Buried underneath last week’s hysterical news about the continuing, politically manufactured “debt ceiling crisis,” was an article from a non-U.S. press agency, the French Press Agency, entitled “US unveils sanctions against global organized crime,” It detailed how President Obama had signed an executive order imposing financial and other sanctions on a group of foreign criminal organizations ranging from Russia, Japan and Italy to Mexico.
The author is Diana Gomez, the daughter of Jaime Enrique Gomez Velasquez, a union leader and member of the political opposition who was disappeared and murdered in 2006. She is a member of the organization Sons and Daughters for Memory and Against Impunity (Hijos e Hijas por la Memoria y Contra la Impunidad). As has happened with many other families, Diana has never stopped seeking justice in the case of her father, in spite of having received threats on various occasions. Her personal testimony below shows the human cost of the routine use of assassination as a means to stifle opposition in Colombia and the lack of justice in political cases. These words of a grieving daughter, which can be multiplied by thousands, reveal that the human rights situation in Colombia is far from acceptable. The Americas Program thanks Diana for her courage in offering this testimony and her perseverance in seeking justice.
Nearly two thousand activists explored extractivism over three days in the city of Cuenca, Ecuador, at the Continental Conference for Water and Pachamama, debating the problems created by the extractive model and possible alternatives. The Conference Ethics Tribunal condemned militarization and the criminalization of protest, which are integral parts of the extractive model.
Two objectives guide the United States and transnational companies in Central America: geopolitical and military control and enormous profits from mining megaprojects. Militarism, drug-trafficking, and violence complete a picture in which the same ones always lose.
Last April 28, 2011, a Costa Rican court nullified a Presidential Decree issued by former President Oscar Arias that granted police chiefs of police the power to authorize and use weapons of war. The ruling represents a victory, but Costa Rica’s commitment to peace is being undermined from within.
Congress could vote any day now to strike a new blow against already-battered U.S. workers and the unemployed in the form of three Bush-era Free Trade Agreements. The Obama administration and corporate interests are urging their passage. Read why unions and human rights groups say no.
On Friday, June 23 a group of Central American migrants crossing Mexico by freight train en route to the United States were kidnapped at gunpoint in Medias Aguas, Veracruz. This is just the latest example of how U.S.-Mexico “security” policy has placed migrants at greater risk than ever.
