Live Updates: FARC Party Affirms Goal of Peace in Colombia

teleSUR | August 29, 2019

Commanders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and now members of the political party Revolutionary Alternative Common Force (FARC), attend a news conference in Bogota, Colombia August 29, 2019 | Photo: Reuters

More than 90 percent of former combatants remain in the peace process, said FARC president Rodrigo Londoño.

 

Update: Colombia’s President, Ivan Duque condemned the actions of the minority faction of the FARC and asked Interpol to step in while putting a bounty on information on those who have decided to take up arms. Duque also accused, without offering any proof, the government of Venezuela of being supportive of this faction. No mention was made of the inability of the government to provide security to social activists and former members of FARC who have been murdered since the signing of the Peace Agreement. He further announced the creation of a security detail in charge of tracking down the rebels. Finally, he stated that “Our message is clear: those who have opted for the path of legality under the principles of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition will continue to have the commitment of the State”

Minority Faction of FARC Leadership Take Up Arms

teleSUR | August 29, 2019

Dissident FARC leaders announcing their split. | Photo: Twitter: @Paola_teleSUR

“More than 90% of former guerrillas remain committed to the peace process”.

In a blow to Colombia’s peace process, a minority of senior leaders of the FARC have announced that they are splitting from the main organization and will be taking up arms again. The FARC have officially condemned the split, defending the principles of the 2016 peace agreements.

Amazon Forest: 2 Landowners Arrested for Burning 5,000 Hectares

teleSUR | August 30, 2019

Truck transports wood extracted from the Amazon rainforest, Porto Velho, Brazil, August 29, 2019. | Photo: EFE

These Brazilian businessmen also kept modern slaves captive inside their property.

Brazilian police arrested on Thursday two owners of the Ouro Verde farm for burning 5,000 hectares of forest within the Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area, at the state of Para in the southern part of the Amazon region. Authorities also found workers who remained trapped in their farm in conditions similar to slavery.

What Are Our Tasks and Perspectives to Defend Venezuela?

 by Fire This Time!

People’s Dispatch | July 31, 2019

#HandsOffVenezuela march on Caracas, Venezuela on February 23. (Photos: V. Arun Kumar/ Peoples Dispatch)

“Today, 200 years later, we can say it: After having lost that independence that cost so much, Venezuela, in these last ten years…has recovered its independence…and this recovered independence is a door that we should keep open so that for the next years and decades we can recover all the needs of the people: Freedom, equality, happiness, living, life, a humane country, a full country.”

President Hugo Chavez said these words at a civic-military parade in Caracas, Venezuela on July 5, 2011, during the 200th anniversary of Venezuela’s Declaration of Independence from Spain. As Chavez explains, through the achievements of the Bolivarian revolutionary process, now, the people of Venezuela not only mark their independence from Spain but also their tremendous advances towards independence from US imperialism.

Foreign Intervention Still Alive: OAS Council Approves Human Rights Resolution on Venezuela (+Votes)

Orinoco Tribune | August 28, 2019

With 21 votes in favor, the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) approved on Wednesday a resolution on the situation of human rights in Venezuela.
The resolution calls for strengthening cooperation between the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner (UN) to “monitor the situation” in Venezuela. “It also requires that an “independent, thorough and credible” investigation be undertaken to prosecute those responsible for human rights violations in the country.
“The situation in Venezuela demands a criminal investigation,” said OAS Secretary General and active leader of anti-Chavismo, Luis Almagro, referring to the purpose of the resolution passed and based on the information published in the latest report by the High Commissioner of the United Nations Organization (UN) Michelle Bachellet

The American Gulag

by John W. Whitehead

Dissident Voice | August 29, 2019

The exile of prisoners to a distant place, where they can ‘pay their debt to society,’ make themselves useful, and not contaminate others with their ideas or their criminal acts, is a practice as old as civilization itself. The rulers of ancient Rome and Greece sent their dissidents off to distant colonies. Socrates chose death over the torment of exile from Athens. The poet Ovid was exiled to a fetid port on the Black Sea.”

— Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History, 2003

This is how freedom dies.

This is how you condition a populace to life as prisoners in a police state: by brainwashing them into believing they are free so that they will march in lockstep with the state and be incapable of recognizing the prison walls that surround them.

As the Amazon burns, wars loom, and climate change accelerates, the media continues its grand betrayal

Collated and annotated by Patrice Greanville

The Greanville Post | August 29, 2019

SNAPSHOPTS FROM THE MOST IMPORTANT BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS IN HISTORY. ONE THAT ORDINARY PEOPLE CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE. EITHER WE WIN, OR WE DIE. AND EVERYTHING ELSE LIVING DIES ALONG WITH US.

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BETRAYERS: The BBC
“Something Drastic Has To Happen” Roger Hallam | BBC HardTalk | Extinction Rebellion

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Here’s the BBC, world icon of establishment mass communications, represented byStephen Sackur, an overpaid stuffed shirt of a presstitute that reminds us of our Charlie Rose, imperturbably trying to punch holes and denigrate what XE’s Roger Hallam is trying to say. As a YT commenter eloquently says, “The media is not our friend.” While Hallam is quite clear that our way of life—read, ruthless capitalism and faux democracy—have to go if we are to stand a chance at turning things around, the BBC host tries his devious best to poo poo the idea of rapid changes, let alone changes that would involve a deep disruption “of the economy” and the West’s pioneered consumerist way of life (capitalism).—PG

US operation aggravates tensions over South China Sea disputes

by James Cogan

The US Navy conducted another “freedom of navigation” operation (FONOP) on August 28 to demonstrate Washington’s rejection of Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea. The provocation involved the guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer entering the 12-nautical mile “exclusion zone” around two Chinese-held islets in the Spratly Islands, Fiery Cross Reef and Mischief Reef. In doing so, it would most likely have passed in close proximity to other islands and reefs held by rival claimants, including Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.

Queen suspends parliament in UK: Uproar follows: “A British coup”

A Journal of People report

A man wearing a mask of Boris Johnson protests outside Downing Street in London, Britain August 28, 2019. | Photo: Reuters

The British Queen approved Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plea of suspending parliament from early September to October 14. Opponents have accused Johnson of leading a “very British coup”. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said, “Suspending Parliament is not acceptable, it is not on. What the prime minister is doing is a smash and grab on our democracy to force through a no deal.”

Corbyn has reportedly written to the Queen about Johnson’s request to suspend parliament and asked the monarch for a meeting on the issue.

Bolivia Bans Profiteering in Lands Affected by Amazon Fires

teleSUR | August 28, 2019

Evo Morales speaking to media after having helped frontline staff combat the fires in the Chiquitania. | Photo: Twitter: @telesurenglish

“I want to tell you that I have decided to declare an ‘ecological pause’, which means that in areas affected by the fires, land sales are prohibited”

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales has announced that the sale of land will be banned in regions affected by the Amazon fires, in order to stop ranchers and agro-capitalists from profiting off the fires once they recede, and so that those areas can be reforested rather than exploited. Morales also announced that fires in one forest area of Bolivia’s Amazon region have been entirely extinguished thanks to the work of the ‘Supertanker’.