This bulletin consists of an electronic version (below), but also a PDF version that we invite you to print and distribute in your workplace. We also encourage you to invite your colleagues and allies to subscribe to this email list. This allow you to receive both our bulletin on a regular basis ,and “urgent action” appeals that PASC uses to solicit endorsements to communicate officially with the Canadian embassy in Colombia when human rights violations occur that are attributable to the actions of Canadian companies.
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The principal concern about the environment surrounding the peace process in general and this stage of negotiations with the guerrillas in particular, is the violent criminalization, persecution, repression and extermination targeting activists and defenders of human rights which has, paradoxically, intensified over the past two years.
Eco Oro has stated its intention to sue Colombia under the investment chapter of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement over measures that the Andean state has taken to protect the Santurbán páramo and páramos around the country from harmful activities such as large-scale mining.
Faced with a dead-letter agreement and the government’s neglect to address the demands of the Colombian people, we, the members of the social movement, the union centrals, the trucking sector, the taxi sector, and other citizen initiatives, are concerned about the economic, political, and social situation and have sent this letter to President Juan Manuel Santos, expressing the demands central to the national general strike whose first edition took place on March 17.
Actually, it is more than half of the Colombian territory that is destined to hydrocarbon exploitation and as such, the Sumapaz province is not exempt from this threat. Actually, there are three petroleum exploration projects occurring in the region, out of which two are conducted by Canadian companies: Alange Energy Corp., affiliated to Pacific Rubiales Energy, and Camacol Energy S.A. Colombia
One of the goals of this project was to organize discussions between people