After FARC disarmament, Colombia is delivered entirely to paramilitary branches of ruthless corporations
A year ago,
the government of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the
country's left-wing FARC rebels announced
a final peace accord in Havana.
According to
the final
text of the peace agreement, the FARC will be
guaranteed five seats in both Colombia’s lower house of Congress
and the Senate in the next two election cycles in 2018 and 2022. The
movement will still run in the elections as part of the process of
securing those seats. Only if the FARC’s new political party falls
short of winning the five seats would the remainder of guaranteed
representatives be assigned.
Yet, a year
later, the situation in Colombia doesn't look pretty. In fact, it
seems that the void left by FARC has been occupied by new
paramilitaries on behalf of big corporations. Atrocities,
assassinations and human rights violations continue against anyone
who dares to question the corporate authority.
Bladimir
Sanchez Espitia talked to Oscar Leon and The
Real News about his experience on current
situation in Colombia.
Here are
some key points:
I go around
Colombia covering and documenting cases related to Human Right
abuses, especially those dealing with transnational corporations.
It's all related with the [big] oil & mining Locomotor.
Despite the
Peace Process and the decreasing numbers of victims on the military
and guerrilla sides; the killing of social leaders, trade union
activists and human rights defenders continues, so my focus is to
tell these stories and make the world know.
Of course
the threats I have received are related with my research and [often
critical] journalistic work. Focused as I am on defending human
rights. And that ...maybe, will end up making me a victim, of this
conflict on which economic, land owning rights and political
interests collide. Yet, we continue to do journalism trying to defend
human rights. So we suspect that because of that work I do, the death
threat was originated. There are many leads, according to our
findings the threats come from the paramilitary or could it be law
enforcement too, as in police or the army.
Not long ago
we produced a documentary, a meticulous investigation piece, produced
with a couple of NGOs, (Cospad and one from UK) and in conjunction
with a fellow journalist from UK. We proved with serious and blunt
evidence the way that transnational corporations financed
paramilitarism in Casanare Province and many of their commanding
officers were active military many paramilitary have military IDs.
The
President and the Minister of Defense, have many times said to the
media that 'paramilitarism does not exist [in Colombia]', that it is
'a paper lie' or regular 'informal crime'. Many investigative
reporters, NGOs, lawyers collective's and international
organizations, had carefully looked into the issue and concluded that
the existence of paramilitarism is evident. This is very concerning
and dangerous for peace, so far 7 former FARC combatants and their
families have being murdered.
To do
journalism in Colombia is hard really hard, it has a cost human and
political, to talk about human rights, and investigate the issue
independently is even harder. And to investigate human right abuses
independently is extremely difficult when social leaders are
persecuted and killed and human right defenders are assassinated,
when trade union leaders are murdered as well.
Note
that early this year, in Catatumbo, campesino organizations have
blocked the demobilization of FARC units in Caño Indio, arguing that
they would be left unprotected.
Recall
that, ten years ago, Chiquita Brands International became the first
U.S.-based corporation convicted of violating a U.S. law against
funding an international terrorist group—the paramilitary United
Self-defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). But punishment for the crime
was reserved only for the corporate entity, while the names of the
individual company officials who engineered the payments have since
remained hidden behind a wall of impunity.
Oscar Leon
also referred to some unimaginable atrocities conducted by these
paramilitary groups that seek to fill the gap left by FARC:
On
June 8th, 2017 Telesur reported that just this year, there were
already 57 social activists assassinated of the paramilitary in
Colombia.
BBC
reported that since 1977 to 2013, around 3000 trade union organizers
have been murdered, making Colombia the most dangerous place to
organize. Like Bernardo Cuero murdered in January 2017 after the
state denied him protection despite severe threats made to him, or
William Oime, an indigenous governor of a rainforest reserve who
opposed a mining project in the jungle, or Sharon Dayana Marmol the
14 year old daughter of a community leader, murdered to teach his dad
a lesson.
The
list keeps growing by the day. These are just a few examples of a
broader pattern of terror used to control dissent and submit
populations.
According
to a 2014 report by United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights, the BACRIM are the main groups responsible for the great
majority of Human Rights violations in modern colombia, in many cases
lead and operated by former AUC paramilitary leaders who gravitate
around the drug business.
The
daily Newspaper El Tiempo reports that since 2012, there is a total
332,000 victims, counting extortion, rape, kidnapping, torture and
land theft; 8,194 assassinations and 560 disappeared, who are likely
to have been murdered as well.
Have you
heard anything about these crimes in Colombia from the hypocrites of
the US government? No, they are just 'concerned' about the 'dictator'
Maduro and human rights violations in the neighbouring Venezuela.
Well, their
huge hypocrisy can be easily explained.
Now that
they got rid of the armed-FARC 'headache', the US corporations are
ready to loot freely Colombia with the aid of the new paramilitaries.
Furthermore, they can focus entirely on their economic war against
Venezuela through Colombia, as explained
by Venezuela's Minister of Economic Planning, Ricardo Menéndez.
Colombia has
now definitely fallen to the hands of the US imperialist hawks. Next
target: Venezuela.
I checked Mr Sanchez Espitia's video to see what his work was about, and do not find him credible. His first source for his video, Francisco Ramirez, who was involved with Terry Collingsworth in the Drummond RICO case, and was apparently recently indicted. Although the Chiquita case is a horrendous example of what can happen when companies finance these groups, there are also a number of fraudulent ones out there. - Paul Wolf
ReplyDelete