Perpetuate the Systematic Disappearance of Human Rights and Colombia’s Independence

The Medellín Youth Network is an organization of youth who promote nonviolence, civil disobedience, human rights and conscientious objection by means that contribute to the construction of a demilitarized society.

For us the plans for war, such as Colombian military bases where there are foreign – especially US – soldiers, are more reliable evidence that in this country there is neither sovereignty, nor autonomy, nor independence.

We believe the installation of the new base in Palanquero is not to end either the conflict or drug trafficking, but to aggravate and continue perpetuating the causes that created it, to continue imposing the neoliberal model by the government, with the aim of expanding it across Latin America, turning over our resources and property to foreigners for profit and exploitation at the lowest cost.

Statement by Danilo Rueda, Intercongregational Commission for Justice and Peace

“The Ecuadorean government’s decision to close the base in Manta, Ecuador is an important exercise of sovereignty and self-determination in the face of the United States’ military policy in the [Global] South. Its effects on Colombia are evident. The militarization of Colombia has increased substantially in the last ten years as a result of the application of Plan Colombia. This has meant involving the civilian population in the war, continuing human rights violations, the re-engineering of paramilitarism, the ebbing but not defeat of the guerrillas, and the gradual decay of democratic advances toward of a Social State ruled by Law. With the coming military agreements between Colombia and the United States to make up for the end of the Manta base’s operations, the US military presence and geostrategic control of Colombia will be reinforced. The impact this produces is the realignment of military and logistical operations from the North to the South – not only in Colombia, but in all Latin America, today deployed from our country in sites such as Tres Esquinas, Ladrilleros, Tolemaida, Villavicencio, and San Andrés.

PUBLIC STATEMENT

ATTEMPT ON THE LIFE AND PERSONAL INTEGRITY OF YENIFER RUEDA CARDENAS IN COMUNA 13 OF MEDELLÍN

We wish to express our concern and indignation at the acts against the integrity and the life of our friend YENIFER RUEDA CARDENAS, which took place on May 3, 2009 in the district of El Salado in Comuna 13 in Medellín.

By Teo Ballvé

This article appeared in the June 15, 2009 edition of The Nation.
May 27, 2009

Research support for this article was provided by the Puffin Foundation Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute, with additional support from Project Word, a Massachusetts-based media nonprofit organization.

Photo: PAULHACKETT.NET
A group of workers in the militarized palm fields of Colombia

On May 14 Colombia's attorney general quietly posted notice on his office's website of a public hearing that will decide the fate of Coproagrosur, a palm oil cooperative based in the town of Simití in the northern province of Bolívar. A confessed drug-trafficking paramilitary chief known as Macaco had turned over to the government the cooperative's assets, which he claims to own, as part of a victim reparations program.