translated by FOR staff
originally appeared in El Tiempo, 21 January 2010

Lawyers for the victims of the slaughter warned that the soldiers could be out of jail within the month.

To avoid this, first thing this morning the lawyers will ask the National Judicial Council to name a backlog judge* to expedite the trial, which has been suspended since December, due, according to the lawyers, to the delay tactics of the defense and the unexplainable loss of certain evidence.

by John Lindsay-Poland

The United States continues to assist Colombian military units that have reportedly violated human rights, a review of recently released State Department documents shows. FOR obtained the list of 353 Colombian military and police units that the United States approved for aid in 2008-09 and 2009-10. US law requires the State Department to review all foreign military units proposed for assistance and exclude those with histories of gross human rights abuses.

According to US officials who spoke to FOR, military aid this year is concentrated in three geographic “bands”: in a long band across southern Colombia, from Meta, Tolima and Huila departments – where the Army-FARC war is focused – west to Buenaventura on the Pacific coast; in the southwestern state of Nariño; and in the northern Montes de Maria area.

El acuerdo militar “supondría un peligro enorme para todo el hemisferio”

Más de 100 colectivos y líderes religiosos, civiles y académicos de EEUU hicieron hoy
un llamamiento formal a la Secretaria de Estado Hillary Clinton para que “suspenda las negociaciones para expandir el acceso de EEUU a bases u operaciones militares en Colombia”, un plan que ha provocado un aluvión de protestas procedentes de países latinoamericanos, incluido Colombia, que es el mayor receptor de ayuda militar de EEUU de todo el hemisferio.

Bases deal “presents enormous dangers for entire hemisphere”

Versión en español aquí.

Over one hundred religious, national, community organizations and leaders and academics today called on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to “suspend negotiations for expanded U.S. military access or operations in Colombia,” a plan that has generated a swell of protest among Latin American countries, including Colombia, the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the hemisphere.

By John Lindsay-Poland

In the next few days, a retired Colombian colonel and School of the Americas graduate, Víctor Hugo Matamoros, will be tried for his role in facilitating the bloody takeover of the northeastern Catatumbo region of Colombia by paramilitary death squads in 1999. The takeover resulted immediately in a series of massacres, the displacement of more than 20,000 people, and paramilitary control of drug trafficking and other economic activities in the area.

U.S. Ambassador Curtis Kamman privately told Washington at the time that the army must be complicit in massacres in the towns of La Gabarra and Tibú. “How did seven massacres occur without interference under the noses of several hundred security force members?” Kamman wrote to Washington.

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.