Monthly Archives: May 2020

INDEPENDENT, investigative journalist and author, Antony Loewenstein has been a maverick player on the left-field of journalism for almost 15 years, reporting on the Israel-Palestine conflict, repressive regimes, disaster capitalism and, most recently, the war on drugs.

His new book Pills, Powder and Smoke: Inside the Bloody War on Drugstakes a macro-political lens to subject, investigating both wealthy consumer countries such as the US and Britain and impoverished, transit and narco-states, such as Guinea-Bissau, Honduras and the Philippines.

I talked with Loewenstein on a long-distance Skype call to discuss the war on drugs how it functions as a conduit for the US empire and how, at its rotten core, its all about class, class, class Loewenstein also shared his views on the current coronavirus pandemic and how its in danger of being co-opted by the ever-watchful forces of disaster capitalism.

ME: So, what prompted you to write a book about the war on drugs?

AL: I started writing the book five years ago and what frustrated me was how many people thought the drug war was either over or coming to an end and my sense was that this was an untrue narrative.

There are huge problems around the drug war, not least because demand for drugs in the West is at an all-time high. The amount of people inBritain, for instance, who are using cocaine is off the chart and that cocaine has to come from somewhere.

This is not just something that happened under Ronald Regan 30 years ago. This is a real war, now.

I was also wholly frustrated by the journalism around the war on drugs. I felt a lot of it was inaccurate, uses language thats dehumanising to the user and ignores countries that have a direct connection to drugs.

Transit countries are key to this whole question of the drug war, particularly those in West Africa and Central America.

So, while I didnt want to write a book that demonises the users of drugs, I did want to interrogate the mechanism of this unseen, hegemonic war.

ME: Most people, when they think of drug-producing countries, think Colombia, Afghanistan or Mexico. What made you look at somewhere like Guinea-Bissau?

AL: Well, I had heard that Guinea-Bissau, this tiny African country, a former Portuguese colony, had recently become a narco-state. Enormous amounts of cocaine are trafficked through the country on their way to Europe from South America.

Chances are, most of the cocaine being consumed in London tonight will have come through Guinea-Bissau, one of the poorest nations on Earth.

All levers of the state, military and political, have been co-opted by South American drug cartels. This is allowed to happen because its such a poor country, meaning its a vulnerable country. Its a beautiful country, but those tropical palm trees mask a population thats been entirely subjugated by the drug trade and drug war.

So I wanted to bring a case study of Guinea-Bissau, to say to the consumer states: these are the countries that have to suffer to get the drugs to you. Not to make them feel guilty but to make them aware that this is what the drug trade and drug warmeans.

ME: Tell me about Bubo Na Tchuto?

AL: Na Tchuto was a retired general in the Guinea-Bissau navy and the US allege that he was one West Africas leading drug kingpins.

In reality, Na Tchuto was set up by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to be involved in a fake drug importation business to allegedly import huge amounts of cocaine and give some of that money to the Colombian Farc.

So he was busted by the DEA, taken to the US, put on trial and ended up pleading guilty for a shorter sentence. He served four years in jail and hes now back in Guinea-Bissau.

The reason I gave the example of Na Tchuto in the book was to show what the DEA regularly does. It essentially entraps people, makes up stories and prosecutes people for the idea of carrying out those stories.

And this is exactly what the FBI has been doing since September 11 to countless Muslims. It coerces them, manipulates them or pressures themto say or plan for an alleged terrorist attack, when theyd never have done that unprodded by the FBI.

And Im not saying dangerous people dont exist, they do, but the implication that this old West African guy was some crazy drug kingpin its ludicrous.

ME: How about Honduras another transit state?

AL: Honduras is where the majority of the cocaine, heading for the US, travels through. Its been a US client state for a hundred years and has subsequently become, or been allowed to become, a narco-state with a narco-president, narco-mayors, narco-government and the Honduran people are terrified. The drug war has turned their country into a failed state.

Not enough journalists go there. And some of the reporting, particularly from the New York Times, surrounding Honduras has just been propaganda.

Normally its a journalist who goes there, embedded with DEA forces or Honduran forces propped up by the DEA. They go over there and praise these illicit counterinsurgency tactics, the idea of co-opting violent thugs to go after the thugs you dont like.

ME: Whats the end game of the war on drugs for the US?

AL: This is an important point. The drug war has never been about ending drug use, or the drug trade. Its never been about that ever.

Its about keeping control and influence over forces you can deal with, that you can work with. Its about propping up intelligence assets and eliminating those who arent, so to speak, your friends.

Honduras is a classic example of this. Juan OrlandoHernandez, the current president, has been accused with serious, hard evidence of taking cartel money. His brother, Tony Hernandez, was recently found guilty in a US court for trying to import huge amounts of cocaine.

If Washington wants to maintain this insane prohibition on drugs, it will inevitably have to maintain states like Honduras to do its dirty work.

During Trumps first term, theres been a lot of press demonising migrants fleeing Honduras, but no-one is asking why are they fleeing? And thats because if you start to pull that thread you begin to realise the USs role is absolutely central.

ME: Do you see the drug war as imperialist?

AL: Nobody who covers the drug war talks about empire. But empire is what the drug war is about. And its always been about that maintaining empire and controlling empire.

And on that level its sadly been very successful and millions of people have died in the process.

ME: What about countries that try a hard-line deterrent approach to eliminate drugs, like Dutertes government in the Philippines? Does that work?

AL: No. The reality is that what Dutertes doing is a war on the poor. Ninety-nine per cent of those whove been killed by Dutertes anti-drug death squads are the intensely poor people living in slums, living with families in complete squalor.

This is not about going after high-level dealers and users of cocaine (which is ubiquitous amongthe upper echelons of Filipino society). Something I saw in the Philippines is that the drug war is about empire in a geopolitical sense, but in a social sense its about class class, class, class. Its a war on the poor, whose lives are incredibly difficult.

Tragically, however, its a very popular war. Many Filipinos support the drug war. When I was there investigating, I found that even people who had family killed by Duterte still admired what hes trying to do.

Its almost this Freudian thing Daddy needs to come and clean out the streets. Its much like Trump. The drug war is Dutertes vessel for this, instead of build the wall or whatever it is now.

What price are we willing to pay for our perceived security, thats the question in the Philippines tens of thousands of people massacred by vigilante groups in their slum? A lot of people are, sadly, fine with this.

The other scary part of this is whether what Duterte is doing will provide a blueprint for potential authoritarians. Because hes getting away with it. Trump has even said he admires what Duterte is doing.

ME: What about on a consumer level? Drug prosecutions may focus on the lower tiers of class, but drug use certainly doesnt.

AL: In countries like Britain, which I explore in the book, drug use cuts across all social classes and has become almost ubiquitous.

For years there was an impression with cocaine that it was just the rich. And years ago that was true. Now its not.

Its incredibly cheap and incredibly pure not that you cant get impurities in an unregulated substance. Many people also die. Or get hospitalised from going to the pub and taking it which makes them drink more pints which they often cant take.

So hospitalisation rates from drugs in Britain has never been higher. Not because the drugs are somehow more dangerous, but because more people are doing them.

And the broader question is, why is there such a big demand? Theres a number of reasons for people to take drugs they want to get high, they want to get over a personal tragedy, theres a thousand reasons.

But the idea that keeping these drugs illegal so fewer people will take them is deluded and has failed so spectacularly as to be absurd.

There are millions of people who will break the law in Britain over the next week by taking drugs. I have no problem with them breaking stupid laws. But it goes to show two things.

First that the prohibition approach is not working and second that more people than ever feel the need for some kind of alteration or escape.

ME: So whos benefiting by the perpetuation of the war on drugs?

AL: Many people. The DEA get higher and higher budgets every year. And theres an osmosis between the war on terror and the drug war.

People in the corridors of power argue that there is a link between the cartels and Middle Eastern terrorist cells like Isis or al Qaida. This is complete bullshit.

There is evidence that certain drug money has assisted militant groups, such as the Taliban, but this expansion of the invisible enemy is a political tool. Its a self-perpetuating, quasi-religious battle and theres billions of dollars invested in it worldwide. It allows empire to continue across the globe.

Most politicians Ive talked to about the war on drugs are, frankly, gutless and shit-scared of putting forward an alternative view, for fear of being seen as weak. Things are changing a bit, though.

In Britain you even have Tory MPs like Crispin Blunt [a former prisons minister], calling for legalisation of drugs. Labour has a unique opportunity, with a new leader, of putting forward a more sensible drug policy.

ME: Were now in the midst of a pandemic. Your previous book, Disaster Capitalismdetailed how corporations make a killing from disaster. Should we be worried?

AL: Disaster capitalists always look for an opportunityto strike when society is weak and vulnerable. The coronaviruscrisis has exposed the weaknesses of the current, global economic order, even in wealthy countries such as the US and Western Europe, where government mismanagement has led to catastrophe and far too many deaths.

There are companies and individuals seeing financial opportunity in this disaster. From pharmaceutical companies looking to profit from a possible vaccine to private health care providers aiming to exclude anybody who doesnt pay the top premiums, our capitalist societies are designed to benefit the rich and exclude the poor.

Why are private corporations being contractedto build field hospitals in the first place acompanyin Australia such as Aspen Medical, for instance, which has a troubling record when the state should be providing all necessary services?

We should also be wary of states using the cover of Covid-19 to instituteextreme surveillance methods, often designed by shady,privatised intelligence services, allegedly in the name of protecting us.

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It's a war on the poor why the war on drugs is still sweeping the globe - Morning Star Online

In the last couple of issues of The Daily Home, a couple of articles concerning whether to hang drug dealers, with three convictions, has drawn the ire of the NAACP. This 100-plus year organization Is on record opposing lynchings.

President Nixon's war on drugs has been disastrous. The government Is spending trillions of dollars fighting against illegal drugs. Prisons are filled, and there are backlogs.

Presently, there are around 162,000 inmates serving a life sentence nationwide, and 50,000 of them have no chance for parole.

There are 33 countries in the world that have a death penalty for drug offenses. Since January 2015, more than 1,300 drug dealers worldwide are known to have been executed for drug-related offenses.

America has a death penalty for certain crimes, so instead of hanging, maybe the Sylacauga mayoral candidate should try to get his representatives to get legislation passed to have a death penalty for habitual drug dealers, regardless of skin color. This would save taxpayers millions a year for incarceration.

This said, I question why the NAACP does not push for a federal law to ban abortion (legalized baby murder) or work to get the Roe v. Wade, abortion law over turned.

It is estimated that 125,000 babies are aborted (murdered) daily worldwide. Depending on whose data is used, it is estimated that almost 30 percent of babies aborted in the United States are black.

Meanwhile, black-on-black crime remains a major problem in this country.

As a former member, I encourage the NAACP to come out as forceful against baby murdering and black-on-black killings as they have about whether to hang or not.

Thank you, Mr. Editor, for permitting me this opportunity to express my view.

Larry Barton,

Talladega

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Where is NAACP's outrage toward abortion, black-on-black crime? - Anniston Star

Manila (CNN Philippines Life) Kapag sinabi nilang may aswang, ang ibig sabihin nila: matakot ka.

The central metaphor of the newest full-length documentary on the Duterte administrations war on drugs campaign isnt just apt; it resonates true to the Filipino experience, like a gong in any locals psyche.

As the first Filipino-directed full-length documentary, it draws parallels with the aswang not just as a vampiric, shape-shifting monster of folklore, but also as a CIA creation for fear-mongering, and as a real-life marauder that mimics the behavior of something out of lower mythology, disguised and clandestine.

Even now during the community quarantine, there are rumors that Iloilo and West Visayan officials are using aswang scare tactics to help impose the curfew against the locals.

In the late 2010s, director Alyx Ayn Arumpac was in Europe for a few years, completing her Docnomads Erasmus Mundus Joint Master in Lisbon, Budapest, and Brussels. But she came home in 2015 sans job, later on witnessing how Rodrigo Duterte was elected president. To make ends meet, she took projects and production gigs, while she accompanied her friend, the photojournalist Raffy Lerma (both were former Philippine Collegian colleagues), to his nightwatch rounds on the police and city beats, curious about the rumors of extrajudicial killings.

What Arumpac witnessed on those ride-alongs convinced her of the need for a Filipino perspective on tokhang. Her full-length documentary would not just tackle the emotional heft of the horrid event, but also attempt an expression of her feelings on it that might, she hoped, eventually exorcise her own demons.

From 2016 until post-production in 2019, Arumpac and her crew took to the streets from late night to dawn and bore witness. This was the seed of "Aswang," a joint effort from institutions in France, Norway, Qatar, and Germany that pooled their resources and funding for its completion. First shown at the prestigious International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), it was supposed to have its local premiere in March 2020s Daang Dokyu festival before the lockdown against COVID-19 cancelled all events.

The documentary follows characters whose fates entwine with the growing violence during two years of killings in Manila. The two central ones are Brother Jun Santiago of the Redemptorist Brothers and the young street kid Jomari.

Santiagoworks not just to document the killings but also helps in the funeral and burial fees for those who are left behind, often poor and almost destitute. While Jomari tells the story of the drug war kids, the orphans and the abandoned youth, since in Jomaris case both his mother and father are in prison for drug-related charges. Its pretty good serendip, too, that the filmmaker met Jomari at the wake of Kian Delos Santos.

There is a third character in this trinity: a woman who confesses to being imprisoned inside the secret jail behind the bookshelf and filing cabinet in a police station in Tondo. Like some ghost she only appears in shadow, close shots of her arms and hands as she draws the cramped layout of the cell on a notebook, filled to the nooks with her fellow prisoners.

"Aswang" can be a bit meandering at first, mostly since it assumes you know the major peaks and valleys of the tokhang chronicles from Kian Delos Santos murder and the rise of the tandem shooting modus, to the secret bookshelf jail and the funeral parlors that deal with the influx of the dead.

"Aswang" director Alyx Ayn Arumpac. Photo by MATTEO GARIGLIO

The two major, and arguably more popular, foreign-made documentaries on the drug war are National Geographics "The Nightcrawlers" (U.K.) and PBS Frontline's "On the President's Orders" (U.S.). Theyre mostly straightforward docus of the informative this-and-that-happened type, with talking heads and arms length objectivity. In Arumpacs narrative though is something innately magic realist, something that is innately Asian rather than Western in approach and tenor. This was made for those who couldnt escape the news, who lived daily with the threat of tandem riders.

"Aswang" is a meditation on the tokhang chronicles by a local, at once sublime and gruesome. What makes this different is its point of view: the perception by a Filipino for fellow Filipinos. The tone is quite liberating, making it free to reflect our own collective feelings of frustration, grief, horror, and utter bewilderment back at us.

That it is beautifully composed of imagery worthy of the caliber of a Hollywood movie or South Korean horror cinema, Arumpac credits to her cinematographer Tanya Haurylchyk, and her editors Anne Fabini and Fatima Bianchi. She states that they truly made the gritty visions look cinematically exquisite. For Arumpac though, there was a feeling of aestheticizing the horror, a distrust of the attractive imagery that happened to be bathed in the blood of real people. Its something that the director struggled with.

That you wish this was some fictional Bong Joon-Ho movie is part of why "Aswang" is so effective. Part of what makes it very Filipino is how it hits the emotive inflection points that the other major tokhang documentaries often only casually gloss over in favor of just-the-hard-facts.

"Aswang" never lets the facts get in the way of the truth, finding a way to conjure emotive exorcism without being sentimental or forgetting the plain bloodiness of it all. Arumpac obviously knew the tragedy and sorrow of her country and her fellow Filipinos intimately. Here, she has lovingly constructed an important, unredacted record for these dark times for our own use, free of pretense or agenda.

The film just won theAmnesty International Human Rights Award at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. The citation for the film said:[Aswang is a]powerful denouncement against state terror, resilient and painful humanitarian stories coming from different voices, enthralling connections between the popular myth of the Aswang monster and everyday violence, poverty and death looming in the cities. A cry of despair from the marginalized, pleading for justice and human rights.

In this interview, Arumpac, executive producer for GMA News and Current Affairs,talks about the making of this powerful and riveting documentary. Opinions expressed in this interview are the subjects.

"Aswang" never lets the facts get in the way of the truth, finding a way to conjure emotive exorcism without being sentimental or forgetting the plain bloodiness of it all. Photo courtesy of ASWANG 2019

Theres a really intimate and comforting feeling that pervades the film in its tone and vibe that it was made for Filipinos. How did you adjust and manage to toe that creative line?

I insisted on this form. I insisted on the aswang, on using the metaphor. And I was told off many times, mostly by my foreign producers. And then I was told, you know, maybe we can do instead a straight reportage? Or a straight film with talking heads and everything? Just so it could be bought by broadcasters.

I was just saying: No, I still want to do the aswang; I want to do the metaphor. I think that was also basically the guide for me as to how to film it, how to approach it. And then I was very fascinated with the connections as well, the spirituality of the Filipino, since the fact that my protagonist was a priest.

Throughout the process, especially during the first month I really tried digging through my thoughts and feelings. So after every shoot I would go home at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. and I would transfer material right away. Then I would write a bit about what happened during the day, sometimes just to make sure I had the names and locations right. Sometimes I would write about what happened. What I thought. What I felt.

Did you draw on personal experiences about the stories of the aswang?

I am from General Santos City and we lived beside a forest inside this subdivision, because it was a newly constructed subdivision. I was around eight years old, I think. One day the yaya of our neighbor said theres a sigbin [Visayan aswang variant] who roams around the village and lives in that forest. At night you need to sleep and you cant wake up, because if you do and you look at the window youll see red eyes and long nails. The windows back in the day were jalousie types. She said the sigbin would put its long clawed fingernails inside the window to get you. I was terrified for so long!

The documentary follows characters whose fates entwine with the growing violence during two years of killings in Manila. Photo courtesy of ASWANG 2019

The beauty of the cinematography really clashes with the bloody subject matter. Its a stark and very powerful contrast.

One of the things that I wrote [a few months in] and [still] remember: I was saying, you know, I always wanted to make cinematic films, beautiful films, but I wrote down that There's nothing beautiful about this. I mean, how can you make a good film out of this? Because there's nothing good about it. I even felt bad about trying to construct images, trying to construct a frame around this entire situation.

The idea of using a beast from folklore that scares makes this documentary very different and very Filipino. That kind of clarity in a nonfiction product is rare.

The entire idea of this war on drugs for me was finding a common enemy, finding a scapegoat. And that's what the president did there. No one liked the drug user and the drug dealer who would rape kids and [Duterte] made this narrative. It has always existed, but he made this narrative and then he made everyone go against this set of people. So that was his common enemy, the same way that previous generations think they went for the communists. That was very clear to me and this was also why I immediately went for this idea, as well, of the aswang.

While other foreign-made and major documentaries about the war on drugs are very different in approach, we think that Filipinos and those familiar with how the tokhang events and stories have gone may find something ritually therapeutic in watching this docu.

I have to say Filipinos will get it more. Filipinos will feel it more, and it was made that way. I didn't expect foreigners to understand all the connections of the images. But then I also had what you would call a target audience. I knew who I was making the film for, and the sooner that was clear to me then the easier I could make my decisions and the easier the rest of my team would get on board.

"Aswang" will soon be available on video-on-demand internationally.

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In this documentary, Duterte's drug war is a hunt for the aswang - CNN Philippines

The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down a lot of things, but U.S. arms sales are not one of them.Since March, the Trump administration has made over$9 billionin major offers in 15 separate deals.But its not just about the money, its about whom were arming.

A case in point is the Philippines, where the Duterte regime is one of the worlds most aggressive human rights abusers.Over27,000people have been killed in the governments war on drugs, many of them by the police and military or government-affiliated death squads. People are being gunned down in the streets without benefit of a trial or formal charges.And the victims have included lawyers, journalists, human rights defenders and trade unionists whose only crime has been opposing the regimes repressive practices.

Despite this record, the Philippine military is slated to receive apackageof attack helicopters, bombs and missiles worth up to $1.5 billion.This comes on the heels of offers of firearms last year that included pistols and semi-automatic rifles for the Philippine armed forces.The helicopters are likely to be used in Dutertes scorched earth counterinsurgency campaign on the island of Mindanao, where450,000 peoplehave been driven from their homes by indiscriminate aerial attacks. As the U.S. State Department has noted in its annual human rightsreport, the killings have included environmentalists and land rights activists with no connection to the armed opponents of the government.

If anything, the regimes repression has gotten worse during the pandemic, with over30,000people arrested for alleged violations of social distancing rules, many of them herded into overcrowded prisons orplaced in dog cages,where they are at far greater risk of contracting COVID-19.Meanwhile, President Duterte has been granted emergency powers akin to martial law and has used them to harshly crack down on critics of the regime, including news outlets that dare to raise questions about its mishandling of the pandemic. Even voluntary aid groups that have been providing food aid to people not reached by the governments inadequate assistance programs have been harassed andarrestedby the police and military.

The Philippine deal is just one of many examples of the Trump administrations penchant for arming authoritarian regimes, often citing the economic benefits of weapons exports, which it gives preference over human rights and security concerns.Just this week Sen. Robert MenendezRobert (Bob) MenendezSenate panel approves Trump nominee under investigation Hillicon Valley: Trump threatens Michigan, Nevada over mail-in voting | Officials call for broadband expansion during pandemic | Democrats call for investigation into Uber-Grubhub deal Senate chairman schedules vote on Trump nominee under investigation MORE (D-N.J.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,revealedthat there is a deal in the works to sell more precision-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia, which is waging a brutal war in Yemen in which it has killed thousands of civilians in air strikes carried out with U.S. aircraft and bombs.Last year Congress voted to block a similar deal, only to have its action vetoed by President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump marks 'very sad milestone' of 100K coronavirus deaths DOJ: George Floyd death investigation a 'top priority' Lifting our voices and votes MORE.

And thats not all. In addition to the offer of attack helicopters to the Philippines, the Trump administration is seeking to close deals for thousands of armored vehicles to the United Arab Emirates, which has been implicated in running secrettorture sitesin Yemen,divertingU.S.-supplied weapons to extremist militias and members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and arming opposition forces in Libya in violation of a United Nations arms embargo.

The administration is also offering upgraded Apache attack helicopters toEgypt, where the al-Sisi regime haskilledthousands of non-violent opponents and thrown tens of thousands of critics in jail, even as it wages a harsh counterterror campaign marked by arbitrary arrests, torture, the forced removal of thousands of people from their homes and the bombing of civilian targets.

Several members of Congress are organizing a letter to Secretary of State Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Esper demanding a delay in the flood of arms sales announced in the past few months to allow Congress adequate time to be briefed on and carefully consider each of them. In an ideal world, Congress would block all of the sales specifically mentioned above, which are likely to cause suffering in the recipient countries even as they undermine long-term U.S. interests in peace and stability in key regions. But its not an easy task.It currently takes a veto proof majority two-thirds of both houses of Congress to stop an arms sale. The procedure should be reversed, so that major arms sales cannot go forward without explicit congressional approval.

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised serious questions about how best to protect the United States and the world.Mindlessly trafficking in weapons to questionable regimes is just one of the things that needs to change.

William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy.

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No time to be selling arms to the Philippines | TheHill - The Hill

Colombia will not get a respite with the War on Drugs despite another frontline with the fight against coronavirus. On June 1, same day that the nationwide lockdown is scheduled to enter a new phase according to the government, the U.S Armys elite Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB) will arrive in the country as part of a regional counter-narcotics operation by US Southern Command.

The company-sized unit has been assigned to Colombia to support security forces with logistics and intelligence gathering within Future Zones defined by the Ministry of Defense. The unit will be deployed to Colombia for four months. The mission of SFAB in Colombia is an opportunity to demonstrate our mutual commitment against drug trafficking and support regional peace, respect for sovereignty and the lasting promise to defend shared ideals and values, writes U.S. Southern Commander Admiral Craig Faller in a U.S Embassy statement.

Minister of Defense Carlos Holmes Trujillo emphasized that at no time will there be any transit of foreign troops or participation in military operations. Military operations are carried out exclusively by Colombian troops. The presence of foreign military in a host country is part of long-standing bilateral agreements on security and cooperation.

After a surge in coca production since the signing of the 2016 Final Accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrilla, the government of President Ivn Duque has pledged to eradicate manually 130,000 hectares this year and up from 98,000 the previous year. The U.S government has insisted that in order to reach objectives established by the government aerial spraying with glyphosate must be approved by Colombian Congress after lawmakers banned the method citing public health and environmental hazards.

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Colombia to receive US Army unit on June 1 for counter-narcotics support - The City Paper Bogot

Toward the close of his Harvard Law School commencement address, Bryan Stevenson J.D./M.P.P. 85 let the graduates in on a secret: He did not attend his own HLS graduation in 1985. I dont have a good excuse, like a pandemic. I was just kind of anxious to get to work, things were busy.

Stevensons work as a lawyer and social activist has made him an inspirational figure to many. He is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, the nonprofit organization behind the recently opened National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Alabama, which is dedicated to the victims of lynching in the United States. In a pre-recorded talk for HLS first virtual commencement ceremony on Thursday, he urged the graduates to jump into their work with the same zeal that he didand to keep their ideals and their hopes intact.

The class, he said, had already mastered law; the next step is to pursue justice. This pandemic has exposed the issues that we have in our society. Too many people are sick. Too many people are dying. So many people cant get the health care they should be getting because of these problems. Its the same with legal services and access to justice. Too many people cant get the legal help they need We have to find ways to create more equality, more opportunity, more justice.

Bridging these gaps will require a commitment to doing things sometimes not for money, but because it is what we are called to do, Stevenson said. He outlined a four-point program for graduates to call on for bringing about real justice. They need, he said, to stay proximate to those they hope to represent. They need to fight back against the narratives that have created injustice. They need to stay hopeful and remember that your hope is your superpower. And finally, they have to be willing to do inconvenient and uncomfortable things.

Find a way to get proximate to the people who are marginalized, who are excluded.

Stevenson said that proximity can take many forms: For him it meant going to death row to represent inmates. I learned that we have a criminal justice system that treats you better if youre rich and guilty than if youre poor and innocent. I learned that each of us is more than the worst thing weve ever done. While the graduates may not choose the same path, he urged them to find a way to get proximate to the people in your neighborhoods, your communities, the places where you work, the places where you livethe people who are marginalized, who are excluded.

He called on the graduates to change the narratives that sustain inequality and make us indifferent to human suffering. In particular he cited the war on drugs that began in the late 70s and identified drug users as criminals rather than addicts with a medical problem. The result, he said, was that by 2001, one in three black male babies was expected to eventually go to prison. The other consequence was a nation divided by fear and anger.

But the roots of this inequality go back further, to the killing of American natives by European settlers and to the institution of slavery. The true evil of American slavery was this narrative we created that black people arent fully human. Stevenson encountered this narrative himself as a lawyerwhen a judge saw a well-dressed black man and presumed he was a defendantand he saw it again in the recent Georgia killing of Ahmaud Arbery. Two white men killed that young man on the street, and our system did not respond. We tried to justify that violence based on these narratives of racial difference.

This is a strange time. Its a difficult time. We cant all be together. But I am persuaded that we shall overcome.

Finally, he urged the graduates to remain hopeful, and to risk uncomfortable situations. He recalled doing both at one trial, when the discriminatory treatment of his 14-year-old client led him to write a motion that the teenager instead be treated like a 75-year-old corporate executive. The language in that motion triggered a courtroom shouting match. But Stevensons defense of his client led an older black man, who worked as a court janitor, to appear uninvited at the trial to urge Stevenson to keep his eyes on the prize.

Stevenson emphasized that each of the graduates has the ability to make the future more just. We will get to a different place, he said. This is a strange time. Its a difficult time. We cant all be together. But I am persuaded that we shall overcome.

Excerpt from:

Stevenson: We have to find ways to create more equality, more opportunity, more justice - Harvard Law School News