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Court admits complaint against Colombia's military agreement with U.S. http://www.aporrea.org/ddhh/a90789.html

A claim against the military agreement between Colombia and the United States wants the Constitutional Court annul the treaty on the grounds that it violated the separation of powers, not having been revised by Congress. According to the plaintiffs, the country will not benefit from the presence of foreign troops. the Constitutional Court agreed to consider the complaint filed by the Colectivo de Abogados Jose Alvear Restrepo. For the government this alliance is merely a continuation of Armed Forces referred to in the Plan Colombia to fight drug trafficking and illegal armed groups from seven military bases to be used by U.S. military aircraft. 

Demand  The Lawyers Collective claimed that the government violated and failed to review the military agreement with the United States and  consider the treaty to the review over to the Congress . Alirio Uribe, director of the firm, said, "This is a treaty that has no reciprocity, Colombia surrenders its sovereignty and not get anything in return. Another point is that it violates the separation of powers. The State Council said it must have a political initiative and must pass through the control of Congress and the constitutional control by the Court. " 

Rafael Barrios defense lawyer for Human Rights said that another of the irregular elements of the agreement was that the Government did not accept the concept of the State Council which declared it unconstitutional (wich can not take effect).  "It has all the elements of a treaty and as such must be passed by Congress and  the State Council declared, that the Colombian government did not comply and that is a factor that will be examined by the Constitutional Court," said Barrios. 

A work of more than 40 years  Gen. Fernando Tapias Stahelin, the current deputy minister for Social and Corporate Group of Defense (Gsed) of the Ministry of Defense, said the government is giving a few more years to an agreement wich was signed with another  40 to eradicate drug trafficking and terrorism in Colombia. Tapias said that this treaty " comes from Plan Colombia and is an agreement that all he did was expand in some respects, but had approval. So I do not think this will have any effect" . He added that "the Court is very clear the Government's arguments and therefore do not think there is problem. It is an agreement that requires the country to combat drug trafficking and illegal structures that foster this sort of activity. It is a national goal that the societies Defendants: eradicate drug trafficking as a way to recover the ongoing safety and peace. " 

Former Constitutional Court President Alfredo Beltran Sierra explained that the admission of the lawsuit is the first step of the process starts so far. "In my view the process, by both the plaintiff and the State Council should be reviewed by the Constitutional Court and will probably be given the right," Beltran said Sierra. The analyst said that the extension of the treaty should be reviewed more carefully whether it is international cooperation.

comment- also see...“Expeditionary Warfare” Base Agreement Defies Court and International Pleas http://forcolombia.org/baseagreementPR

Colombia: U.S. Base Sparks Suspicions http://www.foreignpolicydigest.org/Longstanding-Conflict-December-2009/December-2009/colombia-us-base-sparks-suspicions.html

Over 100 U.S. organizations and 27 European organizations have written letters to U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and President Obama respectively, protesting the agreement. Most organizations’ and lawmakers’ concerns are focused on the humanitarian issues the deal could cause, especially for vulnerable members of indigenous communities. The presence of military troops often correlates with an increase in rape and abuse in surrounding areas; and, because of the Status of Forces Agreement, U.S. troops are granted legal immunity from the prosecution of such crimes. Furthermore, there is still concern over the far-reaching and widespread use of the “false positives” strategy. It was discovered that thousands of civilians were killed by Colombian forces, then presented as rebels to authorities.

This in turn portrayed military units as effectively fighting counter-insurgent groups, and allowed for high-ranking promotions. It was later disclosed that there are many military officials operating with paramilitary groups denounced by the U.S. as human rights-abusers. This complicated U.S. assistance to Colombia, which is bound by the Leahy Provision: the U.S. cannot grant any foreign military assistance to units found to be human-rights violators. With the implementation of the new base deal, American lawmakers are worried about further legal, if not moral, implications.

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Chavez: Venezuela can easily show that has no connection with terrorists http://www.telesurtv.net/noticias/secciones/nota/67958-NN/chavez-venezuela-puede-demostrar-facilmente-que-no-tiene-vinculacion-con-terroristas/

The president recalled that Judge Eloy Velasco was a militant rightist from Popular Party (PP) Spanish, "heir of the Franco movement, leading major regional tasks." The Franco regime was a movement born during the dictatorship that emerged in Spain during the Civil War between 1936 and 1939, and was led by General Francisco Franco. Chavez commented that leaders like Velazco, the PP leader Mariano Rajoy and former president José María Aznar are still covering up the crimes of fascism at that time and wondered why they have not made efforts "to investigate and install a truth commission by countless deaths and disappearances of Franco's dictatorship. " 

"These are the same officers who cover up until today, the crimes committed by dictator Francisco Franco, who do not hesitate to bless or support coups or military invasions on other sovereign nations," said the president. Chavez said it was clear the U.S. involvement in the attack, which aims to "systematically sabotage the nascent Commonwealth of Latin America and the Caribbean." The president said that Washington "was something particularly irritating on the formal constitution of the organism on 5 July 2011 in the Caracas summit, 200 years of Venezuela to declare itself free, sovereign and independent."

comment-also see..Why all this media manipulation being directed against Hugo Chavez? http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/why-all-this-media-manipulation-being-directed-against-hugo-chavez/

under an agreement signed in 1989 by Felipe Gonzalez for the Spanish Government and then Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, Venezuela accepted several alleged ETA members into political exile...

The president of the Partido Popular de Catalunya (PPC), Josep Piqué, maintained today that the Spanish regime under Franco ‘was not a fascist regime’. http://www.barcelonareporter.com/index.php?/news/comments/pique_feels_franco_did_not_run_a_fascist_regime_in_spain/P5/

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The David Project swarms an Apartheid Week event and pathos prevails over logos / Philip Weiss http://mondoweiss.net/2010/03/the-david-project-swarms-an-apartheid-week-event-and-pathos-prevails-over-logos.htm

I was at the Apartheid Week event Thursday night at NYU, "The Indigenous Struggle: A Call for the Boycott of Israel." The talk was a BDS call against Israel by groups of Native Americans, South Africans, and Palestinians ...

Seemed like it was going to be a pretty unremarkable night in the anti-war movement until a few minutes into the talk, when streams of pro-Israel jihadis began streaming into the room. I’d say that between a quarter and a third of the audience were members of this group, obviously organized, wearing blue and white, along with printed T-shirts countering the BDS movement, encouraging folks to "Buy Israel" or Israeli products, with "The David Project" emblazoned on the back.

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Holocaust survivor doesn't fear Nazis or Zionists http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2010/03/holocaust-survivor-doesnt-fear-nazis-or.html

'I met spritely 86-year-old Dr Hajo Meyer, a survivor of the Nazi death-camps, at the House of Commons. At a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony, Dr Meyer spoke about the Nazis and pleaded for an end to the war against Palestinians. Israel, he said, was “dehumanising the Palestinians as the Nazis tried to dehumanise me”.

But when a dozen protesters tried breaking up the meeting, shouting pro-Israel slogans and hurling abuse at Dr Meyer, they met their match. The plucky professor – barely over 5ft – refused to back down. “I grew up under Hitler and lived through Auschwitz. I’m not scared of people like you,” he told the burly protestors.'

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Video: Russell Tribunal on Palestine - Barcelona, Spain (conclusion) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_vi3peAXB0&feature=related

At the closing of the session Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, enumerated Tel Aviv's international-law violations.

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The PA Is,Once Again,Betraying The Palestinians http://www.politicaltheatrics.net/2010/03/the-pa-isonce-againbetraying-the-palestinians/

The PA decision to resume “indirect talks” with Israel is undoubtedly a clear expression of its moral and political bankruptcy. In fact, even today, the PA continues to arrest, torment, and torture Palestinians on Israel’s behalf. Indeed, not a day passes without the “heroic” security agencies, trained and funded by Gen. Keith Dayton, raiding Palestinian population centers to arrest and mistreat patriotic Palestinians for “security reasons,” a shameful euphemism for resisting Israel or supporting Hamas.

So, why is the scandalous deception and the sanctimonious self-righteousness. The PA has been up to its ears in the promiscuous collaborative relations with Israel which has never stopped murdering our children and women and stealing our land while the Abbas leadership is singing the songs of peace and romantic engagement with a nefarious regime at the helm of which stands some of the most cruel and racist war criminals in history, such as Netanyahu, Barak, Lieberman and Peres.The PA is also using Arab backing of indirect talks with Israel as a pretext to commit political adultery by reneging on and retreating from erstwhile commitments to refrain from rejoining futile talks with Israel while the settlement aggrandizement scheme persisted unabated.

We all know that the Arab league is mostly made up of either dynastic sheikhdoms guarded and controlled by the CIA or tyrannical authoritarian regimes that deny their own people basic human rights and civil liberties. Hence, it would be more than naïve to expect these despotic regimes to play a truly constructive role in promoting the Palestinian cause.Needless to say, regimes that can’t do any good to their own masses can’t really be entrusted with helping the Palestinian cause.

Besides, haven’t we had enough experience with the Arab league, a rotten body that should have been buried in the graveyard of history a long time ago?Abbas is most likely to argue that he can’t remain outside Arab consensus as if Arab consensus were more important than safeguarding inalienable Arab and Muslim rights which are coming under attack especially in Jerusalem where Zionist Jews are trying, nearly on a daily basis, to arrogate a foothold at the Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest shrine.