Month of October, 2006

Both presidents Clinton and Bush have given the third highest amount of military aid in the world to the right-wing Colombian government in the name of “fighting the war on drugs.” In reality, the aid the U.S. sends is spent on a counterinsurgency war against the Colombian people. Along with other local and national activists, I went to Colombia this past summer to investigate the reality of the “war on drugs.”

Help us shut down the School of the Americas (SOA) this November! The SOA is a U.S. tax payer funded combat training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia. Frequently called the "School of Assassins," its graduates have left a trail of terror and suffering in every country where its graduates have returned.

"Alejandro Uribe was not a guerrilla! He was a leader of the miners and peasants, and he was murdered by the army!" shouted hundreds of people as they marched through the streets of Santa Rosa (in the Southern Bolívar region) on October 9.

Washington D.C. - Colombian revolutionary Ricardo Palmera goes on trial here Oct. 10, in one of the most bizarre cases ever. Palmera is a negotiator for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the FARC. The FARC controls 40% of Colombia and has 27,000 armed fighters. The trial of Palmera is an attempt by the Bush administration to criminalize a national liberation movement.

The Colombia Solidarity Campaign is very sad to have to report the murder of another student at the University of Valle - Julian Andres Hurtado Castillo.

The National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera will hold a picket line and press conference to coincide with the opening of Palmera’s trial, October 10. The Committee believes that the Bush administration has no legal or moral right to prosecute Palmera.