(forwarded by a correspondent over the internet)
(please pardon the ? instead of accented vowels)

DECEMBER 1997

ALIRIO URIBE and MIGUEL PUERTO BARRERA
(Corporacion Colectivo de Abogados Jose Alvear Restrepo) 
BAYRON RICARDO GONGORA and WILLIAM GARCIA CARTAGENA (Colectivo de 
Derechos Humanos Semillas de Libertad) _ COLOMBIA 

At least four Colombian human rights lawyers face criminal prosecution, 
investigation and other threats as a result of accusations contained in a 
series of military reports recently submitted to prosecutors. The lawyers 
are: Alirio Uribe and Miguel Puerto Barrera of the Lawyers Collective 
(Corporaci?n Colectivo de Abogados Jos? Alvear Restrepo); and Bayron 
Ricardo G?ngora Arango and William Garc?a Cartagena, attorneys with 
member organizations of the "Seeds of Liberty" Human Rights Collective 
(Colectivo de Derechos Humanos Semillas de Libertad: CODEHSEL), which 
operates in the department of Antioquia.

Among the individuals accused of belonging to a guerrilla network, and 
subject to a criminal investigation, is attorney Alirio Uribe of the Lawyers 
Collective. The collective often represents individuals accused of 
insurgency-related offenses, and many of its clients are community and 
labor activists. It has also represented numerous victims of human rights 
violations in civil and criminal litigation seeking prosecution of military 
personnel and/or indemnification from the Colombian government. In recent 
years staff members have received numerous threats (see Lawyer-to-
Lawyer Network Appeals November 1993 and December 1996). According to 
press accounts and information received from Colombian human rights 
groups, the military has cited the Collective's human rights work as the 
basis for accusing Mr. Uribe and others of criminal activity, alleging for 
example that Mr. Uribe is "dedicated to having bandits held in various jails 
declared 'political prisoners.'" The report containing the accusations against 
Mr. Uribe makes similar allegations against some 50 other human rights 
activists.

Another attorney from the Lawyers Collective, Miguel Puerto Barrera, has 
recently been declared a "military target" by the 18th Military Brigade in 
Arauca department. One of the families represented by Mr. Puerto in legal 
proceedings for redress against human rights abuses was so informed by a 
military source shortly after Mr. Puerto took part in a joint governmental-
NGO commission to investigate human rights violations in that department. 
Mr. Puerto was reportedly briefly detained by the military and later 
released. 

A second military intelligence report, prepared by a unit attached to the 
army's 20th Brigade, accuses members of the "Seeds of Liberty" Human 
Rights Collective, which comprises 15 organizations in the department of 
Antioquia, of being a "subversive front organization." In the last several 
months criminal cases have been opened against several members of 
organizations belonging to CODEHSEL, including two lawyers. Bayron Ricardo 
G?ngora Arango, a human rights attorney for 
the Corporaci?n Jur?dica Libertad, was detained at a military base and 
formally questioned in connection with the allegations, and attorney 
William Garc?a Cartagena, of the Human Rights Committee of the 
municipality of Segovia, is the target of an preliminary investigation. 
According to CODEHSEL, which has formally complained to Colombia's 
Prosecutor General, both men have been accused of providing logistical 
support to guerrilla organizations. The cases against G?ngora and Cartagena 
are only two of five criminal processes initiated against CODEHSEL 
members in a two-week period, with one person in detention, three others 
subject to a prosecutor's arrest order and another formally interrogated. 

The military intelligence report that forms the basis for these prosecutions 
characterizes legal representation provided by CODEHSEL's lawyers as 
"blocking prosecutions" by "fraudulent means." As the bases for its 
allegations, the report notes that CODEHSEL and its members: have 
campaigned against the armed and security forces regarding "supposed 
violations of human rights" in order to bring lucrative litigation against the 
state; pursue complaints with groups such as Amnesty International; make 
reports before the United Nations; and pressure Colombian officials by 
"promoting fora, meetings, marches and calumnious investigations" at the 
service of "extremist interests."

Background

The combination of military-inspired prosecutorial action and the targeting 
of human rights activists as military objectives is emblematic of the 
systematic abuse and institutional failures which contribute to Colombia's 
disastrous human rights situation. Human rights workers have been 
particularly targeted for violence and intimidation in the last year. A report 
by the Washington Office on Latin America cites a letter written by a local 
judge to the nation's Prosecutor General in which the judge notes that 
during the period May 1996 to August 1997, ". . . every 14 days an attack 
against a human rights activist takes place in Antioquia." 

Activists in Bogot? are also endangered. On May 19, a heavily armed death 
squad posing as representatives of the Prosecutor General gained entry to 
the apartment of Mario Calder?n and Elsa Costanza Alvarado, two university 
professors and long-time members of the Jesuit-based Center for 
Investigation and Popular Education (Centro de Investigaci?n y Educaci?n 
Popular, CINEP). Once inside they machine-gunned all the occupants they 
could find, killing both Alvarado and Calder?n and Calder?n's 76-year-old 
father, Carlos Alvarado Pantoja. (See Advocacy Alert May 1997, and Update 
December 1997)

Both civilian and military officials have put activists at great risk by 
making irresponsible comments. The Antioquia state governor was quoted in 
El Tiempo, Colombia's largest newspaper, as saying that the work of human 
rights groups is "guerrilla diplomacy." The head of the 17th Military Brigade 
in Antioquia, Gen. Rito Alejo del R?o, asserts in a military intelligence 
report that "it is known that subversion has a military wing and a political 
wing, which includes all of the [political] left, and is supported by different 
organizations which the subversives control, especially in areas such as 
human rights offices . . ."


Legal Concerns

The military's accusations improperly equate the attorneys who provide 
representation for those charged participating in insurgency with the 
insurgents themselves. This false identification of attorney with client 
violates Principle 18 of the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, 
adopted by the Eighth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and the 
Treatment of Offenders (1990), which provides that "[l]awyers shall not be 
identified with their clients or their clients' causes as a result of 
discharging their functions." The Basic Principles are an important sources 
of authority, intended by the United Nations to provide specific substance to 
the due process guarantees recognized in the Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 
(ICCPR). Furthermore, the action violates the rights guaranteed by Article 
14 (3) of the ICCPR. The Human Rights Committee of the United Nations, 
which oversees compliance with the ICCPR, has stated in its General 
Comment 13 (1984) that Article 14(3) requires that lawyers "should be able 
to counsel and represent their clients in accordance with their established 
professional standards and judgment without any restrictions, influences, 
pressures or undue interference from any quarter." None of the lawyers' 
activities cited in the reports is unlawful or illegitimate; they constitute 
proper advocacy on behalf of clients. In fact, the Lawyers Collective has 
won prestigious awards from the government of France and the government 
of the city of Weimar, Germany, in recognition of activities such as those 
attacked in the military reports.

In addition to being inconsistent with the international standards set forth 
in the Basic Principles and other instruments, the military's efforts to try 
the lawyers for the same crimes of which their clients are accused violates 
a well-publicized executive directive on this issue. Presidential Directive 
011, issued in July 1997, explicitly recognizes the legitimate character of 
all human rights organizations, whether or not formally constituted under 
law, and in particular of those groups which denounce violations and which 
provide legal assistance to those persons "presumed to be outside of the 
law". That directive, sent by President Ernesto Samper to government 
officials, including military commanders, orders officials to abstain from 
"formulating statements which disregard the legitimacy of human rights 
organizations, . . . or which constitute harassment or threat against them." 
With regard to allegations of wrongdoing by human rights workers, the 
directive requires officials to abstain from "false imputations or conduct 
which diminish the right to defense or to due process." The allegations 
described above violate the spirit as well as the letter of the president's 
directive. 

While the allegations themselves are disturbing, other legal concerns also 
arise from them. The criminal processes which have begun against the 
lawyers of the Colectivo de Abogados and CODEHSEL are themselves 
inherently unreliable and unfair. As a result of a complex of legislation, 
emergency decrees and de facto military practices, prosecutors issue 
arrest orders and decide legal challenges to such orders. Cases are tried in 
"faceless courts" whose judges are not authorized to review these 
detentions. The "investigations" often amount to little more than the word 
of a anonymous informant working in the pay of the military, which often 
effectuates the arrests without prior authorization. Prosecutors often then 
"validate" the arrests by issuing a post facto arrest order. In the cases 
described above against the human rights activists, the prosecutors 
themselves enjoy little independence. Their offices are physically located 
inside military bases. Access to court documents and hearings at which 
witness statements are taken is in practice virtually nil for lawyers 
representing individuals charged with insurgency-related offenses. 
International entities, including the United Nations and the Inter-American 
Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States have 
found the methods of trying persons accused with subversion to be contrary 
to international law. Colombia is a State Party to, and internationally bound 
by the American Convention on Human Rights, and the International Covenant 
on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In 1997, the UN Human Rights 
Committee stated: 

The Committee is especially concerned by the fact that the military 
exercises function of investigation, detention and arrest and interrogation. . 
. . [The Committee] stresses that this [regional] judicial system in which 
anonymous judges and witnesses take part, does not meet the requirements 
of article 14 of the [ICCPR] . . ." (UN Doc. CCPR/C79/Add. 75)

Among the possible motives for the military's efforts against human rights 
lawyers are the latter's efforts to win redress in court. These efforts have 
often been thwarted by the military justice system. 
Although a new military penal code is under consideration now, the current 
military justice system for trying members of the armed forces has 
amounted to a guarantee of impunity for soldiers accused of human rights 
abuses. Even Colombia's Prosecutor General has come under scathing 
criticism from Colombia's highest-ranking military official after the latter 
presided over and then dismissed one of the most important human rights 
prosecutions brought against a Colombian military officer. Not surprisingly, 
one of the Committee's experts referred to the military justice system in 
open session as an "institutionalized system to protect impunity." (see UN 
Doc. HUMAN RIGHTS/CT/485), while the entire Committee observed that the 
military penal system "lacks many of the requisites enunciated in article 
14 of the [ICCPR]." (See UN Doc. CCPR/C/79/Add. 75) 

By making the allegations described above, the military has exposed human 
rights lawyers and advocates to risk of serious physical harm. Many of 
those accused by officials of links to the guerrilla forces have been 
subsequently murdered by paramilitary forces working in coordination with 
security forces. Despite a number of arrest warrants by prosecuting 
authorities, military officials claim to be unable to locate highly visible 
paramilitary leaders who have met with and been interviewed by the news 
media, sometimes from paramilitary installations located in close 
proximity to military bases. 


Recommended Action

Please write politely worded letters to Colombia's Prosecutor General 
outlining the concerns under international law that are raised by the cases 
initiated against these lawyers. Citing the ICCPR is important, since the 
Colombian government has expressly stated its commitment to complying 
with the recommendations of the Human Rights Committee. Original letters 
(or copies of the letter to the Prosecutor General) may also be sent to the 
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner in Bogot?, which is 
responsible for reporting on governmental compliance with international 
instruments and for working with the authorities in the event of a 
complaint about compliance. Letters to the Prosecutor General should ask 
for an immediate review of the cases, and for the investigations to be 
terminated if the allegations do not provide a reasonable basis for 
concluding that these lawyers were involved in illegal activities. Letters to 
the United Nations office should ask the representative of the High 
Commissioner for Human Rights to request information from the Colombian 
authorities clarifying the basis upon which these cases have been initiated, 
and requesting the Prosecutor General to close the cases definitively in the 
event that no adequate basis exists. Copies of your letters may also be sent 
to the U.S. embassy. 

Please send copies of your letters (not noted on the original) to Cynthia 
Yoon at the Lawyers Committee. If you are writing after January 31, or if 
you require further information about these cases, please contact Berenice 
Gervassi at (212) 845-5262. 

Appeals to:

Dr. Alfonso Gomez M?ndez	Dra. Almudena Mazarrasa
Alvear
Fiscal General de la Naci?n	Directora
Fiscal?a General de la Naci?n	Alto Comisionado Para los
Derechos Humanos de las
Calle 35 No. 4-31	Naciones Unidas - Oficina
en Colombia
Apartado A?reo 29855	Calle 7a #74-56 Piso 11
Santaf? de Bogot?, COLOMBIA	Santaf? de Bogot?, COLOMBIA
Salutation: Dear Prosecutor General	Salutation: Dear Ambassador
Mazarrasa Alvear
Fax: +571 288 2828	Fax: +571 331 4050

Copies to:

Please send copies of your letters to your country's ambassador to 
Colombia, as well as to the Colombian ambassador to your country. For 
those in the United States, those individuals are: 

Dr. Juan Carlos Esguerra	Amb. Curtis W. Kamman
Embassy of Colombia	U.S. Embassy
2118 Leroy Place	Calle 22D Bis 47-51
Washington, D.C. 20008	Santafe de Bogota, COLOMBIA
Fax: 202-232-8643	Fax:+571 315 2197

For further background on the "faceless courts",military justice and other 
aspects of the Colombian justice system, see Lawyers Committee and 
NACLA publications: "Colombia: Public Order, Private Injustice"; "Comments 
Relating to the Fourth Periodic Report on Colombia before the U.N. Human 
Rights Committee"; "Critique of State Department Human Rights Reports", 
and "War By Other Means" which are available on the Lawyers Committee for 
Human Right's Webpage [http://www.lach.org] by clicking on the links 
appearing in the webversion of this Lawyer to Lawyer appeal.




ADVOCACY ALERT _ UPDATE

DECEMBER 1997

MARIO CALDERON VILLEGAS, ELSA CONSTANZA ALVARADO CHACON AND 
CARLOS ALVARADO PANTOJA: CENTRO DE INVESTIGACION Y EDUCACION 
POPULAR (CINEP) _ COLOMBIA

Five persons were arrested on September 28 in connection with the May 19 
murders in Bogot? of Mario Calder?n and Elsa Constanza Alvarado Chac?n, 
researchers at the Center for Popular Education and Studies (Centro de 
Investigaci?n y Educaci?n Popular, CINEP), and of Calder?n's father, Carlos 
Alvarado Pantoja. (See Advocacy Alert May 1997). That triple murder took 
place in the home of Calder?n and Alvarado, when a death squad entered 
their home and machine-gunned all the inhabitants. Constanza's mother was 
serious injured in the attack. The couple's two-year old son survived by 
hiding in a closet while the attack took place.

The five _ Walter Josu? Alvarez Rivera, John Jairo Ossa Navarro, Marina 
Carmenza Navarro Varela, Pablo Vanderlei Vargas Garc?a and Gabriel Jaime 
Alvarez _ were arrested in Medell?n by police working under the direction 
of the Prosecutor General's human rights unit. The following day the 
suspects were taken to Bogot? for questioning. The Prosecutor General 
announced that his investigation suggests that the five are connected to 
death squads that operate for hire. However, no formal indictments have yet 
been issued in connection with the crime.