General

On September 21st, President Manuel Zelaya returned clandestinely to Honduras and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy in the capital city of Tegucigalpa. Honduran police fired tear gas to disperse Zelaya’s supporters gathered around the embassy. They also launched tear gas at the human rights group COFADEH, where men, women and children had taken refuge after the attack at the embassy.   People detained for violating a newly established curfew are being held at the football stadium, where observers saw people who had been severely beaten. The situation in the capital and elsewhere is extremely tense.

It seems that a day cannot go by without an article in the MSM declaring that “Cuba is opening up to the world.” There’s a lot of tricky logic going in such statements, and this past Sunday’s Concert for Peace without Borders organized by Colombian pop star Juanes can help us to reflect on this a bit, and also to act to change United States restrictions on travel by Americans to Cuba.

Being the music lover that I am, before anything else I have to comment: What a spectacular display it was! Well over a million people – half of Havana’s population according to Cuban press sources – filled the Plaza of the Revolution to see performances by Cuban artists living on the island and abroad whose work most epitomizes their homeland, such as Los Van Van, Orishas, Silvio Rodríguez, Yerba Buena, Carlos Varela and Amaury Pérez. Hats off to saxophonist and music director extraordinaire Juan Manuel Ceruto and an amazing ensemble that accompanied many of the Cubans, as well as their foreign guests such as Luis Aute, Miguel Bosé, Olga Tañón and Danny Rivera, among others. It was great to see Cuban musicianship on display again here in the United States, if only via an online video stream provided by Univisión, something unheard of not so long ago.

Today, LAWGEF joined labor, environmental, human rights, development and faith-based organizations in submitting written comments to the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in response to a formal request to the public for opinions on the pending trade agreement. In their comments, these groups outlined the specific human rights and labor problems in Colombia, and urged the Obama Administration to insist upon seeing fundamental improvements on these issues before going forward with a free trade agreement.  Violence against trade unionists and other obstacles to worker rights were outlined by the AFL-CIO and US Labor Education in the Americas Project.  Some groups also outlined the potential impact of the trade agreement on the rural poor, including Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities.

Last week, a group of intrepid activists came together to raise awareness about the serious human rights issues that the Colombian government is seeking to hide with their recent campaign “Discover Colombia through its Heart.” Here are some great pictures shot of actions during the week by Brandon Wu from Public Citizen.