[NYTr] Colombian Repression and US Government Collusion
 
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 18:11:45 -0500 (CDT)


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Workers World - Jul 19, 2007 issue
http://www.workers.org/2007/world/colombia-0719

Colombia's repression, U.S. gov't collusion

By Berta Joubert-Ceci

If the immense suffering of the Colombian people were not so terribly
real, Colombia these days would be the perfect expression of the
bmagical realismb of its most famous writer, Gabriel GarcC-a MC!rquez.

Extreme poverty coexists with the enrichment of the oligarchy allied to
U.S. and other imperialist financial interests that for the most part
use paramilitary forces to guarantee their profits, leaving behind
massacres, displacements, and labor and human rights advocates
assassinated.

But there also exists an armed insurgency that has defended the
countrybs sovereignty for more than 40 years and a growing social
unarmed movement of peasants, Indigenous people, unions,
Afrodescendants, women, students and others struggling against
privatization, and for peace with social and economic justicebwho, in
spite of seeing their efforts marred by the state repression that is in
collusion with the paramilitaries, continue courageously struggling in
the streets.

And lately, all these forces are framed within the exposure of the
political scandal of corruption in the government where the
paramilitary infiltration is being proved and which the current
Colombian president Clvaro Uribe tries unsuccessfully to cover up his
complicity with.

And the political situation of Colombia extends way beyond its borders.
Not only to neighboring countries like Ecuador where the Colombian
military, in its war against the insurgency, irresponsibly aerial
sprays glyophosphate, thereby poisoning Colombian and Ecuadorian
people, vegetation and drinking and irrigation waters.

It also affects Venezuela, although in a different way, through the
involvement of the deadly Colombian paramilitaries who are being used
as part of the U.S.-backed destabilization campaign against the
Bolivarian government of Hugo ChC!vez.

And it also travels north, right to the U.S. where the war in Colombia
was first created and sustained. An example has been the extradition
and trial in U.S. federal court of Ricardo Palmera, alias SimC3n
Trinidad, an important member of the FARC-EP (Colombian Revolutionary
Armed Forces-Peoplebs Army) who was their peace negotiator.

Trinidad was extradited to the U.S. in 2004, and tried for the first
time last year in Washington, D.C., resulting in a hung jury. After the
recusal of the first judge for giving preferential treatment to the
prosecution to the detriment of the defendant, Trinidad faced U.S.
prosecutors for the second time last month; but this time, the U.S.
government was determined to convict him.

For that they brought Colombian police officer John Frank Pinchao, who
had recently escaped after being retained by the FARC along with
others. The FARCbs purpose in retaining military, police or government
officials is to have a lever to negotiate with the Colombian government
and attain a prisoner exchange.

The U.S. was hoping that Pinchaobs testimony would link Trinidad to the
three U.S. military contractors held by the FARC, and therefore bproveb
that Trinidad was part of the kidnapping of the three. However, in
spite of the attempts of the U.S. officials who had been keeping
Pinchao close to them, rehearsing his lines, in his testimony, Pinchao,
who had been held with the three U.S. contractors, when asked by the
prosecution if he had seen Trinidad, responded
bnever.b (www.Cambio.com.co)

This trial was developing somewhat similarly to the first one, when all
the efforts of the prosecution and the judge to portray Trinidad as a
violent and terrorist person failed. During the first day of the second
trial, a juror quit, stating that she was bfeeling too much sympathy
for the accusedb and that she brecognized that she was including him in
her prayers.b

After days of deliberations, the jury handed a note to the judge saying
that, bAt this point we are at an impasse and do not believe that we
will be able to reach a unanimous verdict.b

The judge, a Republican conservative, sent them back to continue
deliberating. The prosecution had stated thatthe possibility that
Trinidad may never have seen the contractors didnbt matter because he
tried to negotiate a prisoner swap using the contractors as leverage.

On July 9, Trinidad was found guilty of complicity in the kidnapping of
the three contractors. The jury will continue deliberating other
charges, among them, terrorism.

Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and
distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without
royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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