What is Behind Bush's Andean "Anti-Terrorist" Strategy?

by Julian Monroy, WW4 REPORT


Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe Velez—the Bush administration's main ally in the hemispheric war on terrorism and drugs, as well as in the pursuit of free trade policies—was in Washington DC on November 13-4 to meet key legislators. His agenda was to secure continued military aid and the extension of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA), which was to expire at the end of 2006.

His visit took place in the midst of a huge scandal without precedent in Colombia. On November 8, the Criminal Division of the Supreme Court of Justice ordered the capture of Senator Alvaro Garcia Romero and Representative Elkin Morris from the Colombia Democratica Party and Senator Jorge Merlano from Uribe's Partido de la U (for "unity"). All of them are government bigwigs and close friends of the Colombian president.

State Terror and the Struggle for Ecopetrol

by Bill Weinberg, WW4 REPORT

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Ecuador's president-elect Rafael Correa met in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, Dec. 21, where they spoke in support of a regional integration that goes beyond trade. "This integration must be based on a new model, on complementary coherence, replacing the absurd model imposed by the North of competing with one another," Correa said, repeating his request that Venezuela return to the Andean Community of Nations and said one goal should be the fusion of that organization with Mercosur, the South Common Market. (Periodico 26, Cuba, Dec. 21)

Salvatore Mancuso, top chieftan of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) began testimony Dec. 19 before a special tribunal about the paramilitary newtwork's role in massacres and assassinations. Under a peace deal with the government, the AUC leaders will serve limited prison sentences and receive protection from extradition to the US on drug charges. Some 30,000 fighters have officially laid down arms. (VOA, Dec. 19)

According to the "Joel Sierra" Regional Human Rights Committee Foundation, "armed opposition groups" are believed responsible for a number of recent murders of civilians in Colombia's eastern department of Arauca. The killings include the Nov. 29 murder of campesinos Edgar Marin Munoz, Pablo Tulio Bautista Jimenez and Fernando Vega in the rural community of El Vigia in Tame municipality; the Dec. 10 murder of Elsa Yaneth Martinez Miranda in the rural community of Brisas de Caranal, in Arauquita municipality; and the Dec. 12 abduction and murder of campesino Hector Villamizar Becerra from the rural community of El Botalon, in Tame. On Dec. 10, 11-year-old Natalia Munoz Ramos was wounded by a bullet in the urban center of Arauquita; it is not known who was responsible for the shooting. (Fundacion Comite Regional de Derechos Humanos "Joel Sierra," Dec. 14)

From AP, Dec. 2:

CARACAS -- A Navy captain arrested this week was allegedly about to deliver to opponents of President Hugo Chavez a list of officers disposed to help topple the government, according to a high-ranking military official.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas:

The Bolivian government of President Evo Morales Ayma met on Nov. 25 with right-wing opposition forces to try to resolve a political crisis that came to a head when the rightwing Democratic and Social Power (Podemos) party withdrew its 13 members from the 27-seat Senate on Nov. 22, leaving the body without a quorum to act. The lone senator from the right-wing National Unity party also withdrew. Podemos also pulled its members out of the Chamber of Deputies, but the party's representation there was too small to affect the quorum.

The opposition is upset over three main issues: the voting rules of the Constituent Assembly, which is writing a new constitution for Bolivia; changes to the agrarian law that will allow the redistribution of idle farmland to landless campesinos; and the Morales administration's efforts to exert control over departmental government finances and to retain the power to remove governors who are deemed incompetent or corrupt. The ruling Movement to Socialism (MAS), which has a simple majority in the Constituent Assembly, voted on Nov. 17 to allow approval of new constitutional clauses with a simple majority, instead of a two-thirds vote.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On Oct. 23, after a weekend of intense negotiations, the Achuar indigenous nation reached an agreement with the Peruvian government and the Argentine oil company Pluspetrol, bringing an end to a nearly two-week blockade of oil facilities in the Peruvian Amazon. More than 800 Achuar elders, women and children took part in the blockade, shutting down power to most of the area's oil facilities and blocking access to the region by road, river and air. The Achuar took the radical actions to protest the devastating impact of oil contamination in their territory after two years of failed talks with Peruvian government officials. They ended their blockade and returned to their homes on Oct. 24.