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Free Trade Is Harmful in Colombia
By Dr. Keith Jennings
Atlanta, Georgia. The Colombia “free trade” deal
currently being promoted by the Bush Administration
should be opposed by all those who seek justice and
those who want the United States to regain some of its
lost respect at the international level.
The human rights situation in Colombia (Latin Americas’
third largest country) is appalling and should be
clearly and unequivocally condemned by all members of
Congress, but especially the Congressional Black Caucus
given the abuses faced by the Afro-Columbians.
The free trade agreement, as proposed, is not about fair
trade and in effect would further exacerbate human
rights violations and environmental degradation in
Colombia. This agreement would continue the
marginalization and social exclusion of Afro-Colombians,
Indigenous Peoples and the poor. Furthermore, the
consequential exporting of manufacturing jobs from the
United States will continue to have a disproportionately
destructive and detrimental impact on black workers.
Why the Deal Should Be Opposed
During the Bush Administration’s two terms, Latin
America has largely been ignored, except for trade deals
and immigration bashing by right-wing intellectuals,
media pundits, and politicians. All of the agreements
pursued by the Bush Administration, from Chile to the
Dominican Republic, have exhibited several consistent
features. The agreements have all marginalized human
rights concerns while only paying lip service to the
strengthening of democratic institutions. None have
ever included any anti-racist provisions or equal
opportunity encouragements or demands to respect the
land rights of indigenous or African descendant
populations.
The official Washington rhetoric today is the same as it
was in 2006 when the last trade agreement with Colombia
was signed. That deal was supposed to be a
comprehensive trade agreement that would eliminate
tariffs and other barriers to goods and services, and
expand trade between the United States and Colombia.
That agreement was “to help foster economic development
in Colombia, and contribute to efforts to counter
narco-terrorism, which threatens democracy and regional
stability.”
In the period since that agreement was signed, Colombia
has been close to going to war with its neighbor
Venezuela. The internal peace process and the
democratic reforms process within the country have
significantly slowed. Additionally, efforts to address
so-called “narco-terrorism” and have only netted
additional U.S. military “advisors” being provided by
Washington to Bogotá. Plan Colombia has not stopped the
flow of drugs into the United States or Europe. The
spraying of toxic chemicals –“fumigation”- and violence
have pushed almost 2.5 million Colombians off the most
productive tracks of land.
The newly proposed free trade deal would be nothing more
than an economic extension of Plan Colombia which has
resulted in the second largest internally displaced
population in the world, following Darfur, and a state
at war with itself. These types of agreements only
benefit transnational corporations and the local elite.
Liberalized trade and more privatization of state owned
industries will only mean less public spending on
education, health care, social security and
electricity. It will also mean more spending by
citizens on basic necessities such as food, water,
housing, and transportation. The impact of such an
agreement in the United States will continue the “race
to the bottom” that pits workers in this country against
workers in other countries who do not enjoy union
protections, who make poverty wages and who face
slave-like working conditions.
Human Rights Violations in Colombia
In fact, according to Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch, human rights violations have not
disappeared over that period and are of such a dreadful
magnitude today that they cannot be relegated to a
secondary category or a practically meaningless side
agreement. The government of Colombia has systematically
committed and tolerated gross human rights abuses.
Torture and disappearances are commonplace for leaders
who stand up for social justice or stand in the way of
foreign investment.
Amnesty International believes that there has been a
phony demobilization of the expected 25,000
paramilitaries which may actually result in de facto
amnesties for horrific human rights violators.
Human Rights Watch also believes that Colombian
President Alvaro Uribe’s claims of demobilization are
unfounded. As evidence in support of its position,
Human Rights Watch points to an Organization of American
States report that identified 22 illegally armed groups
in which paramilitary are actively recruiting new troops
and are participating in drug trafficking, extortion,
selective killings and forced displacement of citizens.
Moreover, the continuation of the violence in Colombia
is mainly due to the government failure to bring the
perpetuators to justice and fully dismantle paramilitary
mafias that have deliberately targeted trade unionists
and others. In fact, Colombia is the country with the
worse violence against labor leaders, who are killed
almost everyday. Since Uribe took office over 400 labor
leaders have been killed and more than 1,300 received
death threats.
Indigenous communities are completely disrespected and
ignored. And the state has become a permanent war
machine. The latest United Nations human development
report shows 70% of the country’s wealth is concentrated
in the hands of the top 20% of the population while 64%
of its citizens are impoverished. In fact, the Colombian
Gini Index, an economic measure of inequality, is
virtually the same as that of Haiti, the hemisphere’s
poorest country.
Finally, it should be noted that President Uribe is
embroiled in a scandal involving high ranking officials
in his Administration and some 40 Congressmen over their
links to the paramilitaries.
The Situation of Afro-Colombians
Afro-Colombians constitute between 26% and 40% (the
exact percentage is disputed because of
self-identification options and the government’s desire
to decrease the size of the population) of Colombia’s 45
million people. That percentage of African descendant
peoples is the second highest in South America,
following the estimated 60% of Brazil’s population and
much higher than the 13% that African Americans
constitute in the United States’ population.
According to Piadad Cordoba Ruiz, former Afro Colombian
Senator, Colombia “continues to be a racist,
exclusionary and discriminating society.” Therefore it
should come as no surprise that Afro-Colombians live in
horrific conditions whether found on the Pacific or
Atlantic coast.
The Inter-American Development Bank has reported that
over 90% of the Afro-Colombian population lives on less
than 2 U.S. dollars a day. 74% have no access to health
care. Less than 30% of Afro-Colombian children attend
high school. Fewer ever attend college. And similar to
the situation of African Americans in the United States,
Colombian jails and prisons are overflowing with
Afro-Colombians. Even officials with the United States
Agency for International Development have recognized
that one in three of the displaced has been
Afro-Colombian and that “the displaced Afro-Colombian
and indigenous communities are truly one of the
hemisphere’s least recognized tragedies.”
Because of marginalization, exclusion, racial
discrimination, the location of the conflict/fighting
and targeted fumigation effort, Afro-Colombians have
been hardest hit by internal displacement. From 1995 to
2005, 62% of Afro-Colombians were forced to flee their
land. Whole communities such as San Jose de Buey, La
Vuelta, Curuchi, San Antonio de Buey, Auroduey, Chibuja
and Mansa have been displaced. Afro-Colombians in others
communities have lost their land to oil and mining
interests connected to the paramilitaries. More
recently, 265 Afro-Colombian young people were
massacred. The slaughter of those young people has never
been fully addressed by the Uribe government.
Why is this happening to Afro-Colombians? It is
occurring because they are vulnerable and the land that
they occupy is so valuable. Plans are afoot to construct
a new Panama Canal this time like last time through
Colombian territory. In addition, new oil deposits
remain to be exploited in the same Northwest region
where many of these small communities have existed for
years.
Democrats and Colombia
Recognizing that serious challenges to current U.S.
policy exists, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
recently traveled with a delegation of Democratic
lawmakers, who apparently needed to be convinced
first-hand of the so-called “progress” being made in
Colombia. Some have already shown where they stand and
obviously intend to use the trip to rationalize their
vote in support of the trade agreement. But let’s be
clear on what their vote will really mean. It will mean
more of the same: more deaths and misery; more
marginalization and social exclusion; and more
humiliation, exploitation, internal displacement and
migration.
Some of the democrats traveling with the Secretary
oppose House Resolution 618, which simply calls for the
United States Congress to recognize the plight of
Afro-Colombians. Why members of the Congressional Black
Caucus, who routinely support resolutions that recognize
the plight of Israeli civilians, would oppose such a
common sense resolution, is daunting?
At the same time it does suggest that some members must
be placing a greater value on their relationship to
corporate interests and prefer to remain insensitive to
the very visible human rights abuses, environmental
damage, health problems and displacement from land
historically occupied by Afro-Colombians before
Bolivar’s liberation wars, that’s now being fumigated
and poisoned by herbicides (supplied by some of the same
U.S. Corporations that make contributions to their
campaigns) that are sprayed from U.S. piloted planes.
Perhaps we should not expect more from the Democrats
than we do from the Republicans. If that is the case,
then the Democrats should discontinue their loud
rhetoric about reclaiming the “moral high ground” with
regard to the promotion of human rights in our foreign
policies or restoring respect for the United States
abroad.
Rewarding Uribe for What?
While Secretary Rice is lobbying for the free trade deal
on the basis of rewarding Uribe’s government for its
pursuit of pro-market neo-liberal reforms at a time when
many of its neighbors are instituting pro-poor statist
policies, millions of Colombia’s citizens are caught in
the crossfire in a low intensity war zone where state
supported right-wing militias, the Colombian military,
left-wing guerillas and drug warlords operate with
impunity.
The rewards for Uribe appear to be consistent with the
repugnant Bush policy of providing assistance to
“friendly” governments who support the U.S. government’s
incessant global war on terror, regardless of how
appalling their human rights record might be. Such
realist inspired policies overlook long-term U.S.
interests in the region, especially that of promoting
democracy, the rule of law and respect for human
rights.
Uribe is President Bush’s friend and ally -- they both
have a penchant for showing off their cowboy skills.
They also have something else in common -- an
extraordinary ability to remain oblivious to perplexing
human rights violations committed in the name of
national security. Hopefully, well intended Black
elected officials will not develop that skill while
accepting campaign contributions from corporate
lobbyist. Those who see “progress” need to look again,
this time with their eyes and not their hands.
Dr. Keith
Jennings is President of the African American Human
Rights Foundation and former Director of Citizen
Participation for the National Democratic Institute for
International Affairs. He can be reached at
rightsfoundation@yahoo.com .
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Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All
By Russell Simmons
Russell Simmons knows firsthand that
wealth is rooted in much more than the
stock
market. True wealth has more to do with
what's in your heart than what's in your
wallet. Using this knowledge, Simmons
became one of America's shrewdest
entrepreneurs, achieving a level of
success that most investors only dream
about. No matter how much material gain
he accumulated, he never stopped lending
a hand to those less fortunate. In
Super Rich, Simmons uses his rare
blend of spiritual savvy and
street-smart wisdom to offer a new
definition of wealth-and share timeless
principles for developing an unshakable
sense of self that can weather any
financial storm. As Simmons says, "Happy
can make you money, but money can't make
you happy." |
* * * * *
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
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The
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
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posted 29 January 2008
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