CONDEMN COLOMBIA’S STATE TERROR!
US Military and NATO, Get Out!
The Venezuela Peace and Solidarity Committee of Vancouver (VPSC) condemns the state violence against civilians demonstrating and organizing for their rights and just peace. Colombia has one of the worst human rights records and is highly militarized thanks to its alliance with the US. With nine US military bases, US backed paramilitary groups, and extreme policies and practices of state repression, Colombia is a threat to the region, especially Venezuela.
The VPSC supports the just causes of the people throughout the Americas. We support the ongoing national strikes in Colombia. We oppose militaristic and reactionary states such as Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala and Colombia. We oppose the criminal, anti-social and anti-democratic government of Colombia’s President Duque. It is an example of the most extreme regimes that uphold vast social inequality, neglect of services for the people, and the rejection of basic human, political and civil rights. Colombia systematically murders labour, indigenous, and social cause leaders. Nevertheless, the US and its allies including Canada defend Colombia as if it were a model society, while it is hostile to democratic, independent societies that work to solve the problems of the people, most notably Bolivarian Venezuela, as well as Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba.
A foreign military presence has evolved out of European colonial times into World War II and into the neo-colonial era, with the US having established a foothold in the 1940s and increased its presence ever since. Concerns about independence, democratization and socialization in Grenada, St. Vincent, Suriname, Jamaica, Cuba and Nicaragua drove its “security” practices while a doublespeak of cooperation for economic and social development was voiced in the Clinton period. Plan Colombia, a scheme to militarize the Colombia under the false pretense of fighting “the war on drugs,” was conceived and launched under Clinton’s administration. Coastal US and Central America, Caribbean Islands controlled by US and European states, and South American states languishing under Right-wing rule are overloaded with US and NATO military forces and regional military forces commanded by reactionary commands today. Another stage of US military expansion in this region began in 2010. There were 21 US military installations in the Caribbean by 1984, and that figure is now over 30. Forty are in Latin America as a whole, in addition to the bases on US territories. Besides the nine US military installations in Colombia, they are present in Ecuador and Chile, and there are four in Costa Rica, two in Panama, one in Cuba, four in the US territory of the Virgin Islands, one in French Guyana, one on Aruba and one on Curacao (Netherlands), one in El Salvador, one in Honduras, and one in the Dominican Republic. [Sources: Institute for Policy Studies, “US Military Bases in Latin America and the Caribbean,” Oct. 5, 2005 by Paul Lindsay. “Caribbean Security on the Eve of the 21st Century” by Ivelaw Griffith, McNair Paper of October 1996, Institute for National Defense Studies at the National Defense University in Washington DC.]
Launched in 1999, Plan Colombia pushed forward US-led militarization of Colombia and its surroundings in the name of fighting narco production and trafficking. This sham was a massive undertaking when US bases and military cooperation were developed, creating an ever-present threat of direct military invasion of Colombia, Venezuela and other countries. Drug production and trade is thriving. The political objective is obvious. Colombian revolutionary campaigns were gaining ground through the 90s. 1999 was the year that Hugo Chavez, representing the Bolivarian Revolution, was elected to power with overwhelming mass support in Venezuela. The masses defended his right to govern through the 2002 coup attempt, as they continue defend his political successor, Nicola Maduro.
US and its partners and allies regularly conduct military exercises off Central America and South America coastlines. Here is one example.
In 2015 the U.S. conducted 6 major regional military exercises in the Western Hemisphere. When our delegation was in Chile in October, the U.S. aircraft carrier George Washington, a mobile U.S. military base itself with dozens of aircraft, helicopters and landing craft, and four other U.S. warships were in Chilean waters practicing maneuvers as Chile hosted the annual UNITAS exercises. The navies of Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, New Zealand and Panama were also participating. [“US Military Bases in the Caribbean, Central and South America”, Presentation for the 4th International Seminar for Peace and Abolition of Foreign Military Bases By US Army Reserves (Retired) Colonel and former U.S. Diplomat Ann Wright, Guantanamo, Cuba, November 23-24, 2015]
Canada’s military participates in military training, technological development, arms trade and exercises in the Caribbean and Latin America. Its policies are closely aligned with those of the US. Its capitalist class has specific interests in supporting the free market and neoliberal policies and practices, and embracing imperialist strategies to defend those interests. The Royal Bank of Canada was founded under the name “Merchants’ Bank” in the West Indies in 1864.
Canada’s hypocrisy knows no boundaries; it uses terms like “human rights” and “democracy” falsely to achieve its own aims, such as opposing people’s just struggles for a better life in Colombia and Venezuela. It continues military support and aid and diplomatic friendship with the worst of worst, from the Philippines to Israel to Colombia, while it moans ad nauseam about human rights in Venezuela and other politically incompatible countries. It has even been hostile to Cuba lately, violating a friendship seen as almost sacred to many Canadians. It actually orchestrates cooperation among reactionary states to support anti-social and anti-democratic regimes and practices, most notably the notorious Lima Group which is a rogue, Right-wing substitute for the Organization of the American States lacking in any legal authority. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other politicians and the Canadian mainstream media produce constant lies to cover up the US and NATO sinister projects and aims in the Caribbean and Latin America. They weave tall tales and try to prop up Juan Guaidó as a phony representative of the Venezuelan people, which is quite laughable today, considering he is no longer in an elected position.
The peoples of the America share the common dream of social equality, truly democratic governance, just peace and social support. They want social emancipation and freedom from foreign domination and interference. They are justified in demonstrating these demands and organizing to realize this dream. VPSC supports these mass movements in Venezuela, Colombia and elsewhere.
We hail the brave efforts of the Colombian people to win political, economic and social achievements to solve their problems. We applaud their national strikes. We condemn the vicious, murderous Colombian regime and its amoral and anti-social backers, the US and Canada. As well, we wholeheartedly denounce the US and NATO militarization of the region, especially Canada’s role in it.
International solidarity! Down with the criminal Colombian regime and all reaction!
Long live the just cause of the people of Colombia and Venezuela! US, go home!
Statement of the Venezuela Peace and Solidarity Committee of Vancouver
JUST PEAce COMMITTEE 