The Washington Office on Latin America visited Chocó in March 2012. Alarmed by the severity of grave human rights situation in Chocó, we support the following statement issued by Diocese of Quibdó. We also encourage the U.S. government to promptly act in order to guarantee human rights and territorial rights for Chocó’s Afro-Colombian and indigenous peoples and to promote efforts that dismantle the military, political and economic operations of illegal armed groups in the Chocó.
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A thick fog flows over the eastern range of the Colombian Andes. Here and there, the constant wind lifts the clouds to reveal lagoons, cloud forests, and páramo, an Andean alpine ecosystem known as a “mountain-top sponge” for its massive water-holding capacity. Descending lower into the Upper Magdalena Valley, about 400 kilometers southwest from Bogotá, rural communities farm a wide variety of fruit and vegetable crops, and raise animals that not only sustain families, but help feed Colombia´s major cities.
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Six months after International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda announced CIDA would fund three controversial development partnerships between NGOs and Canadian mining companies, the federal government is laying the groundwork for more foreign aid to be delivered with the help of the mining industry. It’s a trend in international development that is raising new concerns.
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From January 15-18, 2012 a Colombia Support Network delegation of Canadian and U.S. citizens visited the town of Marmato in Caldas province in Colombia. The delegation responded to an invitation from the Comite Civico Pro-Defensa de Marmato (Civic Committee for the Defense of Marmato), an organization of small-scale (artisan) miners and their families formed to protect the town of Marmato from the threat of demolition by a Canadian multinational company, Gran Colombia Gold (GCG),which merged with Medoro Resources.
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A former AUC paramilitary member will testify before a U.S. court that Alabama-based coal giant Drummond Ltd. ordered his group to kill union organizers at its mine in Colombia, the victims' defense said Monday. The member, who uses the alias "Samirio," will testify Tuesday during a hearing in a northern Colombian courtroom, according to attorney Terry Collingsworth.
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It is with deep pain that we inform you of the death of comrade LUCIANO ENRIQUE ROMERO MOLINA, a leader of SINALTRANAL who was assassinated in the city of Valledupar, Cesar. Luciano was seen alive at approximately 9pm on 10 September, then on the morning of 11 September his dead body was found tied up, tortured and with 40 knife wounds. He was living under the PROTECTIVE MEASURES scheme of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission of the Organisation of American States.
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In the heart of the Americas lies a human refuge embraced by three mountain ranges, lulled by lush valleys, dense jungles, and bathed by two oceans. Springs and flowing rivers convert its lands into wonders of fertility, culminating to the south in Amazonia -- all of which makes Colombia an object greatly coveted. And from that avarice begins the people's martyrdom: from the cartography of the greed of a handful.
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Traspasa los Muros (Beyond the Walls), Lazos de Dignidad (Links of Dignity), The International Forum of Denmark, the International Network in Solidarity with the Political Prisoners, the National Lawyers Guild announce: We received news this afternoon a phone call from the Political Prisoner of Conscience LILIANY PATRICIA OBANDO VILLOTA, informing us that the Superior Court of the Judicial District of Bogotá--Criminal Chamber, resolved to REVOKE the order of first instance by which the 9th Circuit Specialized Judge of Bogotá had denied her liberty.
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Colombia’s President, Juan Manuel Santos, announced yesterday that the country will be issuing a new mining code to boost the industry and reinforce control of illegal mining, reports local newspaper El Universal. As a first measure, Colombia’s government has defined 313 strategic mineral areas totalling 2.9Mha and located in 15 departments, said Santos.
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Mining industry representatives and development NGOs respond with righteous indignation to ongoing criticisms of their CIDA-funded collaborations stating that these are "not about the money" but about "doing the right thing" for poor people in developing counties hosting Canadian mining companies (RE: "Mining and NGOs need more collaboration," and "Mining partnerships the right thing to do," Feb. 15).
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