Actualidad Colombiana IN ENGLISH

Bulletin No. 395 Index

November 10-24, 2004
Year XXV

Economics
Now What? The Re-Election of Bush and the Future of Plan Colombia and the FTAA

Peace and Conflict
The Demobilization and Its Shadows

Politics
Security for Whom?

Politics
We Rise Up in the Struggle of the Masses

Full Bulletin in Spanish (.html) and in English (.doc).

The Art of Budgeting

JAIRO BAUTISTA
ASSESSOR OF THE CONGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC

It is no surprise to anybody that the budget reflects the political priorities of particular interest groups in a society – that is the essence of the budget, at least in the self-appointed Western democracies, of which we are integrally a part. The problem arises when the budget reflects only the interests of the greatest economic and political powers of a society and excludes the rest in an act of tyranny and anti-democracy that would make even a dictator envious.

In Colombia lives a dictatorship of a new type: a fiscal dictatorship, and the recent 2005 budget approval is constituted as follows: it appears exaggerated in its amount in light of the realities of our economy, increases the dependency of the public debt and, additionally, dedicates a good part of its resources to the payment of the contracted debt and to military expenditures. It is obviously a budget that reveals the interests of the powerful: a national and external financial class that absorbs 35% of the public budget in onerous service to the debt, but that also benefits from the so-called social cost that they themselves intermediate; and a powerful political, industrial and cattle class that is obnubilada by the myopic idea that the problem of security and the institutions is FARC and that any resource that is used in that war will directly benefit it.

The One Hundred Twenty Days of La Mesa de Santafe de Ralito, Or the Parable of the Truck Racing Down a Hill Without Brakes

LUIS EDUARDO CELIS

The Installation

On July 1, in Santafe de Ralito, a Tierralta municipality in the Cordova district, a locale considered to be the cradle and the epicenter of the second 'generation' of paramilitarism, the table of dialogue between the government of President Uribe and the United Autodefenses of Colombia (AUC) was formally installed.

Prior to this discussion, two talks on the AUC concentration failed – the law project for Alternative Penal in August 2003 and the project of Truth and Reparation in May 2004. They oscillated between the submission to justice, that at times seemed to characterize the government's negotiating team, and an ample agenda of subjects proposed by AUC, emulating the guerrillas, subjects that would have to be arranged between the parties.

Security for Whom? Between Democratic Security and the Security for Women

BRÚJULA COMUNICACIONES
SONIA MESA

Using testimonies of Colombian women who live in the middle of the armed conflict and suffer different types of human rights violations, the working group "Women and Armed Conflict" presented, this past October 21, Report IV on the sociopolitical violence against women, youth and children in Colombia.

“They took a woman and they forced her to cook for them during two months, in exchange for the life of her son”
Testimony of an indigenous woman from Caquetá

The launching of this report is framed within the campaign "There is no right, nothing justifies violence against women". The report shows the diverse forms of violence perpetrated by paramilitaries, the army and the guerrillas against women, young people and children, in urban and rural zones throughout the country.

We Rise Up in the Struggle of the Masses

CARLOS RODRÍGUEZ DÍAZ
PRESIDENT OF LA CUT

The historical lessons we learned in 2003 have allowed us to reaffirm the civil and democratic character of our actions. It is good to reiterate that in the history of Colombian unionism, never have we seen social agitation as we did last year.

The 21 national mobilizations confronting government policy, the 6,500 conferences, 700 television programs, 1,600 radio programs and 24 million leaflets distributed show, unquestionably, the high degree of authority in the struggle.

This year, not counting the union protests, we have organized nine extraordinary mobilizations that give account of the union political consequences and that capacity for struggle of the Central Union of Workers (CUT), of the credibility of the union's direction, and the unquestionable political initiative, which extends beyond the nation and exemplifies Latin America.