Colombia
The conditions of Buenaventura’s longshore workers, and the harsh reprisals against them for trying to form unions, dramatically illustrate the failure of Colombia’s Labor Action Plan.
Things are getting worse and worse,” Enrique Muñoz, a 67-year-old farmer from the municipality of Cajamarca in the central Colombian department of Tolima, once known as the country’s breadbasket, said sadly.
This is the third time the Conservative government has attempted to produce an impact assessment of its 2011 FTA with Colombia, as required by law, and each time the final report has been completely inadequate.
On Monday, representatives of indigenous communities, Afro-Colombians, and campesinos held demonstrations in Plaza Bolívar, Bogotá, to demand a new agriculture policy seeking solutions to the problem of land access and greater protection from free trade agreements.
The Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica has approved the country’s Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, a prerequisite for Costa Rica to gain admittance into the Pacific Alliance group, composed of Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile.
A promised increase in exports to the United States as a result of a free trade agreement has failed to materialize as exports contracted 15.5%, according to Colombia’s statistics agency.
The very same policies which undermined the livelihoods of the approximately 2 million small farmers in Mexico who were displaced as a consequence are devastating the Colombian country side now.
The two countries agreed to launch FTA talks in September 2012 and held their first round of negotiations in Tokyo last December and the second session in Colombia’s Cali in May.
Panama has signed a free trade agreement with Colombia, making a step forward to join the Pacific Alliance.
Colombian Trade, Tourism and Industry Minister Sergio Diaz-Granados said Monday his country has signed a free trade agreement with Israel that will take effect next year.
he Labor Action Plan was supposed to protect workers, but many leaders see "blatant disregard" for labor protections in Colombia.
The struggle has made several gains for farmers and the left, writes Steven Mather from Putamayo.
The failure of free-trade agreements has repeatedly highlighted the need for more humane, intelligent agricultural interventions
In Colombia after 21 days of a nationwide strike by thousands of farmers, blocking more than 40 roads nationwide, protesting farmers forced the Colombian government to negotiate the rejection of a farm bill and the release of detained protesters. Report from Real News Network.
The Colombian anarchist Grupo Libertario Vía Libre wrote and published the following article in late August, in Spanish. Now translated to English.
Radio interview with Julia Duranti, with Witness for Peace. The group works in some of the hardest-hit regions for farmers in Colombia.
The wave of strikes and demonstrations is not only the most significant social movement in decades in Colombia. It is currently the most broadly based challenge to the global neo-liberal project.
On 19 August, Colombian farmers’ organisations initiated a massive nationwide strike against the government’s policies. Seeds emerged as one highly visible issue.
The source of this uprising lies in policies not up for discussion in the country’s current peace talks: the impact of the US-Colombia FTA – implemented in May 2012 – and policies that have similarly afflicted Colombian campesinos (small-scale farmers).
A strike declared nearly two weeks ago in Colombia by farmers and joined later by truck drivers, health workers, miners and students spread to include protests in the cities before mushrooming into a general strike Thursday, demanding changes in the government’s economic policies.
