Colombia criticizes Amnesty cartoon as "slanderous"

[Say_What]

Well of course telling the truth is *slanderous*. Especially when the USSA provides billions in military aid. Here's the cartoon: http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/colombia/index.do

<clips>

An animated cartoon that satirizes Colombia's paramilitary law is "useless and slanderous," Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo said Thursday.

The cartoon, published by Amnesty International, depicts the law as a bar of soap which washes out crimes against humanity in the South American country.

"I (hereby) express my most profound and energetic protest about the contents of this video clip, which is disrespectful of the efforts, suffering and struggle of the Colombian government and people and their legitimate aspiration to achieve peace," Araujo said in an open letter to Amnesty International.

The Colombian government respects freedom of expression, and maintains an attitude of complete openness to the international community, non-governmental organizations and civil societies, he said, adding that the pain and complexity of Colombia's peace process does not deserve to be mocked.

http://english.people.com.cn/200703/09/eng20070309_355999.html

[Say_What]

1. Amnesty International Responds to Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araújo's Criticism of Animatio

<clips>

Responding to Colombia's Foreign Minister Fernando Araújo's statement regarding Amnesty International's web animation on the Colombian paramilitary demobilization process, Amnesty International said:

"Amnesty International has raised its concerns regarding the paramilitary demobilization process with the Colombian authorities for years with no adequate response. Clearly, what is 'disrespectful to victims of human rights violations in Colombia' are government policies, such as the Justice and Peace Law, which simply allow human rights violators to go unpunished.

Rather than issuing an angry response regarding our web cartoon, the Colombian government should concentrate on addressing the needs of hundreds of thousands of Colombians who have been and continue to be killed, tortured and forced to leave their homes by paramilitaries, the Colombian armed forces and guerilla groups."

Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said: "For more than two decades the people of Colombia have suffered unimaginable abuse and torture at the hands of Colombia's military, paramilitary and guerrillas. Amnesty International has documented that paramilitaries continue to operate and violate human rights throughout the country, despite the demobilization, and that the human rights situation remains critical. We hope that this cartoon will move more people to express outrage and take action to improve Colombia's human rights situation."

The cartoon may be viewed at: www.amnestyusa.org/countries/colombia/index.do

http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/document.do?id=ENGUSA20070309001

[antiimperialist]

2. Funny cartoon

Green light for paramilitary torturers. This is what this law is all about.

[Say_What]

3. Exactly!! n/t

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. If only the tortured and murdered were still alive, they might have

been able to tell Mr Araujo, "Sticks and stones (and bullets) will break your bones, but words will never hurt you. Get over it, Mutley."

[David__77]

5. Good.

It's obvious the Colombia is fascist. I doubt very seriously that matters can be resolved within the current constitutional framework. The oligarchy will not reign in its extra-legal terror network, auc, among others. FARC-EP is just a tool of the people, but has made many errors.

[Bacchus39]

6. Colombia is not fascist

n/t

[David__77]

11. Yes it is.

There is systematic, state-sanctioned murders of large numbers of progressive workers and activists on a continuous basis. That is sufficient to be classified as "fascist." Some may disagree. Some would be wrong.

[Judi Lynn]

9. "Just rinse, blather, and repeat!" This is real vindication, Say_What, seeing THIS point made by A-I

itself, right at its own site, after all this time, for christ's sakes.

Better late than never, right?

Only hoping the world will see this right-wing pile unraveled, and turned out into the street like the scum they are. How long IS it since Colombians had any hope for peace, anyway?

Someday their feudal arrangement will be dismantled, if there's any dignity at all in the world to come.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Questionable judgement, calling a truthful statement "slanderous."

Colombia, under Uribe, is filthy, murderous, and fascist. That's an excellent statement, bearing all the necessary truthful elements, and no lies whatsoever, obviously.

Anyone who has been keeping track of events as they have unfolded, as much as is allowed in the Republican controlled corporate media already knows this.

posted March 8, 2007 (March 26, 2007 issue)
Bush Amigo's Para Pals
Liliana Segura

When George W. Bush embarked on his five-country tour of a left-leaning Latin America in early March, he no doubt looked forward to visiting his one remaining ally in the region: the man he calls "mi amigo," right-wing Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. But a recent series of explosive revelations of Colombian government collusion with paramilitary thugs ought to put a damper on the occasion. The first came November 9, when Colombia's Supreme Court issued warrants for the arrest of three uribistas in Congress for their alleged ties to the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), Colombia's murderous right-wing paramilitary group. Rivals of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the paras have grown increasingly powerful over the past decade, dominating the drug trade, even as they have become beneficiaries of the so-called Peace and Justice Law, which last year granted amnesty to some 32,000 paras in exchange for their disarmament.

Then, on February 15, five more senior senators were arrested for paramilitary ties, including Senator Álvaro Araújo, the brother of Uribe's Foreign Minister, María Consuelo, provoking her resignation February 19. A warrant for the capture of their father, Álvaro Araújo Noguera, was issued March 2; meanwhile, former security and intelligence head Jorge Noguera, a campaign chief for Uribe in 2002, was arrested for arranging the assassination of union leaders and academics by paramilitaries.

The unraveling confirms what has long been an open secret: The Colombian government is rife with paramilitary influence. "What we are discovering here is not just a series of meetings between politicians and criminals," Senator Gustavo Petro of the leftist Polo Democrático told Congress November 30. "What we are discovering, before the eyes of all citizens, is the building of a mafioso regime in Colombia."

The Bush Administration has been largely mute about the mounting parapolitica scandal. But with the advent of a Democratic-led Congress and the State Department requesting a new round of funding for Latin America, the upheaval in Colombia may become impossible to ignore. For the first time since the passage of Plan Colombia--the Clinton-era drug-eradication package that under Bush became a $4.7 billion boon for the Colombian military and American corporations outfitting the drug war--Democrats head key committees that under Republican control have funneled US dollars to Bogotá.

[Judi Lynn]

12. Uh, oh. I just realized I forgot to include the link! If anyone is interested, here's that item:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070326/segura

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Can't get enough truthful Colombia articles, after all!





PLAN COLOMBIA:

THE GROWING CONTROVERSY

SHOULD MASSIVE PESTICIDE SPRAYING ON RAIN FORESTS
AND PEASANTS BE PART OF THE "WAR ON DRUGS"?

LINKS FROM DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Links/plan_colombia.htm#PHOTOGRAPHS

[rocktivity]

8. Mark Fiore--my man!

:applause:
rocknation

[Judi Lynn]

10. Great interview with a Colombian Democratic left Senator:

The Para-Scandal and the Bush Visit in Colombia
An interview with Jorge Robledo
by Jorge Robledo
and Justin Podur and Manuel Rozental
March 10, 2007

Jorge Robledo has been a Colombian senator with the Polo Democratico Alternativo (PDA), a democratic left party, since 2002. In recent years he has given a national voice to the opposition to the “free trade agreement” between the US and Colombia, which has delivered the country’s public sector industries, resources and territories to multinationals. In recent months, the Polo Democratico has also opened a national debate to expose the connections between the political system and the paramilitaries, death squads linked to the government who are implicated in massive human rights violations, assassinations, massacres, the liquidation of social opposition, and narcotrafficking....
(snip)

Justin Podur: Can you introduce, and explain briefly to readers who don’t know, what the ‘para-scandal’ is, how it came to be exposed, and what its effects have been on politics in Colombia?

Jorge Robledo: Colombia has long had the phenomenon of “paramilitarism”. Paramilitaries are armed groups linked with the state. One sector of the paramilitaries was organized by wealthy rural landowners for the purpose of attacking the guerrilla movement, but many paramilitary crimes have been directed against the civilian population. They are closely linked with narcotrafficking and organized crime. This has been the case for at least 20 years. Over this time, the paramilitaries have become a significant political power, in regional governments, municipalities, governorships, the congress, and the senate.

The ‘para-scandal’ is this: in recent months it has come to light that the paramilitaries are connected throughout the political system of the country, and especially the congress and senate. The supreme court has sent some congresspeople and other politicians to jail. According to the national newspaper, El Tiempo, there are 19 more congress members who could end up in jail. No less than the chief of the secret police, DAS (departamento administrativo de seguridad) is in jail. There are publicly available documents signed by congresspeople and paramilitaries, explicit agreements.

But the other part of this scandal that’s less-often discussed, is that all of the paramilitary-connected politicians, almost all of them, are friends of the Uribe government (Colombia’s President is Alvaro Uribe Velez). So even though the scandal is referred to as a scandal of “para-politica”, it makes more sense to call it “para-Uribismo”.

JP: But the connections between paramilitarism and the state, connections between paramilitaries and politicians, between paramilitaries and the army – these were all well-documented and well-known, and have been for years. What is it that has raised common knowledge to the level of a ‘scandal’?

JR: That’s a million-dollar question, and you’re completely right. Years ago, one of the paramilitary chiefs said that they had 30% of congress in their pockets. This was known. The new part today is that the supreme court has proceeded with an investigation and sent 8 congresspeople to jail.

JP: How far do you think the ‘scandal’ will go? What will its effect be on politics in Colombia?

JR: What we hope is that many more congresspeople who we know are connected to paramilitarism, as well as governors, mayors, and others, end up in jail. This is just the beginning. We know the connections are very deep but we do not know how far the process will be allowed to go. There are very powerful forces who do not want the truth to be known. When the final accounting is done, we know that it will involve business, the armed forces, the judiciary. So we are all wanting to see it pursued and concerned about whether it will go far enough, how far it will implicate the President, for example. Uribe continues to have the polls even though 90% of the paramilitary-connected politicians who have been exposed and punished so far are his friends, people he supported, people who supported him in his campaign.

Manuel Rozental: You mentioned the chief of the secret police, DAS, Jorge Noguera. We know that Noguera is very close to the President, and that the charges against him are very damning of the President and of the US. Can you talk about this?

JR: This is, in the midst of a massive scandal, one of the most scandalous pieces of information. The director of the nation’s secret service, DAS, Jorge Noguera, is in prison for his participation in paramilitary crimes. This is a real scandal because the charges include electoral fraud, assassinations of unionists, academics, activists, the use of president’s own car used for paramilitarism. Noguera was chief of Uribe’s electoral campaign in Magdalena. Uribe has stayed at Noguera’s house various times. These two people are very close. When the charges were coming to light Uribe tried to get Noguera a post with the Colombian Embassy in Italy. When the press challenged him, Uribe became very intemperate, as he often does.
(snip/...)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=9&ItemID=12314