The Colombian government finally passed a new forestry law "ley forestal" December 2005 at its eleventh attempt - in the face of united opposition trom cavital. peasants, indigenous and black groups.
This new legislation ripped up the protection from economic exploitation for native forests and areas that are important water sources in place since 1959.
The change will open up huge tracts of forests in both the Amazon and the Pacific coast either to logging or to mining, destroying the enviconment and displacing many communities in the pursuit of profit at all costs.
Behind the push to change the law lie some very nasty characters.
US company Chemonics International, are active not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but are a major player in Plan Colombia, the US government's phoney anti-drugs war in the country. acCused on tering bribes on Chemonics have up to $3,500 to people to get
vote for the new law. There are also accusations that both mining companies and paper manufacturers were also involved in funding the campaign to get the law In October 2005 indigenous people in Colombia's Cauca State occupied privately owned unused farms, which they claim are their ancestral lands. The security forces resorted to violent measures to try and remove the protestors. changed.
One of the key impacts o
he change in the law is likel to be the massive expansion of African palm tree plantations. Palm oil is a massively versatile product which is found in 1 in 10 products in supermarkets, ranging from chocolate to bread from crisps to detergents. ing force behind eighty per cent of the deforestation taking place in Indonesia and Malaysia, threatening the extinction of several animal and plants species, sterilising soil and water and displacing many indigenous communities.
It is not for nothing that George Monbiot has called the African Palm "the most destructive crop on earth."
Colombia is already the world's fourth largest producer of the crop. In 2002 Britain was the single largest importer of Colombian palm oil. In 2004, 157,000 hectares were under cultivation, but President Alvaro Uribe has said he wants to see this increased to S1X million hectares.
The existing palm oil plantations have already brought their legacy of death to parts of Colombia. New! Selected writings by Cuban Trotskyist CELIA HART
Copies £5.50 including postage
from Socialist Resistance
PO Box 1109, London N4
2UU
The jungle department of Choco, which borders Panama, is mainly inhabited by indigenous and AfroColombian communities, and is ideal territory for palm oil growin.
Collective ownership of their ancestral lands by AfroColombians supposedly protected by Law 70 of 1993, which says that lands cannot be sold except to other AfroColombian communities.
However a subsequent law allows an individual or company to exploit the land and to apply for ownership if it has Please make cheques payable to RESISTANCE
been abandoned for four years. Since 1997, thousands of Afro-Colombians have been forced from their land, hundreds killed and many villages burnt by military and paramilitary violence. Colombia's rural development agency, INCODER, estimates that 95 per cent of the current 6,000 hectares of palm oil plantations in the region came into existence through this method. Hor turther intormation sco. www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk Celia Hart edited by Walter Lippmann Shever too late to love or rebel
page 20 of the scan
Liam Mac Uaid Comunista which has 41 seats locked the party into an Anti-war deputies and sen-