Sonia

Imelda Daza-Cotes recently completed a national speaking tour that included a
stop in Minneapolis. Once a political activist and elected official in
Colombia, Daza-Cotes was targeted by a murderous campaign that wiped out the
Patriotic Union, a leftist political party that rose to prominence in the
1980s. She fled to Sweden where she’s been living in exile since 1989. On Feb.
13, Daza-Cotes addressed an audience of 40 people at Spirit of the Lakes Church
in Minneapolis to discuss her experiences, as well as the extradition and trial
of Colombian rebel Ricardo Palmera and U.S. intervention in her homeland.

Washington DC - Sonia, a Colombian revolutionary and political prisoner of the U.S. government, was found guilty in a U.S. Federal Court here, Feb. 20. Sonia’s trial is part of a Bush administration plan to criminalize Colombian freedom fighters.

Sonia, whose full name is Anayibe Rojas Valderrama, is a soldier for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and a woman of high moral character. A poor peasant who joined the revolution to end poverty and oppression in Colombia, she is now awaiting sentencing. Her whole life has been dedicated to changing society and to ending poverty and misery.

With no evidence and only the testimony of U.S. government paid informants, Colombian revolutionary “Sonia” awaits a jury’s verdict here in Federal Court. Sonia, whose full name is Anayibe Rojas Valderrama, is a peasant rebel who joined the fight for a free, just and independent Colombia. A nurse with the 30,000 member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Sonia was extradited to the U.S. in violation of Colombia’s sovereignty.