Colombian Senator Honored for Anti-Corruption Probes
WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (OneWorld) - A Colombian senator pushing for justice and peace has been honored in the United States for his human rights activism, accepting a prestigious award alongside co-honorees from the United States challenging the war in Iraq and Washington, DC's "taxation without representation."
Senator Gustavo Petro, the recipient of this year's International Award, is waging an extremely complex and dangerous struggle to reverse the infiltration of Colombian society and politics by violent paramilitary groups. Petro has dedicated much of his time in the Colombian Congress to investigating "the influence of far-right narco-militaries and death squads on the justice system, Congress, the military, and the president's inner circle," said IPS, announcing the award last week. The real power of these Colombian "mafias," Petro said, lies within the state. The paramilitaries have "captured huge sectors of the citizenry and all three branches of government, which has bolstered their capacity to carry out crime in Colombia." The most prominent of the paramilitary groups, which operate as unofficial armies, are the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). Although both were originally engaged in armed struggle for land and social equality, their militias have committed crimes that, according to Petro, amount to "genocide" as they sought to establish control over strategic territories and expand the cultivation of narcotics. The Senator's efforts have uncovered numerous scandals involving more than a dozen Colombian legislators, governors, and top-ranking political and military figures. During his acceptance speech, Petro emphasized that interracial dialogue, fairer trade rules, and international involvement will be required for peace and justice to prevail in Colombia. Is it "only in a utopia that we may have dialogue among the diverse peoples of this hemisphere?" Petro asked, referring to Afro-descendents, Latinos, and Anglo-Saxons, before turning his attention to U.S.-Colombian economic and political relations. Petro stressed that "free trade" must be transformed into "fair trade," which he said "involves understanding the reality of agriculture in Colombia." Namely, narcotics traffickers -- whose profits fuel the paramilitaries' battles -- control the majority of arable land in Colombia and are the only ones that can stay afloat in the world of free competition. Finally, Petro called for an international peace conference for Colombia, saying that peace, unlike free trade and the so-called "war on drugs," "is not even on the agenda" of U.S.-Colombian relations. This year's awards mark the 31st anniversary of the assassination of two IPS colleagues -- Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier, an outspoken critic of the Chilean dictatorship, and American Ronnie Moffitt -- who were killed by a car bomb in Washington, DC in 1976 at the behest of the authoritarian Chilean General Augusto Pinochet. IPS has granted at least one domestic and one international human rights award in their honor every year since 1978.
The organization is composed of more than 2,000 active duty service members, war veterans, and military families and "has rapidly become the most influential force within the U.S. armed services to challenge the U.S. occupation of Iraq," according to IPS. Establishing a powerful connection between Appeal for Redress and the Special Recognition Award recipient, DC Vote, Henderson said it is "not partisan to demand the end to an unjust war....Civil rights are not partisan -- they're part of the American legacy." As such, DC Vote relentlessly campaigns under the banner "no taxation without representation" to ensure that the more than half a million DC residents enjoy full representation in the United States Congress.
Since its birth less than ten years ago, DC Vote has played an influential role in securing the passage of the DC House Voting Rights Act, the "most promising step towards political representation in decades," said IPS. In addition to the evening's honorees, speakers included IPS Director John Cavanagh; U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a stalwart opponent to the war in Iraq; and Eve Ensler, the acclaimed playwright who is best known for her piece The Vagina Monologues. ....................................................................................
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