Bogota (ICRC) – Violations of humanitarian law, including forced displacement, threats of violence, rape and damage to civilian objects, have increased in Colombia, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has found. In presenting its report today on its activities in Colombia in 2011, the ICRC seeks to remind all parties to the conflict of the importance of strictly respecting the rules of international humanitarian law.
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The French historian, Jules Michelet, when asked to give a brief lecture on English civilization, said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, England is an island." And with that, he walked off the podium.
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Police arrived at the Santa Isabel mine in Colón-Génova on February 21, 2012. The officers asked these local miners to attend a meeting to see if they could sort out their licensing request; However, when the roughly twenty-five miners arrived, they were read their rights and arrested. About a week later, a report ran on television stating that police had arrested a group of illegal miners in Colón-Génova who were making over 150 million pesos ($CAD 84,500) per month and using their earnings to fund the FARC and Los Rastrojos, a paramilitary group.
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Colombia’s Congress last night passed bills to implement a free-trade accord with the U.S., advancing the agreement ahead of President Barack Obama’s visit this weekend for the Summit of the Americas.
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Café Artère : 7000 du Parc (Métro Parc) Free admission Books available for $20 -- "An extraordinary exposé" - Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums "Timely, hard-hitting and well-researched." - Mike Edwards, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Demos "An important piece of scholarship." - Lamia Karim, Associate Professor, University of Oregon and author of Microfinance and Its Discontents: Women in Debt in Bangladesh "Sure to be controversial."
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Chiquita, the global banana producer, was ordered this week to face a federal court over their role in paying off right wing death squads in Colombia. Villagers allege that the death squads used “random and targeted violence in exchange for financial assistance and access to Chiquita’s private port for arms and drug smuggling,” according to a lawsuit filed on their behalf by EarthRights International and Cohen Milstein.
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We support the week of economic disruption.
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Amnesty's statement last week to the United Nations Human Rights Council couldn't be clearer. While the government of President Santos has made a number of important commitments to improving respect for human rights, "there have been few tangible improvements in the overall human rights situation".
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We who participated at the international meeting in Switzerland, express our fraternal greetings in support of all political prisoners in different jails of Colombia. We are informed about the hunger strike that you carry through at this moment demanding that the Colombian State recognizes you as political prisoners caused by the social and armed conflict that Colombia goes through. It is necessary to remember that the political prisoners are in their big majority students, workers, farmers and intellectuals, defenders of human rights or journalists.
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URGENT ACTION NEEDED BY COLOMBIAN AND U.S. GOVERNMENTS HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS DEMAND GUARANTEES FOR LIFE AND THE DEFENSE OF INDIGENOUS AND AFRO-DESCENDANT TERRITORIES OF NORTHERN CAUCA Human rights organizations demand that the Colombian and U.S. governments take immediate action to guarantee the right to life and territory of indigenous and Afro-descendant territories of Northern Cauca.
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