A crime epidemic has affected Colombia! But not to worry. Despite accusations that it is selective in its application of justice, Uribe’s administration and its military and paramilitary apparatus have come to the rescue.
A crime epidemic has affected Colombia! But not to worry. Despite accusations that it is selective in its application of justice, Uribe’s administration and its military and paramilitary apparatus have come to the rescue.
Last week, for example, over the course of two days, the government detained 21 people in Northern Cauca. These people were guilty of a terrible crime: they had been attacked and occupied by the Colombian army and the guerrillas, and worse, they dared to commit acts of civil, nonviolent, incredibly courageous resistance! The first 12 were basically kidnapped and taken off in helicopters. Here are their names.
APOLINAR DINDICUE FERNANDEZ
RICARDO CHICUE PUYO
LUZ MARINA CHICUE MENZA
WILSON AMADO YULE VALENCIA
NILSON SEFERINO YULE VALENCIA
JHONB FERMIN ORTIZ DAGUA
JORGE QUIGUANAS IPIA
ANTONIO QUIGUANAS IPIA
MIGUEL TROCHEZ RAMOS
CAMILO TROCHEZ GUEJIA
MARIANO GUETIA IPIA
I don’t have names of the other 9.
The second crime that Uribe’s authorities have punished is reporting! A courageous journalist, Hollman Morris, traveled to Cauca and brought the story of what was happening there to a Colombian audience. I’ve seen one of his films, about the Minga of September 2004. He gets it. He’s good. Yesterday (May 16) he got a bouquet of flowers – mourning flowers – at his office, with a note that they were to be placed at his headstone. It was synchronized with a similar threat to another journalist, Carlos Lozano, who works at the Communist Party paper in Colombia. There have also been threats and harrassment against the Jose Alvear Restrepo lawyer’s collective, a great group of human rights activists, and whose president Soraya Gutierrez got a dismembered doll threatening her family.
So, those worried about ‘impunity’ in Colombia, that condition in which crimes go unpunished, need not worry. The crimes of standing up for dignity and human rights are punished as severely as always.
If you’re in Los Angeles, check out Uprising Radio tomorrow – I’ve heard Cauca wll be in the program.
where do you get all this
where do you get all this information from?
it’s a good question ingy. i
it’s a good question ingy. i have found for colombia more than a lot of places there are a huge number of human rights groups, and indeed a lot of the different communities that are under attack (san jose de apartado for example) put out communiques and urgent actions. the association of indigenous councils of northern cauca sends communiques, as do the major worker’s unions (like the colombian worker’s central, the ‘central unitaria de trabajadores’ – the equivalent of canada’s ‘canadian labour congress’). there is also the colombian daily, ‘el tiempo’, which is mainstream but obviously provides a tremendous amount more on colombia than any english source. the FARC guerrillas have their own info apparatus, mainly through ANNCOL. there are some senators who put out communiques on the human rights situation. they have small mailing lists, but when they know you work on their issue and can get the word out… they’ll make sure you get whatever they put out. the tricky part is trying to put it together and make it make sense to someone who 1) doesn’t speak spanish and 2) may not know or follow the situation too closely. that’s what i try to do, and i don’t think i always succeed, but i do try.