Joined: 27 Jul 2005 Posts: 881 Location: Woking, Surrey, UK
Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 12:36 pm Post subject: Colombia - a cocaine plantation the US Mafia must control
Colombia Military in Bomb Scandal
By Jeremy McDermott
BBC News, Medellin
Evidence suggests the military are contributing to the violence
Army officers in Colombia have been accused of placing car bombs around the capital in the latest military scandal to hit the country.
The officers hoped to claim reward money from the government's informants programme for discovering the bombs.
President Alvaro Uribe made a televised address to the nation urging Colombians to keep faith in the security forces, amid a growing crisis in confidence.
He has made the strengthening of the military his government's cornerstone.
Such is the crisis in confidence in the military that President Uribe decided that he had to show his face to the nation and reassure Colombians that his military, backed by Washington, was not spinning out of control.
'Isolated incidents'
In the latest scandal, army officers are accused of placing car bombs around Bogota, including one that went off wounding more than a dozen soldiers and killing a civilian.
The motivation was to claim reward money from the government, which offers payments of up to $400,000 (£220,000) for information on the activities of Marxist rebels and drugs traffickers.
In another incident, 10 policemen were killed by the army in what was presented as a friendly fire tragedy.
However, evidence has shown that they were killed at point-blank range.
Several soldiers, including a colonel, have been arrested and accused of murdering the policemen on the orders of a notorious drug baron.
Mr Uribe insisted that these scandals are isolated incidents and that things are getting better.
But evidence now suggests that the military are contributing to the violence, not just fighting it.
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela President Hugo Chavez ordered tank battalions to the Colombian border and mobilized warplanes on Sunday after Colombian troops struck inside Ecuador in an attack on rebels.
He also ordered the shutting of Venezuela's embassy in Colombia and the withdrawal of all diplomatic staff in the dispute, warning Colombia's actions could spark a war in South America.
"Mr. Defense Minister, move me 10 battalions to the frontier with Colombia immediately, tank battalions," Chavez said on his weekly TV show. "The air force should mobilize. We do not want war."
Colombia's military said on Saturday troops had killed Raul Reyes, a leader of Marxist FARC rebels, during an attack on a jungle camp in Ecuador in a severe blow to Latin America's oldest guerrilla insurgency. The operation included air strikes and fighting with rebels across the frontier.
On Saturday, the anti-U.S. Chavez warned Colombia against doing the same in Venezuela because he would interpret it as a "cause for war." On Sunday, he said he would send Russian-made fighter jets into U.S. ally Colombia if its troops struck in Venezuela.
The leftist, anti-U.S. Chavez has been in a diplomatic dispute with his ideological opposite, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, for months because of the Venezuelan's mediation with FARC rebels over their hostages. Uribe has accused Chavez of using the mediation to meddle in Colombian affairs.
On Sunday, Chavez accused Uribe of lying about the details of the operation that killed the rebel in Ecuador, where the leftist government of President Rafael Correa is a close Venezuelan ally. He called it a "cowardly assassination" of a "good revolutionary."
Ecuador has withdrawn its ambassador in protest and also questioned if Uribe lied when he initially explained to his southern neighbor that the strike was in response to fire from rebels across the border against Colombian troops.
"He (Uribe) is a criminal," Chavez said. "Not only is he a liar, a mafia boss, a paramilitary who leads a narco-government and leads a government that is a lackey of the United States ... he leads a band of criminals from his palace."
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:48 pm Post subject:
So even though it's Uribe that's violated Ecuadorian border and therefore the UN Charter Chavez is the one who has to go to jail.
Remember Milosovich? They couldn't convict him so they poisoned him in his cell - what a bad joke! Ideas spawned by evil retards.
I sent in Clare Short's evidence on Blair's starting an illegal war to the Hague and two follow-up letters. They didn't even bother to reply. When I phoned them up they refused to even acknowledge I had sent it in - what a bunch of useless and evil crooks infest the ICC.
This global narrative is becoming utterly ridiculous - who believes this stuff??
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 2:31 pm Post subject: Who's dirty hands
Its only a few months since Equador's leader demanded a military base for his armed forces in return for a US base in Equador (nice one) and given the animus the US have for Chavez and his government you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out whose fingerprints are all over this dirty little war in the making, all those nice "pharmacists" in medalein have a right to be unmolested by those commie barstewards _________________ Democracy is about representation we are being ruled Claim back our country.
Joined: 04 Apr 2007 Posts: 733 Location: the worlds greatest leper colony usa
Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:59 am Post subject:
hate between commies and anti commies rages on
or is it that simple?
i was just thinking this the other day "do these places in south america ever fight each other"? and then i heard later they had attacked the other _________________ Puzzling Evidence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RinF8BiDNaU
== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Thurs 13 Mar 2008 00:54
From: "terry townsend"
Dear friends and comrades,
Please allow me to introduce listmembers to /Links - International Journal
of Socialist Renewal . Links /carries regular in-depth articles on the
unfolding revolution in Venezuela, as well as developments in Latin America
and the world. Here are some of its more recent Venezuela content. Please
subscribe free to the regular weekly ``what's new at */Links/*''
announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373
Venezuela: Socialist Tide (Marea Socialista) activists on the referendum
defeat and the PSUV <http://www.links.org.au/node/294>
*Federico Fuentes*, part of the *Green Left
Weekly*<http://www,greenleft.org.au/>
/*Links* <http://links.org.au/> Caracas bureau, spoke to two of the key
leaders of Socialist Tide (Marea Socialista), asking them their opinions on
the PSUV and its founding congress, particularly in light of the defeat of
the December 2, 2007, referendum on Chavez's proposed constitutional reform.
- 3 comments <http://www.links.org.au/node/294#comments>
- Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/294>
US/Colombia hands off Venezuela and Ecuador! Act now to stop war in Latin
America <http://www.links.org.au/node/302>
*Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network*
March 5, 2008 -- What only a few days ago seemed like a remote prospect has
suddenly become a real possibility. The Colombian military's brutal massacre
of 21 (at last count) guerrillas with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia -- Peoples Army (FARC-EP), including Raul Reyes, the FARC's chief
negotiator and spokesperson, in Ecuador on March 1 marks a dramatic leap in
the United States' plan to potentially trigger off an armed confrontation
between Colombia and Venezuela.
- 7 comments <http://www.links.org.au/node/302#comments>
- Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/302>
Venezuela: Draft program and principles of the United Socialist
Party of Venezuela (PSUV)
<http://www.links.org.au/node/261><http://www.links.org.au/node/261>
[Below, */Links/*
<http://www.links.org.au/links><http://www.links.org.au/links>provides
translations of the draft program and principles of the
provisionally named United Socialist Party of Venezuela, which are currently
being discussed at its founding congress. The documents were drafted by the
provisional leadership of the PSUV.
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/261><http://www.links.org.au/node/261>
Venezuela: Assembly of Socialists activists on the referendum defeat
and the PSUV
<http://www.links.org.au/node/285><http://www.links.org.au/node/285>
**Federico Fuentes**, a member of the */Green Left Weekly/*
<http://www.greenleft.org.au> <http://www.greenleft.org.au/>//Links/ Caracas
bureau, interviewed a number of elected spokespeople from the local
grassroots units and delegates to the founding congress of the United
Socialist Party of Venezuela. This is the first in a number of interviews
that will appear in /Links -- International Journal of Socialist Renewal./
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/285><http://www.links.org.au/node/285>
Venezuelan left debates the PSUV: The importance of the Communist
Party as a revolutionary organisation
<http://www.links.org.au/node/283><http://www.links.org.au/node/283>
By **Carolus Wimmer**, Communist Party of Venezuela
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/283><http://www.links.org.au/node/283>
PSUV delegates condemn US-Exxon attacks on revolution
<http://www.links.org.au/node/282> <http://www.links.org.au/node/282>
**Caracas bloc of delegates to PSUV Founding Congress**
Caracas, February 13, 2008 -- In the face of the [US] empire's
counterrevolutionary campaign, and that of the anti-patriotic and lackey
oligarchy, that threatens the Bolivarian socialist revolution and the
Venezuelan people, the PSUV expresses its support for the Bolivarian
government and Commandante Chavez.
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/282><http://www.links.org.au/node/282>
Oppose the US war plans for Colombia and Venezuela
<http://www.links.org.au/node/281> <http://www.links.org.au/node/281>
Statement by the **Australia Venezuela Solidarity Network**
<http://www.venezuelasolidarity.org/> <http://www.venezuelasolidarity.org/>
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/281><http://www.links.org.au/node/281>
Greetings to delegates at the PSUV founding congress
<http://www.links.org.au/node/280> <http://www.links.org.au/node/280>
Dear comrades,
We in the Democratic Socialist Perspective
<http://www.dsp.org.au><http://www.dsp.org.au/>(DSP) -- a Marxist
organisation in Australia -- wish to offer our greetings
and revolutionary solidarity to the delegates at the founding congress of
the provisionally named United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/280><http://www.links.org.au/node/280>
Video: Venezuela April 13 - How youth of the barrios fought to
restore democracy
<http://www.links.org.au/node/277><http://www.links.org.au/node/277>
Venezuela suffered a US-backed coup d'etat on April 11, 2002. This is the
story of the youth of the barrios who fought to restore democracy and
president Hugo Chávez.With Hip Hop group Área 23. Produced by
Ávila TV. Directed by David Segarra and Ángela Mimiaga. Click here to watch:
http://links.org.au/node/276
Malaysia: PSM supports Chavez in building socialism; inspires the
people's movement worldwide
<http://www.links.org.au/node/271><http://www.links.org.au/node/271>
February 6, 2008 -- This morning, Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) leaders
met with Venezuela mbassador, Manuel Guzm'an and first secretary, Carlos J.
Paez to express our continued support for the revolutionary efforts
undertaken by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez in his move to build
``socialism in the 21st century.
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/271><http://www.links.org.au/node/271>
Video: Chavez on food sovereignty
<http://www.links.org.au/node/263><http://www.links.org.au/node/263>
Click here to see and hear Venezela's President Hugo Chavez discuss food
sovereignty in Latin America, Africa and the world.
The Battle for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela
<http://www.links.org.au/node/242> <http://www.links.org.au/node/242>
By **Kiraz Janicke** Venezuelanalysis.com December 1, 2007 -- As the
struggle to deepen Venezuela's revolution intensifies, so too does the
battle to create the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Over
the past four months some 14,500 "socialist battalions" of the PSUV have
been discussing and debating the constitutional reforms and have formed the
grassroots battalions of the Commando Zamora, created as a broad front to
campaign for the reforms in the lead-up to the referendum. This
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/242><http://www.links.org.au/node/242>
'Without worker-management, there is no socialism'
<http://www.links.org.au/node/241> <http://www.links.org.au/node/241>
[A talk given at the two-day seminar "Workers Management: Theory and
Practise", held on October 26 and 27, 2007, organised by the Human
Development and Transformative Praxis Program at the Caracas-based Miranda
International
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/241><http://www.links.org.au/node/241>
`Socialisms' in the 21st Century
<http://www.links.org.au/node/239><http://www.links.org.au/node/239>
*Haiman El Troudi *has occupied many positions in Venezuela's revolutionary
government. He was the director of the Office of President (2005-2006) under
Hugo Chavez and secretary of the Maisanta
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/239><http://www.links.org.au/node/239>
Venezuela: Building popular power through Communal Councils
<http://www.links.org.au/node/231> <http://www.links.org.au/node/231>
By **Jim** McIlroy**
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/231><http://www.links.org.au/node/231> _________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 9:30 am Post subject: Re: Who's dirty hands
Freedomsdefender wrote:
Its only a few months since Equador's leader demanded a military base for his armed forces in return for a US base in Equador (nice one) and given the animus the US have for Chavez and his government you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out whose fingerprints are all over this dirty little war in the making, all those nice "pharmacists" in medalein have a right to be unmolested by those commie barstewards
Further developments in Raul Reyes' laptop drama, and US reactivates 4th Fleet after 58 years....
Giant protest in Columbia (censored news)
Colombia's indigenous protest against Uribe _________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
MONEY given by the UK government to Columbia to fight money laundering has been used instead to fund kidnap and harassment of trade unionists, a national union conference has been told.
Claudia Julieta Duque, a journalist and human rights activist from the South American country, says she has seen evidence that British money has been used by a Columbian government agency which she holds responsible for numerous acts of violence.
The Foreign Office denies her claims.
Claudia Duque told the National Union of Journalists conference on Saturday April 9 that she believed Columbia’s Group of Reactive Operations was responsible for kidnapping her in 2001. At the time she was investigating the shooting dead two years earlier of Colombian humorist and journalist Jamie Garzon, a killing she has described as “the assassination of freedom of expression in Colombia”.
Duque was leaving a conference in the Colombian capital of Bogota when she was abducted in a taxi for three hours, robbed, told to “let the dead rest” and to mind her own business.
In an interview for this website, she said: “The Group of Reactive Operations is funded exclusively by the UK. [The purpose of the funds given by the UK] is for investigating money laundering. But their members are involved in crime – my kidnapping for example.
“Does the UK government know? That’s my question.
“At least three of [the GOR's] members [were] involved in my kidnapping in 2001. The UK government must investigate what is going on with its money.”
Duque also believes pressure from the GOR may have been connected with the UK government refusing her a visa last year when she wanted to visit Britain to talk to the NUJ.
Proof of the connection between the GOR and UK government funding lies in papers deposited with Columbian courts, she said, but because the case is active she cannot disclose it.
The GOR is understood to be a small unit within the DAS – the Department of Administrative Security, also known as the Colombian secret police.
The DAS is accused of many acts of repression. Trade unionists are at grave risk in Columbia: almost 3,000 have been killed there in recent years, according to the Justice for Columbia campaign.
Jeremy Dear, the general secretary of the NUJ, introduced Duque to the union’s conference in Southport last weekend to a standing ovation. Dear, who is also chair of Justice for Columbia, told the conference:
“She is one of the most hunted journalists in a country where hunting journalists is a national sport. The UK government is complicit in the murder of trade unionists and journalists in Colombia.”
Duque has covered stories about child trafficking, illegal adoption and corruption at the highest levels.
As a result she has been the victim of intimidation, kidnapping and harassment at the hands of Colombia’s Security Service and has been forced to flee the country three times.
The Foreign Office responded to questions from this website with a statement. It reads in full:
“We refute the allegation that the UK Government is financing a Colombian secret service unit responsible for the kidnapping and intimidation of journalists.
“The UK Government supports projects that improve the institutional capacity and capability of the Colombian judicial system to prosecute drug traffickers, detect and prosecute money laundering and other aspects of organised crime. We also provide carefully focused and tightly controlled counter-narcotics assistance designed to tackle the drugs traffickers who are responsible for the majority of the violence and abuses in the country.
Death Squads are still alive and thriving in Colombia, a country where our British Government operates 'business as usual', assisting the murderous regime with assistance for their 'War on Drugs' (code for 'brutal repression of any supposed opposition' and as sham as US 'War on Terror').
UK's Embassy in Bogota:
https://www.gov.uk/government/priority/safeguarding-britains-national- security-in-colombia
I suggest you also write to your own MP to raise the issue with the Government in UK, re their taking the issue up with Colombian Government. _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2016 12:06 pm Post subject:
COLOMBIA'S BRAVE NEW WORLD.
by Chris Pothecary
The history of the Colombian conflict and the periodic attempts at finding peace is a long and many faceted story. On the 24th of June 2016 a tentative agreement was signed in Havana, Cuba after six years of negotiation between the Colombian government and the FARC, the largest and oldest guerrilla force in Latin America and possibly the whole planet. The agreement has yet to be ratified, with a national referendum pending but this is not the first time that such attempts have been made to arrive at a solution to the 68 year old internal confrontation and does not guarantee lasting solutions to the underlying causes that have given rise to an armed resistance that has survived thanks, in part, to the particularities of Colombian geography with its vast jungle regions, inaccessible mountain ranges and hidden valleys all of which lend themselves to the peculiarities of guerrilla warfare.
Colombians that have knowledge and memory of previous peace deals have every reason to be sceptical of the current deal that is being presented to the Colombian people. In the 80's during the administration of the President Belisario Betancourt a deal was made with various of Colombia's guerrilla movements, principally the FARC, M-19 and EPL with supposed guarantees being made by the government for political participation for those guerrilla fighters that were willing to give up their arms. The FARC signed a ceasefire agreement with the government in 1984.
After the deal had been made a political party with the name "Union Patriotica" (Patriotic Union) was formed and they began to sweep the country in local municipal elections, capturing huge popular support from a largely rural population fed up with the endemic corruption, clientelism and exploitation carried out routinely from the 1800's onwards. What followed was probably one of the most brutal cases of politically motivated genocide in a supposedly democratic country and within a few years the cream of Colombia's burgeoning social and political movements were murdered, tortured and disappeared by paid mercenaries carrying out the orders of their masters in the Colombian oligarchy and their foreign accomplices. This left yet another scar on the Colombian people that has taken decades to shake off, if indeed, we can say that those wounds have been truly healed.
In reality many Colombians are well aware of the precedents and are wary of what may transpire in this new "post-conflict" scenario. What is certain is that, having suffered a succession of military reverses with the death of key leaders during the "reign" of the now ex-president Alvaro Uribe Velez, known for his long time involvement with the drug cartels and the paramilitary armies that have plagued Colombia with death and destruction, the FARC have had their hand forced and without their charismatic and astute leader Manuel Marulanda, who died of natural causes in 2008, coupled with the massive rearming and technological advancement of the Colombian military with the billions of dollars in military aid given by the USA, they have found it ever more difficult to sustain their push for military victory.
Manuel Marulanda was of campesino (peasant farmer) stock, possessing a wily intelligence and, as his nickname "tirofijo" (Sureshot) suggests, an unerring accuracy in battle. He was among the guerrilla leaders that took part in the peace deals of the eighties and the subsequent attempts during the late nineties to engage in extended talks during the presidency of Andres Pastrana but his lifelong experience, which began when he was only 18 years old and was forced to hide in the mountain forests of central Colombia while Conservative vigilantes roamed the countryside massacring thousands of Colombia's rural population in the wake of the assassination of popular leader Jorge Elicier Gaitan in 1948, meant that he was well aware that in reality the ruling elites in Colombia were not willing to address in an authentic manner the true underlying causes of the conflict.
Would Marulanda have accepted the current deal that has been put on the table? We cannot know for certain but we can surmise that his knowledge of the machinations of the Colombian elites would have made him very sceptical of the sincerity of the current bunch of US schooled Colombian politicians whose greed and corruption have most certainly not been quelled with the passing of the years. Furthermore, a military man who forged himself in the gruelling battle for survival in a harsh and forbidding climate, as Marulanda did, would have been well aware of the stark facts of reality for whilst, in this modern age of media sophistication and internet, the current deal is being presented with slick marketing and eloquent political discourses promising a new dawn for Colombia's long suffering people, the sharp eye of Manuel Marulanda would not have missed the glaring detail, the elephant in the room if you like, of the presence of seven fully equipped US military bases that are dotted around the country.
These military bases have given the US a solid platform from which they can, if the situation so requires, force the compliance of the rest of the South American continent should it decide to take decisive steps toward the "second independence" proposed by the late Hugo Chavez during the first decade of the 21st century. Chavez, another astute military man, was not afraid to speak his mind over Colombia's prostration at the feet of US hegemony but since his death in 2013 the other South American leaders who had seconded him have been found wanting and there has been a gradual movement toward a more gentle approach in contrast to Chavez's often confrontational and straight talking brand of diplomacy.
It is not for nothing that Colombia's current President Juan Manuel Santos, said, when he was minister of defence during the Uribe years, that he likes to see Colombia as the "Israel of South America." Santos, however, is apparently a man reformed. Gone are the days when he ordered incursions by the Colombian airforce into Ecuadorian airspace, bombing a guerrilla camp on the Ecuadorian side of the frontier almost pushing South America into war, or when he was embroiled in the infamous "false positive" scandal in which hundreds of young men and women were disappeared from their homes and later found murdered. The army presented these deaths, when Santos was defence minister, as the result of army confrontations with the guerrilla and many had been carefully dressed in guerrilla uniforms. Their grieving families, however, gave testimony to the fact that they were normal young people from some of the poorer areas of Colombia.
These issues have never been truly resolved and yet Santos after some time in the US polishing up in the dark arts of the psychological manipulation of the masses, came to power in 2010 with a mandate for peace and the posture of an amiable and capable statesman; his careful gestures and measured, if slightly hesitant style have changed him, chameleon like, into the "bringer of peace."
But does the leopard ever truly change its spots? The experience of the, once more active, social movements that have emerged with the characteristic enthusiasm and verve of the Colombian population, tell another story.
The department of Huila in the south, for example, has been subjected to the construction of a new hydro electric dam on the country's biggest river, the River Magdalena giving rise to local and national protest movements as the population has fought to save rich farmlands, that are found along the river valley, from being flooded, but the government has responded in a way that gives no cause for optimism should the peace process culminate in a final cessation of hostilities, sending in armed riot police to quell the peaceful protests. Similarly, in 2013, a country wide uprising by Colombia's impoverished rural communities was met with brutal oppression, intimidation and extra-judicial executions. The paramilitaries, too, have never truly gone away and have re-emerged after their supposed amnesty with Uribe's government, under new guises and with new tactics, their focus being to harass, intimidate and pick off key leaders from the miriad of social movements that have formed parallel to the peace negotiations in order to organise popular resistance to the influx of multi-national companies eager to exploit Colombia's rich mineral resources and the numerous rivers apt for hydro electric power.
The government rhetoric, however, has talked up flagship social investments, introduced a number of laws supposedly aimed at tackling the problems caused by the mass internal displacement, the redressing of land issues, the recognition of human rights and a particular and sudden concern for the welfare of women aided and abetted by the international NGO experts that are queuing up to "give therapy" to Colombia's traumatised population, their pockets bulging with donations from assorted charities and foundations and their staff well trained in Non-Violent-Comunication and NLP ready to smooth Colombia's entry into their brave new world with classes in conflict resolution, mental health and the global therapy of consumerism.
The elaborate peace deal which covers six key areas of concern, has been presented with lavish documents and expert analysis and although contributions, questions and ideas have been, at least symbolically, encouraged from the public, the majority of the deal has been thrashed out in private on the sunny isle of Cuba with the assistance from Chile, Venezuela and Norway. The FARC representatives present in the negotiations have grown visibly more rounded stomachs and it is questionable to what extent they are really in touch with the rank and file of their organisation, who, all the while have continued to survive in their jungle camps whilst the rural populations that live in the most marginalised areas of this vast land continue their daily struggle for survival. For them, not much has changed.
If we look at this process in the context of the current global situation we can see that there is a marked difference in the present deal when compared to past attempts at a resolution to the conflict with a far greater international involvement in the process, not only from the meditating countries but also from the UN which has come to the fore as an active guarantor and key element for the implementation of this peace deal.
The first decade of the new century in Colombia was characterised by an improvement in certain aspects of Colombia's infrastructure, at least in the more economically important areas and in part this was due to the augmented ability of the police and the military to keep the transport networks moving with less obstructions from guerrilla roadblocks. The investment in armaments made possible through Plan Colombia, a multi million dollar aid package which made Colombia the third biggest recipient of US military aid after Israel and Egypt, pushed the FARC further into the less accessible areas and reduced their influence. At the same time, due to the terror that arose from the intense paramilitary activity between 1998 and 2003 Colombia's grass roots campesino (peasant farmers) and workers organisations were all but silenced given that they were stigmatised heavily by Uribe's propaganda machine and labelled in the post 9-11 climate of the war on terror as affiliates of the FARC and as terrorists themselves in many cases. Anyone living in Colombia at that time can testify to the fact that, although, as many remarked, it was now possible to travel around more, it was most certainly not possible to converse openly in public without fear of being persecuted as you would never know who was listening. Imagine the effect then, when in 2010 Santos came to power promising an end to the conflict. Nobody wanted to go back to that climate of terror and oppression. Understandably normal people want peace and a new openness was encouraged by a government that had observed the emergence of the wave of progressive governments in South America and the kindling of civilian social movements once more in their country. This has opened the way, at the same time, to an influx of NGO's and international organisations such as the International Organisation of Migrations eager to capitalise on the new social climate and mix their agendas into the Colombian melting pot.
So Colombia is experiencing what many consider to be one of those "historical moments" in which the whole country is being ushered into a paradigm shift of immense proportions, a re-conditioning process if you will, analogous perhaps to what may happen to an individual that has been deprived throughout many years of the liberties that most people take for granted and who has suffered the pain of loss and torture in an ambient of fear and oppression and then is suddenly granted freedom and returns to the world only to find that all has changed.
In this atmosphere people that have lived with little more than a radio and perhaps an old TV are now emerging into the "bright lights" of the world of apps, twitter, youtube etc. in which, suddenly their long standing claims for a basic attention from the State in matters of health, education, employment, transport etc are being morphed into a new narrative that speaks of women's rights, gay marriage, gender education and climate change. Perhaps some of them will be wondering where all this has sprung from and what it has to do with their day to day situation but these are the headlines and the issues that are now dominating the national debate and they are being fundamentally linked to the peace process, indeed they are being hoisted up as the banners of that process with little mention of the Colombian campesinos, the sector of society that has been most affected by the years of violence, fumigations and kidnappings, displacement and whose needs have been most neglected.
In many ways, what is now emerging is that the social and political discourse in Colombia is shifting subtly away from the very real concerns of the normal people in a country that has a relatively untapped potential with regard to the exploitation of its natural resources, due, precisely to the conflict which has restricted foreign investment and towards an agenda that is being set by the external agencies in which the most important aspect seems to be the promotion of gender issues under the auspices of human rights. This makes perfect sense when it comes to encouraging foreign investment and an influx of multi-national companies who need to present to the world an image which suggests that Colombia has left the past behind and that the human rights abuses are over so that investors can move with confidence into this new territory secure in the knowledge that Colombia is catching up and giving the right signals on a global level.
For this reason the main drive of the propaganda machine in Colombia right now are themes such as LBGTI rights, gay marriage and women's rights, however anyone that knows a little of Colombia's history will realise that the main targets of the human rights abuses in Colombia have been the campesinos and the workers without distinction in regard to their sex or their sexuality and thus the abuses that most need addressing are these historical abuses, not the new gender related themes that have suddenly taken precedence at the last minute.
Of course, anyone that truly pays attention to the agenda of the UN will realise that the imposition of these themes is part of a deeper agenda and that there are powerful organisations within the United Nations that are pushing, through gender ideology, for an end to the traditional sexual definitions and an end to the family organised basis of our societies so as to incorporate us all into one big "happy family" where there are no mothers or fathers, and children are raised by the World State. Meanwhile, in Colombia, whilst the media tries to distract people's attention toward issues that are not of a historical concern to the average rural peasant farmer, the plans for the NGO led corporate take over of this very beautiful and ecologically diverse country are by now moving up a gear and the Colombian government of Juan Manuel Santos is eager to comply, dutifully doing their homework and underlining the fact that, in preparation for the new paradigm they have been quietly putting into place at local and municipal level the apparatus necessary for the smooth implementation of Agenda 21. Indeed they proudly claim to be among the world leaders in this matter and are fast becoming a model state in this sense.
It is, indeed, striking, that Colombia fits the bill as a potential example of a perfectly remodelled society with its amazing eco-systems, huge bio-diversity. exotic climate and vivacious people.
What better image for the propaganda films and brochures that the shining example of a country embroiled for decades in a bloody civil conflict spiced up by drug trafficking gangsters, guerrilla armies, sectarian conflict and so on suddenly remodelling itself and being ushered into a brand new era in which it suddenly becomes a leading light in human rights, gender diversity education, implementation of Agenda 21, and all under the all smiling, all singing, all dancing umbrella of the United Nations "saviours of the planet"
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