CAN Delegation 2006
SDS Member and CAN Activist Speaks at SOA Protest
Colombia: getting beyond the stereotype of the narco-trafficker
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.”
Campesinos in Southwest Colombia Fight for Justice
Between May 12th and May 20th, over 150,000 Colombian campesinos (peasant farmers) of African, indigenous, and mestizo descent shut down the Pan-American Highway across southwestern Colombia. This mass mobilization (which was also a general strike, and which was accompanied by demonstrations of solidarity within cities in the region) was organized by the Popular Unity Process of Southwest Colombia, a regional coalition of campesino associations, labor unions, and other progressive groups.
Colombian Peasants Fight Back
U.S. anti-war activists traveled to Colombia in July on a human rights delegation organized by the Colombia Action Network. The delegation met with trade unions, peasant farmer associations and student organizations. FENSUAGRO (Federación Nacional Sindical Unitaria Agropecuaria, or the National Federation of Agricultural Farming Unions), Colombia’s national federation of peasants, hosted the U.S. activists. The delegation visited rural regions and documented the living conditions of Colombian peasants.
Notes from the field: Union peasants killed & disappeared
Report by CAN 2006 Delegation member Katrina Plotz
Colombia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. aid. Since 2000, Colombia has received $4.7 billion from the military aid package, “Plan Colombia.” Originally proposed under the “War on Drugs,” the Bush administration increased aid to Colombia under the rhetoric of the “War on Terror.” The groups that constitute the armed resistance in Colombia’s fifty-year civil war are on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. This allows the Colombian military to violently intimidate anyone who questions the social, economic, and political policies of the Colombian government.
