Economics and Globalization
Interview with FARC Commander Raul Reyes
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a peasant-based guerrilla army with an estimated 18,000 fighters, has been waging war against the Colombian government for more than 40 years. In recent years, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and US President George W. Bush have both intensified their efforts to defeat the FARC as part of the so-called war on terror. However, despite receiving more than $4.5 billion in US aid over the past six years, the Colombian government has yet to achieve a military victory. In June, I travelled to a remote jungle camp to meet with FARC Commander Raúl Reyes. During a two hour interview, Reyes discussed the para-politics scandal, the revolutionary struggle, the dirty war, child soldiers, the FARC’s controversial use of home-made mortars and landmines, Plan Colombia, Plan Patriota, neoliberalism and the prospects for peace in Colombia. Read more»
Two Perspectives from the Colombian Left
In the context of the ongoing para-politics scandal in Colombia, which has undermined the legitimacy of the right-wing government, the left is rapidly emerging as the new political force in the country. Colombia’s largest leftist guerrilla insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has been waging a war against the State for more than 40 years. But for the first time since the 1980s, a left-of-center political party is gaining prominence on both the local and national level, illustrating that Colombia is not immune to the electoral shift to the left that is occurring throughout the region. The presence of both the armed left and an electoral left in Colombia has made the leftward shift in this South American country particularly intriguing. In June, I met with Senator Gustavo Petro of the Democratic Pole in his office in Bogotá to obtain his perspective on the para-politics scandal, the armed left, the dirty war, neoliberalism and the country’s prospects for peace. Six days after meeting with Petro, I interviewed FARC Commander Raúl Reyes in a remote jungle camp and asked him about the same issues. Petro and Reyes provide two perspectives from the Colombian left. Read more»
Slap on the Wrist for Corporate Sponsors of Terrorism
Less than two weeks after 9/11, President George W. Bush and Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill held a joint press conference to announce that the war on terror would not only target terrorist groups, but also those who fund terrorism. Bush declared, “If you do business with terrorists, if you support or sponsor them, you will not do business with the United States of America.” O’Neill followed Bush to the podium and announced, “We will succeed in starving the terrorists of funding and shutting down the institutions that support or facilitate terrorism.” And yet, despite these grandiose declarations, Cincinnati-based Chiquita Brands International evidently will not be shut down and will continue to do business in the United States despite pleading guilty last week to providing more than $1.7 million in funding over seven years to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a right-wing group on the US State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. Read more»
Union-Community Solidarity in Colombia: Sintracarbón Takes a Stand
Violence in Colombia has historically affected certain groups disproportionately. Labor unions suffer the highest rates of assassination and repression of any country in the world, while rural communities suffer poverty, massacres, and forced displacement at the hands of armed groups. Meanwhile, multinationals go about their operations in Colombia with complicity or direct involvement in human rights violations when it serves their interests. But when the most powerless and vulnerable people join forces, even the most influential business players in the global economy find themselves on the defensive. Read more»
Digging Up Canadian Dirt in Colombia
Up a flight of stairs, behind double-enforced bulletproof glass and a large, silent bodyguard sits the office of Francisco Ramírez, a mining-policy researcher and president of Sintraminercol, Colombia’s state mineworkers’ union. Mining policy really isn’t sexy stuff and researching it usually isn’t a dangerous occupation, but some of Mr. Ramírez’s conclusions can mean life or death, both literally and figuratively. “Once they tried to kill me right here in this office,” said the researcher, who has survived seven assassination attempts. Read more»
Drummond Generates Profits and Misery in Colombia
In early August 2006, while driving on the highway that links the northern Colombian cities of Bucaramanga and Santa Marta, a uniformed officer with a sidearm signaled for us to pull over to the side of the road. The officer was speaking into a walkie-talkie as he approached our vehicle and I noticed the words “private security” emblazoned on his uniform and a name badge hanging from his breast pocket identifying him as an employee of the Drummond Company. My Colombian driver and I had just passed the entrance to Alabama-based Drummond’s open-pit coalmine near the town of La Loma in the department of César. The guard said he had orders to detain us until the mine’s chief of security arrived on the scene. Ten minutes later, Drummond’s security chief pulled up with a truckload of Colombian soldiers to question us about our activities in the region. It was then that it hit me; we had just been detained and interrogated on a public Colombian highway by the private armed security force of a U.S. mining company. Read more»
Uribe’s New Economic Reforms Benefit Corporations, Not Colombians
The Uribe administration recently announced its intention to implement three reforms that will lead to millions of dollars in additional profits for multinational corporations while promising increased economic hardships for Colombia’s poor majority. In a devastating one-two-three punch, the Uribe government first announced that it intends to partially-privatize the state-owned oil company Ecopetrol and then declared its intentions to slash corporate income taxes while simultaneously increasing the Value Added Tax (VAT) on food basics such as rice, potatoes and chicken. Read more»