Meanwhile: "The Disappeared Mayor"

[donsu]

http://www.counterpunch.com/podhur08302004.html

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More than once when I was in Cauca, people would ask me what things were like in Canada and elsewhere in the world. Arquimedes in particular was interested in the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Colombian media are no better than the North American media on that or many other issues, and so he was surprised to hear about the settlements, the assassinations, the checkpoints, the starvation, the prisons, the total control of daily life of the Palestinians by Israel. He had only heard of it as some kind of interminable religious conflict. The night of February 24, there was a celebration in Toribio--the UNDP had awarded the community a prize for having the best sustainable development project. Two representatives of the community had come back from the awards ceremony in Malaysia, and told the community about Malaysia and the different projects that had won. Arquimedes, as he had done more than once, put me on the spot in front of the whole gathered community, saying: "we have a special guest, from Canada, let's give him a moment to hear what he thinks." I said that I had been to many different places, seen the Palestinians struggle against the most brutal and powerful military machine; seen an MST community in Brazil and community assemblies and recovered factories in Argentina, Zapatista communities in Chiapas, and even very brave and principled people in Canada, but I had never seen the kind of strength, unity, and solidarity at the grassroots level that I had seen there, and that I had to thank them for that, because if I hadn't seen it I would not have believed it possible.
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