Colombia Follow

"The Colombian city of Santiago de Cali ground to a halt. Traffic jams could be seen in every direction. Workers, the local communities and supporters filled the city's streets to rally in support of the occupation".

COLOMBIA WAS facing a bloodbath this week as peace talks in its long-running civil war teetered on the brink of collapse. A last minute deal extended the deadline until this weekend.

Colombia SOME 800 workers in Colombia were this week entering the third week of an occupation against privatisation. The workers in the city of Cali are protesting at the threat to privatise the Emcali public utilities corporation.

Protests are planned this weekend and on Monday in solidarity with the fight against Plan Colombia, the US-backed war in the South American country aimed at smashing resistance to neo-liberal economic policies.

AS BUSH ordered the first bombs to be dropped on Afghanistan, a US think tank declared the guerrilla movements in Colombia the greatest terrorist threat in the western hemisphere. The US government agrees and has showered military aid on the Colombian state. The $1.3 billion Plan Colombia package pretends to be about fighting drug trafficking.

SOME 30 people attended an excellent meeting of the Colombia Solidarity Campaign in London last Saturday. The focus of the campaign is opposition to the US-backed Plan Colombia, a military intervention in the South American country.

At the recent Globalise Resistance conference in London one of the packed workshops was about what is happening in the South American country of Colombia. The discussion was introduced by JONATHAN NEALE, author of a book on the US war in Vietnam. He spoke of how the Colombian and US governments were pushing their Plan Colombia. The plan involves billions of dollars and US military "aid" to Colombia.

A protest is planned outside the Colombian embassy in London on Friday 19 January over the Latin American country's government's support for the US Plan Colombia. The US is pouring huge military resources into the plan under the pretext of a "war on drugs". In reality the plan is a US attempt to impose its will on a country at the heart of a region where it fears social unrest is threatening its business and strategic interests.