Cluster bomb attack 10th anniversary, Colombia

bristol | globalisation | announcement Tuesday December 09, 2008 21:29 by gizzacroggy - Espacio Bristol-Colombi gizzacroggy at gmail dot com

This Saturday I am going to be at the 10th Anniversary commemoration for the cluster bomb bombardment that killed 18 people, including 7 children in the town of Santa Domingo, Arauca.

This Thursday people in Bristol are organising another protest against Raytheon.

Can we link this up?

We have emailed the human rights group in Saravena that worked on the legal case to find out who the manufactures where - if it was Raytheon. No response yet but tomorrow when I arrive in the region we plan to go visit them and I will find out.

Even if not raytheon's bombs, it is still a clear case of how fucked cluster bombs are, of how the war against guerillias/terrorists is an excuse to control and destory social resistance to oil multinationals.

It would be amazing for me to be able to share at the anniversary something about what people in Bristol are doing to shut down arms manufacturers. it would be especially amazing if there was a photo taken of the action on thursday with a message of support???!

Also is there anything I can do to strengthen the actions against Raytheon from here?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0316-09.htm

Excerpts from a report written by a US delegation to Arauca in 2007
http://vera.leone.googlepages.com/thetruecostofoil

"Arauca is a department in Colombia on the north-eastern border with Venezuela. It has been an important hub of social organizing since before the Colombian state established a presence there in the 1980’s. Oil was discovered there in the late 1970’s, and since that time there has been much violence associated with the various armed actors (Colombian military and paramilitaries, the FARC guerrillas, and the ELN guerrillas) supporting or resisting multinational corporate interests.

In 1975, Shell Oil arrived and discovered oil. After Shell, Oxy came, and since that time has had the greatest multinational company presence in the region. When oil companies came, they brought with them teams and experts, and did not employ local people. This was the first conflict between the multinational companies and the people, and things have only gotten worse. When oil was discovered, the state recognized that the area was of some interest. 1987 saw the first protest against oil exploration. At this time the Laguna di Lipa, or the Lipa Lake or Lagoon, was obliterated by oil exploration: dried up and completely polluted, threatening the indigenous people’s way of life, interdependent, as it is, on the health of the environment. The Sikwanee (also called the Guajibo by colonizers) indigenous people had lived there, and as a people, as a culture, they are now nearing extinction. In the 1990’s, the situation became worse, as Oxy was working hand in hand with the US government. The United States trained and funded troops in the brutal 18th Brigade of the Colombian Armed Forces to protect the oil interests."

"In order for corporate interests to prevail, the military and paramilitaries of Colombia must exert a violent repression of the strong social movement, specifically targeting the union organizers, indigenous communities, and social organizations that have had such success in weaving together a social tissue capable of surviving ongoing mass arrests, displacement, assassinations, persecution, disappearances, and massacres."

Lhs: Oxy kills, Rhs: Sowing, Building, Struggling Arauca Lives, Bottom: United the multinational monster

Map showing where Arauca is.