ISDS Case Map
militarism | terrorism | security
In Colombia, thousands of indigenous people are staging a week long march. Marchers plan to march through 70 miles of Colombia's countryside. They say they want to change economic policies that are impoverishing their nations. And they reject the presence of US corporations on their lands. Manuel Rueda joined the march as it passed through Colombia's Cauca Province.
On October 13, 12,000 indigenous Colombians marched onto the Pan-American highway in Cauca, and refused to lift their blockade until their demands for land, liberty, and life were met by the state. The resulting clashes between protesters and police killed at least two indigenous Colombians, and wounded at least 70 more. This week the indigenous rights groups will march to Cali, the third-largest city in Colombia, to press their demands.
The New Zealand defence industry is renewing calls for a free trade agreement with the United States, which would allow New Zealand companies to compete for a slice of US military contracts.
At a certain level, I must admit, I almost felt sorry for Colombian President Alvaro Uribe last week. His high-profile visit to Washington was unexpectedly shortened because it became readily apparent that members of the US Congress were not really interested in hearing his last ditch effort to get them to approve the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, FTA.
The US free trade agreement and the state and paramilitary violence in Colombia are part of the same project
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos share a joint op-ed in the New York Times shamelessly trading off the apparent hostage rescue operation to shill for the pending US-Colombia free trade agreement.
Colombia's dramatic rescue of hostages held for years by a rebel group probably won't lead to quick approval of a U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement that has been snagged for months in the U.S. Congress.
Recent remarks by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on the civil war in Colombia and Ecuador's decision not to join the Alternativa Bolivariana de las Americas (ALBA) solidarity based cooperation initiative shows progressive leaders are taking stock on Latin American integration.
The United States and Canada have chosen to promote Colombia as an aggressive and heavily militarized bulwark against anti-imperialism in the region -- an Israel of the Andes.
Many Canadians may never know the difficulties of people resisting the military imposition of an economic model that is ultimately intended for the entire planet, or for 'our Mother Earth' as the indigenous peoples in Cauca call it. Many Canadians may not know the extent to which they are kept in the dark through the entrenched telling and retelling of the "Canada the good" mythology. It's time to wake up, eh?
