Chiquita Brands y la reparación en Urabá

Por León Valencia

OPINIÓN

Al reconocer la financiación de los paramilitares, la Chiquita Brands tuvo que pagar al fisco norteamericano 25 millones de dólares, pero no ha girado un peso para el Estado colombiano.

Sábado 28 Mayo 2011

Las autoridades colombianas tienen un gran desafío: encontrar el camino jurídico para que la empresa multinacional Chiquita Brands responda por la reparación de las víctimas de Urabá y para que sus directivos lleguen a los tribunales nacionales a un juicio por concierto para delinquir agravado. Es algo más que una cuestión de honor. Es una lección histórica para quienes han abusado de nuestra nación y han pisoteado nuestro territorio.

Esta empresa ha cometido un crimen sin nombre contra Colombia. Es una infamia mayor que la sociedad colombiana no puede pasar por alto. Ya los voceros de la casa matriz reconocieron, ante un tribunal en Estados Unidos, que entregaron dinero a los hermanos Castaño para financiar la guerra paramilitar en la región donde se gestó el modelo de control territorial y político que las Autodefensas exportaron a todo el país. Algo más aberrante. En un informe de la Secretaría General de la OEA se puede leer que esta empresa participó en la operación mediante la cual los paramilitares ingresaron tres mil fusiles con los cuales se cometieron parte de los 175.000 asesinatos que los mandos paras han confesado ante la Unidad de Justicia y Paz de la Fiscalía.

Por su parte Raúl Hasbún, empresario bananero, en su proceso judicial, ha declarado que Charles Caiser, gerente de Banadex, filial de Chiquita Brands junto a Reynaldo Escobar e Irwin Bernal, también directivos de la empresa, se reunió en 1997 con Carlos Castaño para pactar que entregarían, a través de las cooperativas de seguridad Convivir, a los paramilitares, tres centavos de dólar por cada caja de banano exportada.

Hasbún cuenta que su idea era montar una Convivir, pero la meta de la Gobernación de Antioquia, encabezada por Álvaro Uribe Vélez, era conformar muchas más, entonces pusieron a funcionar doce. Actuaban en los cuatro municipios que conforman el eje bananero, pero la coordinación central estaba en manos de la Convivir Papagayo, a la que llegaban todos los dineros que aportaban las empresas bananeras.

La magnitud de esta operación, en la que participaron todas las grandes empresas bananeras lideradas por Chiquita, es monumental. Entre 1997 y 2004 salieron de Colombia 647.706.429 cajas de banano y llegaron a las arcas paramilitares 19. 431.193 dólares.

Estas evidencias que involucran a la multinacional en tráfico de armas, concertación con ilegales y financiación de los paramilitares llevaron a que el fiscal Mario Iguarán dijera, en algún momento, que pediría la extradición de ocho directivos de la empresa para que respondieran en Colombia por los hechos.

Las armas y la financiación aportadas por los bananeros contribuyeron a una catástrofe humanitaria en Urabá. Entre 1997 y 2003 se produjeron cerca de 3.000 homicidios, hubo alrededor de 60.000 desplazados y se cometieron 62 masacres. Pero también le dieron un gran impulso a la expansión de los paramilitares por todo el país.

Al reconocer la financiación de los paramilitares, la Chiquita Brands tuvo que pagar al fisco de Estados Unidos la suma de 25 millones de dólares y no ha girado un solo peso para el Estado colombiano. Una verdadera ironía porque el daño se hizo en Colombia y el lucro que permitió esta gran operación criminal se obtuvo también en estas tierras.

Y hagamos cuentas. Si Chiquita Brands tuviese que entregar a Colombia apenas una suma equivalente a la que hubo de pagar en Estados Unidos, se podría indemnizar con 40 salarios mínimos a más de la mitad de los afectados en el derecho a la vida en Urabá en la época nefasta en que la empresa operó en la región.

Pero la sanción a la Chiquita Brands en Colombia y la extradición de los extranjeros que participaron en estos graves delitos tendrían una repercusión mayor: el Estado colombiano abriría las puertas para investigar a todas las empresas foráneas que incentivaron el crimen y el terror en el país y, a la vez, enviaría un mensaje muy contundente a las multinacionales que llegan ahora para aprovechar el boom minero que se está gestando.

Spanish protesters clash with police over clean-up

Violence breaks out around Barcelona's Plaça de Catalunya, the first trouble after 12 days of protests

Giles Tremlett in Madrid

guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 May 2011 15.52 BST

A demonstrator shows his hands covered with the blood of a fellow protester as police officers try to remove them from their makeshift camp in Barcelona's Plaça de Catalunya. Photograph: Emilio Morenatti/AP

Protesters who have camped out in Spanish squares for the past 12 days clashed with police for the first time on Friday after authorities dismantled a camp in the centre of Barcelona.

Police and clean-up trucks moved into the Plaça de Catalunya, with about 200 protesters being corralled peacefully in the centre of the square.

Protesters were told they were not being evicted and would be allowed back, but municipal workers took away tents, mattresses, tarpaulins, computers and materials used to build the camp.
Trouble erupted when thousands of supporters arrived and blocked access roads. Police cleared routes out of the square by using batons, reportedly injuring 99 people and arresting two.


Video footage filmed in the square shows bloodied demonstrators being beaten by police. Protesters said police also used pepper spray and rubber bullets.


The Catalan regional government said it ordered police into the square only so it could be cleaned.

Authorities were reportedly concerned that the camp might be a focus for violence on Saturday night when crowds of people are expected to take to Barcelona's streets if the city's football team wins the Champions League final against Manchester United.



Demonstrators were allowed into the square after the clean-up and immediately started to rebuild the camp. A peaceful demonstration against the police action has been called for this evening in Barcelona, Madrid and dozens more cities where protesters are camped out in squares.

The clean-up came after authorities came under increased pressure from shop owners and local officials to remove the camps throughout Spain, but protesters said they would stay in place until Sunday at the earliest.

The LSE is wrong to give Uribe a platform

The LSE and London Business School risk legitimising state terror by inviting Colombia's former president to visit

Andy Higginbottom

guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 May 2011 10.00 BST

Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Colombia's former president, is to visit the LSE and London Business School. Photograph: Fernando Vergara/AP

One might have thought that the London School of Economics at least would have learned the wisdom of caution after getting its fingers burnt for other dubious guests. And yet the LSE and the London Business School are both hosting the visit of Colombia's notorious rightwing former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez on Monday.

Uribe was George Bush's favourite Latin American leader, seen as the model of a "war on terror" style stabilisation in the region, and he arrives in London days after the debate in Colombia's Congress over a proposed victim's law. Uribe's former defence minister Juan Manuel Santos is now president and he promised reparations for all victims of political violence, significantly including victims of state forces, as well as leftwing guerrillas and the rightwing paramilitary groups generally seen as state proxies. In his heated interventions, Uribe has objected to defining the confrontations as an "internal armed conflict", insisting on his preferred Bush-era formulation of a "war on terror". Uribe refuses to identify the guerrilla movements as anything other than "terrorists". Santos has been at pains to find common ground with his former boss – neither would grant "belligerent status" to the guerrillas – but the spat highlights how the government is trying to move on from Uribe's own unrepentantly belligerent presence.

With the smugness of a petty tyrant, Uribe claims that the successes of his eight years in government were based on the three pillars of security, social cohesion and investor trust. Is it the case? Let us examine Uribe's record by his own criteria.

Starting with security, the obvious question is "for whom"? Not for the 565 trade unionists, nor the much less reported 1,400 indigenous people assassinated during the Uribe years. While the guerrillas are not free from culpability, social organisations consider that state forces and their associated paramilitary groups are mainly responsible for this slaughter. Uribe supposedly demobilised the paramilitaries, yet all the evidence is that these groups have recreated themselves as a new generation of "Black Eagles" and "Rastrojos" drug traffickers. Three thousand paramilitary grave sites have been identified, as well as specific locations where they used ovens to cremate their victims' remains.

The mass grave at La Macarena containing 2,000 bodies was discovered accidentally after schoolchildren detected a sour taste in water from the local stream. The burial ground is within sight of an army camp with US advisers. The army initially said that the bodies were of guerrillas killed in combat, their normal cover story known as "false positives" where they dress the cadavers of civilians in combat fatigues. There were over 3,000 such extra-judicial killings by the official state "security forces" known of under Uribe.

Heads of the DAS secret police reporting to Uribe were caught mounting extensive phone tapping of journalists, politicians and high court judges, and supplying lists of trade unionists to be assassinated. Then there was "para-politica", one third of all Congress seats occupied by paramilitary front men. Uribe's family and close associates have been involved in a series of scandals, which in a functioning democracy would have obliged his resignation.

"Social cohesion"? Uribe's regime polarised the gap between what was long ago termed official Colombia and real Colombia. The forced displacement from rural areas of campesino farmers, indigenous and African-Colombians totalled 2.65 million people under Uribe. Almost all of them are still completely destitute as official agencies only recognise a third of these people. The desplazados have been left utterly abandoned by the state, except when the riot police descend at night to evict them again, from their cardboard shacks on the fringes of the cities.

"Investor trust"? Well one has to concede that Uribe's right on that one. Multinationals have made huge profits, especially in the extractive industries. In 2008 alone coal corporations made $1.7bn, and oil and gas corporations made $6.1bn profits. Under Uribe there was a more than nine-fold increase in profits flowing out of the country (it's not always clear where to, as investment flows are increasingly registered through the Cayman Islands and other offshore havens). Uribe's strategy was to encourage a huge land grab, mineral claims rocketed from 1.13m to 8.53m hectares. Mining on this scale will devastate the environment, especially because of water contamination in high mountain areas. Uribe leaves a sour taste indeed.

With its eyes on stalks at another El Dorado, big business may toast Uribe, but no amount of public relations gloss can cover up his strategy of state terror and misery for the majority of Colombians, as Amnesty International's latest annual report confirms. The ex-president craves international status to protect him from the inevitable, growing and justified demands for his trial. By offering Uribe their prestigious platform, the London Business School and LSE are legitimising state terror and giving impunity to a criminal. Shame on them.

 

El Parque Natural Tatamá: ¿en la mira de la minería?

El Parque Nacional Natural Tatamá es una reserva ecológica en los límites de Chocó y Risaralda que hace parte de la red nacional de parques naturales de Colombia. Tiene 51.900 hectáreas, de las cuales el 90% se encuentra en excelente estado de conservación. Es también una estrella hidrográfica que alimenta los ríos Cauca y San Juan, entre otros. El parque es un área de confluencia 9 municipios de los departamentos de Chocó, Risaralda y Valle.

Según el  Plan de Manejo del parque, Tatamá tiene “amplia diversidad biológica y ecosistémica soportada en la diversidad de hábitat y accidentes topográficos, lo cual es más marcado en la vertiente occidental”. La vertiente occidental del parque es la zona selvática chocoana, un área que “posibilita la conexión de hábitat para la permanencia de flujos y de poblaciones viables de mamíferos, aves y flora procedentes de las tierras bajas de selvas húmedas del Chocó y las selvas andinas de la cordillera occidental”. 

Trazado del parque en 2007. Las prolongaciones occidentales de este mapa son eliminadas en el nuevo trazado
(Tomado de: Plan de Manejo 2007-2011. Parque Nacional Natural Tatamá. Parques Nacionales Naturales de Colombia. Dirección Territorial Noroccidente. Antioquia. 2007).  

Sin embargo, a pesar de la relevancia de este parque, en la página oficial de Parques Nacionales Naturales de Colombia no aparece su mapa, como si sucede con otros parques. Al observar la cartografía básica publicada en el año 2010 -obtenida informalmente gracias a un técnico de la unidad-, se encuentra una notoria diferencia con el trazado que muchos ambientalistas habían conocido del Parque. La región occidental, que cubría en el departamento del Chocó aproximadamente 10 mil hectáreas de la zona occidental, en el límite entre Condoto y San José del Palmar, ya no hacen parte del mapa oficial.

Mapa del Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi de la zona vecina del parque con el nuevo trazado, febrero de 2011.
En la parte izquierda del mapa, entre los territorios colectivos de comunidades negras, los resguardos indígenas, y el nuevo plano del parque, queda un área de unas 10.000 hectáreas, que en este momento está siendo solicitada por grandes empresas mineras.

La última referencia al antiguo trazado del mapa se encuentra en el Plan de Manejo del Parque en el año 2007, elaborado por la Dirección Regional de Noroccidente de la Unidad de Parques con sede en Medellín, en el que se resalta el excelente estado de conservación del parque. Al año siguiente, en julio de 2008, Ingeominas recibió varias solicitudes mineras dentro del área del parque, en particular por parte de George Juilland que hace parte de un reconocido conglomerado de empresas mineras liderado por Gold Plata International Mining Corp -que a través de la filial Muriel Mining Corporation protagonizó un escándalo por realizar actividades mineras en el resguardo indígena Urada–Jijuamiandó en el Chocó sin el permiso de la comunidad.

En julio de 2010 se realizaron nuevas solicitudes en el área por parte de otras empresas, entre las cuales se encuentran Extracon S.A. y Platino Colombia S.A.

Mapa de Títulos y Solicitudes en las vecindades del Parque Nacional Natural Tatamá. Catastro Minero Colombiano. Ingeominas, Febrero 2011. Las áreas cubiertas con diagonales son solicitudes de títulos mineros, las áreas en verde son títulos mineros entregados a treinta años,  las áreas con puntos naranja son parques nacionales naturales.

Solicitudes mineras realizadas sobre el área recortada al parque

Número de Título	Solicitante	Area (ha)	Fecha
JG2-09351	George Juilland	1998	02/07/2008
LGT-09141	Extracon S.A.	2144	29/07/2010
LGT-08361	Extracon S.A.	3247	29/07/2010
JG1-16241	George Juilland	125+298	01/07/2008
JG1-16241	George Juilland	125+248	01/07/2008
LGT-09461	Extracon S.A.	2432	29/07/2010
LJQ-10431	Dayro Borga Moreno	162	26/10/2010
LLH-09221	Platino Colombia S.A.S	7870	17/12/2010

Fuente: Catastro Minero Colombiano, Ingeominas. 2011.

De acuerdo con el rastreo de información hecho hasta ahora, no se ha hecho pública ninguna razón que explique la nueva forma del parque, ni por parte del ministerio encargado, ni por parte de la Unidad Administrativa de Parques Nacionales, ni de ningún organismo del gobierno. 

Sin embargo, a partir de la comparación de los mapas disponibles, parece claro que entre 2007 y julio de 2008 hubo un recorte de aproximadamente 10.000 hectáreas del área del parque, precedido por una oleada de solicitudes mineras por parte de poderosas empresas del sector.

El caso de este parque deja una enorme inquietud sobre la institucionalidad que no ofrece totales garantías a los derechos constitucionales frente a los poderosos intereses del sector minero.

For Colombian journalist, the hardest choice

By Shabina S. Khatri (DCMF)

For 17 years, Irma Londono did her part to uncover the truth about drug trafficking in Colombia.

As a journalist, Londono disregarded comments that women did not belong in her field, endured challenges to her credibility from corrupt officials and even survived a kidnapping from guerilla rebels.But when threats against her life escalated, the award-winning journalist heeded her mother’s advice and fled to the United States as a political refugee, leaving her family, friends and career behind.
“I am very dangerous for the guerilla of the narcotráfico (the illegal drug trade) because (of the investigations) I make,” Londono recently told the Doha Centre for Media Freedom in a mix of Spanish and English.

Londono’s exile from her homeland began in 2000.
Since fleeing to America, she has done an impressive job of rebuilding her life. The 54-year-old, who lives near St. Petersburg, Florida, has learned English, established herself as a real estate agent and volunteers her time at a senior centre.
And though she hasn’t seen her parents in 11 years - they cannot get a visa to the U.S. because the government fears they may try to stay in the country illegally – she is not totally alone. The U.S. approved her son’s petition for asylum in 2002, and she has fallen in love with an Argentinean man and married him in Florida.
Still, she can’t help but miss parts of her old life.
“I have friends, I found a house, but the real estate (market) is no good,” Londono said. “I like to work in journalism, but it is difficult because there are no opportunities for work.”

Her story

Irma Londono was born in the Colombian capital of Bogotá in 1957. She dove into radio reporting in 1982, a year before she graduated from Colombia University.
During that time, the country was firmly entrenched in a war against drugs and the rising influence of drug lords like Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellín cartel.
The cartel used murder, intimidation and assassination to keep journalists and public officials from speaking out against them, according to a report from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

By 1985, Colombia had the highest murder rate in the world.
At the same time, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Arm, also known as FARC (and now Colombia’s largest insurgent group) was also picking up steam.  FARC financed its operations through kidnapping and ransom, extortion and taxing the narcotics trade. It also targeted anyone suspected of conspiring with the military and paramilitaries.
Despite the dangers, Londono was committed to covering the violent grist of what was happening in her country. One of her primary motivations was personal:
“When I was four years old, the grandparents of my mother (were) victim(s) of violence in Colombia… the guerilla killed the family of my mother,” she said.

As one of the first female journalists in Colombia to report on issues like corruption, paramilitaries and drug traffickers in the ’80s, she raised a lot of eyebrows and hackles while on the job.
“It was difficult,” she said. “Militaries in Colombia are strict - the military says no women in the helicopter – what if someone attacks the military? People die.”
Londono also did not shy away from denouncing corruption among politicians and Colombia’s armed forces, and she quickly made herself many enemies.

Kidnapped

In June 1989, three years into her job at a local television station, Londono made contact with members of the Popular Liberation Army, a communist guerilla group. The rebels said they wanted to make peace with the government and were willing to be interviewed about it. Londono flew to Cartagena, an urban city in northern Colombia, to meet the men, who picked her, her cameramen and three other journalists up in a red jeep to take them to their commander.  
“They tell us, it’s near, it’s near...  (but) we drive five hours, oh my God six hours,” Londono said. Finally, the group arrived at a small boat, which took them across a river. Then, the guerillas, who had driven them south until they reached the Andes Mountains, told them to start walking.
Which they did – for 16 days. “The boss of the guerillas was in the mountains and they said it was dangerous to travel to Cartagena, so the interview would be in the mountains,” Londono said.

It didn’t matter that the intrepid journalist had dressed for tropical weather, not the frigid mountains. When her dress tore, she was given a plastic tablecloth to wear. It didn’t matter if night fell. The group was forced to travel by moonlight, told they must keep moving for fear of an ambush, from either the Colombian army or a rival guerilla group.

Walk, walk

“For me it was the most terrible time in my life,” Londono said. “We drink water in the river. Every day it was rice, rice, rice. One day we found a turkey, but it was an elderly turkey.” Then for a while it was chewy turkey with rice. “For the first time in my life I sleep on the floor,” Londono said. Sometimes, she would sleep in a hammock tied between two trees.

As the only woman in the group, the guerillas pushing them onwards did show her minor courtesies, giving her a mule to ride on, asking if she needed to take bathroom breaks.
But as their trek continued into its third week and her cameraman grew ill and feverish, Londono made a decision.
“Day, day, walk walk, night, night, walk, walk,” Londono said. “I told them, ‘My camera man is sick, and I (won't) walk anymore, I (won't) walk anymore. We have no food, we are exhausted. I (won't) move... The army is near, you run, we('ll) stay here!’ ”

To Londono’s relief, the guerrillas, fearful that the Colombian Army was in pursuit and tired of being slowed down by the journalists, took her advice and fled, leaving the prisoners in a farmhouse. Sixteen days had passed since Londono first climbed into the PLA’s jeep. After the guerillas left, the group quickly sought help from a local countryman, paying him to take them by boat to a small town, where they took a bus back to Cartagena.

Londono then returned to Bogotá, filing a detailed report about her kidnapping. “My boss was very angry with me, but it wasn’t my fault – I thought the interview was in Cartagena,” she said.

Smothered dreams

But the kidnapping was not the biggest hardship Londono would face in 1989.

In August of that year, a couple of months after her mountain adventure, Londono investigated the assassination of Luis Carlos Galán - one of five presidential candidates killed by drug traffickers in the mid-to-late ’80s and early ’90s.

Londono did not expect the story to be her last report. But Gen. Miguel Maza Márquez, an intelligence agent who was implicated in the piece, lobbied to make sure of it. “That general has a lot of power – he said I told lies and closed the doors of my journalism (career),” Londono said. “For me, it killed me! It was my work.”
Blacklisted by almost every news organization in Colombia,

Londono finally found a job covering tourism and culture at a small radio station in Bogotá. She would have to wait 20 years for validation – in 2010, Colombia arrested Márquez for his role in a conspiracy to assassinate Galán.

“Twenty years after, many journalists say - you were right!” Londono said. “Oh sorry, sorry! You were right.”

Death threats

For the next 10 years, Londono’s radio reports focused on the silver linings in the decidedly dark clouds of news hanging over Colombia, a country torn apart by drugs. “I (would) never speak about the war - I (would) speak about the people, music, cultural things,” she said. “I visit(ed) the areas in Colombia where there’s war and I (would) speak about the beautiful things in that town.”

But behind the scenes, the journalist couldn’t help keeping up with the latest in narcotráfico news. “I knew many things about the corruption in Colombia,” she said, adding that she learned a lot about the country’s ongoing political problems when she traveled to work on her culture-themed stories. “I (would) meet with other journalists and speak (about it).”

Perhaps, Londono said, some people thought she knew too much. Even though she wasn’t reporting on drug trafficking and paramilitary issues, she certainly wasn’t being quiet about them, denouncing corruption publicly and serving as a source for other journalists.

Something she said must have fallen upon sinister ears in 1999, because the journalist began receiving death threats over the phone. The tires on her car were slashed and one day, two men rode up in a motorcycle asking for her. One of them sported a military uniform, but the apartment building’s security refused to let him enter.
“My mother (told) me, ‘probably you (will) die in Colombia from (those) people,’ ” Londono said.

It was as much as she could take. In November 1999, Londono applied for political asylum in the U.S. Her petition was accepted in April 2000, and she soon relocated to Miami, Florida.
But she ended up moving from there to St. Petersburg, also in Florida, because “in Miami, you don’t learn English.”

The journalist’s itch

Now, she spends her days working as a real estate agent, helping out with her husband’s painting business and keeping abreast of world events.
“Every day, I study, study, study,” Londono said. “I don’t know. in the future maybe I (can) teach journalists or work in media. I don’t know. But I read everything because I love journalism. It’s my profession.”

Though she misses her parents and said she still cries about leaving her native country, Londono has no plans to go back to Colombia.
“Right now I think Colombia is very dangerous for me and for journalism,” she said. “Now, I don’t have much hope for Colombia - I think it doesn’t change.”

#March26 - Photos - From the Tube to the March and until we left Hyde Park

Free to protest? I can still be arrested if my placard reads: 'Nick Clegg, oh dear'

Even Tony Blair's most illiberal measures have survived Clegg's promise to repeal all the laws that inhibit our freedomv George Monbiot

Guardian Monday 28 March 2011 21.00 BST

It could have been worse: at least the police didn't try to kettle half a million people. But as footage obtained by the Guardian from the great march on Saturday shows, the glorious tradition of impartial policing and respect for peaceful protest remain undimmed. The film shows senior police officers assuring members of UK Uncut who had peacefully occupied Fortnum & Mason that they would not be confused with the rioters outside, and would be allowed to go home if they left the store. They did so, and were penned, handcuffed, thrown into vans, dumped in police cells and, in some cases, left there for 24 hours.

Isn't all that supposed to have stopped? Haven't we entered a new era of freedom in which the government, as it has long promised, now defends "the hard-won liberties that we in Britain hold so dear"? No.

In May 2010, after becoming deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg pledged that the government would "repeal all of the intrusive and unnecessary laws that inhibit your freedom" and "remove limits on the rights to peaceful protest." The Queen's speech firmed up the commitment by promising "the restoration of rights to non-violent protest". So how did this grand vision become the limp rag of a bill now before parliament?


The Protection of Freedoms Bill, currently in committee, is a change for the better. It limits the period of detention without charge for terrorist suspects; reforms the measures that allow police to stop and search anyone they please; regulates CCTV and council snooping; and prevents the police from holding the DNA records of innocent people indefinitely.


All this is welcome, but it scarcely grazes the mountain of repressive legislation that has piled up since Margaret Thatcher was in power. It doesn't even acknowledge the intrusive and unnecessary laws in the 1986 Public Order Act, the 1992 Trade Union Act, the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, the 1997 Protection from Harassment Act, the 2003 Antisocial Behaviour Act, the 2004 Civil Contingencies Act and the 2005 Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. In fact the new bill contains not a single clause restoring rights to non-violent protest.

Here are just two of the dozens of repressive measures these acts contain, which have been used repeatedly to criminalise peaceful protest. Neither, as far as I can see, has ever been mentioned by Clegg, Cameron or their ministers.

When the Protection from Harassment Act was being debated, campaigners warned that a bill whose ostensible purpose was to protect women from stalkers was so loosely drafted that it could be used by the police however they wished. The warnings were ignored, and the first three people arrested under the act were not stalkers but peaceful protesters. The police used the law, among many such instances, against protesters outside the US intelligence base at Menwith Hill, who were deemed to have harassed American servicemen by holding up a placard reading "George W Bush? Oh dear!"; and against a protester in Hull, on the grounds that he had been "staring at a building". Notoriously, the act was used to obtain an injunction against villagers in Oxfordshire, protesting against a plan by RWE npower to turn their beautiful lake into a fly ash dump. If they went anywhere near the lake, they would be prosecuted for harassing the burly men guarding the site.

But even that did not go far enough for Tony Blair's illiberal government. Buried in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act was a clause redrafting the 1997 act specifically to catch protesters. Now if you seek "to persuade any person … not to do something that he is entitled or required to do" or "to do something that he is not under any obligation to do" you can be nicked for harassment. This, of course, is the purpose of most protest: to try to persuade people to change the way they act. Hundreds of peaceful demonstrators have now been stigmatised as stalkers.

Still more pernicious, because the penalties are so severe, are the measures contained in sections 145-149 of the same Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. These are aimed at animal rights protesters, which might be why you have heard so little about them. Because some have used violence, intimidation and arson, hardly anyone seems prepared to defend the far greater number who support the same causes peacefully. The act prohibits "interference with contractual relationships so as to harm animal research organisations". The definition of harm includes causing "loss or damage of any description".

If, for example, you were to send a newspaper article about how one of these businesses treats its animals to a client or a shareholder, you'd be in danger of prosecution under the act. This would be bad enough. But police and prosecutors have cast the net even wider and made the law even vaguer by prefacing it with "conspiracy to".

This was the charge on which a young man called Sean Kirtley was convicted in 2008. He had not intimidated or threatened anyone, or even interfered in a contractual relationship: he had merely updated a website with details about authorised and peaceful protests. Because some of the people who attended these protests used abusive language, and because this language was classified by the Crown Prosecution Service as an attempt to interfere in contractual relationships, Kirtley was alleged to have conspired in the commissioning of an offence. He was sentenced to four and a half years. He was acquitted on appeal, but not before he had served 16 months.

If the government was serious about repealing "all of the intrusive and unnecessary laws that inhibit our freedom", would it not have begun with measures like this? Instead it has published a bill that, it initially promised, would allow "members of the public to protest peacefully without fear of being criminalised", but makes not a single move towards this end.

I don't believe Clegg's claim, which seems to have gulled the usually sceptical Observer journalist Henry Porter, that this act is the beginning, not the end, of the coalition's reforms; and that, in Porter's words, "there may even be a great repeal act down the road that would look at some of the laws not addressed in this bill". Perhaps he is unaware that the original title of the current legislation was the freedom (great repeal) bill.

This legislation shows every sign of having been stopped and searched, fingerprinted and stripped of any content that might have rebalanced the relationship between people and power. Laws like those I have mentioned were introduced at the behest of lobbyists, to stifle peaceful public objections to the dangerous, cruel or destructive practices of corporations. Why should this government wish to repeal them?

Mis cometarios en Twitter – 16/17 marzo de 2011 sobre #EducaciónCol

El modelo universitario que busca el gobierno Colombiano es el que se aplica en Estados Unidos y se quiere aplicar en Inglaterra en este momento. La diferencia es que mientras EEUU/Inglaterra tienen grandes universidades que se pueden beneficiar del sector privado por sus dotaciones académicas ya existentes etc. en Colombia las universidades necesitan inversión nacional para que lleguen al nivel que les permita por lo menos mejorar la situación nacional de educación terciaria y también competir a nivel mundial.

En Inglaterra (Escocia, Gales e Irlanda del Norte operan diferentes sistemas en este momento) la educación fue subsidiada por el estado. Pero aun así, y hasta hace poco tiempo, el acceso universitario por parte de la población británica no superaba el 30% como máximo. En este momento el Reino Unido tiene uno de los más altos índices de acceso general a educación terciaria, pero el porcentaje de la populación con educación universitaria no llega a más del 40%. Sin embargo hasta el año 1997, el sistema educativo era universal y gratuitito y esto permitió que Gran Bretaña desarrollara el segundo sector universitario mas prestigioso del mundo. Y vale anotar que en el país donde nació la revolución industrial y el capitalismo solo existen, (hasta el momento) 3 universidades privadas.

Presentemente el gobierno Británico de coalición esta empujado a las universidades hacia el sector privado y esta forzando a los estudiantes a pagar mucho mas por su educación (de £6,000 a £9,000 por año - esto se refiere al costo de pensiones para estudiantes nacionales, el costo de pensiones es tres veces mayor para estudiantes extranjeros) Igual, el 26 de este mes estamos en marcha contra estos incrementos y otros cortes presupuestales.

Tampoco podemos olvidar las inequidades del sistema de EEUU  y el infame desperdicio de talento que ese sistema genera  En EEUU solo el 20- 24% llegan a una universidad y de este porcentaje menos del 5% son de la clase trabajadora Norteamérica – dadas las grandes inequidades sociales que existen en EEUU (en comparación a otros países desarrollados) ese no puede ser el modelo de una Colombia que ya contiene tantas inequidades y discriminación.

La ironía es que las mejores universidades del mundo se beneficiaron de filantropía y/o del gobierno - no se hicieron a punta de ayudas del sector privado. El sector privado solo llega cuando las cosas están hechas y el beneficio puede ser cuantificado a nivel industrial, científico, comercial, etc. o a nivel de pagos y otros servicios estudiantiles.  Por eso es tan importante construir un modelo que se informe y se beneficie de las experiencias externas, pero que fundamentalmente sea un modelo nacional que trate específicamente con los graves problemas de educación terciarias en el país. Si el modelo es copiado, es como si a un niño de cinco años le dieran el sastre de un hombre de 1.90 de estatura y esperáramos que le quedara bien y le sirviera; cuando es obvio que eso así, no funciona J

DERECHO A ACCESO DE LA JUSTICIA EN COLOMBIA

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DERECHO A ACCESO DE LA JUSTICIA EN COLOMBIA

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El DAS espió a la ONU

Fotos, correos electrónicos y órdenes de trabajo hacen parte de las evidencias en la Fiscalía

Agencia Prensa Rural / Sábado 5 de marzo de 2011

La Fiscalía adelanta investigaciones sobre los seguimientos ilegales que se habrían hecho desde el DAS a Naciones Unidas.

Fuentes cercanas a la investigación señalaron que en el proceso reposan hasta fotografías del ex comisionado de la ONU para los derechos humanos Michael Frauling.

Igualmente señalaron que hacen parte del proceso varios correos electrónicos de funcionarios del organismo internacional.

Como parte de las operaciones de seguimiento del DAS a organismos defensores de derechos humanos hay evidencias del ’caso Naciones Unidas’, que habría incluido seguimientos a funcionarios en eventos del organismo.

Naciones Unidas ya había manifestado su preocupación por los seguimientos ilegales a políticos de la oposición, magistrados y periodistas, entre otros.

Incluso, había exhortado al Gobierno colombiano a hacer reformas urgentes en su agencia de inteligencia (DAS) porque, dijo, "existe un peligro" derivado del "vacío de control democrático", por lo que el Estado colombiano debe "establecer mecanismos de control sobre el servicio de inteligencia".

La declaración se produjo a finales de febrero pasado, durante la presentación del informe anual sobre Colombia.En ella, el representante del Alto Comisionado de Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos, Christian Salazar, aseguró en Bogotá que se continuaron "recibiendo informaciones sobre interceptaciones de correos electrónicos, seguimientos, hostigamientos y amenazas, robos de información, alteración de páginas de Internet e ingresos ilegales a oficinas y domicilios de distintas organizaciones de la sociedad civil".

En el informe , la ONU concluye que la información que ha recibido le permite "confirmar la existencia de un patrón de escuchas, seguimientos y hostigamientos sistemáticos realizados por funcionarios del DAS (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad), bajo órdenes de sus superiores, a quienes informaban de los resultados".

Asimismo, advierte que el avance de las investigaciones parece indicar que los grupos de la central implicados, entre ellos el de Observación Nacional e Internacional (Goni), "fueron estructuras formalmente constituidas al interior de la institución".

"Estos hechos, como los denunciados en 2009, siguen en la impunidad", aclaró la ONU.

Salazar apuntó a que el Gobierno y demás instituciones colombianas, como la Procuraduría y el Congreso, deben "avanzar en un centro de control de datos y en establecer un mecanismo de depuración de archivos".

Además exhortó al Gobierno a que "las investigaciones avancen para condenar a los responsables del DAS por sus crímenes".

Feminism's global challenge: With one voice

This Tuesday, International Women's Day will focus our attention on the struggle that millions still face against injustice and discrimination. In an impassioned essay, Mariella Frostrup argues that the fight for women's rights is far from over.

 Mariella Frostrup The Observer Sunday 6 March 2011

 

 

Mariella with Darfuri refugees from camps in Chad. Some women are raped daily when they venture out to gather firewood to cook. Photograph: Jason Mccue for the Observer.

 

 

The business press must prove its economic literacy

The media reported the financial crisis and stimulus poorly. Now the story is deficit and cuts, is it equal to the task? Anya Schiffrin

 

FT, but no comment? The public needs a business press able to narrate the macroeconomic 'big picture' intelligibly, argues Anya Schiffrin. Screengrab: guardian.co.uk

The drama of Wisconsin and the fights down in DC about the state of government finances are a chance for US journalists to write about an economic story that affects everyone. It would be good to see more articles on the big picture questions of what sort of policies make sense, rather than just ones about the political processes of what sort of legislation will get passed.

A recent report in the Christian Science Monitor was a good example of the kind of drill-down coverage we need more of. By contrast, it's been disappointing to see the news pages (though not the opinion columns) of the New York Times report on the deficit as though there is no room for debate about whether cutting spending is even a good idea right now.

Business and economics journalism is not that different from other forms of journalism. Reporters and editors mostly cover events that have already happened, not write about what could happen. They also have a tendency to rely on official and business sources, rather than on person-on-the-street interviews. This is partly because most of the people who read business news are from the worlds of money and business. Historically (the first business news sheets date to the 16th century), they relied on the business press for information that will help their investments. Sadly, this means that press reports about business and economics are often not much help to the ordinary reader trying to understand these subjects.

In recent weeks, there have been a lot of stories about how normal people would be affected by the budget cuts, and the media have certainly voiced the argument that reducing government spending is a bad idea while unemployment is above 9%. But there is room for more reporting about the larger macroeconomic picture, so I hope the media will learn from their lacklustre coverage of the 2009 stimulus package.

A study I did at Columbia University last year with Ryan Fagan ("Are We All Keynesians Now? Press Coverage of the US Stimulus Package", forthcoming) looked at press coverage of the $787m American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. We analysed 718 articles about the stimulus in the months before and after it was passed. We looked at all the key mainstream US publications including the New York Times, Barron's, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, Time magazine and others. The coverage was not bad, but it was in no way innovative or forward-looking. Instead of discussing the likely effectiveness of the stimulus, for example, most of the articles before passage simply focused on whether or not it would pass.

"The concept of a Keynesian stimulus is not immediately intuitive. It would have been nice if there had been more in-depth explanations. As it was, there was more of 'what happened yesterday' than 'what are the long term implications?' but that's not unusual," said one national economic reporter, describing the press coverage.

Five months after the stimulus passed, the unemployment rate was still climbing. (It was 8.2% in February, 9.4% in July and 9.7% in August 2009, and today stands around 9.0%, depending on how it's counted.) That led to a spate of articles about whether or not the stimulus would work or had worked. These articles mostly said it wouldn't and mostly didn't mention the fact that the majority of the money had still not been spent. Instead, a number of the articles argued that since the stimulus had failed, the US government should not consider a second one.

Later, after the stimulus money was spent, there was some coverage about what it was used for and what difference it had made (especially Michael Grunwald's pieces in Time magazine), but there was certainly room for more detail about what the money was used for and why this kind of spending makes a difference.

This time around, journalists have the chance to write more economic stories about what is actually an economic story. Let's hope they do.

Pakistan has abdicated its responsibilities

Salmaan Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti's murders are a grim warning to those who dare to speak out against injustices

Shehrbano Taseer 

Wednesday 2 March 2011 21.57 

Pakistan has lost another brave heart. Two months after the Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, my father, was assassinated for speaking out against Pakistan's cruel blasphemy laws, Shahbaz Bhatti was shot dead by unknown assailants. Bhatti was one of Pakistan's progressives.

Under his guidance, the government introduced affirmative action for minorities – 5% of all federal employment – and designated 11 August a holiday to celebrate minorities. He banned the sale of properties belonging to minorities while law enforcement authorities took action against them. He launched a national campaign to promote inter-faith harmony through seminars, awareness groups and workshops and was initiating comparative religion classes into schools and universities.

Bhatti introduced a prayer room for non-Muslims in the prison system, and started a 24-hour crisis hotline to report acts of violence against minorities. He began a campaign to protect religious artefacts and sites that belong to minorities. This is the man we have lost.

The majority of Pakistani dignitaries fell silent after my father's murder, but Bhatti spoke out and condemned it. Many times. I will never forget that. He continued to support the revisions to the blasphemy law knowing he was up against a clerical tsunami. I salute his bravery. But the frontiers of free expression have shrunk drastically. In a country that calls itself a democracy, one wonders if there is space any more for dissent and debate.

Taseer and Bhatti's murders are a grim warning to those who dare to speak out against injustices.
Bhatti's killers left behind their pamphlets signed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Punjab , their warning "from the warriors of Islam to all the world's infidels, crusaders, Jews and their operatives within the Muslim brotherhood".

The document from the Punjabi Taliban continues: "In your fight against Allah, you have become so bold that you act in favour of and support those who insult the Prophet. And you put a cursed Christian infidel Shahbaz Bhatti in charge of [the blasphemy laws review] committee. This is the fate of that cursed man. And now, with the grace of Allah, the warriors of Islam will pick you out one by one and send you to hell, God willing."

The blasphemy laws were foisted on to Pakistan by the draconian General Zia ul-Haq in 1986. Since then, more than 500 Muslims, 340 Ahmadis, 119 Christians, 14 Hindus and 10 others have been charged under the laws.

Thirty-two of those accused – and two Muslim judges – have been mowed down by Islamist vigilantes. Since 4 January, the day my father was assassinated, there have been 16 known cases in which 23 people have been affected. Once a law is made in the name of religion, no one can touch it.
The state has abdicated its responsibilities. The majority of our dignitaries and government officials are spineless. There is no will to implement existing laws. Why were four armed men allowed to drive around the capital city? Why did they carry Kalashnikovs? Why are guns given out so easily? And why did these men feel justified taking the law into their own hands?

The state has failed to provide a viable alternative in terms of economic and educational opportunities to those who resort to extremism. The madrassa system – spewing venom and hatred left, right and centre – is not monitored and the extremists are freely raising another generation like them. Or worse.
Moreover, the state mollycoddles and divides them into "good Taliban" and "bad Taliban". The "good" ones are armed, funded, and taken care of. But now the knives are turning inwards.

If there is one thing made abundantly clear by Taseer and Bhatti's murders it is this: the chickens have come home to roost.

Páramo de Santurbán: Perjuicios de la inversión extranjera y la explotación transnacional minera en Colombia

Páramo de Santurbán: Perjuicios de la inversión extranjera y la explotación transnacional minera en Colombia

Federación de Estudiantes Universitarios

Domingo 27 de febrero de 2011

Los páramos son ecosistemas terrestres que se ubican por encima de los 2900 msnm con características propias de altiplanicies húmedas, de abundante vegetación y sitio de nacimiento de un significante número de vertientes hídricas.1 El PÁRAMO DE SANTURBÁN ubicado en los departamentos de Santander y Norte de Santander, es el punto de obtención de agua para suministro, uso y consumo de los habitantes en el área metropolitana de Bucaramanga y demás municipios de la región. Actualmente, la empresa multinacional canadiense Greystar Resource Ltda está solicitando al ministerio del ambiente (gobierno nacional) una licencia ambiental, para realizar procesos de exploración y explotación que conduzcan a la extracción de nuestros recursos minerales como oro y plata en este primordial páramo, llevando a cabo el ambicioso proyecto de explotación minera a cielo abierto.

A las empresas multinacionales que invierten en el país -la llamada inversión extranjera-, se les concede un sin número de exenciones y gabelas tributarias (esto es, maniobras para que paguen bajos impuestos, contario a la inmensa cantidad de impuestos que se le imponen al pueblo), creando un grave déficit fiscal en el país. Estos tributos que se le cobran a las transnacionales, llamadas regalías, son ingresos de la nación que van a la hacienda pública; si no fueran irrisorios servirían para invertir en educación, salud, servicios públicos, desarrollo social y solucionar varios problemas sociales. Además, estos no son los únicos problemas que crean la inversión extranjera y la explotación minera de los monopolios, se incluyen los devastadores e irreversibles daños de naturaleza ambiental, social, económica y cultural.

La comunidad de Tlalpujahua, un pueblo de estilo colonial a 160 kilómetros de la capital de México, bien puede ser símbolo de la grandeza ilusoria y los daños reales de la minería en este país. Entre 1905 y 1913 fue una de las mayores productoras de oro del mundo, y en 1959 fue liquidada por el gobierno por su escasa rentabilidad2; la explotación minera a cielo abierto produjo en este territorio grandísimos daños ambientales y sociales, un pueblo desolado y un territorio totalmente desértico.

Las empresas transnacionales no son propiedad pública ni del pueblo, no hay duda que hay un grupo de personas o persona propietario de estas empresas, con intereses personales y propios, que se caracterizan por la ambición y por acumular el mayor numero de utilidades; ellos no miden consecuencia a la hora de desarrollar un proyecto. A las transnacionales capitalistas les importa poco o nada, lo que le pueda pasar a las personas o comunidades que habitan en las inmediaciones del lugar de desarrollo del proyecto minero, lo que suceda en el territorio donde lleva a cabo sus operaciones, y tampoco que puedan contaminar un recurso vital como el agua; ellos vienen del norte, por lo tanto no les perjudicará a corto plazo el daño que produzcan en otro territorio.

Los recursos naturales son necesariamente esenciales para la vida y desarrollo de los seres humanos y la sociedad, si el gobierno concede la licencia minera, no llevaría a reflexionar sobre el verdadero carácter de este.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCXyI3mZeE&feature=player_embedded