Urgent Action: Protest threats to ASFADDES

Please read this urgent action and appeal to the appropriate authorities:

URGENT ACTION

The Popular Committee of Barrancabermeja is making an urgent call for national and international solidarity for the human rights workers of our city, who have been pestered and intimidated by public security forces.

FACTS

1. Members of the Association of Families of the Disappeared, ASFADDES have been subject to surveillance by individuals dressed in civilian clothing, obviously armed and without any apparent identification or badges, some of whom use vehicles which are recognizable as those of the D.A.S., but without license plates.

2. Threatening and intimidating phone calls have been received at the offices of ASFADDES. The callers have said, among other things, that the members of ASFADDES were 'too young to die.'

3. Related to the massacre in Barrancabermeja on September 27, 1999, Ramon Rangel, spokesperson for the Popular Committee and member of the Syndicalist Workers' Union (USO) and Francisco Campos, member of CREDHOS, have made numerous spoken and written statements to the press in which, based on information received from those living in the neighborhood victimized by the massacre, they affirmed that shortly before the massacre there were police on location, performing large-scale military operations in the northeastern and southeastern sectors of the city.

4. In these statements and based on the presence of police in the sector it has been confirmed that through action or omission the public forces share responsibility in the massacre.

5. As a response to the forgoing statements the Colonel Jaime Eduardo Martinez Santamaria, commander of Special Operations Command in Magdalena Medio said the following: We deny these vile accusations and misinformation of the Popular Committeee, the guerrillas, CREDHOS, and the USO. In their hard work of disinforming public opinion, the ELN accuses the army..." This declaration equates the social organizations with insurgency and as such puts members of these organizations in immediate danger of losing their lives.

6. The Colonel Continued: "To Mr. Ramon Rangel, who has forcefully accused the institution speaking of a military operation, I have nicknamed shitface because of his skin color caramel, and because everything he says is complete bullshit."

7. The Colonel then said: "To the journalists of 24 Hours and those of RCN TV, I close the doors of the Command for the time being, because these media, without checking and without verifying anything have disseminated to the nation and to the world the idea that the massacre was conducted by paramilitaries. The Corales are now empty of people because the people fled after massacre.

   If there were paramilitaries or any organs of the state as has this guerrilla has accused, the guerrillas have the obligation to protect the people: protect them and not permit them to leave dispersed as was done, because obviously the enemy is within and the fear is without."

8. These statements were published in the local weekly "The Nation" of October 3, 1999, on page 18.

9. Leaving aside the disrespect and vulgarity, these statements are an attempt to undermine the work of the press as well as that of human rights workers.

10. We invoke the solidarity of the social and popular organizations, of the NGOs in the national and international spheres to demand of the national government to force the public forces to act with the necessary respect towards the social organizations and to human rights workers. We ask that the public forces and the national government be made responsible for the security of those who are performing legal, legitimate human rights work, since we cannot follow the advice of Commander Martinez to ask the guerrillas to protect our lives.

EQUIPO IMPULSOR
COORDINADORA POPULAR DE BARRANCABERMEJA