Jose Julio wrap-up
Reply-To: Avi Chomsky
To: North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee
Date: Apr 19, 2006 5:19 PM
So Jose Julio is on his way back to Colombia, and I wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who made the tour possible, and contributed to organizing it, recording it, filming it, and to point out some of the highlights.
Thanks to Garry Leech in Canada, Pat Bonner in Los Angeles, Steve Striffler in Arkansas, and Chloe Schwabe in Washington for organizing those parts of the tour.
In Salem, thanks to Lynn Nadeau for hosting Jose Julio; Lynn, Bill Thomas, Linda Weltner, Donna Neff, and especially Patrick McDermott, for driving; Alan Hanscom, Nilda Ortiz, Liam Leahy, Malena Mayorga, Michael Collins, and Hector Lopez for interviewing/translating/recording; and many people for organizing different events (Caroline Nye and Jeff Barz-Snell at the First Church, John Hayes and Hope Benne at Salem State, Tanalis Padilla at Dartmouth, David Carey at Univ. of Southern Maine, Meghan Morris and Elanor Starmer at Tufts, Juan Tello at Brown, Ellen Gabin at The Bookstore).
The response from the City of Salem was quite overwhelming. We got wonderful coverage in the News, the Gazette, and the North Shore Sunday. The Mayor, Kim Driscoll, welcomed Jose Julio to the city with an outstanding statement of support; the City Council met with him twice and is working on redrafting the Resolution passed in 2002; Rep. John Keenan was also extremely interested and supportive. Power plant representatives also agreed to meet with us, and made a statement that significantly strengthened the one from 2002, saying that Dominion was "sympathetic to the problems this village [Tabaco] faces" and calling for "a just resolution to these issues" and for their coal suppliers to "adhere to all rules and regulations governing their operations."
So what is next:
--The delegation (Aug. 1-11) and conference (Aug. 9--anniversary of the destruction of Tabaco) in Colombia this summer. We need people to come on the delegation, to publicize it, and to help with fundraising for scholarships.
--The video Alan edited will soon be on SATV--watch for it.
--Jose Julio may return in June to participate in a conference organized by AFRODES with the Congressional Black Caucus.
--Brainstorming about ways to use the momentum generated by the trip, the news coverage, the hundreds of signatures on the petition we circulated, the statements by the Mayor, City Council, and power plant, to most effectively pressure El Cerrejon to achieve the relocation that Tabaco residents have been fighting for.
Please let me know if you have ideas and/or can help!
Avi
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North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee: http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia/
Posted by nscolombia
at 10:00 PM EDT
