In one of the poorest neighborhoods of Bogota, Belen, I saw two people bleeding in the middle of the road. One person was clearly dead. A group of onlookers was moving frantically, shouting loudly. There was an attempt to resurrect an injured man. I asked the driver to inquire whether our help was needed, but... Read More

When the Trump administration revived Reagan-relic Zionist Elliot Abrams early this year to orchestrate regime change in Venezuela, a new era of instability was born in the Western Hemisphere. Approaching a year into this project, the domestic flames have mostly been put out by the willful Nicolas Maduro, while Washington-backed liberals in Chile, Colombia, Bolivia... Read More

Introduction: Colombia has received more US military aid–over $6 billion dollars in the past decade — than any country in the Western Hemisphere. For its part, Colombia allowed the Pentagon to build seven military bases, more than all the other countries in the region combined. There are over 2,000 US military officers and private US... Read More

Introduction: On the 21st of May, the Colombian Air Force (FAC) bombed the base camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) killing 26 guerrillas. Three days later the FAC bombed other FARC bases killing 14 more guerrillas, as part of an official offensive launched by President Juan Manuel Santos, the US’s most loyal... Read More

Introduction: There are many fabrications and false assumptions underlying the Colombia peace negotiations between the Santos regime and FARC – EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – Peoples Army). The first and most egregious is that Colombia is a democracy. The second is that the Santos regime pursues policies which enhance non-violent social and political... Read More

This text is a comprehensive critical survey of Colombia’s political and social conditions and a homage to one of its most dedicated academics, Jorge Adolfo Freytter Romero, murdered by the regime, for his dedication to human rights. The twenty-eight essays and documents provide us with a deep understanding of the existing structures of power and... Read More

Introduction: The two paths to 21st century empire-building-via-proxies are illustrated through the violent seizure of power in the Ukraine by a US-backed junta and the electoral gains of the US-backed Colombian war lord, Alvaro Uribe. We will describe the ‘mechanics’ of US intervention in the domestic politics of these two countries and their profound external... Read More

Colombia is one of the largest recipients of US aid in the world ($2 billion in military and police aid, third behind Israel and Egypt; $1 billion in economic and social aid; plus $1 billion in arms sales over the last six years). But it’s not really on the radar in the United States. I... Read More

What rights do humans have? On a global scale, zip, actually. One of the by-products of an increasingly interconnected and interpenetrated world is that the difference between the way nations treat their citizens and the way they treat the rest of the world is becoming more apparent. The issue has been brought into sharp relief... Read More

Introduction: Washington has devised a dual strategy toward Latin America. This involves a new set of ambitious imperial initiatives designed to undermine the principal anti-imperialist governments (Venezuela), social movements and armed insurgency (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), while dismantling Latin America-centered integration and regional alliances, such as ALBA, Petro-Caribe, UNASUR and MERCOSUR. At the same... Read More

Interview with rpaSUR - Video in Spanish rpaSUR hizo contacto vía telefónica con James Petras sociólogo estadounidense y profesor de la Universidad Binghamton en Nueva York. Quien acepto una breve entrevista acerca del acontecimiento político mas importante en Colombia actualmente, nos referimos a los diálogos de Paz entre las Farc EP y el Gobierno Santos.... Read More

Introduction: In late August 2012, President Santos announced that the Colombian regime was opening peace negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, (FARC), with the aim of ending nearly 50 years of civil war. Several economic, social, political and military changes account for the Santos regimes abrupt shift from a policy of “peace� through... Read More

Invited paper to be presented at the national conference on “Multinationals, Violence, Trade Union Freedom and Democracy in Colombia� organized by the SINALTRAINAL International Trade Union on its 30th anniversary, July 26, 2012 at Autonomous University of Colombia in Bogota, Colombia. Imperialism and Violence in Colombia James Petras Introduction The US military intervention in Colombia... Read More

Introduction: By any historical measure, whether it involves international law, human rights conventions, United Nations protocols, socio economic indicators, the policies and practices of the United States and European Union regimes can be characterized as extremist. By that we mean that their policies and practices result in large scale long-term systematic destruction of human lives,... Read More

Introduction: Between April 21-23, thousands of activists from most of the major urban and rural social movements and trade unions, human rights groups and indigenous , afro-colombian movements will meet to unify forces and launch, what promises to be the most significant new political movement in recent history. United by a common pledge to seek... Read More

Invited paper to be presented to the “Encuentro Nacional de comunidades Campesinas, Afrodescendientes e Indigenas por la Tierra y la Paz de Colombia: El dialogo es la Ruta�, 12 al 15 de agosto 2011, Barrancabermeja – Colombia Introduction: We live in a time of great destruction and grand economic opportunities and Latin America is no... Read More

The US media is not paying much attention to the growing crisis between Venezuela and Colombia, presumably because it would detract from the excitement of the Clinton wedding. Both countries have moved troops up to the border and are only an "accident" removed from shooting at each other. It would be the first actual war... Read More

Juan Manuel Santos, notorious Defense Minister in the regime of outgoing President Alvaro Uribe and closely identified with high crimes against humanity “won� the recent Presidential elections in Colombia, June 2010. The major electronic and print media CNN, FOX News, Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the once liberal Financial... Read More

The first casualty of state terror is the corruption of language, the invention of euphemisms, where words mean their opposite and slogans cover great crimes: There is no longer a world consensus that condemns crimes against humanity. Introduction The first casualty of state terror is the corruption of language, the invention of euphemisms, where words... Read More

For China Matters the Ingrid Betancourt story had everything: an official line that smelled fishy from Day One; a thrilling narrative chock-a-block with colorful personalities and amazing developments; conflicting stakeholders—and versions of events—coming out of Colombia, Venezuela, France, Switzerland, and the United States; credulous, stenographic reporting by the U.S. press; and a convoluted geopolitical context.... Read More

In an amusing punctuation point to the Ingrid Betancourt rescue in July of this year, on October 19 a television station in Colombia aired shaky footage of the event purportedly shot by a FARC grunt with a digital camera. It concludes with the helicopter containing the precious hostages whizzing off into the clouds while the... Read More

Hernando Calvo Ospina’s recent book, Colombia, Laboratorio de Embrujos: Democracia y Terrorismo de Estado is the most important study of Colombian politics in recent decades and essential reading in light of the Western media’s and politicians’ celebration of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Calvo Ospina’s study provides a wealth of historical and empirical data that highlights... Read More

It was a perfectly executed rescue mission and they pulled it off without a hitch. A small group of Colombian military-intelligence agents, posing as aid workers on a humanitarian mission, touched-down in the heart of rebel territory, gathered up Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages, and whisked them away to safety while a small army... Read More

A few minutes with the Google leaves the Betancourt rescue story in tatters. Did the Colombian government push aside European hostage negotiators to take control of the impending Betancourt release, hog the credit, and spin it as a rescue and a victory for counter-terrorism instead of negotiated piece of ransom-for-hostages? If so, it wouldn't be... Read More