CPTer David Milne sat in the witness box of a Provincial Court in Burlington, Ontario and told a story that threaded its way from his time in Baghdad with CPT in 2002 to a charge of trespass with nine others during an action organized by CPT partner, Homes Not Bombs, on November 20, 2006 at L-3 Wescam corporation in Burlington. L-3 Wescam is the manufacturer of optical guidance systems for weapons such as the Predator Drone, which has acted as judge, jury and executioner in the so-called “War on Terror.”

14-27 May

Gutierrez and Paul Neufeld-Weaver led a delegation of three people to the Southwestern department of Nariño, where CPT has accompanied the Awa people intermittently for two years. Coca cultivation and drug trafficking pushed into the region by Plan Colombia and fumigations in neighboring departments have increased the impact of violence on the indigenous and Afro-Colombian people of this area. The delegates hope to encourage the U.S., Canadian, and Colombian governments to support programs that encourage voluntary eradication of drug crops and the planting of traditional diversified food crops instead of monoculture cash crops.

 

16-19 May

Connie Watson, Latin America Bureau correspondent with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), visited the team while she was in Colombia to cover the Canadian Free Trade Agreement. The visit came about because of a comment posted by Pierre Shantz on the CBC website in response to a mining story. The team arranged interviews with community leaders and took Watson to see the 16 May commemoration events.