In a recent report from the Polo Democrático Alternativo (PDA), Colombia’s left-leaning opposition party says some 50 political activists have been killed in Colombia since Juan Manuel Santos took office last August. As EFE reports, PDA party chief Clara Lopez says the cases are “verifiable” and represent a broader “extermination plan against social sectors and vulnerable populations” which has continued under the watch of the new Santos government.
In a separate report, Colombia’s CUT labor federation added Tuesday that at least 16 teachers have been murdered so far in 2010. Three more, the labor union says, have disappeared while some 20 teachers have been displaced from their homes because of violence. The most recent killing of a Colombian teacher occurred last weekend when Ligia Gonzalez was shot to death in the southwestern town of Tulua. According to EFE, a 30-year veteran of the teaching profession and a union member, Gonzalez was murdered by two unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle.
The Colombian government’s forensics department said this week that it has identified 18 new cases of suspected sexual abuse of minors by the Colombian soldiers and police. The investigations come after the recent murder of three children in the department of Arauca, allegedly at the hands of security forces. On those murders, Adam Isacson at Just the Facts comments, saying the handling of the heinous military abuses does seem to represent an important shift in how the military is responding to abuse claims. Isacson:
“Too often in the past, the Colombian military – often joined by civilian presidents and defense ministers – has responded to abuse allegations by circling the wagons, mounting campaigns to shield both the accused and their institution. Officers have covered up crimes, political leaders have publicly attacked the accusers, and both have blocked efforts to investigate abuses… Not so this time. The Colombian defense establishment’s reaction to the Arauca murders has – so far, at least – been proactive and transparent: a by-the-book model of ‘what to do after an abuse takes place.’”
And finally, from EFE, new revelations by an ex DAS intelligence chief that various ministers and advisers to President Alvaro Uribe –among them the foreign minister, the interior minister, and the Vice President— had direct knowledge of illegal agency surveillance on political opponents of the president, as well as numerous journalists.
To other stories:
· In Mexico, the AP reports on a letter allegedly released by La Familia Michoacana cartel on Tuesday in which the drug gang offered to dissolve itself if the government guaranteed the protection of citizens in the state of Michoacan. The letter:
“We have decided to retreat and return to our daily productive activities if the federal and local authorities ... promise to take control of the state with force and decision. If the government accepts this public commitment and lives up to it, La Familia Michoacana will dissolve.”
Investigators are currently attempting to verify the authenticity of the note – the first ever of its kind –and perhaps an indication that the syndicate has hit hard financial times. “This is a way to negotiate out of a business they're stuck in, with no greater cost to them,” says Jorge Chabat an expert on drug trafficking at Mexico’s CIDE. No matter, the government said Wednesday it has no plans to “negotiate.” The letter was dropped on the streets of various Michoacan towns on Tuesday.
· In other news on drug-related violence in Mexico, a report on what appears to be a complete takeover of the Tamaulipas town of Ciudad Mier by Los Zetas. Some 300 people evacuated the town this week, moving across the border to Miguel Aléman, after Zetas members went through the streets after a Friday murder, threatening to kill off all the town’s residents. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission is urging an investigation into the murder of journalist Carlos Guajardo, who was killed during the large-scale anti-drug operation against the Gulf Cartel in Matamoros over the weekend. And from Human Rights Watch, a new letter to the Mexican Senate and House of Deputies outlining the rights groups serious concerns with the “scope” of proposed legislative reforms to the country’s Military Code of Justice, proposed by President Felipe Calderon late last month. HRW Americas Director José Miguel Vivanco:
“The proposal would subject three types of human rights violations-enforced disappearance, rape, and torture-to civilian jurisdiction, while other serious violations would continue to be investigated and prosecuted within the military justice system. While the transfer of any cases of human rights violations from the military to civilian jurisdiction represents a step in the right direction, the proposed reform will still leave a significant gap in accountability for most abuses committed by members of the military, and should be amended by Congress.”
· An international forum on migration ends today in the Mexican city of Puerto Vallarta. The AFP has more on the UN-sponsored event which has brought together delegates from some 125 countries. In a statement sent to the event, UN Sec. General Ban-Ki Moon said international groups must work to promote “secure migration.” For his part, Felipe Calderon, through whose country some 500,000 are believed to pass each year, has said the issue must be addressed under the framework of “shared responsibility.”
· The New York Times’ “Climate Wire” previews upcoming climate change talks in Cancun, profiling Venezuela’s climate negotiator Claudia Salerno. Venezuela and the ALBA bloc, the Times says, worked to successfully block the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from adopting the Copenhagen Accord last year, protesting the closed-door, exclusionary “method” by which the accord was produced. Also, more on the upcoming Cancun talks from Laura Carlsen of the Americas Program, at Foreign Policy in Focus.
· On a different Venezuela matter, OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza tells the Miami Herald’s Andres Oppenheimer that he strongly rejects statements made by Venezuelan major general Henry Rangel Silva this week, which suggested the military would not accept the election of an opposition government in 2012. More from Adam Isacson at Just the Facts who says that in a region where military incursion upon civilian institutions remains a threat, the major general’s words demand “universal condemnation.”
· Finally, opinions and essays. Alex Main of the Center for Economic and Policy Research analyzes the right turn on the incoming House Foreign Affairs Committee, breaking down the records of chairwoman-elect Ilean Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and incoming Western Hemisphere subcommittee chairman, Connie Mack (R-FL). Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) posts part of a recent speech on US-Latin American relations, at the Huffington Post. The AP’s Jonathan Katz has a powerful, if not disturbing, narrative piece on the emergence of cholera in Port-au-Prince this week. And, at the New Republic, writer David Rieff also comments on Haiti, with a stinging critique of the human rights movement and the failures of humanitarianism, more generally.
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