Capoeira and Demonstration in Solidarity with Colombia

dublin | anti-war / imperialism | event notice Tuesday October 14, 2008 21:32 by Grupo Raíces - Grúpa Fréamhacha raices2007 at gmail dot com

Thursday, 16th October 2008

A group of Irish and Latin Americans living in Ireland will hold a demonstration in support of human rights and peace in Colombia. The demonstration, which features an exhibition of the Brazilian martial art Capoeira, will take place outside the GPO on Thursday, 16th October at 18:00.

A group of Irish and Latin Americans living in Ireland will hold a demonstration in support of human rights and peace in Colombia. The demonstration, which features an exhibition of the Brazilian martial art Capoeira, will take place outside the GPO on Thursday, 16th October at 18:00. The event is organised by Raices (Roots) Group, in collaboration with Amnesty International (Wexford), and is timed to mark the opening of a national human rights conference in Colombia, which will be attended by a delegation from Ireland.

The conference in Colombia has been organised by CoMoSoc, and umbrella civil society organisation that represents women, indigenous peoples, workers, peasants, grassroots Christians and Afro-Colombians. Events in Colombia will begin with a demonstration on the 16th, followed by the conference on the 18th and 19th. The aim of the conference is to highlight human rights abuses by the State, and to build an agenda for sustainable peace in Colombia. The Irish delegation includes Father Raymond Murray from Northern Ireland; a representative of SIPTU; and a member of Raices Group.

The background to the demonstration and conference is sixty years of armed conflict between the State and irregular armed groups, fuelled by social exclusion, poverty, lack of opportunities, unequal distribution of wealth, and an environment of political intolerance of violence. The bulk of the violence has affected peasants and the poor, and particularly those who have organised for their rights, such as trade unionists. Today out of every 10 trade unionists murdered for political reasons in the world, 9 of them are in Colombia. This is just one aspect of a sad and violent picture in a country where over 4 million people are internally displaced, 30,000 people have disappeared, and an estimated of 70,000 civilians have been murdered for political reasons since 1990.

Evidence of State involvement in violence and extra-judicial killings has grown in recent times, with links being established between supporters of President Uribe and right-wing death squads. The massacre of 46 young men in the north-east of Colombia is simply the most recent example of this state-sponsored violence.