DECLARATION OF SVEN GOMEZ
IN SUPPORT OF APPLICATION FOR POLITICAL ASYLUM



	I, Sven Gomez, swear under penalty of perjury that the following declaration is true 
and correct to the best of my ability and knowledge:

	I am homosexual and was an outspoken gay writer and activist for human rights for 
gays and others considered "abnormal" in Colombia.   My sexual orientation and my 
outspoken criticism of the assassination, disappearances and torture of gays, transvestites, 
and homeless put my life in danger.  From 1986-1990 I received numerous telephonic death 
threats which referred to my being gay.  Other gay friends who worked in support of human 
rights also received death threats and most of them have been killed.  One by one, all of my 
friends and colleagues in the gay liberation/human rights movement have been killed.  As of 
today I am the only survivor out of the eight original founders of the Gay Liberation 
Movement in Colombia.  

	The death threats continued over the entire time I lived in Colombia.  In 1989, in 
order to stay out of sight, I started staying outside of Bogot‡ in a family home in Guateque a 
few weeks out of the month.  Since this home has no phone or electricity, I could not live 
there permanently and had to return to Bogot‡ for supplies, etc.  One day on a visit to 
Bogotá in early 1990, I looked outside and saw 4-5 armed men in a dark-colored Jeep 
watching my bedroom window.  I immediately fled my home by the back door and through a 
neighbor's house.  
	
	Soon thereafter, in May 1990, I left Colombia for Canada, hoping to find some relief 
from the stress of living in constant danger.  However, after only one week in Canada I 
decided to return to Colombia.  Being in Canada I felt that I had abandoned the struggle for 
human rights and that therefore the military elements had achieved their goal.  I therefore 
decided to accept my fate and return to Colombia to continue to fight for human rights.  

	However, only one week after I returned to Colombia, I received another telephonic 
death threat saying that they would kill the person closest to me if I didn't leave the country 
for good this time.  This call scared me more than any other since it was clear by what they 
said that these people were watching me and knew that I had left the country and returned.  I 
now feared that these people would not only harm me but others in my family if I didn't 
leave the country.  I could accept my own fate and put my own life at risk for my political 
beliefs, but I could not accept putting my family's life at risk.  When I realized that my 
family might be killed because I was an outspoken gay man I knew that I had to flee 
Colombia for good.

	Police detectives are responsible for the majority of assassinations of gays and 
transvestites in Colombia since they see it as their responsibility to eliminate anything and 
anyone who is not "normal."  They consider anyone who is not "normal" to be a subversive, 
and the worst type of subversive is an intelligent homosexual.  Therefore, anyone who 
denounces the violation of the human rights of gays, transvestites, etc., is in danger of being 
killed.  Outspoken and visible gays often use pseudonyms in order to protect their identity.  
I used a pseudonym when I wrote articles in a gay newspapers.  Other gays I knew also 
used pseudonyms.

	Daniel Samper Pizano, a journalist and the brother of Ernesto Samper Pizano, the 
Colombian president, was forced to request political asylum in Spain because he was one of 
the first to denounce the massacres of gays.  He had written an editorial column called 
"Reloj" in El Tiempo newspaper in Colombia.  Three other journalists who strongly 
criticized the police tactics were forced out of Colombia for speaking honestly about the 
assassination of gays and the homeless and about the drug traffickers.

	My participation in the Gay Liberation Movement in Colombia began in 1980 when 
a group of gays would get together for social reasons.  However, when gays started being 
murdered, eight of us organized ourselves better and founded the Gay Liberation Movement. 
I handled public relations for the Movement.  One of our activities at this point was to write 
to a European gay magazine, "Spartacus," asking for letters to be sent to the Colombian 
president protesting the murder of gays.  

	In about 1986 the Gay Liberation Movement came "out of the closet" politically in 
order to denounce the assassinations of gays, transvestites, etc., and to raise the awareness 
that gays did exist in Colombia and had the same rights as heterosexuals.  We did that in 
about August or September of 1986 when the eight of us who founded the Gay Liberation 
Movement led a march of 50,000 people (ie., unionists, prostitutes, farmworkers, indigenous 
people) from all walks of life in Bogot‡.  The march was named "S’ ‡ la vida," (Yes to life).  
We marched to the Plaza Boliv‡r, where the Presidential Palace is located.  

	About one month after this march I began receiving threatening phone calls at the 
home I shared with my parents and sister in Bogot‡.  The first call came in the afternoon.  I 
answered the phone and heard sounds and then someone said, "Ah, you are the head of those 
faggots that go to the streets asking for rights.  We are going to show you what rights you 
have."  At first I was only angry at the caller, but then I was scared.  However, I thought 
that that would be it and I wouldn't hear from them again.  Unfortunately, the calls started 
coming frequently after that.  The next call came about one week later.  Someone said, "Hey 
faggot.  You better watch your ass."  The next week another call said the same thing.   The 
calls that came from then on started threatening me with death.  They said that they would 
give me the same justice they gave Lorca (he was a gay Spanish writer who was murdered 
with 3 shots to his buttocks).

	In about March 1987 I became the first gay in Colombia to get tested for HIV, and I 
did the test on national television, Channel 7.  The purpose of the program was to encourage 
people to get tested for AIDS since gays in Colombia were not getting tested because of their 
fear that it was one way for the government to infect the gay population with HIV, ie., 
through the needles they used to withdraw blood.  Since gays saw more and more gays 
murdered and mutilated without anything being done to stop it, they understandably were 
suspicious of anything that seemed to their benefit.  On national television Dr. Silvia Barreto 
administered the ELISA test for HIV to me in order to show that it was a safe procedure.  

	During the television program I encouraged people to get tested and advised gays to 
take responsibility for their own health and the health of others.  I said that gays should be 
very careful not to infect themselves or other people if they know they have the virus.  I 
explained what precautions they needed to take to protect themselves.  That program made 
me a highly visible gay man.  

	That same year the seven co-founders of the Gay Liberation Movement and I 
participated in a second march for human rights (the March of Silence) comprised mostly of 
academics and university organizations.  We marched from the train station to the Avenida 
Col—n and then to the Plaza Boliv‡r.  Although the eight of us who founded the Gay 
Liberation Movement had already been receiving threatening phone calls, we still marched.  
However, we positioned ourselves in the center of the march to protect ourselves.  We also 
talked with union leaders about what we were doing and gave them our names and phone 
numbers in case anything happened to us they could denounce it publically.  We all carried 
small backpacks with a few clothes in them as we marched so that as soon as the march 
ended we split up and changed our clothes to make it harder for anyone to identify us as 
having participated in the march.  

	I knew to take the threats I was receiving seriously and did what I could to protect 
myself, but I never stopped my political work and continued writing for El Ambiente, a gay 
paper that eight of us had started in about 1986.  I wrote under the pseudonym Julio 
Rodriguez, in order to disguise my identity, but from the phone calls I received, the 
pseudonym didn't work.  Between 1986-1989 I wrote approximately eight articles for the 
paper.  The paper was sent to the President of Colombia; all of the Embassies in Bogot‡; the 
Ministry of Defense; Ministry of External Relations; International Gay and Lesbian 
Organization in Stockholm; and P‡z y Liberaci—n (Houston, TX).  By mailing copies of El 
Ambiente, we hoped to educate a wide range of people about gays and to alert them to the 
fact that gays were being massacred by the government.  

	Because of the continuing threats against my life, I was spending most of my time at 
my mother's farm in Guateque, Boyaca, outside of Bogot‡, sometime in 1989.  In about 
March 1989, on a visit to Bogot‡, I was detained by the National Security Police (D.A.S.) in 
the Gay District of Bogot‡ and my identity documents were confiscated from me.  The 
D.A.S. did a round up in the Gay District, physically and verbally abusing the Drag Queens, 
kicking their clothing and wigs, and making everyone flee the area without looking back.  
This happened about seven blocks from the Swedish Embassy, at the intersection of Chile 
Ave. and Caracas Ave.

	During that same period I requested political asylum at the Swedish Embassy in 
Bogot‡.  My application for asylum was supported by The Swedish Federation for Gay and 
Lesbian Rights.  I submitted some of the articles I had written about the violation of human 
rights in Colombia.  The Embassy official who attended me asked me for my help in finding 
information about a gay Swedish citizen who had been seen for the last time on the road to 
the airport with someone I knew, a gay man named Carlos who had helped the gay 
movement in Colombia.  He showed me a photo of the Swede and asked if I would help 
them find him.  I said that I would be risking my life to try to find him since I would have to 
go to very dangerous places, like gay bars, etc.  These places are dangerous because by going 
there you are more visible as a gay and that is how many of the gays have been murdered.  I 
have since found out what happened to the Swede and his lover.  His family travelled from 
Sweden to Bogot‡ to investigate his disappearance and found his body in the "Salto de 
Tequendana" along with his Colombian lover.

	During the early months of 1990, on one of my visits back to Bogot‡, I noticed 4-5 
armed men sitting in a dark-colored Jeep watching my bedroom window.  I fled my home by 
the back door and cut through a neighbor's home to avoid detection by these men.  Also in 
1990, Luis Eduardo, one of the 8 founders of the Movement, disappeared.  Once that 
happened I was even more afraid and started spending even more time at my mother's farm 
and going in to Bogot‡ only once a month to take care of business.  Luis Eduardo's 
disappearance made me realize just how serious the situation was. 

	The stress of this compounded by what had been happening over the past few years 
was taking a great toll on me.  I decided to get out of Colombia for awhile and visit some 
friends in Canada.  About two months after seeing that my mother's house in Bogot‡ was 
being watched, I left for Canada.  However, after only one week there I decided to return 
home to Colombia.  I felt strange being out of my country and also felt I had abandoned my 
fellow gay activists and family.  For these reasons I decided to accept my fate and return to 
Colombia, despite my great fear of living there.

	About only one week back in Colombia, I received a phone call saying that they 
would kill the person closest to me if I didn't leave the country for good this time.  I knew 
then I was being watched, since these people knew that I had left and returned.  I knew that I 
had no choice but to flee the country for good this time.  One month later, in June 1990, I 
fled Colombia and came to the U.S.  About six months later, the Swedish Embassy contacted 
my family via Diplomatic Automobile, but my family informed the officials that I no longer 
lived in Colombia.

	From the U.S. I have kept in touch with other gay activists.  I have found out that in 
September 1990, another founding member of the Movement, using the pseudonym 
"Adrian", was killed.  He was crossing Independence Park on his way to his apartment when 
he was assassinated by three shots from a revolver by agents of the Administrative 
Department of Security, known as D.A.S.  Independence Park was the meeting place of the 
militant gays.  Adrian's body was found in the morgue by his family 3 days later.

	In 1991, Guillermo Cortez, a psychologist and professor at the Catholic University 
in Bogota, who represented the psychosocial aspect of the movement, was murdered.  He 
suffered from polio and had to go to the baths for treatment.  One night after the bath he 
called his lover to say he was coming home.  As he was walking down the street a van 
stopped and pulled him inside.  His body was later found in the morgue in Bogota with 
bullet holes.  The university said that he had died of AIDS.

	On April 29, 1995 I found out that Fernando Martinez Plata, another co-founder of 
the Movement, has disappeared and his telephone has been disconnected.  I now believe that 
I am the only survivor of the original founders of the gay movement in Colombia. 

	From 1989 until the time I left Colombia I spent most of my time in Guateque 
without a phone, electricity, etc.  I was forced to travel about once a month to Bogot‡ to get 
supplies, etc., and did so at risk to my life since the only access to the farm in Guateque was 
by horse, and then a bus to the capital.  I knew that sooner or later I would be killed.  I also 
knew that I could not continue to live as a prisoner without a phone or electricity for the rest 
of my life.  I was well known throughout Colombia because I had travelled to the major cities 
of Cal’, Medell’n and Pereira to research gay life in these cities for my articles.  I also had 
talked to so many gay communities for my articles and to get people to support our work 
for human rights.  I knew that to remain in Colombia meant that I would have to live like a 
prisoner and under constant stress of being killed.  As one by one of the founders of the 
Movement have been killed or disappeared, it is certain that it was only a matter of time 
before I, too, would have been killed. 

	For all of these reasons I ask the United States to grant me political asylum based on 
my membership in the social group of gays and based on my political opinion as one who 
has been an outspoken critic of the Colombian government's violation of the human rights 
against gays, transvestites, the homeless, etc.


Dated:                     		                          
					Sven Gomez





I, Jan Austerlitz, swear that I am competent in English and Spanish and that the above has 
been translated to the declarant in Spanish and s/he understood its contents.

Dated:          				                              
						Jan Austerlitz