Colombia sends tanks to Venezuelan border

Venezuela condemned Colombia on Sunday night for sending tanks to the border in a “provocation” amid surging unrest in both countries.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry released a statement slamming the deployment of armoured vehicles “scant metres from the frontier” in Paraguachon, Guajira department, on the Caribbean coast.

The statement pointed out that in recent days Colombian authorities had “broadcast to the world that it they were preparing for waves of migrants from Venezuela to Colombia” fleeing violence in Venezuela.

Caracas said: "The provocation aims to divert attention from the political and social crisis” in Colombia’s in the Cauca valley, Buenaventura, where a mass civic strike entered its seventh day yesterday, despite troops being deployed on the streets.

Residents are demanding improvements to infrastructure and drinking water supply for the sake of their health.

The Cauca Valley Patriotic Union yesterday sent a message of solidarity to Venezuela “In its valourous resistance against the economic and terrorist war unleashed by that country’s extreme right opposition.”

And Colombia faces more unrest in the coming week.

The CUT [United Workers’ Central or Central Union of Workers] union federation has called general public employees strike and protests today [TUES] along with political, social and peasants’ organisations.

That follows last Tuesday’s 500,000-strong strike in demand of wage rises to compensate for inflation and “regressive tax reforms.”

Tomorrow [WED] groups affiliated under the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia (Onic) will march from the Popayan to Cali in the Cauca Valley.

And national marches in support of the peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are planned for June 1.

A leaflet from the “Venezuela Resistance and Student Movement” circulated on social media (see below) called for an indefinite national general strike starting yesterday.

The authors blamed the government for the economic crisis — and warned businesses, bus and taxi drivers they would not be responsible for looting and arson if they continued doing business.

Nearly two months of opposition regime change riots across Venezuela have now left 53 people dead, according to news channel Telesur — ten more than 2014’s year of “Guarimba” bloodshed to the same end.

Only six of those are confirmed to have been killed by the security forces — while two officers have been killed.

On Sunday the Public Ministry ordered a probe into the latest deadly shooting of Edy Alejandro Teran a a protest in Tachira state on saturday night, that also left an 18-year-old boy and a woman injured.

The mystery of the Guanches

The origins and language of the indigenous people of the Canary Islands remain a mystery, writes Dr Sabina Goralski Filonov Translation by James Tweedie The guanches, the aboriginals of the Canary Islands whose origin, lost in the mists of time, still arouses intense and passionate debate and great controversy about their origins and the how the seven Canary Islands were populated – which according to some studies occurred between 10,000 and 8,000 years BC. Literally, the word ‘Guan’ means man or person and ‘Chenech’ or ‘Chinet’ is applied to the island of Tenerife, thus meaning a man or inhabitant of Tenerife – although according to Núñez de la Peña, the Spanish named them the Guanchos during the conquest of the islands. But with the passage of time, experts in the subject are questioning whether the word Guanche was used to designate the primitive inhabitants of all the islands in the pre-Hispanic period. The term ‘Guanche’ has also ceased to be applied to the di...

Homeless dogs’ home fights for compensation

Dingo Dogs owner Phil Nelson at his since-demolished home. DOGS’ home owner Phil Nelson has vowed to take legal action following his eviction from his Dingo Dogs animal sanctuary in August. by James Tweedie Indian-born Mr Nelson, along with former girlfriend and Dingo Dogs treasurer Leigh Crouch were left homeless by the court-ordered eviction and have been sharing a small hut in the mountains near Las Chafiras with ten dogs and three cats ever since. Mr Nelson’s dispute with his former landlord began in September 2004, after he officially registered his rented hillside finca as an animal sanctuary. It was a requirement of his registration that he keep proper financial records, including receipts for payment of rent. Mr Nelson says that despite having a rental contract and paying his rent “as regular as clockwork” for years, his landlord never gave him a receipt even after he began asking for one every month in 2004. In May 2005, after his landlord ha...

Sun-crossed haters endanger 220,000 lives

My stepmother Shanthie Naidoo and her sister Ramnie were on an overnight flight from Johannesburg to Heathrow for a speaking tour when Extinction Rebellion offshoot Heathrow Pause began wilfully endangering aircraft by flying drones over the airport this morning. Shanthie is an ANC struggle veteran who lived in exile in London from 1973 to 1993, apart from some time in the exile community in Mazimbu, Tanzania. She and all her immediate family were jailed by the Apartheid government for political reasons. Shanthie's late brother Indres did 10 years on Robben Island and later wrote the book 'Island in Chains'. Their grandfather Thembi Naidoo worked alongside Mohandas K Gandhi during the civil disobedience campaigns against the early form of Apartheid. Extinction Rebellion has chosen for its logo a variation on the 'sonnenkreuz', a symbol used by both proto-fascist neo-pagan organisations and modern neo-Nazis. Around 220,000 passengers fly in and out of Heathr...

US allies say no Venezuela war

Lima Group rules out intervention Washington's Latin American allies will not back any invasion of Venezuela to overthrow its elected government. Peruvian Foreign Minister Néstor Popolizio insisted on Tuesday that the 'Lima Group' of nations – those hostile to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government – was against “military intervention.” “As the Lima Group we have said that we do not support any military intervention in Venezuela,” Mr Popolizio said at a meeting of the group in the Canadian capital Ottawa. The prospect of a US-led invasion to back extremist Venezuelan opposition figure Juan Guadió's claim to the presidency appeared more likely on Tuesday after White House National Security Advisor John Bolton appeared at a press conference holding a notepad scrawled with “5,000 troops to Colombia.” But Mr Popolizio insisted “we have no information” about a planned invasion. At Tuesday's pressconference US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin annou...

Venezuela exposes UN human rights hypocrisy

Venezuela challenged the UN on Monday to see for itself if opposition allegations of human rights abuses were true. Addressing the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza invited the organisation’s human rights experts to visit his country to see the situation there at first hand. He said the invitation was intended to break through the “media matrix” pushed by biased and unfounded sources from the global rightwing. Venezuela’s Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mud) opposition blamed the government and security forces for the 124 deaths during four months of regime change riots from April to early August this year. The US, EU and Britain have backed those claims, with Washington slapping new financial sanctions on Venezuela last month. After meeting Mud leaders in Berlin last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was considering EU sanctions on Caracas as well for allegation rights violations. But Mr Arreaza said the rioters had committed crim...

Search This Blog