Reply-To: Avi Chomsky
To: North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee
See below for Pat Bonner's very moving report on Jose Julio's visit to Los
Angeles.

We also have an incredibly busy week-and-a-half scheduled for him in New
England, including talks at Brown, Tufts, Roxbury Community College, Univ.
of Southern Maine, and Dartmouth, as well as of course Salem State; meetings
with the Salem City Council, the Mayor, Rep. John Keenan, and the power
plant; and public events at the First Church in Salem and The Bookstore in
Gloucester.

Avi


> Hi Avi and all,
>
> Here's a rundown of how things went in Los Angeles.
> The Friday, March 31, morning meeting with Interfaith Communities United
> for Justice and Peace (ICUJP) was attended by about 50 people. It was not
> their typical meeting, since it consisted entirely of two presentations.
> The other presentation was by Palestinians about some health projects in
> Palestine. Our presentation was second. People responded well. Two of
> the addresses on the petition are in Palestine. I didn't get a chance to
> talk with the Palestinians, but I'm sure they could identify with the
> video of bulldozers knocking down houses.
>
> Some of the people attending wanted to do more than sign the petition and
> asked if I had contact information for the three companies so that they
> could contact them directly. Fortunately, I had expected this and had
> copies available of the three companies. Later Jose Julio suggested I
> add the contact info for President Uribe and the Attorney General to that
> list. So I did, but I didn't have any more requests for the information..
>
> The rest of Friday was visits with friends: Lunch at a Colombian
> restaurant owned by some friends. Dinner at a Mexican Restaurant with
> core members of our two local sponsoring groups.
>
> Saturday afternoon's event at the Southern California Library was not well
> attended, but we made contact there with three African American members of
> the community who I hope we will continue to be in touch with. Saturday
> evening's event at Tia Chucha's Cafe Cultural had about twenty people.
>
> Sunday, April 2, we did not have any events scheduled. In the morning,
> two people took Jose Julio to see Arlington West, a display of crosses on
> the beach next to Santa Monica Pier. The display is a project of Veterans
> for Peace, each cross representing a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. This
> display is getting a lot of attention in the peace movement.
>
> Sunday afternoon, Jose Julio and I made a visit to the garden of South
> Central Farmers. This claims to be the largest community garden in the
> country. The farmers are Mexican and Central American immigrants.
> Recently the city of Los Angeles sold the property to an investor who
> wants to build a warehouse there. The farmers and supporters are in a
> struggle to preserve the farm. Originally, I was arranging for Jose Julio
> to do a presentation there, at a community event sponsored by the garden.
> But then an eviction notice was posted on the fence and the community
> dropped all other projects to deal with that. They are still there as
> negotiations proceed. So when Jose Julio and I went there late Sunday, we
> just talked to individuals who happened to be there, including a couple of
> the leaders. One of the leaders of the support group is from Nigeria and
> he was delighted to meet an African from Colombia. They indicated that I
> can probably do a follow-up event at some point, showing the video.
>
> Monday morning, the local Pacifica station, KPFK, did a telephone
> interview for their 5:30 a.m. bilingual program. It will air tomorrow
> morning. A short part of it was aired on the KPFK Evening News on Monday.
>
> Monday afternoon, Jose Julio went to Claremont and spoke to Cindy
> Forster's classes. I wasn't there, but was told that it went well.
> Jose Julio had a couple VHS tapes of footage that he wanted to put on DVD.
> My project Sunday was to get that done. But one of the tapes turned out
> to be the wrong one that he gave me by mistake. So I kept the correct
> one, which I will get copied next weekend. (The friend who does this for
> me is only available for this on weekends.)
> Avi, I hope to get the VHS and DVD in the mail to you in time for you to
> give it to Jose Julio before he leaves. What mailing address should I
> send them to? Also, I need to send you the signed petitions.
>
> What I did with the petition was make a lot of copies. Then at events I
> suggested that people take two, one to sign and return to us immediately,
> and one to keep for their own information. I did this because I didn't
> have another good information piece and the petition fairly well
> summarizes the situation. One high-school student asked if she could make
> copies for other people to sign. I said yes and gave her my address to
> return them to.
>
> A few people expressed an interest in the delegation.
> The person Jose Julio stayed with while here is Ulrich Oslender. Ulrich
> is currently teaching Geography at UCLA but is based at the University of
> Glasgow, Scotland. Ulrich spent time in Colombia studying the situation
> of displaced Afro-Colombians. I think it's the subject of his
> dissertation for his PhD. Anyway, he's a friend of Marino Cordoba and Luz
> Marina Becerra. Luz Marina stayed with him when she was here. That's how
> we met him. Ulrich and I were both surprised that Jose Julio was not
> familiar with AFRODES. I guess that's an indication of how isolated
> Guajira is. Ulrich phoned Marino in Washington, DC to tell him about Jose
> Julio's visit. Hopefully they will link up. Chloe, I'm sorry I forgot to
> mention this in our phone conversation.
> Best wishes,
> Pat
>
>
>



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North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee: http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia/

Posted by nscolombia at 10:06 PM EDT

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