Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #489 | June 13 1999Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York
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Weekly News Update on the AmericasIssue #489 | June 13 1999Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York CSN Home | WNU Home | This Month's News |
5. Thousands Protest Colombian Violence
6. Colombian Congress Rules on Special Powers, Faceless Justice
7. Colombian Activists Protest Impunity, Massacres
11. US Pushes Regional Intervention Plan
Some 400,000 people demonstrated on June 6 in Cali, Colombia, to demand the release of hostages and an end to kidnappings and disappearances. Cali archbishop Isaias Duarte led the march of private citizens, public officials, legislators, judges, businesspeople, journalists, students, workers, indigenous people and campesinos under the slogan "No more kidnappings, no more disappeared." [La Republica (Uruguay) 6/7/99 from AFP]
The march took place a week after more than 100 mostly wealthy churchgoers were kidnapped by the leftist rebel National Liberation Army (ELN) at a Cali church [see Update #488]. In a video message given to television stations on the day of the march, an ELN leader known as "El Viejo" blasted Duarte for organizing the march. "What's going on, Monsenor Duarte? Is it that only the rich have the right to make war against the poor? Why are the bishops mobilizing so diligently in favor of the churchgoers and not for the humble soldiers and police agents captured in combat" asked "El Viejo" in the video. [Duarte was well-respected for his work for peace while serving as bishop in the rural violence-plagued municipality of Apartado, before he was named archbishop of Cali in 1995--see Update #291.] [LR (Uruguay) 6/8/99 from Agence France Presse]
President Andres Pastrana announced on June 8 that the ELN had promised to release more than 80 hostages following high-level contacts with the government. Pastrana told reporters in the eastern city of Bucaramanga that members of the ELN Central Command (COCE) and government representatives had met over the weekend of June 6 and on June 7, in Colombia and abroad. The final agreement was apparently reached during talks between government representatives and imprisoned ELN leaders Francisco Galan and Felipe Torres at Itagui maximum security prison near Medellin in Antioquia department. As of June 8 the ELN was holding 25 people it captured in the Apr. 12 hijacking of an Avianca passenger plane [see Update #484], along with 50 from the May 30 Cali church kidnapping and nine people, including a Barranquilla city council member, who were abducted June 6 while on a sport fishing expedition on the northern Magdalena river. The kidnappings are part of an ELN effort to pressure Pastrana into including them in a peace process he has begun with the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The hostages were expected to be released between June 12 and 17. [AFP 6/8/99; La Republica (Lima, Peru) 6/13/99] One of the 25 Avianca hostages died in captivity on June 9 of a heart attack. [El Colombiano (Medellin) 6/10/99]
As part of inclusion in peace talks, the ELN is demanding the demilitarization of four municipalities in Bolivar department as a safe zone, similar to the one in southern Colombia where talks between the government and the FARC are taking place. The zone the ELN wants control over is a paramilitary stronghold where hundreds of campesinos accused of being ELN supporters were massacred by paramilitary groups last year. It also holds some of Colombia's richest gold mines. [Miami Herald 6/12/99]
On June 11, human rights groups called on the Venezuelan government to grant temporary asylum to some 600 Colombians who fled northern Santander department and crossed the border to escape paramilitary violence. Venezuelan authorities said they planned to return the group to Colombia as they did with a first wave of some 2,200 refugees who arrived during the week of May 31 [see Update #488]. But human rights advocates said that unlike the earlier refugees, these refugees are too afraid to return to their homes. "Venezuela has an obligation under international law not to return people into a situation where they could be persecuted," said Hiram Ruiz, senior policy analyst for the US Committee for Refugees, who met with refugees at the border on June 9. According to Sonya Achkar of the Venezuelan human rights group Red de Apoyo, the 600 new refugees are from about 15 villages in the area of La Pista in northern Santander province. "We are not in a condition, with unemployment running at 30%, to sustain the people who could come due to Colombia's internal conflict," Governor Francisco Arias Cardenas of Venezuela's Zulia state told a local radio station. The refugees have sent a letter to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frias urging Venezuela to grant them temporary asylum until Colombian authorities can guarantee their safety at home. [Reuters 6/12/99]
Interior Minister Nestor Martinez announced on June 8 that Pastrana will call for a referendum on constitutional reforms that would give him sweeping powers to negotiate peace with rebel groups. The announcement came a day after the Senate's constitutional affairs committee rejected the proposed amendments, which would have granted Pastrana authority to pardon rebels who accepted a reconciliation plan; to institute electoral reforms aimed at increasing voter participation; and to lengthen the mandate of regional government leaders. The amendments had been approved in mid-May by the Chamber of Deputies. Martinez said a date had not been set for the referendum, adding that "the government will find the right moment." [AFP 6/8/99; CNN en Espanol 6/8/99 from Reuters]
On June 9, Colombia's Congress decided to maintain its system of "faceless" justice despite strong opposition from human rights groups. The system, which was created in 1991 to protect judges and witnesses from retaliatory violence, allows the use of secret prosectors and witnesses against defendants accused of kidnapping, paramilitary activities, drug trafficking or terrorism. It is set to expire on June 30. While approving the basic premise of the system, Congress voted to restrict the secrecy of the process to the investigations phase. As of July 1, the identity of the prosecutors will not be a secret in the trial phase; however, the prosecutors will be different from those who carried out the investigations phase. The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate could not agree on how long the new system will be in effect, so a bicameral commission will be formed to work out that detail. [CNN en Espanol 6/10/99 from AP; El Colombiano 6/10/99 from Colprensa]
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and church representatives in Colombia held a day of activities against impunity on May 19. The activities were organized by the Center for Investigation and Popular Education (CINEP), an NGO headed by Jesuits, to commemorate the second anniversary of the murders of CINEP activists Mario Calderon and Elsa Alvarado. The two activists were involved in research into human rights and environmental issues; they were killed along with Elsa's father in their home on May 19, 1997, presumably by members of a paramilitary group [see Update #382].
The Attorney General's office reported that 10 people were being investigated in connection with the killing. But according to CINEP, "there is a great gap" with respect to the "identification, capture and submission to justice of the intellectual authors." CINEP has decided to ask the Inter- American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to investigate the case. [Inter Press Service 5/19/99]
On May 16 an unofficial International Tribunal of Opinion (TIO) declared the Colombian state responsible "by both action and omission," for the massacre of 32 non-combatants on May 16 and 17, 1998 in the northwestern city of Barrancabermeja. The TIO was set up by 300 local NGOs and 70 Canadian NGOs; its members were nine respected international and local personalities and officials.
After two days of sessions in Barrancabermeja, the TIO urged the state to "identify and try" the planners of the mass killing and the members of security services involved in the incident. A commando of 50 paramilitaries entered Barrancabermeja--located in an area of heavy guerrilla presence--on May 16, 1998, protected by some 5,000 armed forces troops. They murdered seven people on the spot, and captured 25 others, who were killed the next day [see Updates #434, 436]. The rightwing paramilitary United Self- Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) claimed responsibility for the murders. TIO president Giulio Girardi, an Italian philosopher, said the tribunal was set up on the request of families of the victims of the massacres and local NGOs frustrated with the lack of justice.
The Colombian government criticized the TIO for "meddling" in internal affairs. But Eduardo Cifuentes, president of the Constitutional Court, told Inter Press Service that the TIO served as "an enormous incentive for sanctioning human rights violators." [IPS 5/19/99] Peace Brigades International (PBI), which provides nonviolent protective accompaniment for human rights workers in Colombia who request such support, reports that a number of the groups which convened the TIO have received threats or have been attacked. [PBI Focos de Interes 6/4/99]
On May 1, before a packed audience at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law, nine members of a Canadian Tribunal concluded a public inquiry into the 1998 Barrancabermeja massacre. The Tribunal determined that the events which took place on May 16 and 17, 1998, constituted a crime against humanity and a war crime--as defined in international law--and concluded that the government of Colombia "must be held legally responsible" for failing to prevent the massacre or to adequately investigate it. No one has been prosecuted in the case. Notice of the Tribunal's inquiry--which was convened by the Canadian Council of Churches-- was served on Colombian president Andres Pastrana and the Colombian Ambassador to Canada. There was no official government response. [Press Release from the Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America (ICCHRLA) 5/1/99]
Tribunal member Howard Pawley, a former Premier and Attorney General of Manitoba, met with Pastrana and Colombian foreign minister Guillermo Fernandez in Ottawa on May 31, during a presidential visit to Canada. Pawley said he was shocked at how little information the Colombian government had gathered about the perpetrators of the massacre. "The mothers and wives of the Barrancabermeja victims have not been interviewed [by police], even though they were witnesses," said Pawley. [AFP 5/31/99]
US representatives at the 29th General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) held June 7-9 in Antigua, Guatemala, presented a proposal on June 8 for the organization to establish a "group of friends" mechanism that could be activated if democracy appeared to be under threat in any member country. US acting assistant secretary of state for hemispheric affairs Peter Romero described the proposal as "preventative diplomacy." "This is a way to make sure a potentially manageable brush fire does not burn down the forest," Romero said. Existing measures, dating from 1991, allow intervention by OAS states only when there is a full-scale crisis, such as a coup.
The proposal was shelved when Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela opposed it. "We believe that all actions of the OAS should be directed so each country...is responsible for dealing with its own problems, maintaining always its sovereignty," said Peruvian foreign minister Fernando de Trazegnies Granda. Jamaican deputy prime minister called the proposal "a paternalistic approach to interstate relations." But the proposal will be returned to committee, and the US thinks an agreement can be reached by next year's assembly. "We never hoped that the proposal would be approved at this session, we just wanted to put the matter on the table for discussion," US representative to the OAS Victor Marrero remarked. [Associated Press 6/8/99; Financial Times 6/9/99; Stratfor Global Intelligence Update 6/10/99]
In other business, the General Assembly--which represents 34 countries, all the countries in the Americas except Cuba-- reelected former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria as its general secretary. [EFE 6/9/99] On June 7 the foreign ministers of Venezuela, Mexico, and Peru discussed improving ties with Russia. "A dialogue between Venezuela and Russia has become far more active of late. Useful bilateral consultations were held in Caracas and Moscow," Venezuelan foreign minister Jose Vicente Rangel told the Russian news agency Tass, noting that Venezuela is interested in a trade pact with Russia. [Itar-Tass 6/8/99]