East LA's Venerable Self Help Graphics Arts Center to Close in Six Months : 7-10-2008

http://www.luisjrodriguez.com/blog/2008/07/east-las-venerable-self-help-graphics.html Thursday, July 10, 2008 Self Help Graphics has been an East LA institution for more than 30 years. A few days ago, word got out that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which holds the deed to SHG's building, sold the structure to a private developer. SHG has six months to move out. Self Help Graphics is situated in a large 1920s-era building with arts workspaces, a performance space, art gallery, and print shop on the corner of Cesar Chavez and Gage avenues. Its outside facade is covered in colorful mosaic; a mural is located across the street. For years it was the home of the city's largest Day of the Dead celebration, among other art shows, performances, readings, musical events, theater, and more. I've performed my poetry there many times, including having a packed community event with my then 17-year-old son after "Always Running" first got published and with a "Voices of Youth" event featuring poetry by neighborhood children and teenagers from Homeboy Industries, sponsored by the Mosaic Multicultural Foundation. My roots to SHG, however, go back to the late 1970s. I found a local Chicano writers' organization in Highland Park called LA Latino Writers Association (LALWA), headed up then by Victor M. Valle. I was in my mid-20s, hungry for life, art, a new beginning, and connection to other writers. I worked in various industrial and construction jobs, garnering skills like mechanics, carpentry, welding, pipefitting, and such. But my passion was poetry, odd as this may seem. At the time, I lived in the City Terrace hills just above where Self Help Graphics is located. We soon moved LALWA's operations there. In the early 1980s, the LA Latino Writers Association published ChismeArte magazine (then produced by Guillermo Bejarano and others), organized the Latino Reading Series, and the Barrio Writers Workshops. By 1982, I became director of LA Latino Writers Association, editor of ChismeArte, and a facilitator of the Barrio Writers Workshops. Some of the writers and artists who came through our organization included Roberto Rodriguez (now a nation-wide columnist and author), Helena Viramontes (the acclaimed novelist and short story writer), Marisela Norte (the Poet Laureate of East LA), Naomi Quinonez (a poet and anthology editor), Sybil Venegas (now head of Chicano Studies at East LA College), Barbara Carrasco (an acclaimed Chicana artist), and many more. Manual "Manazar" Gamboa was involved then (also heading this work and the Concilio de Arte Popular), becoming my friend and mentor--he was the first to take me to Chino Prison to facilitate writing workshops there and other interesting places, something I've been doing now in prisons, juvenile lockups, homeless shelters, migrant camps, schools, and Native American reservations for 30 years. During this time, I met Sister Karen Boccalero, who founded Self Help Graphics in the early 1970s out of a garage. Sister Karen was an artist as well as an arts administrator who embraced the local artists, bands, poets, photographers, sculptors, and more--including a shy, often drunk, and inexperienced young poet named Luis Rodriguez. She created a thriving center of print art, visual art, avant garde, innovative and impeccably unique Chicano creativity. Los Illegals and other early 80s bands played there. Gronk, Willie Herron, Harry Gamboa, Frank Romero, Eloy Torres, Miquel Amescua, Yreina Cervantez, Leo Limon, Chaz Bojorquez, Peter Tovar, Patssi Valdez, and many others made art, did workshops, and established East LA as a world-class center of the arts (known more outside the US--in the US. East LA has mostly been depicted as a poor working class and immigrant Mexican community without much to offer except violence and noise. SHG proved there was more to this community, particularly when it came to creative capacity). For about six months, Sister Karen gave me a small office facing Chavez Avenue (it was known as Brooklyn Avenue then) from which I managed the funds and operations of LALWA and its magazine. Who else would do this? Who else would invest in unknown, but committed individuals, to take a chance on art and literature that nobody else would bother with? I honor Sister Karen for her bravery, dedication, and ongoing support. In the long run it paid off--like I said, several of our writers are now renown. Chicano artists and musicians that began at SHG are now showing in major galleries, public spaces, and even the entertainment industry. The majority of the artists displayed in the LA County Museum of the Art's exhibit of the private collection of actor/comedian Cheech Marin, presently being shown, began at Self Helf Graphics. As I said, my own success had seeds there. Now I have 13 books, most of which are acclaimed, including the best-selling "Always Running." I also now helped create a bookstore and cultural center in the Northeast San Fernando Valley called Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural, Inc. that would not exist today if it weren't for Sister Karen and Self Help Graphics. Sister Karen, unfortunately, passed away in 1997. Many of her students and fellow artists took up SHG's mantle and continued the work, even at great odds. The LA Times today (July 10, 2008) made it appear that everything went down hill after Sister Karen's passing. As always, when a founder of an institution goes much of what that person helped establish may go awry. But the artists, administrative staff, and board have done a great job trying to keep things going. Yes, mistakes were made. Yes, funding was hard to come by, and, yes, more should have been done. But what was done is substantial. There is a rumor that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is selling the building to pay off multi-million dollar lawsuits related to the priest-abuse scandal. This would be an awful shame. The Archdiocese is denying this, but still it begs the question--why sell the building under the SHG board's nose and not work with the community in keeping this space open? Yes, it's true that Self Help Graphics can still exist in another incarnation--it's the spirit, not the building, that must live on (it already is in places like Tia Chucha's). But as everyone knows, obtaining other buildings, especially in this tight economy, with little funding support, would be quite a massive undertaking. But all things are possible, something Sister Karen instilled in many of us. I say LA city and county officiasl, the artists, the poets, the musicians, and arts organizers should come together and work out a plan, funding sources, and a timeline to keep Self Help Graphics alive -- at the same space or at a comparable or even better space in East LA. We will also need the will of policy makers, funders, developers, and others to make this happen. To me one of the most important issues facing the arts today is the increase in closures involving cultural spaces, independent bookstores, theaters, and art galleries. In the Los Angeles area alone, over the last two to three years we've lost Dutton's Bookstore, the Midnight Special Bookstore, Bohemias Books, 33 & 1/3, Luna Sol Cafe, Antigua Cafe, Tia Chucha's Cafe Cultural (now in a smaller space with no cafe), Under the Bridge Bookstore, Carla's Passion Art Gallery, and now Self-Help Graphics. We need public policy to safeguard these institutions. They are not considered "money-makers," although they can be successful. They do, however, provide for a quality of life and bring new artist/writers/musicians/performers to the world. Self Help Graphics is a case in point. A neighborhood arts policy should include subsidizing rents; help in buying property or in building spaces; tax write offs for developers who include such spaces in their developments; more arts funding for neighborhood arts, including cultural spaces; and more. It should include having all the arts in every school as part of every curriculum with adequate materials, supplies, spaces, and instruments (a friend of mine who teaches band in Compton for a time had classes with students, but no instruments). Let's make this crisis a catalyst. Let's help make community arts, as exemplified by Sister Karen and Self Help Graphics, a reality all over the LA area. A community without the arts has no heart. c/s >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Come Together and Create! Peter S. Lopez ~ aka:Peta Sacramento, California, Aztlan Email: sacranative@yahoo.com C/S

Gracias ~ Rsponse: second wind, poem

Venceremos Jose! You are a good poet and it inspires to do some of my own. I like the mental images I got from it and it was well done. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Come Together and Create! Peter S. Lopez ~ aka:Peta Sacramento, California, Aztlan Email: sacranative@yahoo.com C/S --- On Wed, 7/16/08, Jose Garza <aztatlxikano@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Jose Garza <aztatlxikano@yahoo.com> Subject: second wind, poem To: movimiento_con-safos-y-que@yahoogroups.com, NetworkAztlan_Arte@yahoogroups.com, Date: Wednesday, July 16, 2008, 4:41 PM Second Wind: Dedicated to Random Anarchy (for Kris) 1. She is Mexika from Anahuac Xixemecate origin, from wild mountain winds the longer her hair grows the lengthier her ancestry 2. heat wave playing Xikano music full volume to the consternation of western Blue Jay & daylight sleeping coyotes dreaming in the womb of these ageless mountain altos, a rebel wind I am Geronimo Goyathlay, Chiricuahua Apache playing hide & seek quenching mountain creek water thirst, chasing lonely dreams; I am Geronimo Pratt Black Panther leaping, an unexpected quicksand rainstorm filling dry arroyos I am honey dew melon in the summertime at Haymarket Square, Chicago; I am Sierra Madre Coahuila, Mexico mountain top resting memories- today at 1602 Brunswick Street, south San Antonio, Texas or tomarrow in 1492 hiding from Spanish cannon, the angry French invader wasps can be handled with Copal smoke from Kalpulli Izkalli y con Danzantes Mexica, intricately weaving the great difference between self pride & self defense, imagine how good it is to move in ones own space.... 3. refrigerators, desk tops, coffee tables, closets, file cabinets were invented are the most logical places for clutter, our youth was birthed to be molded by the state- opinionated with little resourcefullness it rained all day washing friendship down a Central Avenue storm drain cortando flores haphazard I learned the hard way to toss the angry words into the hostile atmosphere, tell me which illusion are you hiding behind? is it friendly there? here is a family secret recipe, I am who I am I work better under pressure, a reason to continue the folly full throttle wide open in abandonment, crack snap! free & safe settle down get married stay single it is all a mystery to me I develope best founded theories of life thinking, walking alone stumbling down pot holed alleyways of the big city, discovering rusted art trinkets collecting city desert mountain view lost objectives, twisted wire highway tractor trailer blow-out tire tread crushed beer bottle caps tell me that life can be a Weather-worn rain storm

Articles on FARC, Colombia and More: Compiled by Peter S. Lopez

Articles on FARC, Colombia and More: Compiled by Peter S. Lopez http://ww4report.com/node/5748 Latin American left reacts to release of FARC captives Submitted by WW4 Report on Mon, 07/07/2008 - 22:10. Latin American leftists expressed satisfaction at the release of 15 people held captive by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—including French-Colombian ex-presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three US military contractors—in a Colombian military operation July 2. "Out of a basically humanist sentiment, we rejoiced at the news," former Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz wrote in an article dated on July 3. "The civilians should have never been kidnapped, neither should the soldiers have been kept prisoner in the conditions of the jungle. These were objectively cruel actions. No revolutionary purpose could justify it." ("Reflections by Comrade Fidel," July 3) On July 3 Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frias announced he had called Colombian president Álvaro Uribe the night before to congratulate him on the operation. Chávez said "we are still ready to help until the last hostage of the Colombian guerrillas is released, and to achieve peace, a full peace in Colombia." He noted that on June 8 he had called on the FARC to release all the captives. "I even said [to the FARC leaders] that if I were a guerrilla, I wouldn't kidnap anyone... [I]t's no longer the time for guerrilla fronts, it's the time for surges of the peoples." (La Jornada, July 4 from AFP, DPA, PL, Reuters) The likely Republican candidate for US president in November, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), also cited Chávez's June 8 call to the FARC. He hoped the guerrillas would follow Chávez's advice, he told reporters on July 2 before ending a 24-hour visit to Colombia. (LJ, July 3 from AFP, DPA, Reuters) But mainstream media in Europe raised questions about the operation after a July 4 report on Radio Suisse Romande (RSR) charged that the rebels had been paid a $20 million ransom and that the release was "a masquerade." Attributing the report to "a reliable source, tested many times over the past 20 years," RSR, which is operated by Swiss public radio, said the US was behind the transaction; it also claimed that the three US contractors were agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). (RSR, July 4) Betancourt told France-3 television she was sure the guerrillas weren't play-acting, but if there was a ransom: "Good, if it's true; so much the better. I mean, why not?" (RSR, July 5) From Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 29 See our last post on Colombia. Fidel to FARC: release hostages, keep your guns Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Mon, 07/07/2008 - 23:50. From Prensa Latina, July 7: Cuban Revolution leader Fidel Castro stated that he will never support the pax romana that the empire tries to impose on Latin America. In his Cubadebate website article entitled "Pax Romana," Fidel Castro referred to the situation in Colombia. "I have expressed, very clearly," he noted, "our position in favor of peace in Colombia; but, we are neither in favor of foreign military intervention nor of the policy of force that the United States intends to impose at all costs on that long-suffering and industrious people." "I have honestly and strongly criticized the objectively cruel methods of kidnapping and retaining prisoners under the conditions of the jungle. But I am not suggesting that anyone laid down their arms, when everyone who did so in the last 50 years did not survive to see peace," the Cuban leader wrote [a reference to the extermination of the Unión Patriotico in the '90s]. "If I dared suggest anything to the FARC guerrillas that would simply be that they declare, by any means possible to the International Red Cross, their willingness to release the hostages and prisoners they are still holding, without any precondition. I do not intend to be heard; it is simply my duty to say what I think. Anything else would only serve to reward disloyalty and treason." >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2008/7/7/colombias-president-uribe-and-the-clownish-narco-terrorists.html?msg=1 Colombia's President Uribe and the Clownish Narco-terrorists July 07, 2008 03:44 PM ET | Michael Barone For more heartening coverage of the hostage rescue in Colombia, see this story from Saturday's Wall Street Journal and this opinion article, "Vindication for Colombia's Uribe" from Saturday's Washington Post. Schumacher-Matos usefully takes on Human Rights Watch for overstating Colombia's human rights problems; this organization seems interested only in proving that "right-wing" regimes are terrible and seems entirely willing to overlook the depredations of "left-wing" narco-guerrillas. It seems to be a prisoner of the paradigm of Latin American studies departments—that all conflict in Latin America is between the left-leaning "people" and right-wing oppressive regimes. Believers of this paradigm overlook the fact that President Alvaro Uribe and his government have approval ratings from the people of Colombia far higher than those of almost any other leaders or governments in Latin America (or the United States, now and for most of recent history, for that matter). Schumacher-Matos does criticize Uribe for seeking to change the constitution and seek a third consecutive term. "He should build the legitimacy of the presidency by letting it go to someone else," he concludes, without mentioning the shining example of such renunciation, George Washington. As much as I admire Uribe, I am inclined to think this is good advice. One of the heartening things about the rescue operation is that the Colombian Army's brilliant performance makes the FARC narco-guerrillas look like such idiots. They were completely bamboozled and fooled. Terrorists want us to live in fear of them. Now we are free to laugh at them. The greatest weapon against terrorism is ridicule. Who will want to enlist in the guerrilla army that can't shoot straight? That everyone in the world is laughing at? That was outsmarted and outmaneuvered and humiliated? Tags: Colombia | terrorism | FARC Reader Comments "Schumacher-Matos usefully takes on Human Rights Watch for overstating Colombia's human rights problems; this organization seems interested only in proving that "right-wing" regimes are terrible and seems entirely willing to overlook the depredations of "left-wing" narco-guerrillas." Isn't this how all of these leftist organizations are? They decry democracy and, more importantly, "right-wing regimes", but the record of leftist countries and leaders is far more horrendous. However, you are certainly correct that Uribe should not seek a third term. Slowly, a third term turns into a fourth, then a fifth, and finally it becomes "for life". Suddenly, that shining star soon becaomes a White Dwarf. No further proof of this is necessary than with other "reformist" leaders such as Robert Mugabe and Jean-Baptiste Aristead. Chris of AZ Jul 07, 2008 16:45:38 PM Do your homework, Mr. Barone Mr. Barone, Like your government, you fail to understand why the FARC is still around 44 years after its birth. Right-wing death squads who killed more than 4,000 demobilized guerrillas, people who tried the peaceful political route beginning in the mid-1980s, are part of the reason. So is Colombia's deeply ingrained social inequality. Ingrid Betancourt _ someone held for six years and four months by cruel rebel jailers _ understands this. She knows Colombia's conflict can't be ended by military action alone _ and that it's not just the violent left that has enriched itself with drug money but also the violent right.. Here's what she says in an interview just published by Colombia's Semana magazine (my translation): "The FARC has its human resource, a youthful labor force ... young people with dreams who want to embrace consumerism, who want to be able to smooth on skin lotion, own a wristwatch. If we Colombians could only offer them this rather than coca or crime ... Why not offer these young people an option other than as coca leaf pickers? Ninety percent of the FARC guerrillas are coca leaf pickers who grow tired of this exhausting work an the inadequate money. So they join the FARC to have new clothes, boots and guaranteed meals. They get respect and own a few things, a radio, an oil lamp. In the FARC they find a way, they look for stability and if they don't get killed they seek a type of pension, because the FARC will find them a little farm, with a coca plantation and a few cows for them to manage. Are we going to let things remain this way forever?" South American of XX Jul 07, 2008 22:28:50 PM Columbia's Narco Terrorists We always have a skewed perspective on events in Latin America when our news is controlled by the corporate media. We need to look at the FARC as a failed revolutionary movement that got corrupted by corrupting conditions in its quest for survival under state terrorism by the Columbian government that was co-signed by the U.S.A. Above all, revollutionaries must stand upon their basic humane principles and keep their original vision in mind. What is the role of drug addicts inside the United States in all of this in accordance with economic laws of supply and demand? Peter S. Lopez of CA Jul 08, 2008 10:38:10 AM >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2008/julio/dom6/Reflections-6julio.html Havana. July 6, 2008 Reflections by comrade Fidel Pax romana I basically drew these data from statements made by William Brownfield, US ambassador to Colombia, from that country's press and television, from the international press, and other sources. It's impressive the show of technology and economic resources at play. While in Colombia the senior military officers went to great pains to explain that Ingrid Betancourt's rescue had been an entirely Colombian operation, the US authorities were saying that "it was the result of years of intense military cooperation of the Colombian and United States' armies." "'The truth is that we have been able to get along as we seldom have in the United States, except with our oldest allies, mostly in NATO,' said Brownfield, referring to his country's relationships with the Colombian security forces, which have received over 4 billion USD in military assistance since the year 2000." "…on various occasions it became necessary for the US Administration to make decisions at the top levels concerning this operation. "The US spy satellites helped in locating the hostages during a month period starting on May 31st until the rescue action on Wednesday." "The Colombians installed video surveillance equipment, supplied by the United States. Operated by remote control, these can take close-ups and pan along the rivers which are the only transportation routes through thick forests, said the Colombian and US authorities." "US surveillance aircraft intercepted the rebels' radio and satellite phone talks and used imaging equipment that can break through the forest foliage." "'The defector will receive a considerable sum of the close to one- hundred-million-dollars reward offered by the government', stated the Commander General of the Colombian Army." On Wednesday, July 1st, the London BBC reported that Cesar Mauricio Velasquez, press secretary at Casa de Nariño (Colombian Government House) had informed that delegates from France and Switzerland had met with Alfonso Cano, chief of the FARC. According to the BBC, that would be the first contact with international delegates accepted by the new chief after the death of Manuel Marulanda. The false information of the meeting of two European envoys with Cano had been released in Bogota. The deceased leader of the FARC had been born on May 12, 1932, according to his father's testimony. Marulanda, a poor peasant with a liberal thinking and a Gaitan follower, had started his armed resistance 60 years back. He was a guerrilla before us; he had reacted to the carnage of peasants carried out by the oligarchy. The Communist Party he later joined, the same as every other in Latin America, was under the influence of the Communist Party of the USSR and not of Cuba. They were in solidarity with our Revolution but they were not subordinated to it. It was the drug-traffickers and not the FARC that unleashed terror in that sister nation as part of their feuds over the United States market. They caused powerful bomb blasts and even blew up trucks loaded with plastic explosives destroying facilities and injuring or killing countless people. The Colombian Communist Party never contemplated the idea of conquering power through the armed struggle. The guerrilla was a resistance front and not the basic instrument to conquer revolutionary power, as it had been the case in Cuba. In 1993, at the 8th FARC Conference, they decided to break ranks with the Communist Party. Its leader, Manuel Marulanda, took over the leadership of that Party's guerrillas which had always excelled in their narrow sectarianism when admitting combatants as well as in their strong and compartmented commanding methods. Marulanda, a man with a remarkable natural talent and a leader's gift, did not have the opportunity to study when he was young. It is said that he had only completed the 5th grade of grammar school. He conceived a long and extended struggle; I disagreed with this point of view. But, I never had the chance to talk with him. The FARC became considerable strong with over 10 thousand combatants. Many had been born during the war and had known nothing else. Other leftist organizations rivaled the FARC in the struggle. By then the Colombian territory had become the largest source of cocaine production in the world. Then, extreme violence, kidnappings, taxes and demands from the drug producers became widespread. The paramilitary forces, armed by the oligarchy, drew basically from the great amount of men enlisted in the country's armed forces who were discharged from duty every year without a secure job. These created in Colombia a very complex situation with only one way out: real peace, albeit remote and difficult as many other goals Humanity have set itself. This is the option that, for three decades, Cuba has advocated for that nation. While our journalists meeting in their 8th Congress debated on the new technologies of information, the principles and ethic of social communicators, I meditated on the abovementioned developments. I have expressed, very clearly, our position in favor of peace in Colombia; but, we are neither in favor of foreign military intervention nor of the policy of force that the United States intends to impose at all costs on that long-suffering and industrious people. I have honestly and strongly criticized the objectively cruel methods of kidnapping and retaining prisoners under the conditions of the jungle. But I am not suggesting that anyone laid down their arms, when everyone who did so in the last 50 years did not survive to see peace. If I dared suggest anything to the FARC guerrillas that would simply be that they declare, by any means possible to the International Red Cross, their willingness to release the hostages and prisoners they are still holding, without any precondition. I do not intend to be heard; it is simply my duty to say what I think. Anything else would only serve to reward disloyalty and treason. I will never support the pax romana that the empire tries to impose on Latin America. Fidel Castro Ruz July 5, 2008 8:12 p.m. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/04/AR2008070402092.html Vindication for Colombia's Uribe By Edward Schumacher-Matos Saturday, July 5, 2008; Page A15 CARTAGENA, Colombia -- More politically breathtaking than the dramatic rescue of Ingrid Betancourt this week is the unexpected message that the former presidential candidate delivered after six years of captivity in Colombian jungles. Betancourt, slight but still well-spoken, deftly discredited critics of President Álvaro Uribe's two-pronged approach toward the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Her support for Uribe's carrot-and-stick policies -- beefing up the military while offering to negotiate with the guerrillas -- countered many of her self-proclaimed supporters, including human rights groups, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, leftist lobbyists in Washington and her own mother. Betancourt was right to speak out. But Uribe will be wrong if he hears a siren song in her message. Uribe has been toying with the notion of exploiting his incredible popularity -- he is the only sitting Colombian president to be reelected -- and changing the constitution to seek a third term. This would undermine the country's admirably growing institutions and his own considerable legacy. The constitution was already amended in 1995 to permit Uribe to run for a second term. "I think that one of [the] hardest blows given to the FARC, aside from this extraordinary [rescue] operation, is the president's reelection," the center-left Betancourt said Thursday. Colombia has a history of alternating between tough and conciliatory presidents, she noted, which has allowed the more than 40-year-old guerrilla movement to expand during each turnover. She lauded Uribe's ability to see through to fruition his "democratic security" policies. The carrot has been the demobilization of about 35,000 supposedly right-wing paramilitaries and nearly 12,000 left-wing guerrillas, with various levels of amnesty. The stick is the greatly improved Colombian military, aided in part by $5.5 billion in U.S. aid since 2000 under Plan Colombia. That aid and the military have been criticized by human rights groups and some in Washington, but Betancourt left no doubt that she shares a favorable public perception of the military that is matched in polls here only by that of the Catholic Church. "Thank you, my army, of my country, for your impeccable operation," she said. "I ask Colombians to believe in this army, which is going to take us to peace." She called on Chávez and Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa to remember that Uribe was democratically elected, while the FARC has almost no public support. As to her mother siding with Chávez earlier in supporting a failed mediation effort to win Betancourt's freedom, she said that it was a maternal instinct to oppose a potentially dangerous rescue and gently chided her mother to thank Uribe. Betancourt's composure and sanguine analysis belie suspicions that she might have been overcome with appreciation for her saviors. Although she was kidnapped on a campaign trip in February 2002, she said this week that she may run again for president. But her statements also belie the scorched-earth policies of otherwise well-meaning groups such as Human Rights Watch, which has persuaded many Democrats in Congress to oppose a pending free-trade agreement with Colombia on human rights grounds. In a news release regarding Sen. John McCain's coincidental trip to Colombia this week, the organization asked him to "ignore the official spin and support threatened democratic institutions in Colombia" and called Colombia only "formally a democracy." Colombia has its issues. Some paramilitary forces have gone back into the drug trade, oddly in alliance with the guerrillas in some areas. Political violence continues, though it is way down as the military has asserted control over most of the country with only minimal rights violations. The much-improved justice system, meanwhile, has under Uribe won some 140 convictions in murder cases of union members alone, an unusual rate of success in human rights prosecutions. What both Betancourt and Uribe understand is that the biggest challenge in Colombia is to build the nation, its unity and its institutions. A third Uribe term would run counter to that. He almost surely would win, but the nation has a wealth of proven political talent, nearly all of which, including politicians from the leftist Polo Party, support the main lines of the president's security policies. Questions about the legitimacy of the last constitutional change already follow Uribe. Many of his supporters in the Senate who voted for it are being prosecuted, accused of alliances with paramilitaries. There is no doubt that the public wanted the measure, and Uribe is considering a referendum to make the point ex post facto. Let him do it and go out in glory. He should build the legitimacy of the presidency by letting it go to someone else. The writer, a former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal Americas, is the Robert F. Kennedy visiting professor in Latin American studies at Harvard University. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Come Together and Create! Peter S. Lopez ~ aka:Peta Sacramento, California, Aztlan Email: sacranative@yahoo.com http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NetworkAztlan_News/ http://www.NetworkAztlan.com

Non-Aligned Countries Endorse Venezuelan Proposal for Alternative World Media

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3617 July 6th 2008, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com Last week, Non-aligned countries agreed to construct a world system of news, radio, and information-sharing to connect and represent countries in the Global South. Mérida, July 5, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- At the 7th Conference of Information Ministers of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries held in Venezuela's Margarita Island last week, more than 80 country delegations endorsed Venezuela's proposal to create an alternative worldwide media network. The Margarita Declaration signed Friday lays out a working agenda for constructing a "new international communicational order" that is meant to "balance information and democratize the presence of the countries of the South in worldwide communication," said the Venezuelan Minister of Communication and Information, Andrés Izarra, in his closing speech Friday. "We now have a new tool," explained Izarra. "The communicational task of our peoples today is to recuperate the words, the images of our existence which have been sequestered and used against us by the masters of the world." One proposal on the agenda is to start a Non-Aligned News Network (NNN) to cover news from the 118 mostly Global South countries in the movement. According to Izarra, this new network could be based on the model of Caracas-based Telesur. Telesur is a television channel created in 2006 with the financial backing of the governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Venezuela. It aims to rival other international news agencies while promoting consciousness of Latin American identity and history and give voice to the social changes going on in the region. Other proposals included a radio of the South and strengthened southern information networks, which would "serve as an information bank, providing common access to these countries in order to pluralize the flow of information," Izarra explained. Many delegates credited a speech by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on Thursday for propelling these ideas into the action plan of the Margarita Declaration. "We are in a search for the democracy of information since there is a media tyranny in the world," Chávez asserted Thursday. "Hopefully we can structure a grand social television of the world that has its offices, studios, cameras, and satellites dispersed around the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa," he described. "We have to do it now, in order to communicate among our peoples in our languages, it is vital so that our governments get to know each other," Chávez encouraged. Last year, the Chávez administration did not renew the broadcasting license of one of Venezuela's largest corporate networks, RCTV, and instead granted the concession to Venezuelan Social Television (TVES), which currently broadcasts 229 programs by independent producers emphasizing educational and cultural content. Chávez's proposal was backed on Thursday by the Foreign Relations Minister of Cuba, Felipe Pérez Roque, who said the current media climate is such that the South is "silenced" and "bombarded continually" with "history from the perspective of the powerful." Considering this, "the current situation cannot be resolved with palliative measures, we must go to its base," said the minister, explaining that "this unjust international order to which we are to be submitted is a product of the abyss that exists between the North and the South in terms of access, production, and flow of information." Venezuela's first-ever Minister of Women's Issues, María León, was also welcomed to the conference to share Venezuela's current women's rights policies with countries such as Namibia, Belarus, Dominica, Gambia, and Cambodia, which had expressed interest in learning more. "Many have shown interest in finding out about what is occurring with women in Venezuela. There are very important advances that we can share. The importance that the media now gives to women, and we can see that of the 5 public powers, four are led by women," León told the press. According to the Venezuelan Ambassador to the United Nations, Jorge Valero, the movement is "in a period of revitalization of this organization since the developed countries and the spokespeople of neo-liberalism had proclaimed the death of the non-aligned countries." President Chávez presented another South-focused proposal at the conference Thursday when he called on OPEC countries to help the poorest 50 countries on Earth pay for oil as prices continue to soar above $144 per barrel. "OPEC, or some of its members, should take the responsibility to supply these countries through special mechanisms, subsidies, donations, agreements. It is not going to make us any richer or poorer," said Chávez. Venezuela's most recent tax on oil profits to generate funds for social programs was passed by the National Assembly last April. Also, last month Chávez offered to use profits from oil sold for more than $100 per barrel to combat food shortages worldwide if other countries also agreed to participate. Chávez predicted that oil prices would continue to rise, but not because OPEP countries want them to. "It is not our fault," Chávez said. "Withdraw the troops from Iraq and you will see how immediately the price of oil will fall several dollars; stop the threats against Iran and Venezuela and you will see the price descend." The "exaggerated consumption" of oil by rich nations is another factor in the high prices, Chávez said, pointing out that the 50 poorest countries consume a total of 700,000 barrels of oil per day, while the United States consumes 21 million barrels per day. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Comment: We need to overcome artificial land borders and reach out to other potential allies via the Internet and other forms of media, including videos and the radio. Ideally it should be a mixed media that is aware of people's short attention spans, especially on the Internet with many suffering from information overload, while so many others cannot even afford a computer to be on the Internet. Come Together and Create! Peter S. Lopez ~ aka:Peta Sacramento, California, Aztlan Email: sacranative@yahoo.com C/S