Displaced Colombians Occupy Bogotá Neighborhood;
Hurricane Helicopter Rescue Crews Pulling Press Duty;
Why Posada Will Not Be Extradited;
World Youth Festival Report
September 5, 2005
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Ramón Acevedo, graduate of the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism, reports this morning on the struggle of a
group of several hundred families displaced by Colombia's long-running, partly U.S.-sponsored civil war. The families
took over a number of abandoned, half-built homes in the working-class Kennedy district of southern Bogotá last week.
And while the irregular paramilitary fighters receive generous "peace" deals and assistance from the government to
reenter civilian life, these people, their victims, have been subject to police repression and cut off from the rest of
the city in an attempt to force them out.
Acevedo writes:
"I spoke to a mother who had been traveling with another family. She told her story of how the paramilitaries had come
into her town, in the Tolima region of Colombia, and assassinated her brother and her husband with a chainsaw. They were
farmers working a small plot of land. The paramilitaries accused them of working with guerrillas, which she denied. For
the past five years she and her three children have had to move around to escape the 'paracos.'
"One of the spokespersons from the group stated, 'The majority of us are displaced because of our political beliefs,'
and added, 'We have come from different regions of Colombia, where the paramilitaries violently pushed us out.'"
...
"Continuously, the 40-year-old Colombian civil war has been fueled by military aid from the United States. Since 1999,
when Plan Colombia was signed, over $4 billion U.S. dollars have been funneled into the police and military of Colombia.
This has increased human rights atrocities by the government forces and their paramilitary allies. For decades the
Colombian government has been involved in gross human rights violations. At the same time the U.S. has made Colombia the
largest recipient of military aid outside the Middle East."
Read the full report, today in The Narco News Bulletin:
Also, don't miss a the many important posts to our group blog, The Narcosphere, from the past few days:
Bill Conroy dropped a bombshell late last week, adding to the growing clamor over the U.S. government's incompetence in
responding to the hurricane destruction on the U.S. gulf coast. With people suffering, still stranded without food and
water in their flooded neighborhoods, former U.S. Customs supervisor Bill Conrad told Narco News that Blackhawk
helicopter teams from that agency, sent from around the country to aid in the rescue efforts, had been simply sitting at
base for three days with nothing to do. In a telling sign of where the federal government's real priorities lie, the
only real work the helicopters had been slated for was to ferry CNN crews to photograph hurricane victims, rather than
doing any work to help them. Conrad described the crews as being "livid."
Also, read our correspondent in El Paso, Texas, Narco News Copublisher Bill Weaver's latest analysis of the Luis Posada
Carriles immigration hearing. Despite the overwhelming evidence of his guilt in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban passenger
airplane that killed 73 people not to mention many other violent terrorist acts over the past four decades Weaver
writes that Posada Carriles almost certainly never be allowed to leave the country. While the people most threatened by
Posada in his younger days were Latin American civilians, now it is U.S. government officials who have the most to fear,
because Posada possesses large amounts of very embarrassing information that would likely get out if he were extradited
to Venezuela.
Also, Jean Friedsky filed an in-depth wrap-up and report from the 16th World Youth and Students Festival, held last
month in Caracas, Venezuela. The festival, writes Friedsky, was a major example of the new international nature of
resistance in the third world to the economic and political domination of the North, especially in Latin America:
"The festival was unique among international leftist convergences: it was not dominated by the privileged global North,
but was composed of a broad range of those working for justice. Thousands spent eight days sharing bunk-beds, meals,
political analysis, life-stories and Brahma beer with people from half-way around the world.
"'This is an example of true diversity,' noted a student from Mexico. 'There are 22,000 of us, from 144 countries,
exchanging ideas and getting to know each other as people.'
"Live music concerts, and dance performances celebrated the diversity of the gathering. 'Cultural expos' (in which each
delegation had space to sell crafts and hand out information about their country) and workshops provided forums for
participants to learn about others' cultures and struggles.
"Participants also found strength in shared political perspectives. During these trying times, being with thousands who
are dedicating their lives to positive change motivated and inspired. 'The benefits of this festival will last long
after we all go home,' one Colombian activist commented. 'The personal connections we have made will move forward our
current campaigns and help create new cross-border social change efforts.'"
Read Friedsky's full report, here:
From somewhere in a country called América,
Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin