Alliance for Global Justice

As part of work on labor issues, it is essential that we weigh in on issues having to do with trade. We have created two fliers with everything you need to know about the TRADE Act and the NAFTA Withdrawal Act. Please read them here.

COLOMBIAN PEASANT STRUGGLES

By Aidee Moreno (Translation-Chuck Kaufman)

The year 2009 was very hard for the peasant, indigenous, Afro, and general Colombian population. Presently, “democratic security” continues its push against the peasantry. The eradication of illicit crops continues to generate displacement, hunger, death and misery; more perpetrators of the “false positives” murders are set free each day, and all these things make the human rights situation in the state not very hopeful.

Below are some examples of only a few of the thousands of public denunciations that are made from day today without response from the State and without resolution.

Putumayo

At the Police Station of Piñuna Negro in the Puerto Leguizamo municipality in the department of Putumayo, the indigenous, Afro-Colombian and peasant communities have mobilized since Oct. 19, 2009, leading the population in confronting the problems created for them by the forced manual eradication being implemented in those zones of the State. The population came together to denounce the permanent violation of human rights on the part of the Public Forces stationed in the zone who are maintaining a blockade of food from coming into the community, which constitutes the violation of their fundamental rights, as well as the constant harassment and persecutions against community leaders and inhabitants of this territory by the military.

Caldas

The indigenous communities of the Cañamomo Lomaprieta reservation also are experiencing human rights violations as occurred July 28, 2009 in which members of the DAS [a Colombian version of the FBI and Homeland Security combined] violently entered the community intimidating and sowing terror in the population

On Oct. 26th, four armed men violently entered a soccer stadium where the indigenous community was enjoying an afternoon community activity. Said men assaulted a member of the community, handcuffed him and threw him to the ground. When the community attempted to help, the men fired upon the detained individual and another man. Thanks to the brave action of the community, they managed to subdue four armed men and, by virtue of their identification, to identify them as members of the GAULA Police of Caldas. [GAULA is an interdepartmental police force made up of different elements of the Colombian Public Forces.]

Quindio – Armenia

Persecution and stigmatization are also predominant activities when we speak of human rights violations. FENSUAGRO has made several denunciations in which this situation is demonstrated. One is the case of our union sister Rosalba Gaviria Toro, a member of the national board of FENSUAGRO and president of the movement of Women of Quindio and the Roundtable of Agricultural Workers of the department of Quindio, was detained after the officials raided her home.

FENSUAGRO also denounced the arrest of Alirio Garcia in Armenia by the CTI (an investigative police force working for the Attorney General’s office). The CTI accused him of being a member of the FARC, based on accusations by the supposedly “reinserted” FARC member Olivo Saldaña, who the government holds as “supreme” for knowing who is “divine” and “not divine” but who has made accusations against several political and social leaders who have been
absolved by the courts of all responsibility. On the same day Garcia was detained, Gustavo Rodriguez was held for several hours as was Sandra Restrepo of the FEU (Federation of University Students, by its Spanish initials).

Arauca

The department of Arauca has had numerous victims of human rights violations aimed against the Arauca Peasant Association (ACA, by it’s Spanish initials). From October through December 2009 the ACA members were murdered: Paulo Suarez, Raul Medina Diaz, Alex Alfonso Ruis Peña, and Apolinar Herrera, who was also a Colombian Communist Party activist. This last one [Herrera] was assassinated in the presence of his wife in their home in Barrio Villa Raria in the municipality of Arauquita. Our union brother Apolinar was founder of the ACA and was the financial officer of the departmental executive committee. Those are just some of the hundreds of crimes that occurred in the region that affect the peasant communities and cause the forced displacement of many families and the deteriorating economic and moral situation for Colombians.

Another case of persecution still pending is in relation to the agricultural leader Juan Efrain Mendoza who after obtaining his freedom on Dec. 31, 2009 continues to be the victim of actions against him. On Jan. 9 his home in the municipality of Quipile, Cundinamarca, was raided when heavily armed and hooded men dressed in black came in asking questions of the people present about the whereabouts of Juan Efrain. Those men were later identified as members of the army. The federation hopes to have a response from the army to clarify if the men were actually in the army or if terrorists are operating freely in spite of the heavy military presence in the area.

The calumnies of Caracol

The large communication media contribute enormously to the disinformation that confuses Colombian public opinion.

Those media add their “grain of sand” to the persecution and stigmatism of the union sisters and brothers of FENSUAGRO, putting their lives at risk. This was demonstrated in the public communication of Dec. 18, 2009 in which the federation was subjected to insulting, slanderous and grave accusations made on the Caracol Radio program “Day to Day” by the newspaper reporter Ernesto Yamhure Fonseca against FENSUAGRO and its Vice President Hubert Ballesteros, in which they spoke of the participation of FENSUAGRO in the Continental Bolivarian Coordinating Congress in Caracas, Venezuela, Dec. 7-9, 2009. This is clearly another way of linking the organization and our friends with the FARC, and, in this way, to put at risk the federation and its members.

As a result of these grave facts and situations the National Federation of United Agricultural and Aquacultural Unions (FENSUAGRO, by its Spanish initials), invites all organizations, comrades and friends that they would continue to stand in struggle and resistance and that we all keep actively denouncing, nationally and internationally, all the cases of human rights violations and consolidate firmly the slogan of: No Reelection of
Terrorism, No Reelection of Anti-Peasant Policies!