29 February 2012 — Boiling Frogs

A Step toward Greater Independence

Introduction: Between April 21-23, thousands of activists from most of the major urban and rural social movements and trade unions, human rights groups and indigenous, afro-Colombian movements will meet to unify forces and launch, what promises to be the most significant new political movement in recent history.

United by a common pledge to seek a political solution to over 60 years of armed social conflict, the meeting will decide on a strategy to defeat past and present narco- para political regimes, recuperate land and households for 4 million displaced peasants, Indians, farmers and afro-Colombians. Central to the mission of this gathering will be the recovery of national sovereignty, severely compromised by the presence of seven US military bases, the large-scale, long-term takeover by foreign multi-nationals of the country’s mineral and energy resources and the protection of indigenous and afro-Colombian communities from environmental depredation. The April meeting has been proceeded by mass gatherings, organized by popular councils, intent on breaking military, paramilitary and the landlords political machines’ control over the electorate.

There is good reason to believe that this political movement will succeed where others failed, in large part because of the width and breadth of the participants, the growing co-operation and unity in common struggles for land reform, participatory democracy, near universal opposition to US backed militarism and the neo-liberal free trade agreement.

International Perspectives: A Promising Context

Never has the international climate, especially in Latin America, been so favorable to the growth of Colombia’s popular democratic initiative and the eventual political success of this “movement of movements”…

Read the analysis here @ Boiling Frogs Post: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2012/02/29/columbias-quest-for-peace-justice-the-international-national-contexts/

Sibel Edmonds