> > check out the Colombia Action Network website at > http://www.freespeech.org/actioncolombia > > >1. Nationwide U'wa Support Demonstrations at Al Gore Headquarters >2. Bolivia's Banzer Convenes Military to Stop Protests >3. FARC Communique implicates Colombian Army helicopters in paramilitary >massacre > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >Thu Sep 21 '00 > >Nationwide U'wa Support Demonstrations at Al Gore Headquarters >by Heather Vuchinich > >Supporters of the U'wa tribe from Colombia demonstrated at Gore2000 >headquarters in three states this week. Activists are demanding that Al >Gore break his ties to the big oil company Occidental Petroleum. >Occidental plans to illegally evict the U'wa people from their tribal >land, and drill for oil. They began eviction proceedings last week and >hope to began to drill any day. > >U'WA SUPPORTERS SEND GORE A MESSAGE "OXY OUT OF U'WA LAND" > >Activists in three states demonstrated this week in defense of the U’wa >tribe in Colombia. The U'wa people have been fighting an oil well on >their land for over 8 years. This week Occidental Petroleum, with the >help of the Colombian military, began an illegal attempt to evict the >U'wa from their legal and ancestral lands. Presidential candidate Al >Gore has close personal and financial ties to Occidental Petroleum which >go back almost 50 years,and has refused to comment on this issue. On >Saturday, over 150 people, organized by students at Lewis and Clark >University, showed up at a Portland, Oregon Gore2000 headquarters office >to pressure Al Gore into taking a stand for the U’wa. Early Tuesday >morning, seven U’wa supporters locked down to an oil barrel leaking fake >blood at a Gore campaign headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa. And later >that afternoon, 200 demonstrators took over a Democratic National >Headquarters office in Olympia Washington. Over 100 activists remained >in the building until late Tuesday evening, with three people locked >down and 8 support people still inside. When Police finally arrested >all the demonstrators, earlier protestors returned to protest the >arrests and in the ensuing confusion, the activists were somehow >"unarrested". U'wa supporters plan to continue nation wide actions at >Gore headquarters until Gore makes a statement in defense of the U'wa. > >http://ww.ran.org > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >September 28, 2000, Narco News Global Alert > >Bolivia's Banzer Convenes Military to Stop Protests >-- All Eyes Are On Perú but It's Bolivia that Is On the Verge >-- Peasant Protesters Vow to Meet Repression "Bullet for Bullet" >-- The Drug War Wrecks Democracy Again > >http://www.narconews.com/pressbriefing.html > >For the first time in 18 years, Bolivian President Hugo Banzer has >convened his high military council to plot the repression of a wave of >citizen protest that engulfs that South American country. > >Bolivia's "democracy," always as fragile and in quotations as that of >Perú, is on the verge of regressing back to the bad old days of military >rule and repression. > >As a Narco News advisor pointed out to us: "Why am I suddenly reading >the name of Perú spy chief Montesinos everywhere when during all the >press coverage of the Spring elections he was barely mentioned?" Good >question. Narco News offers the following answer: Washington is stage- >managing a huge media circus around Montesinos and his jet-hopping from >Peru to Panamá to distract from behind-the-scenes maneuvers throughout >América. > >The total failure in the first weeks of the $1.3 billion dollar "Plan >Colombia" military intervention is one of the stories that Washington >wants to supress. As Congressional Democrats who were key in >constructing the plan send messages that they might back away from it >after the November elections, the US Ambassador to Colombia yesterday >signed contracts with that government that commits the US funding into >next year, stripping the next Congress from any power to stop the dollar >hemorrhage. Not a mention of this in the English-language press; >everyone is chasing Montesinos and President Alberto Fujimori, who is >flying to Washington, DC for instructions as we write. > >The Perú-Panamá-Montesinos circus has pushed more than the fracasing >Plan Colombia off the media docket. It has eclipsed the coming crisis in >Bolivia, where the US has staked its South American gamble with a $4.5 >billion dollar "Plan Bolivia" in exchange for Banzer's military >cooperation with Plan Colombia and the fracasing war on drugs. > >The Pentagon needs Bolivia to escalate the Colombian war. Specifically, >it needs airfields. $4.5 billion dollars worth of airfields! > >The US airbases in Manta, Ecuador, and San Salvador, El Salvador, are >under increasing scrutiny and regulation by the congresses and >opposition parties of those countries. Previous plans to use airfields >in Chile to launch Colombia-bound warplanes went up in smoke with the >election of former Allende minister Ricardo Lagos as President early >this year. Madeleine Albright's recent negotiation with Argentina to use >airfields there (under the euphemism of "logisticial support" for Plan >Colombia) fell apart after one week: Brazil, Chile (and Europe?) made >certain of that. From Venezuela the gallop of Bolívar's horse grows >louder; a horsepower fueled by oil and the resurrection of OPEC and >Venezuelan democracy together. > >The US military in South America increasingly resembles a homeless >juvenile delinquent in the streets, armed with knives but not common >sense, that belongs in reform school before he kills again. Not the >Pentagon's School of the Americas (where Montesinos and at least one of >the generals accompanying him to Panamá learned their terrorist skills), >but, rather, the school of democracy, sovereignty and human rights in >which the US State Department, the CIA, the DEA, and other agencies have >failed every course. > >Just as Washington made its move on Banzer's Bolivia, the Bolivian >people have risen up. A majority of the states in that nation are >paralyzed from peasant blockades. What provoked them: The War on Drugs. > >The teachers of the nation are on strike: the students are busy anyway, >fighting for their country and against their government. The Bolivian >State has thrown the leader of the Teachers Union in jail, but the >strike marches on. Washington has underestimated the rising conscience >of Bolívar's América. Did they expect the Bolivian people to go along >quietly with the New Colonial Plan? > >These times call for better analysis by authentic journalists and Civil >Society. Don't be distracted by the hype. Washington is managing both >Fujimori and his "opposition" in Perú, and still is losing its grip. >That's because the events in Perú are shaped increasingly by the context >provided by its neighbors. Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, >Ecuador... these are the places where Bolivar's dream of a united >América is awakening. Fujimori, Montesinos and "opposition leader" >Alejandro Toledo are ballerinas in the dance company of choreographers >in Washington and Langley. > >The flash point that urgently needs more attention today is Bolivia. >Spread the word across the world by Internet and every other means: The >coming hours may decide whether Bolivia regresses back to military >dictatorship, or the social movements surge forward to redraw the map on >Our América. > >Bolivarianamente, > >Al Giordano >Publisher, The Narco News Bulletin >http://www.narconews.com/ > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >9/22/00, FARC COMMUNIQUÉ > >1. At 9:00 am on Sept. 21, in La Resbalosa on the border between the >Departments of Antioquia and Cordoba, guerrillas of the Jose Maria >Cordoba Bloc of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s >Army, FARC-EP, intercepted the paramilitaries and units of the Aruaco >Battalion responsible for the massacre of nine peasants of that region. > >2. As a result of the combat, five paramilitaries died. > >3. Our units recovered 50 field kits, and RPG-7 rocket, machine gun >Munitions belts and four chain saws, which the murderers had used to cut >up their victims. > >4. The paramilitaries and their associates of the Aruaco Battalion >received immediate support from attack helicopters of the 17th Brigade. > >5. We challenge President Pastrana to abandon his habitual >indifference in the face of the evident ties of the army’s 11th and 17th >Brigades to the paramilitary massacres. > >General Staff of the Jose Maria Cordoba Bloc, FARC-EP >Mountains of Colombia, Sept. 22, 2000. _______________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi _______________________________________________________ Kominform list for general information. Subscribe/unsubscribe messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Anti-Imperialism list for anti-imperialist news. Subscribe/unsubscribe messages: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________________
