* * * FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE * * *
Attention: Assignment Editor
Contact: Sara Flounders, Brian Becker
(212) 633-6646
Three U.S. activists killed in Colombia: "THEIR DEATHS MUST NOT SERVE THE PENTAGON'S WAR PLANS"
The International Action Center mourns the loss of Native American
activist Ingrid Washinawatok and her colleagues Terence Freitas and
Lahe'ena'e Gay. Ingrid Washinawatok worked closely with the IAC on
international campaigns through the years, including the War Crimes
Tribunal investigating the U.S. war against Iraq. She was well known
for her work in defense of the rights of indigenous peoples in the U.S
and throughout Latin America, and for working with joy and
determination.
The three have joined the estimated 40,000 Colombians killed in the
last decade_the vast majority at the hands of right-wing death squads
and the Colombian military.
Although it is not known at this time who killed Ingrid Washinawatok,
Terance Freitas and Lahe'ena'e Gay, the killings have all the marks of
the government-linked death squads. But the U.S. State Department has
tried to link the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia-People's Army
(FARC-EP) with their deaths.
Concerning these allegations, Sara Flounders, a Co-cordinator of the
International Action Center stated, "We mourn the death of these three
courageous activists who dedicated their lives to the progressive
movement. But their deaths must not serve the cause of war in any
way."
Flounders explained that the killings occurred in a zone rife with
right-wing paramilitary activity. "Even the major corporate press like
the New York Times has noted that the FARC-EP has nothing to gain by
the deaths nor does it seem consistent with their past operations.
"It is the Pentagon and the death squads that benefit from the death
of the three U.S. activists," Flounders noted. "We cannot let this
tragedy allow the Colombian government to break off talks with the
insurgency, or allow the U.S. government to increase its intervention
in Colombia."
"The FARC-EP has won the respect of millions of Colombians with their
struggle for peace with social justice in Colombia," Gloria La Riva
the West Coast Co-ordinator of the IAC noted. "The dialogue that
opened between the FARC-EP and the Colombian government in January
showed that the guerrillas are a legitimate force in the struggle for
peace in Colombia.
"Washinawatok and her colleagues were investigating the situation of
the U'wa indigenous people in Colombia. The U'was have waged a
tremendous legal and political battle against Los Angeles-based
Occidental Petroleum, which has tried to exploit U'wa land. Oil
companies in Colombia often fund private armies to battle against the
people's movement there_armies which are intimately connected to the
paramilitary death squads and U.S. military funding."
Following a series of political and military victories by the FARC-EP
and the National Liberation Army, the U.S. government intervention in
Colombia has grown tremendously. U.S. Military aid has tripled in the
last year alone, to nearly $300 million. U.S. Special Forces are
training the Colombian army in counterinsurgency tactics. Human rights
groups have documented Pentagon and CIA support for the death squads
in Colombia.
"We are confident that the FARC-EP will carry out a responsible
investigation of the claims," La Riva said. "Until that time, we need
to remember that the U.S. government and their Colombian proxies have
the blood of tens of thousands of Colombian trade unionists,
indigenous people and other progressives on their hands. We also call
for a full investigation of Occidental Petroleum and the U.S. military
and CIA to determine any links between them, the death squads, and the
killers of Washinawatok, Freitas and Gay."
"The hoopla about 'Earth Day', like the pious rhetoric of
fast-talking solar contractors and patent-hungry
'ecological' inventors, conceal the all-important fact
that solar energy, wind power, organic agriculture,
holistic health, and 'voluntary simplicity' will alter
very little in our grotesque imbalance with nature if
they leave the patriarchal family, the multinational
corporation, the bureaucratic and centralized political
structure, and the property system untouched."
Murray Bookchin
"The life of the individual only has meaning in so far as
it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler
and more beautiful."
Albert Einstein
""We're afraid of intimacy, of wildness, of love; afraid
of the very things we desire, because if we acknowledged
them we would have to acknowledge the possibility of
losing them. If we fail in this century, it won't be
because of arrogance, it'll be because of fear."
Terry Tempest Williams
""Man, that 'fickle, erratic, dangerous creature' whose
'restless mind would try all paths, all horrors, all
betrayals... believe all things and believe nothing...
kill for shadowy ideas more ferociously than other
creatures kill for food, then, in a generation or less,
forget what bloody dream had so obsessed him.'"
- Loren Eiseley, MAN: THE LETHAL FACTOR
