Click here to register for the webinar Earthquakes, Elections, and Empire, featuring David Escobar (with the Centro Pazífico), Raquel Mogollón (with AFGJ’s Colombia Watch program), and Tanya Nuñez (with People’s Forum)
Please forgive this last minute posting but we wanted to give you an opportunity to attend this exciting webinar no matter where you are. We organized this as a local, in-person even in Tucson but have decide to invite people to register to attend on Zoom since we will have presenters calling in from Cali, Colombia and New York. The event is THIS SUNDAY.
Earthquakes, Elections, and Empire
A forum sponsored by Tucson Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Alliance for Global Justice
Sunday, August 23, 1pm
225 East 26th Street (Global Justice Center) in Tucson
OUT OF TOWN AND THOSE UNABLE TO ATTEND CAN CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE ZOOM BROADCAST
Free entry. Donations are encouraged for the Centro Pazífico (Pacific Center for Human Rights) relief efforts
Featuring:
David Escobar, (via Zoom) Professor of Journalism at the University of Valle de Cauca, Cali, Colombia, and Centro Pazífico volunteer
Raquel Mogollón, Tucson activist AFGJ volunteer who helped found Colombia’s Centro Pazífico human rights center
Tanya Nuñez, (via Zoom), PSL organizer and former AFGJ staff who has done extensive work in Cali and with the Centro Pazífico. Tanya is now working with the People’s Forum in New York.
Opening comments by James Jordan, National Coordinator for AFGJ
The August 10, 2026, earthquake in Colombia has left hundreds if not thousands dead, with thousands displaced and thousands of homes destroyed. The earthquake took place just a few days after a political earthquake—the inauguration of a far-right president in elections marked by signs of US interference. The new administration has invited Israeli troops to oversee search and rescue operations while undermining local grassroots organizing. In Venezuela last June, two earthquakes also devastated Caracas in a disaster made worse by recent US military attacks, sanctions, and blockades. Haiti will have its first elections in over ten years following the aftermath of political turmoil due to US interference and international military interventions resulting from their 2010 earthquake. For decades, the US has militarized disaster-relief efforts in Latin America and elsewhere, using them as covers for the advance of Empire. Now, lessons learned abroad are being brought home. As the US reels from its own disasters of out-of-control fires and drought, we are witnessing escalations in electoral interference and repression that mimic the Empire’s tactics abroad. This forum will share information and analysis about this interrelationship.
For us in Tucson, we are especially touched by the news about the Centro Pazífico human rights center in Cali, a place that Tucsonans helped found. The Colombia earthquake left both the Centro Pazífico and the home of its director, Darnelly Rodriguez, uninhabitable. Nevertheless, the collective immediately started organizing search and rescue and relief efforts, delivering more than four tons so far of food, tents, clothes, blankets, and medical supplies to some of the most affected places. We will give opportunities at this event for people to contribute to this work. We encourage cash, check, or money order donations.
What Can You Do?
As supporters of AFGJ, you will know that we have been the target of a campaign of disinformation and other forms of repression because of our international solidarity work. We are as unapologetically opposed to fascism as we are to genocide in Gaza, two positions that have resulted in us being under the crosshairs of far-right extremism. One result is that we have been rendered unable to conduct financial transactions online.
Nevertheless, there are three ways you can give to support the effort of the Centro Pazífico to get supplies to quake victims.
- You can send physical checks and money orders to the Alliance for Global Justice at 225 E. 26th Street, Tucson, AZ. 85713, and mark on the memo line that this gift is for the Centro Pazífico. Your contributions are still tax-deductible. While you’re at it, feel free to send a contribution directly to us for our operations! The truth is, we’re pretty in need ourselves!
- You can send a donation to @darnerod310 to make a contribution via Paypal.
- Justice for Colombia is a UK-based organization of labor unionists in solidarity with Colombia, and they have, like AFGJ, provided support to the Centro Pazífico over the years. They have put out a call for donations for earthquake relief and part of what they collect will go towards the Centro Pazífico. Since this effort is not AFGJ’s or that of a US group, it will not be tax-deductible in the US.
