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Umana refused state protection.
"Why bother, when it's the state
who will kill me anyway?"
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THE IRISH TIMES (Dublin)

Wednesday, 22 April 1998


Killing of rights lawyer indicates slide to fascism 
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By MICHAEL MCCAUGHAN


MEXICO CITY -- Jose Eduardo Umana Mendoza, Colombia's highly-
respected human rights activist and professor of criminal law, was 
shot dead in his home in Bogota last Saturday. Two men and a 
woman had gained entry by claiming to be journalists.

A tireless defender of political prisoners, Umana took the cases that 
no one else would touch, representing guerrillas, union activists, 
indigenous people and victims of state-sponsored terror. 

Umana was Colombia's representative before the World Anti-Torture 
Organisation, which gathered information on 360 police and army 
officials accused of direct participation in gross rights abuses. The 
information led to exclusion orders being issued against Colombia's 
highest-ranking generals. This was one more nail in Umana's coffin. 

The last time I saw Umana alive was in November 1997, in his 
modest Bogota home. He was in top form despite another 
assassination attempt the day before.

"It's the least that any human rights activist can expect in this 
country," he said, shrugging his shoulders. Umana refused state 
protection. "Why bother, when it's the state who will kill me 
anyway?" 

The jovial former athlete chain-smoked, drank endless tinto (thick 
black Colombian coffee), slept four hours a day, lived with a phone in 
one hand and an air ticket in the other, travelling the length and 
breadth of the country to defend new detainees.

As the country's guerrillas gained ground across the nation, Umana 
did not hesitate to criticise their shortcomings. "The guerrillas have a 
powerful military presence but they lack a coherent political project," 
he said. 

The UN Human Rights Commission demanded a "thorough 
investigation" into Umana's death, which it described as another sign 
of "the clear will to physically destroy those who promote and 
protect human rights in this country".

Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas gave Umana 
the local equivalent of a volley of shots over the coffin, a sad 
reminder that in Colombia there are no neutrals. State terror and 
guerrilla violence have sucked up every available space for human 
rights. 

"There is an irreversible slide toward a type of Latin American 
fascism in Colombia, which rules out all efforts to secure dignity for 
the poor," Umana had warned.

Copyright 1998 The Irish Times
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