INTER-CHURCH COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN LATIN AMERICA 
(ICCHRLA) 

Canadian church coalition to participate in international mission to 
Colombia May 17-21, in wake of latest chilling attack on human 
rights defenders 

TORONTO, MAY 15, 1998 (For immediate release) Gravely concerned 
about the latest in a wave of attacks on human rights workers in 
Colombia, a Canadian church coalition will travel to Bogotá to 
participate in an international mission that will meet with 
government leaders and presidential candidates running in the May 
31 elections. The mission's aim is to impress on Colombian authorities 
the extent of international concern about the situation and demand 
measures to protect the lives of human rights defenders. 

Eleanor Douglas, who represents the Anglican Church of Canada on 
the Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America 
(ICCHRLA), leaves for Bogotá tomorrow. She will join a mission made 
up of jurists, parliamentarians and human rights advocates from 
Spain, Belgium, Peru and Chile. Douglas, who is a former chairperson 
of CUSO, will work with the mission until May 21.

ICCHRLA will return to Colombia as part of a follow-up mission after 
the elections to call on the new President for concrete measures to 
address a growing human rights crisis and escalation of an armed 
conflict that has resulted in more than a million internal refugees. 

ICCHRLA's participation in these missions comes on the heels of an 
ominous military raid on the office of its partner organization, the 
Inter-Congregational Commission for Justice and Peace (known as 
Justicia y Paz). 

At 4PM on May 13, ICCHRLA received a panic-stricken phone call 
from Bogotá with the news that more than 20 special counter-
insurgency troops of the13th Brigade had surrounded and entered 
the office of Justicia y Paz, an organization formed by more than 50 
Roman Catholic religious congregations which has played a crucial 
role in denouncing human rights abuses and violations of 
international humanitarian law in Colombia. Justicia y Paz 
administers a special project entitled Nunca Mas (in English, Never 
Again) that is gathering testimonies of human rights violations 
committed during the past 30 years, the majority by the Colombian 
Armed Forces and their paramilitary allies. Last December, the work 
of Justicia y Paz was honoured when its director, Jesuit Father Javier 
Giraldo, received the prestigious John Humphrey Freedom Award 
from the Montreal-based International Centre for Human Rights and 
Democratic Development. 

During the 4-hour raid, nuns and lay staff working for Justicia y Paz 
were threatened, forced to their knees and held at gunpoint, while 
the organization's computers were searched. The heavily armed 
soldiers were acting with a search warrant from the Attorney 
General's Office, on the basis of accusations provided by military 
intelligence that they would find evidence of links with guerrilla 
groups. After the raid, the Deputy Attorney General Jaime Cordoba 
acknowledged that no such evidence had been found. 

"We are extremely concerned about the safety of the staff of Justicia 
y Paz because the military made a point of filming them before they 
left, as well as other human rights workers who gathered outside the 
building while the raid was taking place,"says Bill Fairbairn, Colombia 
Program Coordinator of the Inter-Church Committee on Human 
Rights in Latin America. 

"The human rights situation in Colombia has never been as critical," 
adds Fairbairn. "There is a clear, concerted effort to intimidate and 
silence those women and men who, at great personal risk, are 
denouncing abuses. Human rights colleagues are receiving chilling 
death threats, they know they are under surveillance, they are 
followed by unmarked vehicles and a growing number of them have 
been murdered or forced to flee the country." 

The raid of Justicia y Paz is the latest in a wave of attacks on human 
rights workers in Colombia, who because of their denunciations of 
state repression are falsely accused by the military of being 
supporters of the guerrilla. Twenty one human rights workers have 
been killed in the last year. The most recent was noted lawyer 
Eduardo Umaña, who was shot in the head in his home on April 18. 
By all accounts, violence is escalating in the run-up to the 
presidential elections.

"Human rights workers in Colombia are terrified," says ICCHRLA's Bill 
Fairbairn. "They feel completely vulnerable. They tell us it's a 
waiting game to see who will be killed next. At the United Nations, 
the Colombian government talks about the legitimacy of human 
rights organizations and yet back home, it has abdicated its 
responsibility to protect human rights workers from a campaign of 
terror. Both the paramilitary and the military know their actions will 
not be investigated, that they run little risk of being prosecuted for 
human rights abuses." 


For more information or to arrange interviews, contact: Kathy Price, 
ICCHRLA Media Contact: (416) 921-0801 

Eleanor Douglas can be reached in Colombian (May 17-21) at: Tel. 
011-573-349-2541

The Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America 
(ICCHRLA) is a Canadian ecumenical coalition formed by more than 
20 Christian denominations and religious congregations whose 
mission is to promote human rights and social justice in Mexico, 
Central and South America, in solidarity with both Canadian and 
Latin American partner churches, human rights groups and 
grassroots organizations.
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ICCHRLA 129 St. Clair Ave, W. Toronto, ON M4V 1N5 tel: (416) 921-
0801 fax: (416) 921-3843 email: icchrla@web.net