Tens of thousands of Colombians marched on March 6 in Bogota and many other cities to stand with the victims of right-wing paramilitary violence and to protest violence by all armed groups. Solidarity events occurred in New York, Washington, and San Francisco.

Now, in the wake of accusations by a presidential advisor that the activists in Colombia who helped organize these peaceful marches are guerrillas, they are being targeted with paramilitary threats, kidnappings, and even killings.

Lethal attacks on Colombian labor activists also continue. On March 4 in Washington, President Bush called on Congress to approve the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, although Colombia is the most dangerous nation in the world to be a trade unionist. As if in response, in the four days following his statement, four labor leaders in Colombia were murdered.

Los Angeles Times
March 21, 2008

Soldiers, under pressure to show progress in a U.S.-funded war, allegedly are killing civilians and passing them off as rebels.

Raul Arboleda / AFP/Getty Images
FATALITY: A Colombian soldier in January wraps the body of a person who the army said was a leftist guerrilla. Body counts have been considered an indicator of military success.

By Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

GRANADA, COLOMBIA -- Street vendor Israel Rodriguez went fishing last month and never came back. Two days later, his family found his body buried in a plastic bag, classified by the Colombian army as a guerrilla fighter killed in battle.

In January, the Colombian Constitutional court handed down a ruling advancing the Peace Community’s right to truth and justice, and ordering the Colombian government to take concrete steps to end the impunity for the crimes committed against the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó since its formation ten years ago. (Download the ruling as an RTF/text document.)

The high court was reviewing a Peace Community’s writ of protection demanding that the Colombian Ministry of Defense disclose the names of the military personnel involved in military operations on specific dates when violations against the Peace Community took place. For years, the Ministry of Defense had refused to disclose such information, alleging that it would compromise any criminal or disciplinary investigations. Siding with the Peace Community, the Court rejected the Defense Ministry’s assertion saying that revealing the names of the military personnel would not compromise the integrity of such procedures, but instead it was essential to the Peace Community’s right to pursue justice, including within the international system.

Reflections on the Conflict in Colombia

By Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes

On February 4th, hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Colombia and worldwide to protest the FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del pueblo/Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army). Online and media debates have been rife with arguments that are increasingly polarizing an issue that requires a far more complex attentiveness. We are so quick to point fingers while the binary of "for or against" rings familiar for both U.S. and Colombian citizens, as the rhetoric of anti-terrorism proliferates, particularly in this post-9/11 world, conflating neo-liberal politics with State heroics. The notion of the nation's 'internal enemy' has been amplified in the social imaginary, allowing for 'national security' to extend its reaches into the folds of the everyday, impinging on what once were, for many of us privileged with citizenship in the United States, assumed freedoms. For Colombia, the effects of Uribe's Democratic Security and Defense Policy remain alarming as such polarization mandates patriotic allegiance from the nation's citizenry, and freedoms are also interfered for the promise of the public's protection. And yet, the complexity of this moment cannot be reduced to this alone. A vigilant inquiry would require a more profound exploration of the socio-political histories and present, of Colombia's internal politics, and of U.S-Colombia relations.

The protest against the FARC yesterday was impressive, no doubt. Considering the fact that the government gave public employees the day off and cut the school schedule in half, it is not surprising that so many people were able to make their “no more FARC” voices heard. Days before the protest, human rights organizations in Colombia issued comuniques to their networks encouraging them not to participate in any kind of counter-protest; some held a mass instead.

Here in San Francisco about 300 people mobilized: many wore the official t-shirt, held Colombian flags and roses were distributed to all. The protesters listened to speakers and marched around Civic Center square a number of times.

The following is an interview with Cristina Espinal, one of the founders of the Colombia Human Rights Committee, which currently celebrates 26 years of existence and is one of the longest-standing Colombia-focused organizations in the US. The inspiration for conducting this interview was to look back as we look forward: it’s the start of 2008 and another year of Colombia work is ahead of us. There have been successes in 2007, like a cut in military aid… but how do we measure that success in the larger scheme of things? And what are the challenges that lie ahead? As the saying goes…we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors… Cristina is not yet an ancestor, but she has been involved in State-side Colombia work for a quarter of a century! As I.F. Stone said, "If you expect to see the final results of your work, you simply have not asked a big enough question." Cristina has had both the patience not to expect immediate results and the impatience to get things done over the years. Surely we have something to learn from her.

from the Lowell Sun Times
By Bridget Scrimenti, 01/14/2008

They planned to harvest cocoa beans.

About eight men, women and children were going to work in the fields. Some even started a seven-hour hike into Colombia's countryside.

But their attempt to gather food came to a sudden and violent end.

The families were viciously attacked and killed by men yielding machetes.

"They killed eight people, three of whom were children, with machetes," said Janice Gallagher. "For me as a U.S. citizen -- if I could do anything to stop that from happening again, I felt a moral imperative to do so."

The Colombian armed forces committed 955 extrajudicial executions between July 2002 and June 2007, according an investigation carried out by a coalition of 11 Colombian human rights organizations and released in October. Of these killings only two have resulted in a judicial conviction.

The number of killings by Colombia’s armed forces represents a 65% increase over the previous five-year period from 1997 to 2002. Since the last five years represent the most intense period of US training for the Colombian military, the study raises serious questions about the reasons for such a dramatic hike in killing by the US military’s trainees. A number of the military units charged in the report with killing civilians have been “vetted” (approved) for US training and other assistance.