly familiar ring. The fingerprints of a British mining company are found to be all over abuses around the world. And again, there are high-level connections with the government. Enervated readers might be tempted to follow the lead of Gordon Brown, who is allowing it all to happen.
Anglo American, the world's second-largest mining company, today announces its financial figures for 2007, on the back of record profits in 2006 of more than $6bn. Last year I visited Obuasi in Ghana, the site of Africa's largest gold mine, run by AngloGold Ashanti (AGA), an Anglo American subsidiary. The mine had polluted local water systems, while many people told me how they live in fear of joint company/police "security" patrols. In the past year, the appalling poverty of villagers literally living on top of gold has not improved one jot.

[...]

Anglo American's chairman, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, [...] finds a soulmate in Brown, who in 10 years in government has never seriously criticised, let alone sought to regulate, British companies overseas. Virtually every speech he has given since 1997 has pledged his commitment to minimal company regulation while praising businesses as "partners" in overseas development.
The reality is that a more open investment climate in poor countries can sometimes be good and sometimes bad. In Obuasi, Sur de Bolivar and Cordillera, open investment translates as repression and exploitation. Yet Brown is a liberalisation evangelist who has failed to discriminate between good investment and bad. Britain has supported the World Bank-led rewriting of dozens of countries' mining laws, resulting in foreign firms paying much lower corporation tax and royalties to host governments. In Ghana the government gets a minuscule 5% of the value of all minerals exported. No wonder Anglo American was able to make $6bn profits last year.

[...]

• The War on Want report is at http://www.waronwant.org
• Mark Curtis is the author of Unpeople: Britain's Secret Human Rights Abuses http://www.markcurtis.info
****

[For the whole comment, go to http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2140853,00.html#article_continue, where this article is followed by a substantial number of messages from readers, with some interesting/useful links to related websites]

"Colombia: the dead bear witness" (Le monde diplomatique)

Hiya again

Today I want to draw your attention to a background article on the scandalously high likelihood that the Colombian government has long been intimately connected with right-wing death squads.

See Le Monde diplomatique (English), June 2007, pp. 6-7. Available to subscribers at http://www.mondediplo.com

Here's the lead of Launce Mazure's article, "Colombia: the dead bear witness":

"Colombia has been shaken by a series of revelations that have linked leading politicians and businessmen to death squads run by the rightwing United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia. The opposition has now accused President Alvaro Uribe of contacts with the paramilitaries."

Personally, I have very good reason to believe that the current president of Colombia is corrupt, fascist, power hungry, despotic and dangerous because he's also very intelligent and has managed not only to change the constitution to gain another four-year term of office but also to evade probing into election frauds by manipulating local community leaders into voting for him well before any election monitors arrived in the country. What I have heard of his years as governor of Antioquia makes me think of him as a cold-blooded criminal. He may not have blood on his hands personally, but I am certain that he pulled the strings behind many assassinations and atrocities. I am hoping that someone will soon arraign him and drag him into an international court. The sad thing is that the EU has fallen prey to his sweet talking and does not see beyond the wealthy areas of Bogotá.

Plenty more information on Colombia (parapolitics, drugs, human rights) is available, for example, at
http://www.askonline.ch (in German only, but with lots of links to Spanish and English-language sites)
http://www.peacebrigades.org
http://www.humanrightswatch.org/doc/?t=americas
http://www.tni.org -> issues -> Colombia

Channel 4: "War and money in Colombia"

PS added on June 6, 2007: Sadly, the link very soon led nowhere. Thanks, anonymous, for pointing this out to me -- I'd overlooked to pull the link. Am leaving the post standing, though..

Hiya again

Today I want to share with you a link and a short report from Channel 4, International Politics. Some of you may already have seen the programme, but those of you who have not may find it of interest.

Those of you who know me know that my interest in Colombia is passionate, personal but, I hope, objective. I find the article disturbing but, to my knowledge, the facts presented are accurate. The issue is a thorny one: how do you operate in a country that is so riven by conflict and whose government has completely failed the vast majority of its population? There are no easy solutions, but I know that paying protection money to criminals cannot be the way.

Below I'm quoting from the Channel 4 website between the **** (http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/war%20and%20money%20in%20columbia/514547#fold)

*****

Last Modified: 16 May 2007
By: Channel 4 News

The global brands who stand accused of turning a blind eye - or even worse - when it comes to paramilitary murder.

Tens of thousands of people have died in Colombia's four-decade long civil war between left-wing guerrillas, the armed forces, and right-wing paramilitary groups.

In the last 15 years alone, paramilitaries have killed more than 10,000 people, according to the country's attorney general. Many of those were trade unionists and local activists.

And the unions and their supporters say that many of those died because they stood in the way of multinational companies, who are accused of profiting from the actions of the killers - and even of directly funding the paramilitaries.

Guillermo Galdós brings [his] special report from the Urabá region of Colombia.

BP and Chiquita Statements

We asked BP for an interview. They declined, but said in a statement:

"BP absolutely denies any suggestion of association with violence or the criminal activities of illegal armed groups in Casanare or Colombia. BP has never funded nor collaborated with paramilitary organisations in Colombia or elsewhere. Any suggestion to the contrary is completely untruthful.

"We have worked closely with regional and national authorities and civil society to promote the rule of law, human rights and peaceful conflict resolution. Private contractors and government security forces protecting our facilities ... are monitored regularly".

Chiquita, in its 2006 annual report, said that:

"In order to protect the lives and safety of its employees, its banana-producing subsidiary in Colombia had been forced to make protection payments to local right- and left-wing paramilitary groups ...

"Since disclosing this information four years ago, Chiquita has cooperated with the DOJ investigation, sold its Colombian operations and enhanced its compliance programs and procedures".
****

Human rights violations to push agrofuels

Hi there

Allow me to step onto the soap box and share this with you:

Human rights violations are widespread in connection with oil palm expansion in Colombia, where the Permanent People's Tribunal has just delivered its decision. It condemns various palm oil companies responsible for the illegal occupation of community lands to establish oil palm monocultures.In the process, more than 113 crimes against humanity have been committed, all of which have gone unpunished.

Similarly, in Indonesia, there have already been 350 conflicts over land rights linked to oil palm plantations. The massive biodiesel expansion programme can only add to social conflicts and human rights violations.

For more info go to http://www.wrm.org.uy/GFC (Global Forest Coalition of the World Rainforest Movement)

Dangerous lives in Colombia

Hello again
Today, a day more akin here in Berne to early summer than mid-March, I want to share an AP article with you that I recently received from one of my friends. The persecution of labor unionists is a sorry subject and requires our attention.

In Colombia labor unionists are at risk in almost all economic sectors with foreign involvement -- the article below does not mention names but I'll do so: Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Glencore, Xstrata and a lot of other transnational corporations have been accused of tolerating murder, kidnapping, intimidation of workers to coerce them into accepting lousy working conditions and pitiful pay.


Breaking news (via www.caracol.com.co): Payment of 25m US-Dollars to begin in out-of-court settlement by Chiquita Bananas based in Cincinnati, Ohio, for being involved with paramilitaries and left-wing insurgents in Colombia (ca 1997-ca 2004, via Banadex).



Union Organizing Can Be Deadly in Colombia
By Sergio de Leon
The Associated Press

Wednesday 07 March 2007

Bogota, Colombia - More than 800 trade unionists have been killed in Colombia over the past six years, by government count, yet the number of those murders solved can be counted on one hand.

Union organizing can be a deadly activity anywhere but is particularly dangerous in Colombia, where decades of political violence and lawlessness compel some unscrupulous employers to hire assassins.

"There's almost total impunity," claims Flavio Arias, vice president of the CUT labor umbrella organization, which represents Colombia's 530,000 unionized workers.

Now Colombia's reputation as the deadliest place in the world to be a labor organizer threatens to sink one of President Alvaro Uribe's proudest achievements: a free trade agreement with U.S. President George W. Bush, who is expected to use his visit to Colombia on March 11 to press for congressional approval.

The union-friendly Democrats who now control the U.S. Congress are so concerned about the unsolved labor murders that they are threatening to derail the trade pact entirely unless Uribe makes clear progress.

In a speech last May Day - the international day of the worker - Uribe boasted of "working with complete devotion so that one day we can stand before the world and say not a single trade unionist has been killed in Colombia."

Yet the number of slain unionists rose last year even as the homicide rate dropped under Uribe's law-and-order government. The Labor Ministry says 43 trade unionists were killed in 2005, and 58 last year.

None of those murders have been solved.

"Colombia's labor record is one of most problematic and controversial of any countries to sign a free trade agreement," said Thea Lee, policy director of the AFL-CIO, in Washington, D.C.

The biggest threat is hitmen hired by employers, especially in parts of the country where many workers toil in semi-feudal conditions and illegal militias hold sway.

That is the allegation in the 2001 murders of three mining union leaders murdered in 2001 in a case involving a U.S. coal company's Colombian arm.

A federal judge in Alabama on Monday, March 5, ruled that a civil suit could go to trial against Birmingham-based Drummond Co. Inc., whose local president is alleged to have played a role in the killings.

The suit says two union leaders were taken off a Drummond bus and shot to death by assassins hired by the company while a replacement union leader was also gunned down by paramilitaries.

Colombia's union membership rate, at about 5 percent, is one of Latin America's lowest and the chief federal prosecutor's office has a backlog of 1,300 cases of murders, threats and intimidation involving trade unionists.

"It's an embarrassment how slow we've been to take on these cases," said the chief of the office's human rights division, Leonardo Cabana. He's got just 13 prosecutors nationwide tackling the labor caseload.

Among the victims is Jorge Abril Parra, who was shot twice in the head last year on his way to work at "Tapas La Libertad," a metal caps and bottling plant owned by one of Colombia's biggest conglomerates.

Parra had survived a previous murder attempt but the company ignored requests from the Sintraime metal workers' union that he be transferred, said union president Felix Herrera.

A few months after Parra's murder, 25 frightened co-workers - all union members - accepted a company retirement offer.

Although there is no evidence linking Parra's employer to his murder, Herrera said "there's no doubt the company took advantage of his death to defeat the union." A spokeswoman for Tapas La Libertad did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.

Often, the hostility toward unions comes from the top.

Jorge Sanchez, the vice minister of labor, told The Associated Press that unions inflate the numbers of slain members "because they thrive on violence and blood."

Protecting labor leaders does appear to be a government priority, however. Guarding them - with bulletproof vests or bodyguards - consumes 40 percent of a nearly $20 million security program for human rights activists, journalists and other threatened individuals.

But labor unions, and their Democratic allies, demand more.

"Countless numbers of trade unionists in Colombia have been intimidated, have been threatened and have been murdered," said Rep. James McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat who visited Colombia last week.

"Until those issues are addressed, I think there's going to be some rough sledding for the trade agreement."

Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, the powerful new chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, would not back the trade deal despite a lobbying trip by Uribe in November.

Nor would Rep. Gregory Meeks, also of New York: "I don't think the free trade deal with Colombia will be approved in its current form."

---

AP writer Joshua Goodman contributed to this report.

Turkey, China, Colombia: The Human Cost of Development Projects

Dear Reader,

Today I'd like to share with you an article by David Bacon (details see below) concerning the high human cost of development projects. It is a well-written article focusing on Colombia and explaining succinctly the nefarious effects of market-driven investment and exploitation policies.

Your comments are most welcome.

****
MURDER AND MIGRATION
By David Bacon*

The American Prospect, January/February 2007, www.prospect.org

Development projects anywhere in the world often have a high human cost. In Colombia, the price is often measured in human lives and blood.

Esperanza (she would risk her life, she says, if her real name appeared in print) saw her neighbors pay that price in 2001. Her house sits on the bank of the Rio Salvajina, in the Afro-Colombian municipality of Buenos Aires in Cauca province. "I saw armed men arrive in cars," she remembers, "with two, three, four, even five people tied up. They dragged them onto the bridge, shot them two or three times and threw their bodies into the river." When the paramilitaries came to her own home, she was so frightened she lost the baby she'd been carrying for five months.

Today Esperanza is a community activist organizing against the hydropower project for which her neighbors were killed. If ratified by Congress, the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, which President Bush and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe signed in mid-November, could lead to more such projects, she fears, and more such violence. "It will permit many more development projects by multinational companies. Many more people will be displaced. And if they won't leave voluntarily, there will be more assassinations. We know this because we live with it already."

Esperanza's experience is a microcosm of the large-scale impact of corporate development in Colombia's countryside. One quarter of Colombia's nearly 43 million people are Afro-Colombian, and most live in rural areas, where resources like hydropower and gold and mineral deposits are concentrated. Far from enhancing the villagers' lives, however, these projects more commonly despoil their lands and force them to flee.

Esperanza's family was first displaced by construction of the dam on the Río Salvajina in 1984. Along with 3,600 others, her parents and brothers were compelled to leave the valley. Behind the dam, water flooded schools, homes, churches, even cemeteries. And when the turbines started to roll, the Spanish energy conglomerate, Unión Fenosa, had plenty of electricity to sell on Latin America's power market (the dam's purpose was to generate power that Unión Fenosa could market to other countries).

A number of community leaders who resisted removal were killed or disappeared. "The company didn't kill people directly," Esperanza cautions. "It asked the state, through the army, to force people to leave so they could run their business."

Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities insisted that the country's Constitution, rewritten in 1991, recognize their right to their historical territories. Law 70, passed in 1993, said these communities had to be consulted and give their approval prior to any new projects planned on their land. Having a law is one thing, however. Enforcing it is another.

By 2001, silt had begun to build up behind the Río Salvajina dam. Power generation, and Unión Fenosa's income, dropped. The company then proposed a new megaproject, to divert the Río Ovejas from its course in the next valley into the Río Salvajina reservoir. Knowing families couldn't survive the loss of their river, local communities refused to consent. Unión Fenosa asked the government to put the project on hold.

Then right-wing paramilitaries moved in.

Because the government is under pressure to respect international human rights standards, it's not as easy to use the army to drive out people as it was 20 years ago. "They use the paramilitaries," Esperanza says. That's when she saw the bodies thrown into the river in front of her house. "Leaders began to disappear. There were massacres, not just of people living in the area, but even those who'd fled to other places. Their bodies were dumped here. And after the paramilitaries arrived and the resistance was weakened, they came back with the proposal again."

Another megaproject is planned for the same area. Anglo American, the South African gold mining consortium, wants to pulverize a nearby mountain and extract gold from the ore. For generations, families in nearby Buenos Aires and Palo Blanco have depended on small-scale gold mining to survive. It's a hard living, however. Many women already leave their children in the care of neighbors and family to work as domestics in Cali, the closest city. "If we can't mine the gold the way we've done in the past, we won't even have that to sustain us," says Palo Blanco resident Ana Valencia (whose name also has been changed for fear of reprisals).
Large gold mines often leave behind huge mountains of tailings, and ponds filled with chemicals used to leach the metal from ore. Pollution will also make subsistence farming harder.

Power and gold sales create dividends, but the only Colombians who really benefit from them are a handful of brokers in Bogotá. The Colombian government, however, like many in thrall to market-driven policies, sees foreign investment in these projects as the key to economic development, and thus revenue. It cuts the budget for public services needed by Afro-Colombian, indigenous and other poor communities. The collusion of the Colombian government with business has also made Colombia the most dangerous nation for union activists, more of whom are murdered there every year than in any other country—and in some years, than in every other country.

In Washington, leading members of the incoming Democratic Congress have called for stricter labor and environmental standards for proposed free trade agreements; some have labeled the agreement with Colombia a non-starter. And while a number of prominent Democrats oppose the U.S. military aid program, Plan Colombia, which underwrites much of the Colombian military budget in the name of curtailing drug production, its fate is not so clear. What is crystal clear is that a number of leaders of rural Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities who stand in the way of such foreign investment will, like the leaders of Colombia's unions, in all probability disappear or die. And while most displaced Colombians become internal migrants in the country's growing urban slums, that migratory stream will eventually cross borders into those wealthy countries whose policies have set it into motion.


*David Bacon is a California photojournalist documenting labor, globalization, and migration. His photo-documentary book on immigration, Communities Without Borders, was just published by Cornell University Press.

http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575

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"The Living Dead", an article from New Brunswick, Canada

Hi there,
Once again, an important and informative article concerning the disregard for human rights by huge international mining corporations, two of them Swiss, has reached my in-box. I'd like to share this with you. I am part of an NGO, Arbeitsgruppe Schweiz-Kolumbien, ask! (www.askonline.ch -- in German) which is actively engaged in raising our government's awareness of events and in pushing for improvements in Colombia.

Tracy Glynn is a M.Sc. student in the Environmental Science program. She has written extensively about environmental issues (see: Memorial University of Newfoundland "Gazette", Vol 38 No 9 February 2, 2006 -- http://www.mun.ca/marcomm/gazette/issues/vol38no9/newspage15.php).
Here's her article:

THE LIVING DEAD

La Guajira and Belledune Pay the Price for New Brunswick Comfort and Complicity

By Tracy Glynn

“Their fundamental rights have been violated. These communities lack the most minimal conditions necessary for a decent life. They seem to belong to the living dead” - writes Jairo Quiroz from the National Union of Coal Workers (Sintracarbón) after investigating the living conditions in communities around the Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia in early November [2006].

NB Power consumes coal produced in the Cerrejón mine at its plant in Belledune.

Approximately 16% of the power in our province supplied through NB [New Brunswick] Power is generated from what has been dubbed “Colombian blood coal.”

José Julio Pérez was a farmer from Tabaco, Colombia. Today, Tabaco and its homes, farms, church and school do not exist. All that lived in Tabaco was destroyed for the Cerrejón mine in August 2001. During the bloody displacement, some of Pérez’s neighbours sustained serious and long lasting injuries after being beaten with clubs by the police, including a woman who intervened on a beating of her father.

Tabaco is not the only village that was illegally wiped off the map and those formerly from Tabaco are not the only ones suffering because of the world’s largest open-pit coal mine. Since the development of the Cerrejón mine in 1982, indigenous Wayuu and Afro-Colombian communities in La Guajira have been forcibly displaced from their lands.

Traditional agriculture-based livelihoods have been destroyed with the loss of land and industrial contamination. More communities face similar fates with the coal mine expansion.

The multinational companies that have and currently own Cerrejón include ExxonMobil, Glencore, Xstrata [Glencore and Xstrata are large Swiss companies!!!], BHP Billiton and AngloAmerican. While it welcomed the foreign investors, the Colombian State dehumanized the local indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities. The people who lived on top of the rich coal reserves were treated less than human and became dispensable things. Their say in the development or destruction of their communities did not matter. Atrocities against them including poverty, brutal intimidation, beatings, jail sentences and the prospect of being killed were justified.

The disenfranchised communities were left to suffer the health consequences of breathing bad air and drinking contaminated water. Similar environmental injustices also occur inside New Brunswick’s borders like in Belledune where two smelters and ironically the plant that burns the Colombian coal have contaminated the area. An incinerator that plans to burn PCBs is now planned for the area but the citizens refuse to be further dehumanized and contaminated. In the Conservation Council’s recent publication, Dying for Development, author Inka Milewski exposes forty years of government neglect concerning the contamination of Belledune by a lead smelter, now owned by Xstrata, which also owns part of the Cerrejón mine. A 2005 provincial health study revealed that the community had a high death and cancer rate compared to other parts of the province.

Turning Up the Heat

José Julio Pérez visited many towns and cities in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the United States in March 2006 to ask for support including NB Power's in expressing solidarity with and demanding justice and collective relocation for the people who live in the mining area. Solidarity can be as simple as receiving regular updates to stay informed and vigilant of the situation in the affected communities, committing to exerting public pressure (on the mine, on its customers, on government agencies in the home countries of the mine or in the countries that import this coal), or traveling to La Guajira to act as international observers and accompaniment when requested by the communities. The Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network (http://www.arsn.ca) and the Fredericton Peace Coalition (http://www.frederictonpeace.org) are currently organizing efforts on these fronts and can be contacted for more information.

On October 17 [2006], representatives of ARSN and FPC as well as concerned individuals met with NB Power while the UNB/STU Social Justice Society organized a demonstration outside NB Power’s office to generate much needed media attention. The concerned citizens asked that NB Power write a letter urging Cerrejón to respect and uphold internationally recognized human rights and labour norms, and the collective rights of the affected communities for fair relocation and reparations during its negotiation with the union and affected community slated to begin in November. On November 14, NB Power executive director David Hay sent a letter that included these demands to Cerrejón President Leon Teicher.

Francisco Ramirez Cuellar, a fearless union activist in Colombia, responded to the letter from NB Power: “I want to tell you that it provoked a very strong reaction on the part of the company…it is wonderful that the letter was written because the company now is beginning to have to weigh very carefully what the consequences are going to be if it continues to trample on the communities.”

Dr. Timothy Bood from Halifax and Dr. Tom Whitney from Maine visited Colombia in early November and treated many people with medical supplies donated by citizens in Fredericton, Halifax, Maine, and Massachusetts. Debbie Kelly in Halifax is selling handwoven bags made by La Guajira women as an urgent fundraiser for the affected communities. She writes: “while this may be a short term solution at best, it will at least provide food for many who have little or no way for decent meals, especially for the children and [the] sick. Some only eat every three days and for the smiling little children, it is hard to take. Even though their little body is racked in open sores from contaminated water, they don’t cry.”

Meanwhile, an environmental justice campaign to prevent future Belledunes is underway in New Brunswick by the Conservation Council. An Environmental Bill of Rights is proposed to entrench the public’s right to know about environmental and health risks, and to protect civil servants who "blow the whistle" on government inaction when it threatens the environment and health of citizens.

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North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee: http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia/