The undersigned DEMAND the immediate freedom of Dr. Miguel Ángel Beltrán Villegas, Colombian sociologist and historian arrested in Mexico by the complicit Felipe Calderón government and illegally deported to Colombia in May of 2009.  While we support him we also express our deepest rejection of the harassment of those who struggle against and denounce injustice in Latin America.

Miguel Ángel is presently imprisoned in a high-security wing of Bogota’s Cárcel Modelo (Model Prison).  His arrest reminds us that the collaborationist wings of “Operation Condor” continue to spread themselves over Latin America and under no circumstances can we allow U.S. imperialism to continue advancing, in its eagerness to conquer and rule.

The imprisonment of Miguel Ángel is a clear sign of the criminalization of protest and social struggle by the United States government and its local lackeys, who do not hesitate to exercise state terrorism in order to halt the advance of social movements on the continent.  Miguel Ángel Beltrán is imprisoned today under the accusation of being a “terrorist,” while the terrorism of the state of Colombia kills, kidnaps, tortures and incarcerates all those who “oppose the regime,” bringing back memories of the times when Latin American dictatorships disappeared those who were part of the social struggle.

In concordance with the coup d’état in Honduras, today the White House is placing its military “bases” in Colombia through its main ally, the puppet Álvaro Uribe Vélez.  Colombia is now a platform from which to threaten the rest of Latin America.  The demand for the immediate liberation of Miguel Ángel is a rejection of imperialist interference in the region.

From his maximum security cell, Miguel Ángel has said that the walls which today are “imprisoning his body” do not “imprison his thoughts” and has expressed his “belief that we should go to the end in this struggle, so that thoughts may circulate freely in this country, without being threatened by the fools who aspire to bring back the times of inquisition, condemning those who express ideas and differing opinions to be burned at the stake.”  We make his words our own.