Protesters confront Uribe in D.C.

Around 100 people protested the visit of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez to Washington on May 2.

This was Uribe’s 10th visit to the U.S. since he took office in 2002. His purpose this time was to guarantee that the Democrat-controlled Congress gives final approval to pending agreements: Plan Colombia and the Free Trade Agreement (FTA). However, the accords have been deadlocked due to the critical situation of human rights in Colombia and to the latest “parapolitical” scandal. Eight government officials there have been charged and imprisoned because of their links with deadly paramilitaries.

Democratic Party politicians seem to be using the FTA and Plan Colombia to manipulate public opinion on their behalf, portraying themselves as progressive human rights advocates.

Uribe came here to clean up his reputation of being a defender of paramilitary groups. Instead, he was surprised by chants of “asesino” (assassin) from a group of students, human rights activists, refugees and union members who were waiting outside the American Center for Progress, where Uribe was to attend a meeting with NGOs.

The protesters came in defense of the dignity and humanity of the people struggling in Colombia against a brutal genocide by paramilitary forces aligned with the state. Inside the center, activists and students got up in the middle of the conference room and chanted, “Colombia is not for sale.” They then unfurled a banner with the same slogan. Videos of the demonstration can be seen on YouTube.com by searching for “Uribe in Washington.”

During an exchange in the meeting held in the American Center for Progress, Uribe once more showed his irresponsibility by calling Gerardo Cajamarca, a Colombian unionist in exile in the U.S., “a terrorist without camouflage.” This labeling gives a clear signal to Colombian paramilitaries, who keep a “hit list.”

These paramilitaries terrorize entire Afro Colombian, Indigenous and peasant communities.

A Colombian activist described the death squads’ work: “Like the invention of a new kind of soccer game, in the small villages where these paramilitary groups arrive, they call out the residents and meet with them in the main plaza of the village. Once there, they call one of the families that reside in the area. Five or six human beings are taken to the center of the square and in front of the rest of the community, a paramilitary takes a little child with one hand and with the other holds a chainsaw. He uses it to cut the little child alive into little parts in front of his family and the rest of the community. Then the paramilitaries cut the rest of the family alive in parts and with the head of the husband, the paramilitaries play soccer in front of the community.

“When the game is over the paramilitaries shoot the peasants. This is called a massacre. This is not a description of the last Tarantino movie, ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre.’ This is reality. It has been sponsored by corporations like Chiquita Brands, Drummond, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Monsanto and the rest of the international and local corporations.”

Calima, the contributor of this article, is active in the movement of international solidarity with the Colombian people.