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DCI Group AZ, LLC #6278 1828 L Street, NW Suite 400 Washington, DC 20036 Foreign Principal: Alvaro Uribe through 31416 S.A.S. (t) Nature of Services: Public Relations Activities: The registrant provided communications and public affairs support to the foreign principal in support of its advocacy efforts regarding the former President of Columbia Alvaro Uribe. Finances: $124,503.20 for the six month period ending March 31, 2021

https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/social-movements-in-latin-america-are-under-attack-despite-colombia-peace-plan/

Social movements in Latin America are under attack despite Colombia ‘peace plan’

With Venezuela occupying the small bandwidth our media has for news about Latin America, there is virtually no information about Colombia, where a horrible wave of violence in the past two years has taken the lives of hundreds of social movement leaders and activists around the country, especially in places such as Cauca, Antioquia, Santander and Arauca. That’s why Colombia’s social movements organized the Humanitarian Refugee Convergence, which took place April 28-May 2 in Bogota, Colombia. It brought together over 1,000 activists from indigenous, black, women and campesino (farmer) organizations, as well as groups representing victims of Colombia’s long armed conflict, to speak out against the violence and call on the government to protect their lives.

During the Convergence, we had a chance to talk to Wilmer Castillo, a spokesperson for the National Agrarian Coordination, a group that brought campesinos from around the country to Bogota.

For people in the United States, the only issue we hear about regarding Latin America is the conflict in Venezuela. Americans, if they know anything about Colombia, might know that a peace agreement was signed with the armed groups in 2016 and they probably think that the situation in Colombia is now calm. Can you tell us what is actually happening here?

It has been falsely reported in the international press that the armed conflict in Colombia has ended. The armed conflict ended with only one guerrilla organization, the FARC. There are still two others, the EPL, the Popular Liberation Army; and the ELN, the National Liberation Army. The present right-wing government of Ivan Duque has canceled the negotiations that were going on with the ELN, which has worsened the armed conflict. Even though the FARC was demobilized and has moved into the arena of nonviolent, political struggle, creating a political party, the armed struggle continues in the places where these two other groups remain active.

Another reason to tell the world that there is no peace in Colombia is because the causes that led to the armed rebellions have not been addressed. On the contrary. There are still multinational companies that invade our lands and displace our rural communities. There are still paramilitary groups that terrorize our organizations. There is still a military strategy to consolidate the land and hand it over to the multinationals. So one of the primary reasons that the armed conflict still exists is because of the economic model that is so destructive.

To make matters worse, the government’s armed forces not only fight against the armed insurgents, but against our communities and social movements as well. Their bullets are not just killing insurgents; they are also killing the organized communities that defend their lands and try to build an alternative movement in this country. This alternative goes against the interests of the neoliberal model that has given, and continues to give, all the riches of our territory to the multinational corporations and to national private businesses. When we fight against this model, we are murdered and jailed, which is why we are organizing this Humanitarian Refugee Convergence.

What connection does the U.S. government or U.S. companies have to the conflict?

Unfortunately, foreign companies have invaded our territory and robbed our resources—oil, gold, water and now a series of minerals that they have discovered as the mining technology has advanced. There is also agribusiness. Many of these companies come from the United States. In addition to the companies that extract our resources, there is transnational private capital that sets the economic rules.

As for the U.S. government, it has interfered in our internal affairs from the time of our founding as a nation in 1810. Together, the U.S. government and companies have directly interfered in our way of life by imposing an economic model to benefit foreign interests and reinforcing that model with military agreements. I’m sorry to say that our armed forces have been shaped and trained by the U.S. military. The U.S. military has taught them how to terrorize and attack the people who rise up, how to destroy the organizations we have created to defend ourselves from the multinationals.

What is your message to U.S. activists?

We have always had support from U.S. groups and we appreciate that support. We need to build on those links and find ways to educate more people about the horrible wave of violence our people are suffering. We also have to find more ways to support your struggles. We feel an affinity for the struggles you are waging in the United States and we have always believed in the unity of peoples’ struggles around the world for emancipation, autonomy and sovereignty.

We need an alternative model globally that would allow the construction of another civilization, one that would save our planet and life itself. We, the great majority of people in the world, are victims of only one system: capitalism. So together we have to build another world, one in which all worlds fit, one in which all our rights are respected and our planet is protected. That’s the world we are dreaming about.

This article was produced by :{:{Local Peace Economy:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}::(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

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InColombia, right-wing politician Iván Duque has been sworn in as Colombia’s new president. Duque was hand-picked by former right-wing President Álvaro Uribe and has vowed to roll back key parts of Colombia’s landmark peace deal withFARCrebels. Just before Duque’s inauguration, Democracy Now! spoke to Gustavo Petro, who placed second in this year’s presidential race, receiving 8 million votes in his attempt to become Colombia’s first leftist president. In the 1980s Petro was jailed and tortured for being a member of the M-19 guerrilla movement. He later went on to lead efforts in Colombia’s Congress to investigate ties between paramilitary death squads and top politicians.

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/10/meet_gustavo_petro_colombian_former_guerilla

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...And then you have, you know, the whole narrative that this has something to do with human rights. So, whenMarco Rubio, who’s basically in charge of policy here for the Trump administration, and his Florida crony, who’s the U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States, and he’s—you know, he goes around to countries there and threatens them and tells them to vote with the U.S. And all this is treated as though they’re trying to promote human rights in Venezuela. And again, the media accepts this narrative. And then you look at the U.S. allies in Latin America, you look at Mexico, where over a hundred journalists have been killed, and in most of those cases there’s government involvement implicated. And you don’t have a single case in Venezuela in the last 20 years of a journalist killed, where the government is implicated. And you look at Guatemala, where most—where, you know, you talk to a human rights defender there, and they don’t expect to be alive a year from now. Again, you don’t have anything near that violent in Venezuela. In Colombia, human rights defenders and activists are being killed every week, as you’ve reported on this show. And again, it’s nowhere near. So, that’s not defending the Venezuelan government; that’s just saying that anyone who states publicly that this intervention by the United States, which is constant, which includes a financial embargo that’s explicitly intended to prevent the economy from recovering—anybody who says that this has something to do with human rights has to be dishonest.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to National Security AdviserJohn Bolton speaking on Fox News Sunday, denying the U.S. was behind the drone blast in Venezuela on Saturday.

JOHN BOLTON: These are things he’s said before, and you have to take them for what they’re worth. If the government of Venezuela has hard information that they want to present to us that would show a potential violation of U.S. criminal law, we’ll take a serious look at it. But in the meantime, I think what we really should focus on is thecorruption and the oppression of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.

AMY GOODMAN: Alejandro Velasco, can you respond to what he said? Not only talk about the U.S., but also President Maduro talking about the outgoing president of Colombia being behind this, Santos, who will leave office tomorrow. Tomorrow is Inauguration Day in Colombia.

ALEJANDRO VELASCO: Yeah, I mean, interestingly,Colombia, even as the rest of Latin America over the last 20 years, during the so-called left turn or pink tide, most countries in Latin America were electing left-wing governments,Colombia sort of bucked that trend. And so, first with the presidency of Álvaro Uribe, who was Santos’s mentor, and then with Santos to some extent continuing that policy, Colombia really positioned itself as very much against not only Venezuela’s Bolivarian government, but, more broadly, sort of the left in the region. Of course, that relationship has become even more soured of late, since many Venezuelans have flocked to Colombia over the last year, year and a half, as economic conditions have deteriorated there. And not only that, but I think, importantly, it’s worth mentioning that many opposition leaders, including a group that fashions itself the national “Supreme Court in Exile,” actually conducts its business in Colombia, with the support of the Colombian government.And so, there’s sort of a parallel government that’s housed in Colombia. And so, all of this sort of suggests that Colombia really is positioning itself as very much against the Venezuelan government.

On the other hand, you know, it’s true that Venezuela and Maduro have consistently sort of blamed Colombia, and Santos in particular, for some of these interventionist moves, and then tying it to the United States and the close relationship between Colombia and the United States. My own sense is that, at least in this case, the very kind of amateurish features of the attack, even though there was sort of the high-tech drone component to it, really suggests that it’s more of a rogue element that’s taken advantage of the sort of wink-and-nod, classic, “Yes, we will publicly condemn or even not say anything against interventionist efforts, but we’re not going to be sad if the Maduro government leaves,” right? And so, my sense is that that’s the nature of the support right now, that it’s sort of cover rather than any technical or material assistance. But, yeah, that’s certainly been the case in the past.

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