Monday, May 20, 2002

How many more murders before the world wakes up to the real Plan Colombia? Sean Smyth 12.5.2002 At 8.00 p.m. on the 12th April 2002 Hernan De Jes'us Ortiz Parra, vice president of the Caldas United Educators Union EDUCAL, a member of the National Human Rights team of the CUT and responsible for the permanent Human Rights Committee of Caldas CPHD and José Robeiro Pineda, ex-director of the electricity workers union Sintraelecol were assassinated. The trade union leaders were dining in a restaurant when several heavily armed men, who arrived in trucks, entered the restaurant and killed them. At 2.30 p.m. on the 14th April 2002, Tito Libio Herandez was standing at the main entrance of the University of Narion where he had worked for the last 28 years. Two masked men sped past on a high velocity motorbike and shot him repeatedly. He was rushed to the local hospital and was proclaimed dead at 5.02 p.m. The killers escaped into the obscurity of what in Colombia they call impunity. A better word may be immunity, an immunity which has meant that nobody has been prosecuted in 99% of the cases of over (3500) THREE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED trade unionists that have been murdered since 1986. Comments: 6:45:06 PM

Questions Gerry Adams could have asked the US Congress about the 'Andean Regional Initiative' Karen Lyden Cox May 4, 2002 Yellow rags - the daily news and websites presenting 'noteworthy' stories - are rife with prolix accounts of Gerry Adams' declination to attend the US House International Relations Committee hearing, sensationalist speculation on the alleged connection between the IRA and FARC, and fist-pounding rhetoric about the concomitant threat this poses for US national interests in Colombia. There are sinister murmurs on the wind, word of a bigger war in Latin America, one not so easily disguised. After more than fifty years of unrelenting misery for Colombians while a narrow slant on the news was delivered from a comfortable distance, corporate media bureaus are in a sudden rush to get close to the heat. "As recently as last year, major U.S. newspapers were loath to send their reporters to Colombia. Ironically, the U.S. news corps is moving in at a time when everyone in Colombia wants out." (Cotts) Comments: 6:59:59 AM

Vote for an Ireland of Equals Vote Sinn Féin As we go to print on Wednesday night, there is a palpable air of excitement and expectation. Sinn Féin election workers have been going at it hard for many months now and they all report a tremendously positive response. The results of a recent series of opinion polls appear to back up this optimism. Comments: 6:57:55 AM

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