Dell's history of prison labor - the stain remains

A Public Relations spokesoid from Dell stopped by Constellations today to leave a response to Monday's the dollars in the bars - "we're offering you competitive prison labor" post. The note is a friendly little example of the mix of corporate marketing/branding/propaganda that infests US social discourse today:

BryantatDell said...

Hi - I work at Dell on corporate responsibility issues and noticed your post today - a good topic to be raised indeed.

One note - in the highlight Dell is among the companies listed. It's important to note that Dell absolutely prohibits the use of prison labor -- either directly or through our suppliers -- globally.

In fact, among the other companies listed in that higlight I'm sure our competitors HP and IBM have similar prohibitions. Dell, HP and IBM were among the founders of the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (www.eicc.info ) which prohibits use of indentured labor in the industry's supply chain.

Mr. Hilton I presume?

Mr. Hilton is probably aware (which I wasn't when originally posting) that Vicky Pelaez' article is from 2005 and covers the growing prison labor industries of the previous quarter-century. He also knows very well that Dell had a contract with Unicor during that period, operating an e-waste recycling program at the Atwater, CA prison (see prison labor & e-waste—smashing a computer to pieces) before it received national publicity unfavorably comparing its recycling practices to those of HP.

Surely he recalls, after that outpouring of negative publicity, the 7-4-03 NYT article by LAURIE J. FLYNN headlined:

Dell to Stop Using Prison Workers:

Responding to concerns from both customers and environmental advocates, Dell Computer announced yesterday that it would no longer rely on prisons to supply workers for its computer recycling program.

Dell, the world's largest seller of PC's, said it had canceled its contract with Unicor, a branch of the Federal Bureau of Prisons that employs prisoners for electronics recycling and other industries.

. . .

Last week, an environmental group in California released a report criticizing Dell's reliance on prison labor.

The group, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, said in its report that inmates who work at the prison recycling operation were not protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act and were paid from 20 cents to $1.26 an hour.

The report also criticized Unicor for not properly disposing of toxic waste.

. . .

Bryant Hilton, a spokesman for Dell, said that the decision to replace Unicor with other recycling contractors was a business decision, based in part on the fact that many other vendors are now more competitively priced.

But he conceded that the company had heard from some customers complaining about the prison program.

"We did not make a decision based on special interest groups," Mr. Hilton said.

& from a related article:

Dell Computer disputed the accusations in the report, saying that the recycling operations met environmental standards and that the prison population benefited from them. "Our goal is keeping all of our recycling offers as low cost as possible," a spokesman, Bryant Hilton, said. "Unicor is part of the answer."

He added that the work program was voluntary, not forced, and that inmates who took part in it had a 24 percent lower recidivism rate than the rest of the prison population.

Dell officials also disputed the contention that the prison labor recycling effort undercut the formation of an American recycling industry. "There is currently not enough capacity for electronics recycling in the United States," Mr. Hilton said. "Unicor is not driving anyone out of business."

I'd assume Dell was included in Vicky Pelaez' article because it employed prison labor during the historical period she covers. It's certainly not inaccurate as BryantatDell's note implies.

Saying that the "Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (www.eicc.info ) . . . prohibits use of indentured labor" is not the same as saying that it prohibits the use of prison labor, which, as the company spokesperson points out in the NYT article, is entirely voluntary.

There is nothing in the EEIC (which, it should be noted wasn't developed 'til 2004, & is dated 10/14/2005) that I can find which would preclude participation in prison work programs, nor from paying less than minimum wage when the law allows it:

The labor standards are:

1) Freely Chosen Employment

Forced, bonded or indentured labor or involuntary prison labor is not to be used. All work will be voluntary, and workers should be free to leave upon reasonable notice. Workers shall not be required to hand over government-issued identification, passports or work permits as a condition of employment.

. . .

4) Wages and Benefits

Compensation paid to workers shall comply with all applicable wage laws, including those relating to minimum wages, overtime hours and legally mandated benefits. In compliance with local laws, workers shall be compensated for overtime at pay rates greater than regular hourly rates. Deductions from wages as a disciplinary measure shall not be permitted. The basis on which workers are being paid is to be provided in a timely manner via pay stub or similar documentation.

Let's recall the conditions at Unicor's Atwater operation that Dell contracted for and that Mr. Hilton has publicly praised to be a "part of the answer":

UNICOR’s operation is organized primarily to maintain a maximum-security facility, rather than to maximize the efficiency with which e-waste is sorted and disassembled. Its prison warehouse is organizationally and technologically backward. Cheap labor, paid .20 to $1.26 per hour at Atwater, offers little incentive to invest in worker productivity. In addition, prison workers have few rights and little ability to improve health and safety conditions. Inmates toil outside the protection of state and local environmental and labor regulations that private sector recyclers must follow. Prison laborers are not considered employees and are not protected against retaliatory acts by their employer (UNICOR) under the Fair Labor Standard Act. Inmates are not allowed to unionize or to serve on the prison health and safety committees.

All 'voluntary.'

Dell is certainly to be commended for halting its exploitative use of prison laborers working for pennies under highly toxic, under-regulated conditions. (Unicor however continues its Atwater & other prison e-waste operations.)
It's also "important" for everyone to understand that discontinuing the Unicor contract was merely "a business decision" on Dell's part, and that even then, the company was vigorously affirming the general practice of prison labor & Unicor's business specifically - "a good topic to be raised indeed."

From what I understand of Dell's current recycling program, the company has taken a positive step in the right direction on that issue, regardless of whether it was a business decision, a public relations decision, or a "corporate responsibility" decision.

I'm curious, given the misleading response, if Dell can unequivocally declare that it & its subcontractors have "absolutely" forsworn any further use of prison labor in all aspects of its operations?

While Dell no doubt would like to erase its part in the history of this ugly exploitation, the stain remains.

dollars in the bars - "we're offering you competitive prison labor"

Capital demands growth.

Vicky Pelaez, from "The prison industry in the United States: big business or a new form of slavery?"

HISTORY OF PRISON LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES

Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of "hiring out prisoners" was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else's land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery - which were almost never proven - and were then "hired out" for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads. From 1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93% of "hired-out" miners were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious Parchman plantation existed until 1972.

. . . "Today, a new set of markedly racist laws is imposing slave labor and sweatshops on the criminal justice system, now known as the prison industry complex," comments the Left Business Observer.

Who is investing? At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom's, Revlon, Macy's, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call "highly skilled positions." At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month.

Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq.

Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that "there won't be any transportation costs; we're offering you competitive prison labor (here)."

PRIVATE PRISONS

The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the governments of Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr., but reached its height in 1990 under William Clinton, when Wall Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. Clinton's program for cutting the federal workforce resulted in the Justice Departments contracting of private prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and high-security inmates.

Private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry complex. About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states. The two largest are Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut, which together control 75%. Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one. According to Russell Boraas, a private prison administrator in Virginia, "the secret to low operating costs is having a minimal number of guards for the maximum number of prisoners." The CCA has an ultra-modern prison in Lawrenceville, Virginia, where five guards on dayshift and two at night watch over 750 prisoners. In these prisons, inmates may get their sentences reduced for "good behavior," but for any infraction, they get 30 days added - which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of New Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost "good behavior time" at a rate eight times higher than those in state prisons.

IMPORTING AND EXPORTING INMATES

Profits are so good that now there is a new business: importing inmates with long sentences, meaning the worst criminals. When a federal judge ruled that overcrowding in Texas prisons was cruel and unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with sheriffs in poor counties to build and run new jails and share the profits. According to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, American Express and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all over rural Texas. That state's governor, Ann Richards, followed the example of Mario Cuomo in New York and built so many state prisons that the market became flooded, cutting into private prison profits.

After a law signed by Clinton in 1996 - ending court supervision and decisions - caused overcrowding and violent, unsafe conditions in federal prisons, private prison corporations in Texas began to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering "rent-a-cell" services in the CCA prisons located in small towns in Texas. The commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to $5.50 per day per bed. The county gets $1.50 for each prisoner.

related:

the new/old slave labor: prisoners in Colorado to replace migrant workers

private prison bulls

dollars in the bars - the private prison industry - "the war on drugs has . . . become a war on immigrants"

prison labor & e-waste—smashing a computer to pieces

quick! before a Democrat's in the White House . . .

NEW DELHI, Feb 22 (IPS) - With the presidential race gathering momentum in the United States, a last ditch effort is being mounted to push through the controversial U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal, before the window of political opportunity slams shut in Washington.

The latest impetus for this comes through a meeting that three top-level visiting U.S. senators, led by the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph Biden, had with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Feb. 20, during which they warned that time is running out for Indian leaders to complete the necessary steps before the agreement can be ratified by Congress.

Biden said he told Singh that "it was critical if India wanted that deal, that they move on it relatively soon, within a matter of weeks. You cannot run the clock out and expect us to be able to get it done’’.

The senators said that unless India sends the deal back to Washington, preferably by early May, and latest by early June, it would be practically impossible for U.S. Congress to ratify it: "If it is not ratified by Congress by July-end (when Senate goes into recess), there is no prospect" of it being ratified during the tenure of the Bush administration.

Biden was accompanied by John Kerry, Massachusetts senator and the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, and Chuck Hagel, a leading Republican, from Nebraska.

Biden also warned: "If we do not have the deal now, it is highly unlikely that the next president will present the same deal to India.’’ link

NEW DELHI, Mar 6 (IPS) - Is the Indian government heading for a showdown with the domestic opposition on the controversial issue of the nuclear cooperation deal with the United States before the presidential election timetable closes that opportunity?

Going by the recent pronouncements of U.S. officials urging a May deadline to complete the deal, by statements by leaders of India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, and by the Left parties’ latest reactions to them, that would indeed seem to be the case.

As the government seemingly ups the ante, the Left is reportedly considering issuing it an end-March ultimatum to decide on the deal, or face withdrawal of its crucial support, which would put the ruling coalition into a parliamentary minority.

The general secretary of the Communist Party of India -Marxist (CPI-M), the Left’s leading party, has written a letter to Mukherjee demanding a meeting of the special joint committee of the UPA and the Left on the deal by Mar.15.

Besides feverish U.S. lobbying, the impression that a final confrontation on the deal may be around the corner is strengthened by media reports which suggest that a section of the UPA wants to bow to U.S. pressure and seize the chance to complete negotiations on the deal so that it can be ratified by the Senate by the end of July.

. . .

"Within the past 10 days, both domestic and external factors which favour the deal have got strengthened," says a political source close to senior leaders of the Congress party, which leads the UPA, who insisted on anonymity.

"But on balance," says the source, "it is still not clear if the Congress’s top brass will want to sever the UPA’s relationship with the Left parties whose support it needs for a parliamentary majority."

. . . visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher tried to allay fears about a domestic U.S. law passed by Congress in 2006, called the Hyde Act, which enables the deal on certain conditions. The Act is a subject of much controversy in India, and mandates the U.S. government to cease nuclear cooperation with India, if India conducts a nuclear test.

India's opposition maintains that the Act trumps the bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement signed last July between India and the U.S., called the "123 agreement" because it pertains to section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act. Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice affirmed the supremacy of the Hyde Act and said the U.S. government would work within its bounds.

But Boucher backed the Indian government’s view that "we can move forward" with both the Act and the 123 agreement "in a consistent manner"; the Act is nothing to worry about.

. . .

"U.S. officials have conveyed two clear messages to India," says M.V. Ramana, a nuclear analyst based at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in the Environment and Development in Bangalore. "First, there is only a small window of opportunity for the deal if it is to be passed by Congress while President Bush is in power. So India must make up its mind very quickly."

The second message, adds Ramana, "is that the Bush administration has done its very best to facilitate the deal in the U.S. India should expect nothing more. Equally, India must be clear that the first commercial contracts from the deal should go to U.S. companies."

That explains part of the hurry to push the deal through. . . .

"This won't be an easy choice to make," argues Achin Vanaik. "A majority of parties in Parliament are opposed to the deal. This will compromise its legitimacy. If the Left withdraws support, the UPA will have to call an early election. But there is no guarantee that the UPA will not need the Left’s support yet again." link

& from an article last September:

The sequencing and timing of the process is being largely determined by the domestic political calculations of the Bush administration, which is heavily invested in the deal. The administration would like to present the agreement for the Congress’s ratification soon after its winter break.

"This only leaves a narrow window of opportunity for pushing the deal quickly through Congress," says M.V. Ramana, an independent nuclear affairs analyst at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, Bangalore. "Clearly, the Bush administration feels that it can use the deal before the next Presidential election in favour of the Republican Party by touting it as a major foreign policy achievement -- in contrast to Iraq and Afghanistan. That's why it seems to be in a hurry to speed up the negotiations process." link

Ecuador, hostages & Columbian bodysnatchers

a collection of news & commentary links, but first a reminder from James Petras, writing in 2005 after Venezuela confronted Columbia over its covert recruitment of Venezuelan military figures in the kidnapping of a Columbian leftist leader:

Once direct Colombian involvement was established . . . [the] Colombian regime took the offensive, launching an aggressive defense of its involvement in the violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and, beyond that, seeking to establish in advance, under the rationale of "national security" the legitimacy of future acts of aggression. . . . In response the US Government gave unconditional support to Colombian violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and urged the Uribe regime to push the conflict further. What began as a diplomatic conflict over a specific incident has turned into a major, defining crises in US and Latin American political relations with potentially explosive military, economic and political consequences for the entire region.

In justifying the kidnapping of Rodrigo Granda, the Colombian leftist leader, the Uribe regime has promulgated a new foreign policy doctrine which echoes that of the Bush Administration: the right of unilateral intervention in any country in which the Colombian government perceives or claims is harboring or providing refuge to political adversaries (which the regime labels as "terrorists") which might threaten the security of the state.

. . .

Uribe's offensive military doctrine involves several major policy propositions:

1.) The right to violate any country's sovereignty, including the use of force and violence, directly or in cooperation with local mercenaries.

2.) The right to recruit and subvert military and security officials to serve the interests of the Colombian state.

3.) The right to allocate funds to bounty hunters or "third parties" to engage in illegal violent acts within a target country.

4.) The assertion of the supremacy of Colombian laws, decrees and policies over and against the sovereign laws of the intervened country.

The Uribe doctrine clearly echoes Washington's global pronouncements. While the immediate point of aggression involves Colombia's relations to Venezuela, the Uribe doctrine lays the basis for unilateral military intervention anywhere in the hemisphere. Uribe's doctrine is a threat to sovereignty of any country in the hemisphere: its intervention in Venezuela and the justification provides a precedent for future aggression. link

Prescient, eh? Meanwhile,

BOGOTA, Mar 3 (IPS) - European envoys met over the weekend with members of the FARC rebel group’s central leadership to discuss how to move ahead in the efforts to negotiate a humanitarian exchange aimed at securing the release of Ingrid Betancourt and the rest of the hostages held in the jungle by the guerrillas.

"The negotiations are alive. Nothing has changed. Or everything has changed, except the negotiations," a European source told IPS, on condition of anonymity. link

Heinz Dieterich, a Mexico-based German sociologist and economist "who coined the phrase 21st century socialism":

I believe Bogotá and its ally, Washington, made a serious political mistake and underestimated the cost of this action. They did not take into consideration the media reaction, the position that Chávez would take, and the firm stance that Correa would assume in Quito.

I would say that this mistake will benefit the South American integration aims of progressive countries like Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela.

IPS: What can be expected now from the sectors that are calling for a negotiated solution to Colombia’s armed conflict?

HD: In general terms, the situation strengthens the forces that want a negotiated solution, in Europe, Latin America and Colombia itself. We must not forget that Reyes was the middleman through whom France was negotiating in its attempt to secure the release by the FARC of former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt (the highest profile hostage held by the guerrillas).

They killed the French government’s contact, and this has clearly led the countries of Latin America and many European nations to believe that this question can no longer be left solely in the hands of Uribe and Washington, whose war strategy has become a potential threat to regional peace and stability. link

"war strategy?" Plan Columbia.

Colombian officials later told reporters that U.S.-provided spying equipment and intelligence assistance had helped them track Reyes and guide them to the site, although officials here declined to comment on those reports.

U.S. diplomats "know they have very little credibility as a broker in this situation," said Michael Shifter, an Andes expert at the Inter-American Dialogue, a prominent think tank here.

"The U.S. is completely aligned with Colombia, and it's pretty widely believed that it helped with intelligence and provided technical support to help pinpoint the target, although I don't think there is any evidence that (the raid itself) was a U.S. decision." link

[As if there were any question that this operation, likely involving NSA assistance, was approved by Washington.]

According to the Colombian TV newscast Noticias Uno, Reyes had already been designated as the target of a military operation back in December.

His satellite phone was located "in late 2007." Although he almost always kept it turned off, every time he switched it on, even briefly, its coordinates were detected via satellite.

On Feb. 21, Colombian Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos and armed forces chief General Freddy Padilla reported that the government had located the site where the four hostages to be released were being held.

Both Santos and Padilla said one of the hostages, Jorge Eduardo Gechem, was seriously ill and offered safety guarantees for the FARC to hand him over immediately.

According to Noticias Uno, which based its report on official sources, the report was a ploy to force Reyes to use his satellite phone again, which he did, enabling the Colombian military to pinpoint his location. [Robert Knight mentioned last night, on Flashpoints Radio (Wed 3/5/08) that gps tracking devices in newer cellophones continue to work & be accessible to law enforcement, even though the user thinks it is disabled.]

Another phone call made by Reyes indicated that he would be at a specific spot on Feb. 29, Noticias Uno reported. The government added that it also obtained information from two individuals, in exchange for large rewards. link

In other words, the US signed off on & assisted a plan to sabotage hostage negotiations (involving our allies) by assassinating the rebels' most prominent contact with the outside world as a pre-emptive propaganda ploy.

Last night, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said that if Farc released Betancourt, feared to be gravely ill after six years as a hostage, some countries could be persuaded to stop designating the group as terrorists.

"If they let Ingrid Betancourt die, of course, there will be no discussion about that," Sarkozy told Colombia's RCN television. "If they free Ingrid Betancourt, maybe some place in the world will see them a little differently." link

No. Bring on the bombs.

Obama Statement on Recent Events near Colombia’s Borders - March 03, 2008

“The Colombian people have suffered for more than four decades at the hands of a brutal terrorist insurgency, and the Colombian government has every right to defend itself against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The recent targeted killing of a senior FARC leader must not be used as a pretense to ratchet up tensions or to threaten the stability of the region. The presidents of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela have a responsibility to ensure that events not spiral out of control, and to peacefully address any disputes through active diplomacy with the help of international actors.”

Statement from Hillary Clinton - 3/3/2008

“Hugo Chavez’s order yesterday to send ten battalions to the Colombian border is unwarranted and dangerous. The Colombian state has every right to defend itself against drug trafficking terrorist organizations that have kidnapped innocent civilians, including American citizens. By praising and supporting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Chavez is openly siding with terrorists that threaten Colombian democracy and the peace and security of the region. Rather than criticizing Colombia’s actions in combating terrorist groups in the border regions, Venezuela and Ecuador should work with their neighbor to ensure that their territories no longer serve as safe havens for terrorist groups. After reviewing this situation, I am hopeful that the government of Ecuador will determine that its interests lie in closer cooperation with Colombia on this issue. Hugo Chavez must call a halt to this provocative action. As president, I will work with our partners in the region and the OAS to support democracy, promote an end to conflict, and to press Chavez to change course.” link

Violation of sovereignty? Policy of assassination across borders? Bombing one's neighbors? Gruesome public exhibition of the bodies? Not a word of complaint. Just a tired old phrase.

. . . every right to defend itself

Heard that somewhere before.

Claims by the Colombian government to have acted in self-defense have been refuted by survivor testimonies and Ecuadorian government investigations which reveal evidence that it was a pre-planned "massacre" of a sleeping encampment.

On top of that, reports that U.S. Admiral Joseph Nimmich met with Colombian military leaders in Bogotá two days before Saturday`s attacks with the stated purpose of "sharing vital information in the fight against terrorism" have fueled suspicions of direct U.S. involvement in invasion.

Along the same vein, the international Spanish language news agency EFE and The Guardian report the use of cluster bombs in Saturday`s attacks, weapons which have been denounced by human rights organizations. link

Not something likely to be read in a US newspaper.

While some press in the United States question whether Chavez is using this situation as an opportunity to distract Venezuelans from their social problems, this excessive focus on him is in fact distracting people in the US from having a much needed dialogue on their own governments' role in fomenting this so-called "Andean Crisis". As a result, the tough realities and repercussions from the US government's support for a military solution in Colombia are being overlooked.

Emboldened and armed with the multibillion dollar support of Plan Colombia, the Uribe government has decided to violate international law rather than attempting mediated discussions with the FARC.. link

Why now? Peace, stability & regional unity outside US control are perceived to be a threat to its "interests." Senator Cristovam Buarque, a member of Brazil's Senate Foreign Relations Committee, believes that:

An armed conflict, even one of limited scope "lasting a single day and with as few as two soldiers killed, would leave a permanent blot" on South American relations, and would completely undermine the regional integration process . . . link

Further regionalizing Columbia's conflict looks like a desperate attempt to slow or derail current efforts under way both within and outside of Columbia that have been gathering steam. Commentators James J. Brittain and R. James Sacouman write that:

A few weeks after the Ecuadorian and Venezuelan state called on the Colombian government to respect the need for peace and negotiation with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP), the administration of Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010) supported an extensive armed air and land assault against the insurgency movement--not within Colombia's borders but rather on the sovereign territory of Ecuadorian soil.

. . .

The actions of Saturday 1 March took place days before a major international demonstration scheduled for 6 March, 2008. Promoted by The National Movement of Victims of State-Sponsored Crimes (MOVICE), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), and countless social justice-based organizations, March 6th has been set as an international day of protest against those tortured, murdered, and disappeared by the Colombian state, their allies within the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) and the newly reformed Black Eagles. Recently, President Uribe's top political adviser, José Obdulio Gaviria, proclaimed that the protest and protesters should be criminalized. In addition, paramilitaries in the southwestern department of Nariño (not far from where the illegal incursions were carried out in Ecuador), have threatened to attack any organization or person associated with the activities scheduled for Thursday.

It is believed that the Uribe and Santos administration is utilizing the slaughter of Comandante Raúl Reyes and others as a method to deter activists and socially conscious peoples within and outside Colombia from participating in the March 6th events. Numerous state-controlled or connected media outlets, such as El Tiempo (which has long-standing ties to the Santos family), have been parading photographs of the bullet ridden and mutilated corpse of Raúl Reyes throughout the country's communications mediums. Such propaganda is clearly a tool to psychologically intimidate those preparing to demonstrate against the atrocities perpetrated by the state over the past seven years.

Over the past two months, numerous researchers, scholars, and lawyers have supported the call to declare the FARC-EP a legitimate force fighting against the corrupt Colombian state. In January 2008, Ecuador's Foreign Minister Maria Isabel Salvador argued that the FARC-EP should no longer be depicted as a terrorist organization. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez too announced that the FARC-EP are far from a terrorist force but are rather a real army, which occupies Colombian territory and shares in a Bolivarian vision for a new Latin America. Mexican deputy Ricardo Cantu Garza also has promoted the recognition of the FARC-EP as a belligerent force legitimately fighting against a corrupt and unequal sociopolitical system.

. . .

From Copenhagen to Caracas, numerous state officials have denounced the description of the FARC-EP as a terrorist organization. Progressive officials and administrations in Mexico, Ecuador, and Venezuela have rather opted for the status of belligerent or irregular forces to more accurately depict the FARC-EP domestic and geo-political stance. Disturbingly, in the face of this evidence and the FARC-EP's consistent promotion for a humanitarian prisoner exchange and peace negotiations with the state in a demilitarized zone in southwestern Colombia, the Uribe and Santos administration has moved ever farther away from supporting an end to the civil war within Colombia by opting for systemic violence.

Brazil can help itself here as it is taking a prominent role at the OAS discussions to de-escalate the situation. Clifton Ross, in an article last September, focuses on Ecuador's ties to Brazil and its role in the greater region. Napoleon Saltos Galazara, a writer/activist/politician from Ecuador's indigenous social movements, mentions that:

"[President Correa] says, 'we're going to confront imperialism and the oligarchy; we're going to take on the right wing, down with partyocracy!' And he won the election. However, even though Correa confronts this sector, he's allied with the second axis, the Manta-Manaus axis, or the China-Brazil, East-West axis."

Ross talks about the on-going complex jockeying for position in Latin America which is largely invisible to the US public:

This division between Brazil and Venezuela was best symbolized by the brand of energy each country promotes, ethanol and petroleum, respectively, but there is much more to the story than what goes into the gas tank of a car. And Ecuador may be the key chess piece in the regional Great Game. Among others, Ecuadoran writer Kintto Lucas in his book on recent Ecuadoran history, "Un pais entrampado," sees Ecuador as an integral part of Brazil's aspiration to carve a path to the Pacific, using what is called the "Manaos-Manta multi-modal corridor."

. . .

The U.S., in its National Security Strategy of September 17, 2002, proposed to prevent any possible players from challenging its supremacy, stating that "America (sic) will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed." On the American continent it hoped to contain such "emerging threats" as Brazil by means of walling it in along the Pacific by means of "free trade" agreements with Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. The 2006 election of Correa to the Presidency of Ecuador just as the nation considered such a treaty changed all that. Since that time, Ecuador has effectively broken the US-imposed barrier to the Pacific and now clears the way for the Brazilian dreams of empire, or at the very least, the further strengthening of a great regional power.

Nevertheless, the struggle to contain Brazil continues to be part of the greater problem of constructing a regional unity that will enable the southern nations to contend with their more immediate concern, and that is the still-present threat of the U.S. empire. Ecuador's current strategy seems to be to build alliances with Venezuela, Brazil and whatever other potential allies may offer to consolidate a block of power against U.S. hegemony.

Tomás Peribonio, ex-Minister of Foreign Trade under President Alfred Palacio, is now working as a contractor for the current Correa government designing the Manaos-Manta multi-modal corridor. . . . he emphasizes that "the most important thing is regional unity." The construction of this multi-modal corridor, he describes as a "mega-project" that would be constructed "over the course of years and perhaps even decades." The aim, he says, is to unite "Pacific Asia, which, from my point of view, is the area of major world commerce, managing about fifty percent of world trade" with the Atlantic, specifically Brazil, which is increasing its cultivation of soy and other grains with an eye on exports.

For Peribonio regional integration begins at home, with Ecuador, a country that commonly characterizes itself as the "nation of four regions," which are the Amazon, the mountains, the plains and coast, and the Galapagos. These regions have experienced strong tensions and this fact has often been posed as a primary problem confronting national leaders as they attempted to unite the country. This multi-modal corridor, Peribonio hopes, will serve to first unite the country and then go on to unite Ecuador with Peru and Brazil, since the corridor would also go through Peru. Finally, says Peribonio, the corridor would integrate Ecuador more firmly into the world economy.