Cauca and the Afro-Colombian Renaissance

by Bill Weinberg

The Chamber of Representatives of the Colombian Congress voted 62-43 the night of June 14 to approve a law recognizing civil unions. The law would allow same-sex couples to register if they have lived together for two years and are not in other marriages or civil unions. If one partner dies, the survivor would automatically inherit and would receive social security payments and other work-related benefits. The Senate is expected to approve the law and send it to rightwing president Alvaro Uribe for approval on June 19; supporters expect no obstacles from Uribe. Although some Latin American cities have recognized same-sex unions--including Mexico City last November--no country in the region has passed a national law for civil unions. (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, June 16 from AP)

Two Colombian soldiers assigned to counter-guerilla operations in the southern part of the country were arrested June 10 for slaying six unarmed civilians, including a child, during a killing spree early the previous day. The soldiers appeared to be drunk when they entered a party held in a school in the town of San Vicente del Caguan and opened fire, killing three, witnesses told reporters. Three more victims, including a nine-year-old boy, were found shot dead near the building, the army said in a statement. San Vicente del Caguan is the site of a former "demilitarized zone" ceded to the FARC guerillas as a condition of peace talks which have now broken down. (Reuters, June 10)

International arms dealer Monzer al-Kassar was arrested by Spanish police June 7 after a federal indictment was issued against him in New York for conspiring to support terrorists and kill US soldiers. US officials said undercover agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had convinced al-Kassar that they represented the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a guerilla army classified by the US State Department as a terrorist group.

Advocates for the families of 173 people murdered in the banana-growing regions of Colombia filed suit today against Chiquita Brands International, in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C. The families allege that Chiquita paid millions of dollars, and tried to ship thousands of machine guns to the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, or AUC. The AUC is a violent, right-wing paramilitary organization supported by the Colombian army. In 2001, the Bush Administration classified the AUC as a "Foreign Terrorist Organization." Its units are often described as "death squads."

Tens of thousands of Colombian teachers and students and their supporters held marches on May 30 to protest a proposed Law of Transferences and a National Development Project (PND) that they say will cut funding for education and teachers' pensions. The marchers also opposed a "free trade" agreement (FTA, or TLC in Spanish) with the US. Contingents came from around the country for a march in Bogota that the government said drew 100,000 participants; organizers put the number at 250,000. Observers said the demonstration, which brought unprecedented disruptions to traffic, was the largest in at least two decades. This was the third march against the cutbacks in two weeks.

On May 31 Colombian senator Piedad Cordoba told reporters that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest leftist guerrilla organization, was close to freeing Ingrid Betancourt, the 2002 presidential candidate of the Oxygen Green Party, and her running mate, Clara Rojas, along with Rojas' child, who was born in captivity. The FARC captured Betancourt and Rojas in 2002. Apparently this is in response to a government plan to free a number of captured FARC members.

Former Peruvian presidential adviser Vladimiro Montesinos Torres, former Armed Forces commander Gen. Nicolas Hermoza Rios and retired colonel Roberto Edmundo Huaman Azcurra went on trial on May 17 for the alleged extrajudicial killings of three members of the rebel Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) during the military's assault on the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima on April 22, 1997. Prosecutors were seeking a 20-year prison sentence for Montesinos, intelligence adviser to former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), 18 years for Hermoza Rios and 15 for Huaman Azcurra. The trial was being held at the Callao naval base, near Lima.