www.paxmundi.info - Weblog

Since assuming responsibility as head of the UNHCR in March this year, Christian Salazar has been charged with promoting and seeking to protect the rights of all Colombians.

In an interview with El Espectador, Salazar denounced serious problems such as the blocking of investigations into cases of extrajudicial killings in the prosecution, the growing threats against human rights defenders and judicial sector, the violence committed by groups and post-conflict, what more it reveals, assassinations duplication of leaders and members of indigenous people.

How has enforced disappearance changed in recent years in Colombia?

It (enforced disappearance) is fairly old, the UN recorded the first case in Colombia in 1973.

The office handles about three different phases. The first, in the 90s, when selective disappearances were committed against the opposition, NGOs and alleged guerrilla sympathizers. Many of these disappearances were committed by members of the security forces. The second was at the end of the decade and early this, when the paramilitaries were the main actors and the forced disappearance was combined with mass atrocity. In recent years, we are concerned that the missing are more and more young and live in marginal areas of the country. This practice has to do with the misnomer of “false positives”. Post demobilisation paramilitary groups also perform more and more disappearances. (more…)

El imperio y los robots - Fidel Castro

A short while ago I dealt with the United States’ plans to impose the absolute superiority of its air force as an instrument of domination on the rest of the world. I mentioned the project that by 2020 they would have more than a thousand latest generation bombers and F-22 and F-35 fighter planes in their fleet of 2500 military aircraft. In twenty more years, every single one of their war planes will be robot-operated. (more…)

One is hard pressed to find media accounts of what the Congolese people want or how they believe that the United States could best play a constructive role in ending the suffering in the Congo. Considering that the United States has played a significant historical role in the stifling of the democratic aspirations of the Congolese people, and the backing of the 1996 and 1998 invasions of the Congo by its allies, Rwanda and Uganda, which unleashed what the United Nations say is the deadliest conflict in the World since World War Two, it is important to hear directly from the Congolese people regarding US engagement in the Congo.

Below is a letter from elected officials in the South Kivu province (one of the two most affected provinces by the wars of aggression against the Congolese people) that captures the essence of what many Congolese have argued since the first invasion in 1996. The world community cannot say that there are no answers or that the problem is too complex to comprehensively address. The Congolese people have the answers and they have articulated them to the global community and world leaders. The question is, will Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama, and the world community listen and respond accordingly? Early indications are that they are not inclined to listen to the people as the US is deploying more military advisers to the Congo through its continent-wide discredited AFRICOM program as they did in February of this year. (more…)