CSN News

Subject: Great article on Drummond and overall U.S. policy in Colombia from
The New Republic

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070827&s=stier083107

Colombia Support Network
P.O. Box 1505
Madison, WI 53701-1505
phone: (608) 257-8753
fax: (608) 255-6621
e-mail: csn@igc.org
http://www.colombiasupport.net

"AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION"

Respected Institutions,

Many defenders of human rights killed in the deadly decade of the 1980s, and whose peak, outside of 1987, up to the point that the international press came to call "1987 the year of the dirty war in Colombia" because that macabre sequence of killings, that irrational escalation of state terror, was, as it was deemed by the ex-president Carlos Lleras Restrepo, the coronation of assassination as a political weapon.

Let us recall that in that period, organizations defending human rights and forces of the left were pointing out that the "dirty war" is based on the doctrine of national security and that an alliance of narcotraffickers, landowners, and soldiers is carrying it out.  They also pointed out that the "Dirty War" was being executed by 147 "self-defense" groups or "Death Squads" - a figure delivered to Congress by the then-minister of Government, César Gaviria.

You must also recall that since the middle of 1987, the "Dirty War" got a new look: the proliferation of "black lists" of those threatened with death, accused of "relations with guerrillas" (like several journalists), or as "useful idiots of subversion" (like defenders of human rights).

The threats provoked a stampede, and dozens of journalists, artists, university professors, and intellectuals took the path to exile, obligated by circumstance.

In good time you will carry out an excellent program to praise four emblematic human rights defenders from the period, the doctors: Héctor Abad Gómez, Leonardo Betancur T, Pedro Luís Valencia G. and Luís Fernando Vélez V., killed in Medellin in 1987.

But it is necessary to remember that the decade of the 80s was hardly the beginning of that dark policy of exterminating social and political leaders that participated in the struggle for democracy, since it did not only happen to defenders of human rights, let us recall also that the historic civic movement of Eastern Antioquia, in which 142 of its leaders were killed, not to mention the leaders of campesinos, unions, and the Patriotic Union party.

Ten years later, to be exact August 25, 1997, in the adjoining space of the auditorium of the University of Antioquia, one of the moral and ethical points of reference from that decade who had picked up the flags in the defense of human rights, they commemorated the tenth anniversary for whom you are now commemorating twenty years.
That man in his extreme solitude, who had been the president of the Departmental Committee for Human Rights for nine years, brought to fruition two historic events in that commemoration; he gave a speech in which he denounced the relationship between military commanders, police commanders, which coexist, and with paramilitaries, and in said happening, the second event is carried out, described as an act of renewal of commitment to the defense of human rights JESUS MARIA VALLE JARAMILLO, who more than being a lawyer, was a jurist, a true defender of human rights, and for whom it was a fundamental principal to base himself in the "strength of rightness and not in the rightness of force," he pronounced, in the middle of a completely full auditorium of the University of Antioquia, a speech which culminated:

  

For that reason tonight, the presence of all of you, of the Abad and Betancur families, that of the honorable judge of the Constitutional Court, Dr. Carlos Gaviria, of the committee coordinators, men and women, fills us with joy.  And in these historic surroundings we can today say: Héctor Abad, Leonardo, Fernando, Pedro Luis, Carlos, Felipe, here we are!  We can say: Heli Gómez, ombudsman of El Carmen; persecuted professors, victims: HERE WE ARE AND WILL ALWAYS BE, IN THE DIN OF THE STRUGGLE OR IN THE CALM OF DEATH!

 

Men and women of the University of Antioquia, of the Rectory, of the School of Medicine, of the National School of Public Health, of the Library System, of the University Museum, of the Héctor Abad Gómez Corporation for Education and Public Health, of the Mayor's Office of Medellin - Secretary of Civil Culture, and whoever else have organized and convened this great act and tribute: How can we complement in your activities THE INCLUSION, to make it, the more than deserved tribute, to the last of the Presidents of the Defense of Human Rights of Antioquia?

 

For next February, 2008, ten years of the assassination of Doctor Jesús María Valle will be commemorated, and it seems to me that you have been left with some doubts with this emblematic personality from the democratic society of Antioquia and Colombia and for that reason I propose to you that the different organizations give a posthumous tribute to Jesús María Valle Jaramillo, the distinguished teacher and fighter for human rights, and in that way praise him for what he was: an ethical symbol of our history; the most living example of the virtues that should be imitated for his grand soul, for the strength of his character, for the purity of his heart and for the magnificence of his ideals.

 
As a gesture of approval, I propose to you that in the different acts as of today, an EMPTY CHAIR be placed in this Barrientos square, to express his absence, his presence, and especially for the closing act of the auditorium of the University of Antioquia that not only is there left an EMPTY CHAIR, but that also an outline of his body is created and that a commemoration is convened for his tenth anniversary.

 
 

Cordially,

 

Carlos A. Ruiz Ospina
Author of a Sociopolitical Profile of Jesús María Valle Jaramillo
Historical Validity of the Struggle in Defense of Human Rights
Member, Board of Directors, National Labor School  
 
 

  

 "AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION"


University of Antioquia, Rectory
                                      
Tribute to Héctor Abad Gómez, Leonardo Betancur Taborda, Pedro Luis Valencia Giraldo and Luis Fernando Vélez Vélez, defenders of human rights, killed in Medellin in 1987.

August 17-24, 2007

PRESENTATION

 

It causes undeniable pain to remember the deaths of those we love, above all if they were victims of violence, but it would cause more pain and grief if we were a society which carried forgetting as a badge of fear or dehumanization.  


Pedro Luis Valencia, Leonardo Betancur, Héctor Abad Gómez and Luis Fernando Vélez Vélez, all defenders of human rights, graduates of and professors at the University of Antioquia, and human beings who struggled with their ideas and words for a country that is more democratic, more educated, and more egalitarian.  They were killed from the sidewalk of cowardice in 1987, that is to say, twenty years ago.  Today we remember them as we have during all of these years, and as we should remember so many others that, also in that year and in later years, have been victims of the brutality of intolerance, of a dread of liberty, and a hatred of the shining and loving right to speak.

 

We gather here in a commemoration that wishes to be a sincere recognition and that also wants to remember the thoughts and the attitudes of those who worked in life in agreement with their convictions, full of joy and vigor, always taking as a banner the freedom and natural right that we all have to enjoy a decent life.  We gather here in an act that wishes to remember the words of the Dylan Thomas poem as an inscription against the dark cave which violence always draws us into: "And Death Shall Have No Dominion."

 

Héctor Abad Gómez: He had the stubbornness and perseverance of those of whom nature makes exceptional men.  But he had, above all, a gift of humanity, a professionalism and generosity as a public health specialist, and a mental and intellectual capacity of great reach, which made him not only almost essential to our society and its lack of leading and honest hearts, but also, shamefully, a target of the crudest hate.  That which kills uselessly, because ideas and words deeply-rooted in knowledge and liberty, like in the case of Héctor Abad Gómez, are immune to bullets.

Leonardo Betancur Taborda: Was a disciple of Héctor Abad not only in the School of Public Health but also in the public realm as a leader and tribune in the defense of human rights.  In spite of his youth he had a maturity which made him stand out as much for his impetus as a natural leader as for his personality as a good professor and unconditional friend of the causes that involved the wellbeing of the university, of the new generations, and, before all, which involved the struggle for justice and against all types of violence and crime, wherever they came from.

 

He was assassinated next to Héctor Abad Gómez, and for the same reasons: the brutality and horror of intolerance could not bear the lives of two calls to the wind, free and lucid.  

 

Pedro Luis Valencia Giraldo: He carried with him the emblem of rebellion like he who wears a flower on his lapel, and as a complement to an inescapable duty in a society that lives with injustice and inequality.  He was killed in a city which, in a determined moment, turned into the empire of impunity and which recovered with violence the defeats that it suffered in the realm of ideas.  Today his memory and the example of his humanistic and solidarity struggles accompany dreams for equality, education, and culture, immersed in the same city where he lived and died.


Luis Fernando Vélez Vélez: "The only enemy is the one with which we can never exercise the sublimation of words and their regenerating force, their reviving power; he is the one with which we can have no dialogue," said Luis Fernando Vélez once.  On his lips that conviction was the truth that would later take his life.  He did not defend the right to speak and freedom for any personal desire, but rather because he understood that the lack of the two made lacking, up to the point of begging, of an entire society.  He was a lawyer, and anthropologist, theologian, professor, and indigenist, to have languages with which to communicate the need to be free and have reasons in life to laugh, to be friends.

 

Those who killed him from the shadows, as they killed so many others of his stock and vehemence to love, will never understand that which is the sublime nature of the right to speak.  That is, in truth, the worst evil that afflicts us.  


PROGRAM

Friday, August 17, 10:00 a.m. Barrientos Square

• Héctor Abad Gómez Chair of Civic Formation: "A contribution to the construction of civility," by the writer William Ospina.
• Inauguration of the commemorative exposition "And Death Shall Have No Dominion."  Administrative Block, Main Library, School of Medicine and School of Public Health
  

• Presentation from the book, Letters from Asia, by Héctor Abad Gómez, with a foreword by Alberto Aguirre. Guests: lawyer Carlos Gaviria Díaz, and writer and journalist Juan José Hoyos Naranjo.
• Presentation from bulletin U–235. Guest: public health specialist Fabio Henao Acevedo, teacher from the Department of Preventive Medicine of the School of Medicine of the University of Antioquia.   
• Concert - musical group, School of Medicine - Director: Said Hurtado
  

ACT OF TRIBUTE: "AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION"

• Main conference: "Human Rights or the struggle for dignity", by Juan Pablo Corlazzoli, Representative in Colombia of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
• Presentation of the Memories of the Chair Héctor Abad Gómez: "A contribution to the construction of civility", led by the rector of the University of Antioquia, Alberto Uribe Correa.
• Biographical sketches of the four human rights defenders, by Carlos Gaviria Díaz (Héctor Abad Gómez), Julio González Zapata (Luis Fernando Vélez Vélez), Carlos Alberto Giraldo Giraldo (Leonardo Betancur Taborda) and Álvaro Olaya (Pedro Luis Valencia Giraldo).
• Cultural Event: pianist Teresita Gómez.
• Concert - musical group, School of Medicine - Director: Said Hurtado
  

• Book, Letters from Asia, by Héctor Abad Gómez (University of Antioquia Rectory and Héctor Abad Gómez Corporation for Education and Public Health)
• Memoirs of the Chair Héctor Abad Gómez: "A contribution to the construction of civility" (University of Antioquia Rectory, Schools of Medicine and Public Health, and Héctor Abad Gómez Corporation for Education and Public Health, with the sponsorship of the Mayor's Office of Medellin - Secretary of Civic Culture)
• Bulletin U-235 (Department of Preventive Medicine of the School of Medicine of the University of Antioquia).
  

• University of Antioquia
• Rectory
• School of Medicine
• National School of Public Health
• System of Libraries
• University Museum
• Héctor Abad Gómez Corporation for Education and Public Health
• Mayor's Office of Medellin - Secretary of Civic Culture
  

• School of Law and Political Science
• Cultural Station, University of Antioquia – System of Educational Radio
• Department of Audiovisual Services
• Department of News and Press
• Cultural Agenda Alma Máter  
• Communication Systems Altair
• Photojournalist Jesús Abad Colorado
  

(Translated by Stacey Schlau,  a CSN volunteer translator )

Public Announcement

Department of Arauca, August 17, 2007

The Social Organizations of the Department of Arauca have a legacy of dignity that has historically characterized our defense of life, culture, natural resources, environment, national sovereignty, and food and agricultural security as inalienable and permanent rights that work as vital elements in the development of an autonomous and sovereign people. Confronting the critical moment we now face in our region, we announce, through different media, to local, regional, national, and international public opinion, national and international human rights organizations, and the current diplomatic corps in Colombia, the following facts:
1.         Since August 5, 2007, the FARC in the Department of Arauca have been spearheading an armed strike, which has caused pressure and intimidation to stop activities for [all] sectors, productive organizations, truckers, educators, community and economic solidarity projects. It has been thirteen days; they say that it is against the transnational oil companies, but in actuality it has been one more form of oppression for our Araucan communities, because peasants and workers in the informal sector have lost their daily means of earning a living, while the fields of exploration and exploitation of petroleum continue fully functioning.
 
2.            Araucan peasants still haven’t recovered from the results of the aerial fumigations that poisoned our Department and our economy, in a chemical and bacteriological war that affected food security. Today, with the strike, agricultural production such as the rice fields have lost more than half their crops; the banana plantations, whose perishable fruit cannot wait to be picked, are being ruined. Milk, a basic product for nourishing children and part of the economic wellbeing of the peasant population, has not been able to be distributed. This same thing is happening with other agricultural products.
 
3.            Education, which has suffered a severe crisis due to the privatization policies of the State, the administrative corruption of the Department, and the trafficking of patronage through political favors, is also experiencing the consequences of this armed strike, since the agricultural high schools and rural schools are affected by the interruption of academic and technical work, harming a large number of students, the majority of whom are peasants.
 
4.            Trade, which is a significant economic item, is seeing its income affected and we, the consumers, find ourselves without the basic foodstuffs we need at home, which encourages speculation in the price of products.
 
5.            The truckers, who, along with the other sectors have been willing to participate in the different stages and processes of community development, are suffering from restrictions on traffic. The FARC have gone to the extreme of burning some vehicles, whose owners are poor working people of the region. Besides, this is the work that feeds their families.
 
6.            We the Social Organizations have been systematically victimized by aggression, stigmatization, punishment, and criminalization by the paragovernment of Uribe Vélez and the transnational oil companies, which have invaded and plundered our natural resources, destroying our flora and fauna, polluting our air, rivers, and lagoons, with their farce: the “Democratic Security Policy.”
 
7.            In this situation, we find ourselves obligated to demand of the FARC that they stop the strike, because we think that besides affecting the population of Arauca, it has placed obstacles in the way of our (the organized communities’) legitimate right to mobilize and express ourselves. As a tribute, it would pay posthumous and solemn homage to hundreds of fallen comrades who, like Alirio Martínez, Jorge Prieto, and Leonel Goyeneche, became martyrs as a result of the foolish and macabre state policies, carried out by regulations born out of the immorality and greed that is eating away at Colombian institutions.
 
8.            We recognize that in our country there is an armed conflict; at the same time, we urge the FARC to respect and apply Article 3 of the Geneva accords, regarding respect for and protection of the civilian population.
 

For life, defense of human rights, and remaining on our land
 
The Social Organizations of the Department of Arauca
********************************************************************
Network of Fraternity and Solidarity—Colombia
Red de Hermandad y Solidaridad con Colombia

Colombia Support Network
P.O. Box 1505
Madison, WI  53701-1505
phone:  (608) 257-8753
fax:  (608) 255-6621
e-mail:  csn@igc.org
http://www.colombiasupport.net

For the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
For the United Nations Human Rights Council
For the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights

Dangerous and disconcerting message of the President of Republic about the persons that document and denounce the occurrence of extrajudicial executions directly attributable to members of the Security Forces

Observatory for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law
Coordinación Colombia-Europa -Estados Unidos

 
President Álvaro Uribe Vélez continues using a dangerous and defiant language which besides disqualifying the persons that report the occurrence of extrajudicial executions by security forces and security entities members, may endanger his life and personal integrity. The President prefers, once more, to deny the reality, contributing thus to maintain killings committed by State agents in impunity, instead of publicly stating his concern for the increase of denunciations regarding this serious violation of the right to life, as it is the case in a significant parts of the country, namely in Antioquia[1]
 
On July 27, 2007, during the commemoration of the second year of enforcement of the Act 975 of 2005 (known as the Justice and peace Law), the President referred to denunciations of extrajudicial executions ascribable to Security Forces, as a new strategy used by guerrillas:
 
“Now the guerillas have another strategy: every time there is a casualty in the guerrillas, immediately they mobilize their coryphaeus in the country and abroad to say that it was an extrajudicial execution. But the Armed Forces have been very careful so that there cannot be any ground to point out that the Armed Forces members are in collusion with paramilitary groups” .
 
With regards to the high number of extrajudicial executions attributable to the Security Forces and their impunity, in October 2006, the CCEEU warned the Interamerican Commission on Human rights that “to hide a crime and on top of that, to present it as a military success is an oddity”[3]  . Today, it is even more unreasonable that referring to facts where there is sufficient evidence to believe that the Security Forces carried out extrajudicial executions, the President of the Republic asserts that those who denounce them are “coryphaeus or guerrillas leaders”.
 
The words of President of the Republic are intended to restrict the right of any citizen, or of the human rights organizations,  to publicly denounce the occurrence of serious crimes, worsened by the fact that one can assume that the perpetrators are State Agents.  They also intend to intimidate and disqualify the persons who exercise this right, based on serious investigations to document cases of human rights and humanitarian law violations, clearly disregarding the Declaration on the right and the duty of individuals, groups and institutions of promoting and protecting the human rights and the fundamental liberties universally- acknowledged[4]  .
 
The President of the Republic continues polarizing the Colombian society and his speeches would appear to correspond to a logic of war, according to which, the “enemies” of democracy are the persons that look after the respect of human rights because their denunciations would weaken the Security Forces in the war against the guerrillas. Accusations of serious violations of human rights perpetrated by State Agents are not and cannot be considered acts of “juridical and political war”[5]  against military and police members, although some army officers continue  maintaining such assertion[6]  .
 
These denunciations are not intended to discredit the police and the Security Bodies, but rather to call the attention about institutional and illegal behaviors so that these institutions and their members abide by the doctrines and practices compatible with the human right treaties ratified by the Colombian State, the Constitution and the law. Along these lines, the National Minister of Defense reminded the obligation of the Armed Forces  to unrestrictedly respect them within the framework of the internal armed conflict:
 
“The principles of legality, distinction, need and proportionality must drive all military actions. Given the circumstances and the new forms of the crimes and of the illegal armed groups – which are more often operating in small groups disguised as civil population- the Security Forces must do every effort to distinguish the civil population and to protect it in all circumstances.
 
“Therefore, it is essential to keep in mind that:
 
·        Military targets must be properly identified and they can be attacked.
 
·        The war means and methods used must be proportional to the military advantage intended.
 
·        Attacks to civilians do not provide any military advantage.
 
·        Casualties produced in combat and resulting from the proportional use of force are legitimate and are framed in the Humanitarian International Law, provided we are referring to persons who participate directly in the hostilities.
 
·        Casualties produced out of combat or when the use of force is not consistent with the criteria of absolute need and proportionality are considered violations to the right to life and in the frame of human rights international law which constitute extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. In addition, these behaviors are crimes that must be dealt by the International Criminal Court by virtue of the Statute of Rome”[7] .
 
The State, and in particular the Security Forces, do not lose legitimacy due to denunciations of crimes ascribed to their members, but only by the fact that their agents have perpetrated them. Therefore, it is disconcerting that while the President of the Republic stigmatizes as guerrillas cooperators the persons who denounce and document killing of civilians committed by the Security Forces, the Minister of Defense, has recently reiterated the obligation of the Commander of the Security Forces to protect the civil population, to the light of the International Humanitarian Law and the human rights, during the development of any war operation:
 
“(…) the need to maintain order and recover peace for the Colombians in the consolidation stage cannot lead the members of military institutions to commit tactic excesses that can easily lead to the strategic weakening of the State and of the Security Forces in particular, which at the same time will entail to lose their most precious asset: legitimacy”[8]  .
 

Bogotá, August 1, 2007

* * *
Appendix
Notes on the increase of extrajudicial executions attributable to Security Forces

Persistence of a worrisome number of extrajudicial executions directly ascribable to Security Forces. Between July 2002 and June 2006, 726 persons would have been victims of extrajudicial executions perpetrated by Security Forces members. These cases do not correspond to isolated facts. On the contrary, extrajudicial executions were reported in 27 out of 32 departments of the country.  Among the most affected departments are Antioquia (183 victims), Valle (53 victims), Arauca (40 victims), La Guajira (36 victims) and Nariño (32 victims).
 
·       In October 2006, the Observatory of human rights and humanitarian law of the CCEEU submitted to the Interamerican Commission an analysis of the occurrence of extrajudicial executions ascribable to Security Forces as well as detailed information on 98 cases, gathered from judicial dossiers given by the organizations making part of the CCEEU.
 
·       In March 2007, the Observatory of human rights and humanitarian law of the CCEEU produced during the fourth period of sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Council a brief document stating the four features of the extrajudicial executions attributable to Security Forces in Colombia: i) The increase of the violations to the right to the life, directly attributable to the Security Force coincides with the implementation of the “democratic security” policy; ii) extrajudicial executions have been committed in many parts of the Colombian territory; iii) extrajudicial executions correspond to clear action patterns that are repeated in all the country, regardless the military or police unit involved in the facts; and iv)  there is a deliberated attempt to maintain these cases in the impunity,  most of which are being heard by the military criminal  jurisdiction.
 
·       In May 2007, the Observatory of human rights and humanitarian law of the CCEEU publicly presented the report entitled: Extrajudicial executions: the Eastern Antioquia case.  Besides the analysis of the particular context of the eastern region of Antioquia department, the report includes detailed information about 74 cases (110 victims) of extrajudicial executions and general information about other 48 persons  allegedly killed by members of the Security Forces ( most of them assigned to the Fourth Brigade of the National Army).
 
·       In June 23, 2007 El Espectador a weekly magazine revealed that the Procurator General’s Office informed the United States Embassy that as from January 1st, 2002, the controlling body “has started 54 disciplinary proceedings against officers and non- commissioned officers of the Security Forces for irregular operations in which country people who apparently were not subversive, had been presented as guerrillas casualties in combat”[9]  .
 
In Antioquia, the number of extrajudicial executions attributable to Security Forces could be significantly higher than the one mentioned in our reports. On May 22, 2007, during the launching of the report mentioned, the secretary of Government of Antioquia, Jorge Mejía, revealed that “between 2004 and 2006”  the Inter- institutional Committee of Human Rights and  IHL of Antioquia heard “264 denunciations, most of the them in the Eastern side”[10] <#_ftn10> . On July 4, 2007 El Tiempo newspaper stated that, according to information gathered by the Inter-institutional Committee, “312 cases in Antioquia, in which there were casualties in combat and concerns are reported, were sent to the Fourth Brigade”[11] .
 
Note:  the documents mentioned above can be requested ad Minister of National Defense, Permanent Guideline n. ° 10. Reiteration obligations for the authorities in charge of enforcing the law and preventing homicides in persons protected, Bogotá, June 6, 2007, page 2 of the CCCEU (coeuropa@etb.net.co).
 

Bogotá, August 1, 2007

* * *

(Translated by Eunice Gibson, a CSN volunteer translator)
Ê

It’s necessary and it’s our obligation to history to continue reporting the arbitrary actions and the threats that continue to be made against our system.Ê We believe that the record of these may one day allow humanity to do justice.
Ê
*Ê On Wednesday, August 1 at about 4:30 p.m., the Police called a meeting in San Jose of all the people who live there.Ê At the meeting, they stated that the Peace Community is a nuisance and that it was time to get rid of it in any way possible.Ê The mission is to exterminate it.Ê They added that the recent guerrilla attacks had come from the Peace Community and that, if we are successful in finishing off the community, we will be able to control the area and carry out the plans that we have for the region.Ê They then presented a former guerrilla who said that the Peace Community is now ten years old and that he knew how to do things:Ê He said they could go in there with court orders but they wouldn’t find the guns, because they had those hidden outside.Ê He said that when they need to carry out attacks, they leave the community and carry out the attacks just as they had done with the police.Ê The police called on everybody there to unite, in order to be able to get rid of the community.Ê They said they knew that there are 17 countries, internationally, that are supporting the community but that those people from outside would soon get tired of it and that would be their chance to finish off the community completely.Ê That’s why everybody has to be ready.
Ê
*Ê On Thursday, August 2 at 5:20 p.m., two boys from the community, one 7 and one 10 years old, were leading a horse to the pasture when soldiers called to them.Ê They were on the road about five minutes from San Josecito.Ê The soldiers asked them if they would like to carry a rifle like the ones they were carrying and join up with them.Ê The boys answered that they just wanted to be farmers in the community.Ê Hearing that, the soldiers started to call them little guerrillas and tell them that they would be sorry just like the people in that son of a bitching community.
Ê
*Ê On Saturday, August 4 at 3:15 p.m. in Tierra Amarilla, the soldiers stopped a public transport bus.Ê They told the people on the bus that they are starting to take a census throughout the area and that they would have to give all the information they asked for and that they were carrying out the law and the people had no alternative but to answer.
Ê
*Ê On Monday, August 6, by means of various information media, the departmental authorities requested the national government to intervene in the Peace Community with searches and court orders.Ê They asked that the protective measures ordered by the Inter-American Court for Human Rights and the Constitutional Court be ignored.
Ê
Ê
The attitude of the highest levels of the departmental government continues to be worrisome.Ê They are asking the government to do violence to the community by juridical means.Ê Instead of demanding respect for the people and for the victims of human rights violations, the local government calls for violence to be done to our community and asks that the protective measures ordered by the Inter-American Court for Human Rights and the Constitutional Court, obedience to which is obligatory for the Colombian Government, be ignored.
Ê
The armed forces have demonstrated clearly and have announced publicly that their mission is to destroy us, and to make that happen, their methods have to be in accord with their perversity.Ê That’s the reason for the illegalities, the phony census, and former guerrillas carrying out meetings to make plans against the community and to make false accusations.
Ê
In spite of all the threats, all the announcements of our destruction and of all these injustices, they are making the same mistake.Ê Our system feeds on our search for justice, on respect for life and dignity, universal noble principles that will never let us lose courage.Ê Our determination is strengthened by the memory of our martyrs.Ê Our future is in our children, who have learned that war and the armed actors are not the right road.Ê Living life in a peaceful way is the essence of what we have been able to construct.
Ê
We are grateful for all of the national and international solidarity that we will always have on this path of life and dignity.
Ê
PEACE COMMUNITY OF SAN JOSE DE APARTADO
Ê
August 6, 2007Ê


------ End of Forwarded Message

FROM PRISON

MESSAGE TO THE 5TH WORLD CONGRESS OF EDUCATION INTERNATIONAL

(Translated by Peter Lenny, a CSN volunteer translator)

Reclusión de Mujeres Buen Pastor women's prison – Bogota – Colombia.

25 July, 2007.

Dear Comrades, Men and Women Educators of Education International; Respected Colleagues of the United Kingdom National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) and the Australian National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU),


My warm and sincere greetings and thanks for nominating me for – and granting me – the 2007 Mary Hatwood Futrell Human and Trade Union Rights Award. The honour of receiving such a distinguished accolade overcomes cold prison bars, rusting padlocks and sordid walls.


The prison enclosure denominated Cell Nine in the women's prison was chosen under the Democratic Security Policies to give me a lesson in confinement. They accuse me of rebellion and, according to the government, its penal codes and prison laws, they want to resocialise me, because they say that, after twenty years as an educator, I am a danger to society.


I have been developing as a dangerous rebel since I was three, when I decided I was the teacher for my brothers and sisters and the other boys and girls in my rural district. It was my vocation, and I cultivated it with care and dedication. At secondary school, I relished Colombian, Latin American and Universal Literature – the classes and the homework. How the realities of social injustice are captured by literature in all its genres! And how controversy raged when we argued for Capital – Karl Marx's capital, not the capital of political interests that subjugate, trample, enslave, despise and mock the hunger of many for the power of the few! It was to meet my vocation that I entered university to study Education Sciences, and the feeling of that first day of class in front of the pupils, the beautiful reality of it: the hem of my dress trembling slightly and little drops of perspiration hidden in the blush of my cheeks.

In this corner of the prison, the government's intention is to make me live in leaden solitude, far from students and rural, indigenous and workers communities, to silence my voice, to isolate me so as to sap my strength, to condemn me to narrow routine, to submerge me in relentless oblivion, but neither they nor I knew that here I would find sweet serenity of thought: amid the cold of the walls, little by little I saw they were warming and trusting, hanging attentively on the words of my interminable monologues, and one day they too asked “Why are they keeping us prisoner? Why do they kill, massacre, disappear and displace us? Who do they intend to resocialise in the stagnant monotony and absurd sterile routine of hours and days?

 

All that life wasted in prisons! It's like a “valley of dry bones” scattered over the sterile land, longing in libertarian hope to live again; it's like the raging, mindless night when the storm destroys and lays waste to all it finds in its path, regardless of whether it's trees, people, dreams or ideals.

 

And when my steps head for the exit, they crash abruptly into orders to “return to your cell, release denied”. The bars stare back, ironic and sarcastic. I return and seek refuge in books, embroidery, the mixture blends of colour and the subtlety of words; with their warmth they submerge me in a strange, sublime weave of freedom, and interlace in the collection of letters I am reading: when a prisoner in a prison somewhere in the world was offered her freedom in exchange for doing things to favour of the interests of capitalist power, she replied: “They will set me free, because I have never lost my freedom”.

 

I have my freedom in honest, tireless, steadfast struggle for education, and for life with dignity for ordinary peoples, whose spirit swells as they give deeper meaning to Love of Life with Social Justice.

They have taken my body prisoner, but my soul is free and there are no chains on my spirit.

Infinite thanks for your solidarity and support.

 

Affectionately and fraternally,

María Raquel Castro Pérez


Address: Reclusión Nacional de Mujeres “El Buen Pastor” –

Cra. 47 #84 – 25 Bogotá – Colombia – Patio Siete.

 

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RED DE HERMANDAD Y SOLIDARIDAD - COLOMBIA

All material distributed by REDHER indicates source
and authorship. REDHER authorises redistribution of
such material providing the same criterion is applied.

Colombia Support Network
P.O. Box 1505
Madison, WI  53701-1505
phone:  (608) 257-8753
fax:  (608) 255-6621
e-mail:  csn@igc.org
http://www.colombiasupport.net

Facts:

1.    On July 31, 2007, members of the paramilitary groups who identified themselves as “Black Eagles” attacked the residence in the city of Villavicencio where Mr. HECTOR TORRES, defender of human rights, was staying. He has been denouncing to judicial authorities the continual violations of human rights and international humanitarian law being perpetrated by police and paramilitary groups against the communities of the lower Ariari and the Güejar river, a region in which the so-called “Victory Plan” part of the Plan Colombia is being implemented.
Members of the paramilitary units knocked on the door, and told the occupants that they were there to do a political survey. When they opened the door, one of the paramilitary pointed a gun at them, while the other four climbed to the second floor, armed with small firearms and ordered all the occupants of the house to get on the floor, while they shouted: “where is that  s.o.b. HECTOR TORRES?” While they searched the entire house, one of the family members succeeded in throwing himself off the balcony and warning the neighbors, who called the police. The paramilitary soldiers had come in a public service taxi with licence plates UTV 430 from Villavicencio. The taxi, after leaving them there, pretended to have a mechanical failure. The paramilitary group fled the scene; in their flight one of them climbed into the vehicle, but the neighbors’ action prevented the vehicle from leaving. That paramilitary jumped out of the car and succeeded in fleeing; the driver and the vehicle were detained and handed over to the police at 9:45 pm. The charge was filed in the URI of Villavicencio.
2.    On July 30, 2007, an e-mail message arrived, addressed to the National Coordinating Organization of Displaced Persons. The message was signed by those who called themselves “Black Eagles of Bosa.” In the message they said that their immediate objective was Mr. Rigoberto Jiménez and the members of the Yira Castro Legal Corporation. The text of the threat reads as follows:
“AUC Black Eagles of Bosa
Mr. Rigoberto Jiménez , this is the third time. You think that we are playing games, and both you and the scumbag lawyers of the Yira Castro have ignored us. We are watching your every step and movement. We know that you intend to accuse us and if you do you’ll be sorry. We will hurt you where it hurts most. The idea is to clean up Bogotá of all FARC guerrillas and replace it with a city without criminals . Sincerely, Auc “
 
This is the third e-mail sent to the National Coordinating Organization of Displaced Persons CND and the second in which the Yira Castro Legal Corporation is mentioned, within the last 10 days.
This happened almost a month after the illegal breaking and entering and stealing of information from the office of the Yira Castro Legal Corporation. On June 22, 2007, unknown persons entered the headquarters of the human rights organization located in the La Soledad neighborhood of Bogotá, and made off with several computers and information relating to legal cases in process.
RIGOBERTO RUEDA is a displaced leader who through the CND has been working for the rights of the displaced communities. In this liability process, he has been aided by several human rights organizations, including the Yira Castro Legal Corporation (CJYC), a human rights NGO that works for victims of forced displacement in Colombia, as well as for peasant communities in danger of being displaced.
The CJYC is part of the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes, and of the Advisory Committee of the Citizens’ Hearings for the Truth of the Colombia-Europe-United States Coordination, and of the Colombian Project Never Again. Together with other organizations it spurred Citizens’ Hearings for the Truth in San Onofre-Sucre and in Buenaventura, Cauca Valley; and also the International Opinion Tribunal about the Forced Displacement in Colombia, jointly holding several regional hearings and one session in Bogotá. Similarly, they have accompanied the recent mobilizations carried out by organizations of displaced persons in different cities in Colombia, within the framework of the Land, Life, and Dignity campaign, during the 10 years of the 387/97 Law; and they formed the juridical advisory committee of the National Roundtable for Strengthening Organizations of Displaced Persons, a space from which they have supported the creation of several Departmental Roundtables of Displaced Persons. They also push forward legal action to protect fundamental rights, as well as the hereditary rights of victims of forced displacement, and they represent victimized families who are  seeking their rights to truth, justice, and total reparation.
HECTOR TORRES, RIGOBERTO RUEDA, and the YIRA CASTRO LEGAL CORPORATION are members of the Victims of State Crimes Movement. They actively participated in the meeting of victims held by social organizations in Bogotá  on July 26-28, attended by more than 2,200 delegates from indigenous communities and organizations, other community organizations, unions, displaced persons, young people, women, people of African descent, peasants, etc. At the meeting, it was reaffirmed that the crimes committed by paramilitary groups against certain political and social sectors are not isolated, but rather part of systematic, planned actions directly tolerated by the State. As well, they questioned the legal framework and actions of the national government in legalizing the impunity of crimes committed by these paramilitary groups, and they committed themselves to putting forward a common agenda of social mobilization against the impunity and for the defense of victims’ rights to truth, justice, total reparation, and guarantees that it won’t happen again.
3.    The threats, persecution, and hostility against victims and human rights organizations that work toward organizing victims and in defense of their rights demonstrate that paramilitary structures have not been dismantled. On the contrary, there is evidence that they have been strengthened in many regions of the country, which proves the involvement of the Colombian State.
As a consequence, we ask for letters to the Colombian State, represented by President Alvaro Uribe Vélez, and civil and military authorities, demanding:
·     That they guarantee the life and personal safety of HECTOR TORRES, RIGOBERTO RUEDA, and the members of the YIRA CASTRO LEGAL CORPORATION;
·     That they initiate the action necessary to investigate the accusations through targeting and threats committed by presumed paramilitary groups, against those mentioned above;
·     To the President of the Republic, that he publicly condemn the attacks against human rights organizations, emphasizing the importance of their work;
·     The dismantling of paramilitary structures, the investigation and judging of their crimes with sentences proportionate to the gravity of the facts, and guarantees to the victims of their right to truth, justice, total reparation, and that it will not happen again.
 

ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Victims of State Crimes Movement

Colombia Support Network
P.O. Box 1505
Madison, WI  53701-1505
phone:  (608) 257-8753
fax:  (608) 255-6621
e-mail:  csn@igc.org
http://www.colombiasupport.net