The Colombian government has agreed to grant US forces the use of three Colombian military bases for South Americ See video by Democracy Now here
Last week, NSW secretary of the Construction Division of the CFMEU, Andrew Ferguson, paid a visit to trade unionist and human rights activist Liliany Obando who is being held on trumped up charges in the Buen Pastor women’s prison in Bogotá, Colombia. He was moved by Liliany’s strength and good spirits but appalled by the conditions he saw: “There are 89 persons in her section of the jail built for 60. Her room consists of a bunk bed for two prisoners with a third sleeping on the floor. The jail is riddled with asbestos and is rat infested. There are seven children living in this section of the jail. When the children turn three they are prohibited from continuing to stay with their mums,” he noted in a brief email report. He said that support systems for political prisoners can barely function in the repressive political atmosphere of Colombia and called for increased international solidarity. In related news, the Colombian Supreme Court announced recently that the politically motivated charges of supporting the country’s guerrilla forces against Senators Gloria Ramírez and Piedad Córdoba and several other opposition figures have been dropped. Liliany’s matters come to court on August 27. Continue reading »
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez said by midnight Monday that the installation of US military bases in Colombia “forces us to revise the diplomatic relations” with this country. “Now the Yankees want to install in Colombia four military bases more. Off course, they use euphemisms and say that they are not Yankee bases, but Colombian bases and say that they can come there. They are going to be there permanently,” said Chávez from the Presidential Palace of Miraflores during a TV phone call to the program La Hojilla broadcasted by Venezolana de Televisión (VTV). Continue reading »
In June 2009, a delegation of 5 parlamentarians from Uribe´s government in Colombia visited Australia. This was a follow up from the visit in March this year of the Colombian Trade Minister. While this delegation attended a session in the Parliament, Senator Doug Cameron (ALP- NSW) gave a speech in which he refers to the trade and human rights in Colombia. Download full document.
By Garry Leech, from Colombia Journal
The Colombian health workers trade union ANTHOC yesterday announced that one of their regional leaders in the central region of Bolivar has been assassinated. Vilma Carcamo Blanco was killed at around midday on Saturday when men on motorcycles pulled alongside her car and shot her repeatedly as she was driving in the town of Magangue. She was the 19th trade unionist killed so far this year in Colombia and, as in the other cases, her killers have not been brought to justice. Continue reading »
James J. Brittain Monday 1 June 2009
Senator Piedad Cordoba is in Spain seeking support for a negotiated end to the armed conflict in her country. Piedad Cordoba has been recently accused of having links to the FARC. The government of Colombia has stated that it has proof linking her to the FARC Continue reading » |
Categories
|
Links |
On August 8, 2008, Colombia’s National Police arrested Liliany Obando and charged her with the crime of rebellion and providing funding to a terrorist group. Ten months later, Obando had yet to have her day in court and remained a prisoner in Bogotá’s Buen Pastor Prison. Her work for the international relations commission of FENSUAGRO (The National Federation of Agricultural Farming Unions) included speaking and fundraising trips to Canada, Europe and Australia during which she openly and repeatedly criticized the Colombian government’s human rights record. Obando was the first person arrested as part of the so-called FARC-politica scandal that resulted from alleged evidence found on the laptop computer of FARC Commander Raúl Reyes, who was killed by the Colombian military in March 2008. I recently interviewed Obando in her prison cell. 
