Colombia: Images behind the Opportunities




Colombia: Images behind the
Opportunities

Ministers of the Colombian government and captains of
British industry are meeting in London, under the title 'Why
Colombia- Opportunities Behind the Image', at the Sheraton Park
Lane Hotel, Piccadilly, today.

The EAIDSR (1) have released a CD ROM, 'Images behind the
Opportunities', a detailed analysis of the impact of corporate
investment and economic reforms being enforced in Colombia. The
EAIDSR is opposed to this meeting.

As well as pickets outside the conference by various Latin
American Support groups, actions in central London today mark the
beginning of the UK part of a ongoing Europe wide campaign,
working with a broad range of Colombian grassroots social
movements who are struggling for social transformation from
below.

In a country of 38 million, over 800 people have been
massacred since January this year. Of the 2 million people who
have been forcibly displaced from their homes and land, over half
have been from the black communities(2) who mainly live along the
rivers of the Pacific coast region. Many of the Indigenous
peoples, such as the U'wa, are being hounded into oblivion,
especially in areas rich in biological and mineral resources.(3)

The oil, mining, electrical
and road building sectors are pushing people off the land,
resulting in an agrarian counter-reform. Legal and illegal
measures are used to expropriate peasant, Indigenous, and
Afrocolombian communities who live around the megaprojects and
near biological and genetic exploration areas in different
regions of the country. Colombia suffers the worst kind of
genocide: not only that people have been displaced by war, but
more importantly, this war is being made specifically to displace
people(4).

WHY INVEST IN COLOMBIA?

UK is the second largest investor in Colombia, after the
US. Due to Colombia's immense wealth in biological and mineral
resources, as well as the construction of a new interoceanic
canal, Colombia is having an increasingly central geostrategic
role in the global capitalist system. A key element in creating a
positive business environment is minimising labour costs and
controlling the workforce. In
1999 half the trade union leaders assassinated in the world were
Colombians. Wider socio-political conditions favouring
privatisation processes are assured by the consistent
extermination of political organisers. Since 1987, five
presidential candidates have been assassinated, as have 3500
opposition activists.(5) Investors in both agribusiness and
megaprojects have vast swathes of land at their disposal which
are free of their inhabitants who have been forcefully
displaced by paramilitary terror.(6)

THE GLOBAL CONTEXT:

These investment conditions are being guaranteed and
furthered by the international community. US led Plan Colombia is
a $1.3 billion military intervention package in the name of the
"war on drugs". This
has been described as "gasoline poured on a fire that can
ignite a huge war in South America."(7) There are
indications that this plan will be expanded to the entire Andean
region under the name of Plan Andina (8). In close
partnership, the EU has recently allocated over 300 million Euros
under the name of Friends of the Peace Process in Colombia(9).
Although the EU part has been reclassed as "social
investment", it has been rejected by large sections of
Colombian grassroots Indigenous, peasant and Afro-Colombian
movements, who view it simply as a continuation of existing
genocidal policies, under a new name.(10+11)

1 Euro Andean Initiative for the
Development of Sustainable Resistance

2 PCN (2000) The war in Colombia,
killing and displacement of the black population

 http://free.freespeech.org/agp/colombia/pcn.htm

3 http://www.ran.org/ran_campaigns/beyond_oil/oxy/index.html

4 Hector Mondragon (2000): USA
Fuelling the Fires in Colombia,  http://free.freespeech.org/agp/colombia/mondrag1.htm

5,6,7 Ibid

8 http://www.dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=8712&group=webcast

9  http://www.emcolbru.org/BIDfinal.doc

10 http://colombia.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=294

11Independent News from
Colombia  http://www.colombiareport.org/

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