UK palm oil consumption fuels Colombia violence, says report

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian

UK palm oil consumption fuels Colombia violence, says report
Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
The Guardian, Monday May 12 2008

Britain's passion for chocolate, cakes and crisps is fuelling a violent campaign to force Colombian peasants off their land to make way for oil palm plantations, a report claims today.

British consumers have become the biggest export market for the controversial crop which is used in margarine and pastries as well as toothpaste, soap and detergents and cosmetics.

The surge in demand has sustained a ruthless landgrab by rightwing paramilitary groups in Colombia's rural areas, War on Want, a London-based advocacy group, says in its report.

"The UK, despite being one of the largest consumers of Colombia's palm oil products, remains unaware of the devastating impact of cultivation of this crop on the lives of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities."

The report details numerous land seizures in the south-west Pacific region where subsistence farmers have been expelled and in some cases killed by armed groups allegedly seeking to cash in on the palm oil bonanza.


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/12/colombia.food

[Judi Lynn]

1. Brought back by popular demand, for those who missed it: death squads coerced vote for Uribe.

COLOMBIA: "Mark Him on the Ballot - The One Wearing Glasses"
By Constanza Vieira

BOGOTA, May 8 (IPS) - "With Uribe, we thought: this is the guy who is going to change the country," the 41-year-old fisherwoman told IPS.
That is why her fishing and farming village of 800 people in the central Colombian region of Magdalena Medio decided overwhelmingly to vote for current President Álvaro Uribe in the 2002 presidential elections, when he first ran.

The woman agreed to talk to IPS on the condition that she be asked neither her name (we will call her "L.") nor the name of her village.
(snip)

When the rightwing president’s first four-year term came to an end in 2006, most of the villagers decided again to vote for him, reasoning that he just needed more time to reduce poverty.

The odd thing was that in both the 2002 and 2006 elections, despite the fact that the villagers had already decided to vote for Uribe, the far-right paramilitaries, who had committed a number of murders since 1998, when they appeared in the region that was previously dominated by the leftwing guerrillas, pressured the local residents to vote for Uribe anyway.

The paramilitaries did not kill people to pressure the rest to vote for Uribe, as they did in other communities, but merely used "threats," said L.
"If you don't vote for Uribe, you know what the consequences will be," the villagers were told ominously.

And on election day, they breathed down voters’ necks: "This is the candidate you’re going to vote for. You’re going to put your mark by this one. The one wearing glasses," they would say, pointing to Uribe’s photo on the ballot, L. recalled.

"One (of the paramilitaries) was on the precinct board, another one was standing next to the table, and another was a little way off, all of them watching to see if you voted for Uribe," she added, referring to the less than subtle way that the death squads commanded by drug traffickers and allies of the army ensured that L.’s village voted en masse for the current president in both elections.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42290

[Judi Lynn]

2. Colombian gov't infiltrated by 'paras'-witness

Colombian gov't infiltrated by 'paras'-witness
Fri Apr 18, 2008 9:16pm EDT


By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA, April 18 (Reuters) - Colombian government ministries and other state institutions are infiltrated by outlawed right-wing militias, a witness told judges in testimony on Friday that could further imperil a U.S. trade deal.

More than 60 members of Congress, most from President Alvaro Uribe's conservative coalition, are being investigated for possible links to drug-running paramilitaries who have terrorized Colombia for years in the name of combating left-wing rebels.

The probe's star witness, former intelligence official Rafael Garcia, now in jail for erasing the criminal histories of paramilitary leaders from a government database, told the Supreme Court the armed forces, government ministries and other institutions were also rife with "paras."

"Congress is not the only institution penetrated by the paramilitaries," he said while testifying against a senator caught in the scandal.

The allegation could increase resistance in Washington to a U.S.-Colombia free trade deal, blocked by House of Representatives Democrats concerned that Uribe is not doing enough to protect labor union members who are often targeted by the paramilitaries.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN18328388