"Fr. Jose Reynel Restrepo, the 36 year old pastor of the Catholic Church in the town of Marmato in Colombia, was assassinated Sept. 1. He was riding his motorcycle through the countryside on his way home after visiting his family when he was stopped and shot dead.
A few days before, Restrepo had publicly condemned the mammoth Canadian/Colombian mining company "Gran Colombia Gold" for their plan to wipe out his entire parish and town. The week before, he had traveled to Bogota to meet with government officials to prevent the mind-boggling injustice.
This evil behemoth, Gran Colombia Gold, along with the Colombia government, was going to force the entire town of Marmato to move from its ancient present location. Founded in 1540, Marmato has a population of 10,000 people. It is one of the historic gold-mining regions of the hemisphere.
After the residents of Marmato were displaced, Gran Colombia Gold was going to dig a new open-pit gold mine in its place -- and make a fortune. Canadian mining in Colombia is favored by the so-called "Free Trade Agreement" between Canada and Colombia, and like evil U.S.-Colombian multinational partnerships, wreaks havoc upon the poor rural communities."
The full article with an embedded You Tube clip can be seen here. Towards the end of the article there is a link to a site that enables you to send emails to relevant Columbian authorities to add our voices to those of the Columbian people. It took me less than half an hour to read the article, view the You Tube and send the emails. It is so little to do from our privileged environment to stand with those whose whole future is at stake.
