Colombia S Am
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this is the country, see also univ
see drummond, chiquita, occidental and dole
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chiquita Brands International Inc. bananas are arranged at Union Street Produce Co. in San Francisco, California.
Banana giant Chiquita Brands will need to pay $38.3 million to family members of those killed during Colombia’s bloody Civil War after the company was found liable for funding a right-wing paramilitary group.
The verdict was handed down on Monday by a jury in West Palm Beach, Florida. The landmark ruling is the first time a major U.S. company has been found guilty of human rights abuses in another country.
“The verdict sends a powerful message to corporations everywhere: profiting from human rights abuses will not go unpunished. These families, victimized by armed groups and corporations, asserted their power and prevailed in the judicial process,” said Marco Simons, general counsel at EarthRights International, a nonprofit representing victims in the case, in a statement.
The trial included testimony from families of the nine victims, including expert reports, and key documentary evidence.
Chiquita, which is headquartered in Florida, said in statement following the verdict that “the situation in Colombia was tragic for so many,” adding, “however, it does not change our belief that there is no legal basis for these claims.”
According to court documents, Chiquita agreed to pay a $25 million fine to the the U.S. government in 2007 after it admitted that it had paid about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Columbia (AUC). The AUC was labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 2001.
Chiquita has faced similar suits filed in U.S. courts from families of other victims that were killed by the paramilitary group, which the company also paid.
The court’s latest verdict follows a weeks-long trial, including a jury selection period that began in April, EarthRights said, adding that its case was originally filed in July 2007 and was later combined with several other cases.
“It’s a triumph of a process that has been going on for almost 17 years, for all of us who have suffered so much during these years,” one of the victims said in EarthRights’ press release. “We’re not in this process because we want to be; it was Chiquita, with its actions, that dragged us into it. We have a responsibility to our families, and we must fight for them.”
Chiquita jury verdict in Colombia paramilitary killings case awards millions : NPR
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antifa
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/5/6/colombia_protest_general_strike
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07214-2
A landmark climate-change lawsuit brought by young people against the US government can proceed, the Supreme Court said on 2 November. The case, Juliana v. United States, had been scheduled to begin trial on 29 October in Eugene, Oregon, in a federal district court. But those plans were scrapped last month after President Donald Trump's administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene and dismiss the case.
The plaintiffs, who include 21 people ranging in age from 11 to 22, allege that the government has violated theirconstitutional rights to life, liberty and propertyby failing to prevent dangerous climate change. They are asking the district court to order the federal government to prepare a plan that will ensure the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere falls below 350 parts per million by 2100, down from an average of 405 parts per million in 2017.
By contrast, theUS Department of Justice argues that “there is no right to ‘a climate system capable of sustaining human life’” — as the Juliana plaintiffs assert.
Although the Supreme Court has now denied the Trump administration's request to the dismiss the case, the path ahead is unclear. In its 2 November order, the Supreme Court suggested that a federal appeals court should consider the administration's arguments before any trial starts in the Oregon district court.
Lawyers for the young people said they would push the district court to reschedule the trial next week.
“The youth of our nation won an important decision today from the Supreme Court that shows even the most powerful government in the world must follow the rules and process of litigation in our democracy,” said Julia Olson, co-counsel for the plaintiffs, in a statement reacting to the Supreme Court decision.
A new generation
Although climate change is a global problem, lawyers around the world have brought climate-change-related lawsuits against local and national governments and corporations since the late 1980s. These suits have generally sought to force the sort of aggressive action against climate change that has been tough to achieve through political means.
Many of the cases have failed, but in 2015, a citizen’s group called the Urgenda Foundation won a historic victory against the Dutch government. The judge in that case ordered the Netherlands to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions to at least 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, citing the possibility of climate-related damages to “current and future generations of Dutch nationals” and the government’s “duty of care … to prevent hazardous climate change”. A Dutch appeals courtupheld the verdict last month.
Over the past few years, the Dutch case has emerged as a model for climate lawsuits in other countries,says Gillian Lobo, a lawyer who specializes in climate-change-related cases at ClientEarthin London. More recently, she says, the Juliana lawsuit has inspired its own copycats — some of which have progressed further than Juliana itself. “It is a global phenomenon,” Lobo says.
One case modelled on the Juliana lawsuit has already produced a striking victory. In January, 25 young people sued the Colombian government for their right to a healthy environment, in a case called Demanda Generaciones Futuras v. Minambiente.
The Colombian Supreme Court found in the plaintiffs’ favour in April. Not only did it order the government to take steps to reduce deforestation and climate change, it also ruled that the Colombian Amazon rainforest is “a subject of rights” that is entitled to “protection, conservation, maintenance and restoration”.
Fuzzy future
The young plaintiffs in the Juliana case allege that they have already suffered harm as a result of climate change. Seventeen-year-old Jaime and her family left their home on the Navajo Nation Reservation in Cameron, Arizona, in 2011 because the natural springs on which they depended for water were drying up.Fifteen-year-old Jayden’s home in Louisiana was severely damaged by flooding in 2016, and 19-year-old Vic’s school in White Plains, New York, closed temporarily in 2012 after Hurricane Sandy hit.
US climate hawks hope that the Juliana plaintiffs will ultimately prevail, but President Donald Trump’s administration is mounting a multipronged defence. The Justice Department denies that the district court in Oregon has jurisdiction over the broad sweep of federal policies at issue, and that the rights to life, liberty and property set out in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution translate into the right to a stable climate.
In any case, the department argues, no meaningful redress is possible, given that drastically reducing emissions in the United States might not move the needle on climate change much if other countries’ greenhouse-gas output grows. This echoes the argument made in 2007 by the Supreme Court's chief justice, John Roberts, when he dissented from the court’s decision in a pivotal climate case, Massachusetts vs. Environmental Protection Agency. The court’s ruling, which Roberts protested, forced the agency to regulate carbon emissions as a pollutant.
Andrea Rodgers, co-counsel for the Julianaplaintiffs, says that the Trump administration hasn’t challenged the fact that humans are changing the climate. “They haven’t presented experts to contest what our scientists are saying about ice melt or sea-level rise or terrestrial impacts or how climate change happens or ocean acidification,” she says.
To win, Rodgers says, “we have to show that the United States government is liable, but also that there is a remedy that the judge can order”. The United States has seen its greenhouse-gas emissions drop in recent years, as the country shifts its energy mix away from coal and towards renewable sources, but as of 2016, it remains the second-largest emitter after China.
James Hansen, a climatologist at Columbia University in New York City and a long-time climate activist, is an expert witness in the case — but he is also a plaintiff, representing “future generations” not yet born. (His 20-year-old granddaughter, Sophie Kivlehan, is also a plaintiff.)
Hansen has been fighting for action on climate change since he first testified on the subject before the US Senate in 1988. He says that if the Julianaplaintiffs lose their case, he will simply try another way. “We need to win as soon as possible,” Hansen says, “but if we lose, we don’t give up — we come back with a stronger case.”
Nature 563, 163-164 (2018)
doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-07214-2
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/colombias-government-acts-like-a-doormat-for-the-united-states-and-its-people-arent-going-along-with-it/
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https://fore.yale.edu/World-Religions/Indigenous/Engaged-Projects/Uwa-Defense-Working-Group
The U’wa, an indigenous community of approximately 5,000 people, have lived in the cloudforests of northeast Colombia for thousands of years. The U’wa territory is one of the most delicate and endangered ecosystems on earth. Over the past decade, the U’wa have been fighting to protect their land and traditional culture from the Colombian government and Occidental Petroleum, a United States based corporation that acquired a license in 1992 to drill for oil on U’wa sacred territory. In the U’wa worldview, oil is the blood of Mother Earth; to extract it is matricide.
Because they believe that they are responsible for maintaining the delicate balance between the physical and material worlds, the U’wa see the oil drilling project as a matter of life or death. An U’wa statement delivered in 1998 states: “We will in no way sell our Mother Earth, to do so would be to give up our work of collaborating with the spirits to protect the heart of the world, which sustains and gives life to the rest of the universe, it would be to go against our own origins and those of all existence.” Having seen the effects of oil drilling in outlying territories (oil spills, pollution, deforestation, colonization, and military violence), the U’wa consider the drilling project tantamount to cultural and environmental genocide. Since 1999, the U’wa have protested the project through civil disobedience and other forms of peaceful protest such as spiritual fasting and permanent assembly of Traditional Leaders. Over the years, U’wa protests have been met with violent police repression, resulting in several deaths and dozens of injuries. Through their defense campaign, the U’wa seek to awaken others to the dangers of fossil fuel addiction, natural resource depletion, and environmental destruction and have garnered support in at least twenty countries worldwide.
Religion Indigenous Tradition
Geographic Location Colombia
Duration of Project None Listed
History In the spring of 1992, Los Angeles based Occidental Petroleum signed a contract with the government of Colombia to begin oil exploration on U’wa territory. The contract violated a 1991 ruling that required community consent for oil exploration projects in indigenous territories. Led by Berito Kuwaru’wa, the U’wa launched an international campaign in opposition to the drilling project. In 1996, Kuwaru’wa appealed to corporate executives in Los Angeles by presenting U’wa cosmology in song, explaining that the U’wa territory is sacred and not for sale. Bowing under pressure from the U’wa, Occidental’s original partner, Royal Dutch/Shell, pulled out in 1995. After petitioning the Colombian Constitutional Court, the U’wa won a nullification of the license in 1997, but this decision was later overturned by the Colombian Council of State. A joint study between Harvard University and the Organization of the American States recommended the immediate and indefinite suspension of the project. In 1999, thirteen percent of Occidental’s shareholders supported a resolution asking Occidental to perform a risk assessment of the project. In March of 1999, a Colombian court issued an injunction to temporarily halt work at the site but the ruling was later overturned by the Superior Court of Colombia. Even though the company determined that drilling would obtain only three months worth of oil for the United States, the Colombian Ministry of the Environment approved a license for the project and drilling began in November 2000. In February and June of 2001, peaceful U’wa protests at the drilling site were violently disrupted by Colombian police, who killed several children and injured dozens of adults. Since its opposition to the drilling project began, U’wa resistance to corporate greed and global fossil fuel consumption has inspired a solidarity movement in more than twenty countries worldwide.
Mission Statement None Listed
Partner Organizations Amazon Watch
Action Resource Center
Amazon Alliance for Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the Amazon Basin
Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund
Indigenous Environmental Network
Project Underground
Rainforest Action Network
Long-Term Goals None Listed
Bibliography
None Listed
Additional Research Resources None Listed
Contact Information Association of Traditional Authorities of Ú’wa
Office Mayor-U’wa Town Hall Center of Communitarian Development
Street 4 no. 3-35 Cubará
Boyacá, Colombia
Ph: 9.78.892326
Fax: 9.78.892326
Email: uwaadmi@uwacolombia.org
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/what-the-right-wing-in-latin-america-means-by-democracy-is-violence/
ctrpunch no lnx
jaNUARY 24, 2020
What the Right Wing in Latin America Means by Democracy Is Violence
by VIJAY PRASHAD
It was a curious exchange. Frustrated by the attacks on his party—the Movement for Socialism (MAS)—former president of Bolivia Evo Morales made an audio recording in which he called upon his supporters to form militias. Maximilian Heath of Reuters went to Argentina to speak with Morales about this leaked recording; Morales said, “In Bolivia, if the armed forces are shooting the people, killing the people, the people have the right to organize their security.”
Morales’ anxiousness is rooted in fact. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights—a body of the pro-U.S. Organization of American States—reported in December 2019 that there have been a series of massacres conducted by the armed forces of the current interim government in Bolivia. The use of the word “massacre” in this report is significant; these were not clashes or conflicts, but the targeted murder of civilians who supported MAS and Morales.
The interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez Chávez, has made inflammatory statements about the indigenous support base of MAS and Morales. She has frequently spoken of them with derision, even saying that she dreams of a Bolivia without “satanic indigenous rites” and that “the city is not for the Indians.” Áñez signed Supreme Decree no. 4078 that exempted the military from any criminal responsibility for its use of force; she wants to ban MAS, and her interior minister has filed a warrant for the arrest of Morales. This is a rapid and disturbing attack on the political fabric of Bolivia.
Apology
Morales’ statement about militias came merely as a way to say that he worried about the repression and violence occasioned by the interim government and the military, now immune from prosecution. U.S. President Donald Trump’s main envoy to Latin America—Mauricio Claver-Carone (who organized the bankrupting $57 billion loan to Argentina when he was the U.S. director at the International Monetary Fund)—went to Bolivia and attacked Morales. Morales, Claver-Carone said, is fomenting insurrection from Argentina. This is a bizarre statement.
Morales was re-elected in 2014. There was not a whiff of impropriety in that election. He had a mandate to remain in office until January 2020. Even if there was a problem in the 2019 election, he should have remained in office until this month. But he was removed by a U.S.-backed military coup. That coup is not the insurrection that worries Claver-Carone. What worries him is that Morales is concerned about his supporters who are being intimidated and killed. It was not the coup, but Morales’ statement of anguish that became the scandal. Morales then apologized for his statement.
Elections
Bolivia will face an election on May 3. The Movement for Socialism Party nominated Luis Arce Catacora, Bolivia’s former minister for the economy, as its presidential candidate, and David Choquehuanca, Bolivia’s former foreign minister, as its vice-presidential candidate. MAS has been deeply bruised. More than 100 government officials from the MAS party are either in detention or face criminal charges, while a handful are in the Mexican embassy in La Paz (they have been denied safe passage to the airport).
The anti-coup uprising in Chapare province led the interior minister Arturo Murillo to make a statement that he would perhaps disenfranchise the entire province if the rebellion continues (the rebels burned down a hotel that he owns). Supporters of MAS and its party workers are afraid to leave their homes, let alone campaign in the election. Morales’ statement came as a mirror of their own anxiousness.
No one imagines that there is going to be a “fair election.” The Trump administration has said it will send a USAID team to Bolivia to monitor the situation, and then to resume U.S. aid to the country; the U.S. will also monitor the elections. Between the U.S. monitors and Supreme Decree no. 4078, the conditions for a fair election simply do not apply.
And not many outside the region seem to have any problem with this attack against democracy.
‘Staggering Number’
On January 14, the UN’s human rights body released a brief statement on the killings of human rights activists in Colombia. The UN said that a “staggering number of human rights defenders” were killed last year in Colombia; by the UN’s count, between 107 and 120 activists were murdered. In 2018, 115 human rights defenders were killed, and in the first two weeks of January of this year, 10 human rights defenders have already been murdered. Most of them are from left-wing people’s organizations.
The UN numbers are conservative. For 2018, the Center for Research and Popular Education Peace Program, based in Colombia, documented 1,151 death threats, 648 assassinations, and 304 cases of physical injuries. But the UN’s trendline is correct. Of the murders last year, 98 percent took place in very poor rural areas. The killers, the UN suggests, are “criminal groups and armed groups linked to illicit economies in areas vacated by the FARC-EP.” In other words, right-wing paramilitary groups and their affiliated drug gangs have taken advantage of the peace treaty signed by the Left to terrorize the countryside.
:{
}:
In the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research dossier on Colombia (December 2019), the argument is made that the Colombian oligarchy does not want to move toward peace because this would shift the needle of Colombian politics toward the people’s movements and the Left. The continuation of the war—now as assassination and intimidation—favors the oligarchy. They prefer this violence to democratic politics.
:{
}:
These targeted murders and this targeted intimidation is only one part of the problem in Latin America. The other is that this region—with its outrageous social inequality—experiences violence at extreme levels. While Latin America is home to only 8 percent of the world’s population, 33 percent of all homicides occur in the region. This includes high violence against young men, and it includes the highest rates of femicide in the world. None of the right-wing governments are interested in addressing this fundamental problem for the hemisphere.
What the government of Iván Duque is doing in Colombia is what the interim government of Jeanine Áñez is doing in Bolivia—both are using extreme state violence against trade unionists and peasant organizers, against socialist leaders and indigenous leaders. This extreme violence undermines the possibility of democracy and allows the oligarchy to be re-elected in polling booths where the Left not dare enter.
Héroes del Ñancahuazú
In 2016, Evo Morales inaugurated the General Juan José Torres Anti-Imperialist Command School in the town of Warnes. General Juan José Torres was the socialist president of Bolivia in 1970-71. He was overthrown in a coup by the Bolivian general favored by the CIA, Hugo Bánzer. Bánzer had closely worked with the Nazi leader Klaus Barbie to set up the CIA-run Operation Condor to search out and kill any and every communist in the hemisphere. They killed Torres in 1976. The combination of the CIA, Nazis, and the oligarchies of the region is not something from the past: Brazil’s culture secretary—Roberto Alvim—recently plagiarized a speech from the Nazi Joseph Goebbels.
The interim government’s interim Defense Minister Luis Fernando López said that his government has renamed the Anti-Imperialist school. “We are not anti-anything,” he said, as if his government is not anti-Morales, anti-MAS, and anti-communist. The school has been renamed Héroes del Ñancahuazú.
In 1967, Che Guevara and his National Liberation Army of Bolivia operated near the Ñancahuazú River in Bolivia’s southeast. The government of General René Barrientos Ortuño, the CIA agent Félix Rodríguez, and the Nazi Klaus Barbie ran the operation to destroy Guevara’s campaign. They named their operation the Ñancahuazú Campaign. The Anti-Imperialist School in Bolivia now honors the men—led by a CIA agent and a Nazi—who killed Che Guevara. It sends a message to the Che Guevaras of today: We will get you. This is the democracy of the oligarchy in Latin America today.
This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/the-people-of-colombia-are-cracking-up-the-walls-of-war-and-authoritarianism/
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See alsoSlugs in Action and Eco-heroes
Note: The Environmental Studies Department has created a scholarship. a cafe has been named for him.
Colombian Tragedy Must Not Martyr Peace
March 10, 1999 By The Stanford Daily Staff
Jocelyn Wiener
Since 1996, Terence Freitas had been working in the Colombian Andes to stop Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum from drilling on the lands of the U'wa people. The U'wa, a traditional community of 5,000 indigenous people, have vowed to walk off a 1,400 foot cliff in mass suicide if Occidental is permitted to drill. Terence Freitas was a friend to the U'wa people. He was a threat to Occidental.
"Terry [Freitas] was finding direct evidence that linked the oil companies to the paramilitaries, and that was very dangerous," said Melinda Selverston, director of the Washington-based Coalition for Amazonian People and the Environment.
Freitas, a 24-year-old recent graduate from UC-Santa Cruz, had been followed by people he believed to be right-wing paramilitaries allied with oil companies in the area. He had also received anonymous death threats at his Oakland home by people who told him "to back off or die."
He was disliked by the Colombian army, and the right-wing paramilitary groups as well as the country's largest leftist guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)....
DEC 09, 2019
Protests Against Economic Inequality Continue in Chile & Colombia
- Colombian Protesters Call for Second General Strike
- Chilean President Seeks to Deploy Military to Streets Amid Protests
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Hundreds of Thousands Join National Strike in Colombia in Rebuke to Right-Wing President Iván Duque
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Five Indigenous Leaders Massacred in Colombia; New Wave of Violence Feared as 2,500 Troops Deployed
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Colombia’s peace process under stress: 6 essential reads
Catesby Holmes, The Conversation
Dissidents in Colombia's FARC guerrillas are threatening to renew armed struggle three years after signing a landmark peace deal. Here, experts explain the history of Colombia's fragile peace process.
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:{In April 2018, Afro-Colombian activist Francia Márquez won the prestigious :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:Goldman Environmental Prize, thanks to her work to retake her community's ancestral territories from illegal gold mining. However, her international recognition comes at a very risky price.
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https://www.democracynow.org/2019/7/29/colombia_protests_against_social_leader_assassinations
Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets on Friday in more than 50 cities and towns across Colombia to protest a surge of lethal attacks on indigenous, Afro-Colombian and environmental leaders in recent years. Solidarity marches were held in dozens of cities around the world, from Mexico City to Athens. In 2016, the Colombian government and FARC rebels signed a historic peace accord to move the country forward after a half-century of armed conflict.But since then, nearly 500 human rights activists, many from the Afro-Colombian community, have been killed, targeted for their work combating illegal mining, drug trafficking, and land restitution and environmental causes.Friday’s protests came after a heartbreaking video went viral showing the child of renowned community activist, María del Pilar Hurtado, screaming and crying after witnessing a gunman shoot down his mother. We speak with Luis Gilberto Murillo, former governor of the Colombian department of Chocó and former Colombian minister of environment and sustainable development.
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/social-movements-in-latin-america-are-under-attack-despite-colombia-peace-plan/
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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- Egypt Cracks Down on Online Dissent
- Russia Signs New Laws Censoring State Critics
- Colombia: 2 Community Leaders Killed as Violence Against Activists Mounts
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Iván Duque Márquez - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iván_Duque_Márquez
1.
**Vice President**: Marta Lucía Ramírez
Political party: Democratic Center
Spouse(s): María Juliana Ruiz Sandoval
Alma mater: Sergio Arboleda University; Ameri...
President of Colombia · Democratic Center · Marta Lucía Ramírez · Gustavo Petro
Iván Duque: Colombia's new president sworn into office - BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45107063
1.
Iván Duque
https://www.ivanduque.com/
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Página Oficial de Iván Duque, Candidato del Centro Democrático a la ... Estas propuestas son el camino para construir la Colombia que soñamos y que espero ...
Ivan Duque's Plan to Fix Colombia's Divide | Time
time.com › World › Colombia
1.
Environmental and land activists killed in 2017
Of those killed were in Latin America
Killings linked to government security forces
Of those killed were from indigenous groups
Killings linked to agribusiness
Activists killed in Brazil, the worst year on record for any country
Disgusted by their government, Brazilians look to far right
The White House roadmap for intervening in Venezuela
Why Trump skipping a Latin American summit earlier this year mattered
https://twitter.com/hashtag/humanrights?src=hash
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4x/week kia
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/photo-series-highlights-plight-environmental-rights-defenders
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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/2017-deadliest-year-environmental-activism-report-180722174539780.html
2017 was deadliest year for environmental activism: report
At least 207 activists were killed, with Brazil, the Philippines and Colombia named as the most dangerous countries.
arly four land and environmental activists were killed each week in 2017, making it the deadliest year on record, according to a new report by Global Witness.
In the report, published on Tuesday, the UK-based watchdog said 207 people lost their lives last year in their fight against companies and governments that seize land and harm the environment.
Latin America was once again the most dangerous region for environmental activism, accounting for nearly 60 percent of the total killings.
Brazil remained the country with most registered deaths, the report said.
At least 57 people were killed in 2017, marking the most deaths of land and environmental defenders ever registered in one year in any country.
READ MORE
Colombia's social leaders 'very scared' amid surge in murders
President Michel Temer and his predecessor Dilma Rousseff weakened laws and institutions designed to protect environmental defenders and made it easier for industries to proceed with projects without consent from affected communities.
Despite the country's constitution recognising the rights of indigenous people to their ancestral land, there has been a drastic decrease in demarcations. Under Rousseff, the average number shrank from 13 to three per year. There have been none since she was removed from office in August 2016, the report found.
John Knox, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, said Latin America's population and endemic corruption make it a particularly dangerous area for environmental activists.
"You see indigenous peoples who are still directly dependent on natural resources in forests or sometimes fisheries who are already discriminated against or marginalised," he said.
"When conflicts between the companies and governments that want to profit from natural resources and the people who depend upon them occur in countries or regions that have a weak rule of law, then they are much more likely to result in violence and killing," he told Al Jazeera.
| Of the 10 most dangerous countries, seven are in Latin America [Thom Pierce/Guardian/Global Witness/UN Environment] |
In Colombia, at least 24 environmental activists were killed in 2017, according to the report.
The 2016 peace agreement between the government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has led to a worsening situation for environmental activists as rival actors vie to fill the power vacuum in the countryside, competing for land and natural resources once controlled by the FARC, the report said.
According to the country's ombudsman's office, more than 300 rights defenders - including environmental, land and human rights activists - have been killed since the beginning of 2016.
Mexico saw the largest year on year increase in deaths, surging from three in 2016 to 15 in 2017. The attacks took place in a context of impunity, with increased violence against activists in areas where drug cartels operate, according to the report.
...
ThePhilippines recorded the highest number of killings ever seen in an Asian country, Global Witness said.
The combination of bountiful natural resources, a large indigenous population and high levels of corruption, as well as the residue of colonial-era land disputes, provide fertile ground for violence against activists in the island nation, the report said.
"The Philippines has traditionally been the worst-hit country in Asia but there's a clear worsening of the situation under President [Rodrigo] Duterte," said Ben Leather, a senior campaigner at Global Witness and the author of the report.
"His aggressively anti-human rights discourse and his use of martial law, which has put the army into areas which are resource-rich, have meant that a bad situation in the Philippines has got drastically worse under his rule," Leather told Al Jazeera.
In December 2017, more than 200 people were forced to flee a village near the southern town of Lake Sebu, after the military killed eight people and wounded five others in a dispute over the expansion of a coffee plantation, according to an investigation by human rights groups.
In his annual State of the Nation address on Monday, Rodrigo Duterte, who has come under heavy criticism over his human rights record and deadly anti-drug crackdown, hit back at critics, claiming his tactics were justified as they were saving lives.
READ MORE
Intimidation and murder: Brazilians fight unequal land ownership
"Your concern is human rights, mine is human lives," he said.
Culture of impunity
According to Global Witness, violence against activists is made possible due to impunity and corruption.
The report states that 92 percent of those responsible for these killings are never brought to justice.
Global Witness also found that that seven "massacres" - which it defines as any incident in which more than four people were killed at the same time - took place in 2017, more than ever before.
"The fact that very few of the cases of past killings of defenders have ever been prosecuted gives would-be perpetrators the green light to attack without consequence, leading to increasingly flagrant attacks and massacres," Leather said.
"In many cases, governments and corrupt officials within them are colluding with big business to impose development projects and other business ventures onto communities without their consent.
"So, when those communities take a stand, both the interests of the business and the corrupt officials are threatened, which means there's less of an incentive for those governments to bring the killers to justice," he told Al Jazeera.
...
207
Environmental and land activists killed in 2017
60%
Of those killed were in Latin America
115
Killings linked to government security forces
25%
Of those killed were from indigenous groups
46
Killings linked to agribusiness
57
Activists killed in Brazil, the worst year on record for any country
92%
Of killings went unpunished
Source: Global Witness
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100 activists kia this year
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dn
no longer left right but life death agw
In Colombia, 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
DN
And then you have, you know, the whole narrative that this has something to do with human rights. So, when Marco 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 Adviser John 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.
http://www.alternet.org/environment/environmental-and-land-activist-killings-hit-all-time-high
Last year was the deadliest on record for environmental activists, according to new figures released by the UK NGO Global Witness.
The organization’s latest report documents a “crisis” spreading globally as the number of countries in which killings were recorded countries shot up from 16 to 24. 60% of deaths occurred in Latin America, which means that the region remains the most dangerous one in the world in which to oppose environmental degradation.
Yet again, Brazil, which has witnessed particularly bloody land conflicts in recent months, ranks first with 49 murders. Nicaragua has the highest rate of killings per capita: 11. And in Colombia, figures hit an all-time high: 37.
“This report tells a very grim story. The battle to protect the planet is rapidly intensifying and the cost can be counted in human lives”, says Ben Leather, a campaigner at Global Witness.
In Asia, resistance to big mining projects in such countries as India and the Philippines has been met with state-sanctioned repression and violence. India has witnessed a three-fold increase in killings and thePhilippines,where 28 activists were killed last year, stands out as the most lethal country in the region.
Logging and agriculture, including extensive cattle ranching, are two other main drivers of conflict, the report says.
Peace is dangerous for Colombia
Last year, as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) gave up control of swathes of rural territory as part of a historic peace process, deforestation and environmental degradation increased.
Deforestation rose 44 percent in 2016, encompassing an area of 690 square miles, as criminal groups moved into areas vacated by the FARC and engaged in illegal logging and mining, according to figures released by the Colombian government’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM). The Amazonian regions of Putumayo, Caquetá, Meta and Guaviare, in the south, were the worst affected.
“They [the FARC] weren’t environmentalists, but they did regulate activity, and—since they had the guns—people complied”, activist Susana Muhamad recently told *The Guardian*.Under their watch, they limited deforestation by civilians to 2 hectares per year, so as to maintain forest cover which helped their protection from government forces.
Along with rising deforestation, killings of those defending land and the environment have also increased.“The peace process in Colombia has paradoxically fueled more violence against those who defend their land and the environment against destructive industries”, says Billy Kyte, leader of Global Witness’ land and environmental defenders campaign.
Kyte explains that communities returning to reclaim lands lost during the armed conflict are now facing paramilitary groups, large landowners and criminal gangs eager to profit from Colombia’s rich natural resources.
It is the Colombian government’s responsibility to promote the rule of law in rural Colombia and make areas safe for communities, Kyte adds, before promoting environmentally degrading development projects.
Earlier this year, at least one expert questioned Global Witness’ methodology in a special report profiling the situation in Honduras. He argued that it conflated killings of environmentalists and victims of agrarian conflict.
Methodology questioned
“Global Witness’ report doesn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny,”
José Herrero, vice-president of the conservation foundation FUCSA, arguing that the “confusion” of the categories of victims in the report inflated the figures.
Kyte, who was intimidated and threatened with arrest for promoting the report in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, defends Global Witness’ data collection methods: “We compile data on land and environmental defenders – people who defend land or environmental rights. Our definition and criteria for inclusion is and always has been very clear – we don’t just record killings on environmentalists,” he says.
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Dummond Company Inc. has thrown another punch in its fight against those who claim it collaborated with a paramilitary organization in the murders of Colombian civilians to protect its coal interests in that South American country.
The Alabama-based coal company recently filed a lawsuit that alleges several lawyers, an advocacy group, and a Dutch competitor, are involved in a criminal campaign to extort money from Drummond.
An attorney for several of those being sued denied the allegations and said it's not a surprise Drummond would "aggressively attack" the lawyers who sued the company over human rights allegations. Drummond has an ongoing defamation lawsuit against one of the defendants.
Drummond's latest complaint, filed March 27 in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, claims the defendants have violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act - or RICO.
"Over the span of more than six years, defendants have engaged in a multifaceted criminal campaign to exert pressure upon Drummond in an attempt to damage Drummond's reputation and business interests and obtain a fraudulent and extortionate financial windfall," according to the lawsuit.
An attorney for Drummond, William Anthony Davis III, declined comment on the lawsuit. "We do not comment on pending litigation," he said.
Drummond claims in its lawsuit that "advocacy" groups were used to spread the false message that Drummond collaborated with the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), to eliminate suspected guerilla groups from around the company's mining operations in Colombia and in the process innocent people were killed. Media campaigns in the U.S., Colombia and Europe, also were aimed at damaging its relations with unions, Drummond contends.
The company also alleges three "fraudulent lawsuits" were filed - in Birmingham - in which terrorists and murderers imprisoned in Colombia were bribed to make false allegations as witnesses.
"It is now known that the defendants paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to these criminals, among other illegal inducements, in order to procure this 'testimony'," Drummond states in its lawsuit.
Drummond details the alleged payments and the way the money transfers were made through law firms or advocacy group to witnesses or their families in an 85-page chart attached to the lawsuit.
Drummond's lawsuit names as one defendant Terrence P. Collingsworth, a partner in the Florida -based law firm of Conrad & Scherer, who has been a lawyer in the three lawsuits against Drummond. One of those lawsuits claims the company funded the AUC, which then allegedly executed hundreds of people living in and around Drummond's railroad corridor.
Collingsworth also serves as executive director of the group International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates) and serves as an agent for Albert van Bilderbeek, one of the owners of the Dutch company Llanos Oil described as a competitor that lost oil and gas rights to Drummond in Colombia.
William R. Scherer, IRAdvocates, and Bilderbeek also are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Colombian attorneys Francisco Ramirez Cuellar and Ivan Alfredo Otero Mendoza are also named as defendants.
Ramirez is described in the lawsuit as a criminal defense lawyer, activist, and former president of a mineworkers' union who allegedly has tried to damage Drummond's relations with the Colombian unions. The lawsuit claims he also paid witnesses for testimony in lawsuits against Drummond. He also has contracted with Collingsworth and Conrad & Scherer for contingency fees in three lawsuits filed in Birmingham against Drummond, the lawsuit states.
Otero is a Colombian criminal defense lawyer "who has represented nearly all of the incarcerated witnesses that claim Drummond had ties to the AUC," Drummond's lawsuit states. Otero also has contracted with Conrad & Scherer to get contingency fees for three lawsuits.
LAWSUITS
Drummond has been sued at least four times in federal court in Alabama over allegations that it had a hand in murders in Colombia. The company have maintained those allegations are not true.
Colombian plaintiffs have had two wrongful death lawsuits against Drummond dismissed by a federal court judge in Birmingham. Both rulings have been affirmed by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The latest ruling by the 11th Circuit, in the case known as Balcero brought in 2009 by relatives of more than 100 Colombian citizens killed by the AUC, came on March 25.
The other 11th Circuit ruling, in September, affirmed U.S. District Court Judge David Proctor's dismissal of another 2009 lawsuit claiming Drummond Co. conspired with a paramilitary group to murder three union officials at the company's coal operation in Colombia, South America.
The wives or companions of the three union officials who worked for a Drummond Ltd. mining operation in Colombia, had first filed a lawsuit in 2002 against Drummond for the men's 2001 deaths. The lawsuit claimed Drummond hired paramilitary gunmen to torture, kidnap and murder them.
Drummond denied the claims and in 2007 a jury found in favor of Drummond. But in 2009, children of the three men filed another similar lawsuit on behalf of themselves against Drummond.
A former Drummond contractor in January 2013 was convicted of murder in the deaths of two of the men in 2001 and sentenced to nearly 38 years in prison as the mastermind in the deaths.
The trial judge in Colombia also ordered an investigation into Drummond's president, Garry Drummond, and three former employees to determine whether they might also be responsible, the Associated Press reported.
Drummond has denied any role in the murders and no employee has faced any criminal charges.
The convicted man, Jaime Blanco, alleged that senior Drummond managers had ordered the killings. Blanco's former assistant, Jairo Charris, was also convicted of the same murders in 2009 and was sentenced to 30 years.
Both Blanco and Charris are among the lawsuit witnesses against Drummond whose families were paid, Drummond claims in its lawsuit.
According to court records Collingsworth was an attorney on the 2002 lawsuit and the two lawsuits rejected by the 11th Circuit in the past year.
He also is one of the attorneys in another lawsuit filed against Drummond in 2013 that is still pending before Judge Proctor. That lawsuit filed in 2013 is currently stayed as the court awaits decisions by appellate courts on other cases that have issues similar to ones presented in the 2013 lawsuit.
BRIBES OR SECURITY?
Drummond filed a defamation lawsuit against Collingsworth as agent for Conrad & Scherer in 2011.
It was during litigation of that lawsuit last year that payments to witnesses first arose.
Drummond states in the lawsuit that while reviewing documents in their defamation case it became clear that Collingsworth had lied in court about the number of witnesses who were paid.
Drummond has asked for Collingsworth to be held in contempt of court and his firm sanctioned in the defamation lawsuit.
Attorneys for Collingsworth say the payments were made to witnesses and their family to keep them safe.
"Drummond suggests that payments for protection of witnesses in Colombia are highly improper--when there is no evidence that the payments impact any testimony, the threats to Colombian witnesses are so commonplace that the only way to protect the truth is to protect the witness, and there is law that witness payments for this purposes are legal and ethical," according to the response from Collingsworth's attorneys.
Collingsworth's attorneys stated that it is "unfortunate" that some of Collingsworth's statements were inaccurate regarding the number of witnesses being paid. Those incorrect statements have been corrected in subsequent filings and documents, the attorneys stated.
"Even though the statements were wrong, Mr. Collingsworth's error is irrelevant to the truth or falsity of the statements Drummond claims are defamatory," Collingsworth's attorneys state. "Drummond either did, or did not, engage in Colombian human rights abuses."
Efforts to reach Collingsworth, Conrad & Scherer, IRAdvocates, Otero and Ramirez were unsuccessful prior to the publication of this story.
But Birmingham attorney Robert Spotswood, who serves as one of the attorneys for Conrad & Scherer and Collingsworth in the defamation case, issued a response to the latest lawsuit by Drummond.
"Conrad & Scherer, LLP is a law firm which has maintained a strong reputation for 40 years. Its attorneys have represented both plaintiffs and defendants in important complex litigation within and outside of Florida," Spotswood stated.
In addition to its home office in Florida, the firm has offices in Washington, DC, North Carolina, and Ecuador, Spotswood stated.
"On the plaintiff side, Conrad & Scherer, LLP is now representing a number of clients in lawsuits alleging human rights violations by certain American corporations in South America. Some of those cases are against Drummond Company, Inc. relating to its alleged conduct in Colombia," Spotswood stated.
"It is not a surprise to Conrad & Scherer, LLP that a company sued for human rights violations would aggressively attack the lawyers who filed the complaints against it," Spotswood wrote. "Drummond's latest lawsuit is another of its thus-far-unsuccessful legal maneuvers against these lawyers. The latest suit even names a veteran law professor from a Colombian law school."
"Drummond's latest lawsuit focuses on payments which these lawyers contend were used to provide protection for witnesses or their families, including relocation assistance," Spotswood states. "One top U.S. government enforcement expert has stated that witnesses are not likely to tell the truth in life-threatening situations in Colombia unless they feel safe."
"Conrad & Scherer, LLP and Terry Collingsworth look forward to the opportunity to defend these claims in federal court where they expect and hope the truth will be revealed," Spotswood writes.
OTHER COMPANIES
Drummond in its RICO lawsuit addresses some of the lawsuits the attorneys and IRAdvocates have filed against other multinational corporations premised on similar allegations that those companies also collaborated with Colombian paramilitaries.
Dole Food Company, Inc., Occidental Petroleum Corporation, and Chiquita Brands International, are among the companies IRAdvocates states on its website that it has sued, according to the Drummond lawsuit. "Evidence discovered to date suggests that the Enterprise's (the defendant's) fraudulent practices and witness payment schemes permeate all of their cases in Colombia," Drummond claims in its lawsuit.
© 2015 AL.com. All rights reserved.
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http://bigthink.com/project-syndicate/a-light-unto-cities 22,000 people come together to attend the World Urban Forum and discuss the future of cities.] 5/14.=
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12/13 alter;
Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency have provided covert help to Colombia’s government to hunt down and kill leaders of a leftist rebel group. The Washington Post’s Dana Priest reported on the secret program in a big story published over the weekend.
In 2003, after the Bush administration authorized the covert program, the CIA and NSA began providing real-time intelligence to the Colombian government to help their battle against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known by their Spanish acronym, FARC. The program, which targets a U.S.-declared terrorist organization, has been kept secret from the public, and the Obama administration has continued it.
http://www.alternet.org/print/world/torture-and-murder-colombian-union-leader-sparks-scrutiny-corporate-giant-nestle
A landmark report on Colombia’s more than 50-year internal conflict has found that nearly a quarter of a million people have been killed, most of them civilians. The report tackles the military conflict between Colombia’s armed forces and leftist guerrillas dating back to 1958, as well as the right-wing paramilitaries that have emerged since the mid-1980s. Gonzalo Sánchez, head of the Colombian investigative team, unveiled the findings.
Gonzalo Sánchez: "The total of violent deaths in the country between 1958 and 2012 is at least 220,000 caused by the armed conflict. Eighty percent of these have been unarmed civilians. It’s a war that has left most of the country mourning, but very unevenly. It’s a war whose victims are in the vast majority noncombatant civilians. It’s a depraved war that has broken all humanitarian rules beyond social and political objectives that multiple gangs could brandish."
According to the report, Colombia’s bloodiest period came between 1985 and 2002, when wealthy elites formed paramilitaries to battle rebels and attack civilians. The main paramilitary group, theAUC, was responsible for the bulk of nearly 2,000 massacres since 1980 as well as the worst atrocities. The leftist guerrilla group FARC was responsible for the most kidnappings and attacks on infrastructure. An estimated 4.7 million people have been displaced since 1996, and around 1,200 indigenous people have been killed over the same period. The paramilitaries have long worked closely with successive right-wing Colombian governments, who in turn have received billions in U.S. aid. The report was commissioned in 2011 as part of ongoing peace talks with the rebel group,FARC.