On August 7, Alvaro Uribe will complete his reign as president of Colombia 鈥 eight years of spectacular government criminality and corruption, even by Colombian standards. A brief review of just his second term illustrates this.
The Washington Post reported on November 18, 2006 that the Uribe administration was in crisis. Investigations revealed that members of Congress collaborated with right-wing death squads to fix elections and assassinate opponents. That was the tip of the iceberg.
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鈥淚f the people keep identifying democracy as a system that is worst [sic] than the Taliban government, the people will support the anti-coalition forces and the security condition will degenerate鈥, an unnamed member of the Paktya provincial council is quoted in one of 75,000 classified US reports about the military occupation of Afghanistan published by the Wikileaks website on July 26.
鈥淚鈥檝e never felt so good about an election鈥, an upbeat Senator Bob Brown told a packed crowd at Leichhardt Town Hall on July 29. The Greens parliamentary leader urged people to help his party out in the August 21 election in which the Greens hope to win the balance of power in the Senate.
Having been excluded the previous week from the 鈥済reat debate鈥 featuring Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Coalition leader Tony Abbott, Brown used the opportunity to talk up policies that, had he been included, may have made it worth watching.
TOWNSVILLE 鈥 More than 230 miners at the Thiess Collinsville Coal Project walked off the job on July 27 over a two-year-old pay dispute. The strike has halted all production at the mine.
Secretary of the Collinsville lodge of the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union Rick Grant told the July 29 Townsville Bulletin the miners had dug in and weren鈥檛 about to back down.
Grant said the dispute was over what workers considered an outdated enterprise bargaining agreement. He said the EBA was well below what miners in other parts of the Bowen Basin were being paid.
Internationally recognised legal standards are being flagrantly ignored in the treatment of political prisoners from the pro-democracy Red Shirt movement. The prisoners have been detained by the Abhisit Vejjajiva military government since the bloody crackdown against unarmed demonstrators in May.
On July 25, climate change minister Penny Wong, Australia鈥檚 first openly queer government minister, came out against equal marriage rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people.
鈥淥n the issue of marriage I think the reality is there is a cultural, religious, historical view around that which we have to respect鈥, she told Channel 10.
Wong鈥檚 statement dramatically shows the utter moral bankruptcy of the Labor Party on the issue.
Just hours before coming into effect on July 29, Arizona鈥檚 anti-immigrant law SB 1070 had some of its provisions overruled by federal district judge Susan Bolton.
The overruled provisions include:
鈥 The obligation for police officers to determine the immigration status of everyone they stop, if officers have a 鈥渞easonable suspicion鈥 that they might be in the country unlawfully;
鈥 Mandatory detention of people arrested even for minor offences (such as traffic violations), if they can't prove that they are in the US legally;
A prolonged industrial dispute is continuing at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) as a result of the ongoing refusal of vice-chancellor Fred Hilmer to bargain in good faith with the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) over staff concerns about pay and conditions 鈥 especially job security.
Hilmer鈥檚 intransigence should come as no surprise.
When Hilmer announced his decision to take up a tidy $750,000 annual salary package as vice-chancellor of University of New South Wales back in 2005, he said partial deregulation of education was like being 鈥渉alf pregnant鈥.
On July 27, Cockburn Shire council workers took industrial action in protest to the managements offer of a pay-rise in this years new enterprise bargaining agreement. The workers for the shire, which is in southern Perth, have refused the offer, which falls sort of what they consider fair.
The workers belong to two unions, the Australian Services Union (ASU) and the Local Government Racing and Cemeteries Employees Union (LGRCEU), which are organising their pay campaign.
A group of sixty refugee rights activists visited the Villawood Detention Centre on July 25 to take part in a planned soccer match and BBQ with refugees. It was organised by Socialist Alliance and Greens members and supported by the Construction Forestry, Energy and Mining Union (CFMEU) and Union Aid Abroad (APHEDA).
We wanted to show solidarity with refugees and highlight both the ALP and the Liberal鈥檚 inhumane refugee policies. However, when we arrived we were turned away, deemed a 鈥渟ecurity threat.鈥
Protesters had coal trains backed up for kilometres at the small mining town of Collinsville, inland from Bowen, north Queensland, on July 26. They were protesting against the dust and noise of the trains, and the plan to upgrade the rail line to bring up to 70 coal trains a day through their town.
About 15 coal trains a day rumble through the middle of Collinsville. The residents picketed the line for three days, bringing coal train traffic to a complete halt.
The recent diplomatic manoeuvres by the US and Colombian governments against Venezuela have put the region on red alert.
There are a clear warning signs that US imperialism has stepped up its plans to overthrow the revolutionary government of Venezuela through military means, as support for opposition parties drops in the lead up to the September National Assembly elections.
An intense mobilisation within Venezuela and internationally is needed to make it clear that imperialism will pay the highest price possible if it attempts to plunge the region into war.
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