Chicago, IL - 15,000 Chinese and other supporters of the Beijing Olympics rallied in New York, May 4. 300 also gathered in Chicago, one week after 500 rallied here. The organizers called these events with the same purpose: To condemn the lies about China being spread by the U.S. media.

Columbus, GA - 25,000 protesters arrived at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia to participate in the 2007 SOA Watch vigil to close the School of the Americas, Nov. 16 -18. The SOA, which trains military personal from Latin America in subjects like counter-insurgency recently changed names. It is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, but name changes can not take away the bloody history of this tool of U.S. imperialism and oppression. SOA graduates have been implicated in killings, torture and massacres.

President Bush embarked on a Latin American tour March 8-14 that included stops in Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. The tour was billed in the mainstream media as an opportunity to ‘bolster relations with our neighbors to the south’ and to ‘remind Latin Americans that Bush hasn’t forgotten about them,’ but people who know better recognized Bush’s true motives: to strengthen free trade agreements that maximize corporate profits through the exploitation of resources and workers and to minimize the influence of Hugo Chavez, the widely popular president of Venezuela.

Columbus, GA - Nearly 22,000 activists from around the country, gathered Nov. 17 through 20 to protest the School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning, Georgia. The School of the America’s special U.S. military program has trained military personnel to use methods of torture and killing throughout Latin America for over 59 years. SOA Watch, an organization dedicated to shutting down this program of terrorism, hosted the demonstration.

Calcutta, India – Thousands marched through the streets of Calcutta, March 1, to protest Bush’s visit to India. Organized by the Socialist Unity Center of India, the chant of, “Butcher Bush – go back!” rang across the city.

Sixty years ago, on Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing 140,000 Japanese from the blast, heat and radiation. Three days later, another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing another 75,000. Thousands more suffered, and many died, from the long-term effects of the heat and radiation from the bombings that also caused scarring, cancer and birth defects.

Erika Zurawski of Fight Back! interviews two Colombian trade unionists who are in the U.S. through the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center. Jhonny Meneses is a union leader from SINCONSTASCAR (a union of taxi drivers in Cartegena) and an outspoken opponent of U.S. free trade and economic policy in Latin America. Nelson Quijano is a union leader from USO (Oil Workers Union). USO is a leading social force in Colombia. In the spring of 2004, USO went on strike for several months to successfully fight the privatization of the national oil company.

Eindhoven, Netherlands - Activists from across the globe met here Nov. 10-14 for the Second International Conference of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS). Organized around the theme, “Advance the people’s solidarity and struggle for liberation and democracy against imperialist plunder and war,” the conference drew more than 200 delegates and supporters from 30 countries in Asia, Europe and North America. U.S.-based organizations represented included the Colombia Action Network.

I recently traveled to the land where Ché Guevara's ghost still breathes with the people. I was a guest of the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism, a gathering of more than 60 journalists from around the globe. The journalists – representing radio, film, Internet and print media – had come to the school in Bolivia in early August to explore strategies for advancing credible media coverage of the war on drugs and democracy movements in the Americas.

The Pentagon spends over $2.5 billion a year to recruit low-income youth using commercials, video games, personal visits and slick brochures that promise a better future through the military. Enticed by the promise of free college, many of our youth see the military as the only path to a college education. In fact, two-thirds of all recruits get no college funding from the military. Only 15% actually graduate with a four-year degree.

San Francisco, CA – Bay area Asian American community organizations sponsored a forum in Chinatown that make the link between U.S. imperialism and racism against Asians in the U.S., July 8. Three Chinese American activists, involved in the Asian American movement from the 1960's to today, spoke about the spy-plane drama that unfolded with China earlier this year.

Netherlands – Sparked by the battle of Seattle, and Professor Jose Maria Sison's call for greater coordination of the anti-globalization movement, the International League of Peoples' Struggle's founding conference took place in the Netherlands, May 25-27. Over three hundred activists from progressive and anti-imperialist organizations gathered to consolidate the gains and lessons from massive protests in Manila, Prague, Seattle and Quebec.

Columbus, GA - Ten thousand people descended on Fort Benning, Georgia, Nov. 18-19 to shut down the School of the Americas (S.O.A.). Also known as the School of Assassins, the S.O.A. has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counter-insurgency so they can repress the people in their homelands.

Part Two of an Interview with Miguel Cifuente

Members of the Colombia Action Network, Thistle Parker-Hartog and Meredith Aby, interviewed Colombian peasant leader Miguel Cifuente, the executive secretary of the Cimitarra River Valley Peasant Association. For reasons of space we broke the interview into two parts. The first part can be found in here.

New York City, NY – Over 100 activists marched here September 8, stopping to protest in front of four consulates before proceeding to a rally across the street from the United Nations where the final day of the U.N. Millennium Summit was taking place. Protest organizers stated that the big capitalist powers attending the summit “use economic, military, political and cultural means to defend the investments of powerful corporations in nations which are weaker economically and militarily.”

“Boycott Killer Coke, No Blood for Oil!”

The Colombia Action Network has called for national days of action, Nov. 1 through Nov. 6, to support Colombian trade unionists and to stop Plan Colombia. Plan Colombia is the U.S. military aid package given to Colombia’s death squad government.

Part 1 of 2

Members of the Colombia Action Network, Thistle Parker-Hartog and Meredith Aby , interviewed Colombian peasant leader Miguel Cifuente, the executive secretary of the Cimitarra River Valley Peasant Association.

Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist. On average, right-wing paramilitary death squads or the military murder three Colombian trade unionists a week. Many more are threatened each day. At the same time the U.S. has given more than $3 billion in military aid, which funds both the military and paramilitary war on Colombian trade unionists, human rights workers and campesinos (peasants).

For two weeks in July, a solidarity delegation of the Colombia Action Network (CAN) traveled in Colombia, meeting with leading trade unionists, peasant leaders and other participants in that country’s powerful movement for justice and liberation. The CAN delegation was made up of anti-war and student activists from Illinois, Minnesota and Connecticut. The delegation investigated the impact of U.S. military aid through Plan Colombia and extended solidarity to the struggle of the Colombian people against U.S. imperialism.

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following essay from the Colombian trade unionist and political prisoner, Liliany Obando. The introduction was prepared by the Colombia Action Network.