WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
ISSUE #430, APRIL 26, 1998
NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339
LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499
*3. COLOMBIA STEPS UP DIRTY WAR AGAINST ACTIVISTS
Prominent Colombian human rights activist and lawyer Jose Eduardo
Umana Mendoza was murdered on Apr. 18 at his office in a
residential neighborhood of Bogota, Colombia by three assailants who
entered the office posed as journalists. The attackers bound and
gagged Umana before shooting him six times in the head. Despite
constant threats, Umana had always refused to have bodyguards or
any other type of security. "That isn't living," he had said.
Umana was working on two major cases at the time of his death: an
ongoing investigation into the November 1985 events at the Palace of
Justice, where over 100 people were killed and 11 disappeared in an
army assault following the takeover of the building by leftist rebels
from the M-19; and the reopening of a trial for the murder 50 years
ago of Liberal politician Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, whose killing sparked
years of partisan massacres, a period referred to by Colombians as
"La Violencia." Umana had recently told his colleagues that there was
evidence of complicity by some "very important" and still living
figures in the Gaitan murder. Gaitan's family believes Umana's
murder is linked to the reopening of the case. [Article from
unidentified and undated Colombian newspaper (probably El Tiempo
4/19/98) posted by Peace Brigades International (PBI) Colombia
Team on 4/21/98]
The Workers Trade Union (USO), which represents employees of
Colombia's state oil company, Ecopetrol, staged a 24-hour strike on
Apr. 20 to condemn Umana's murder. Umana was the defense lawyer
for USO leaders who were arrested in December 1996 and charged
with "terrorism" for allegedly conspiring with leftist rebels to blow
up oil pipelines. [Agencia Informativa Pulsar 4/20/98; news article
from unidentified source posted by Fedefam- Mexico on 4/20/98;
Associated Press 4/19/98] Umana was defending 18 of the union's
leaders; three of them are jailed and the rest released pending trial.
In early February Umana had received a telephoned death threat; he
said the caller warned him he would be killed because of his defense
of the USO leaders. In a 21-page document written after receiving
the death threat, Umana said the caller "stated that the authors of
the plan believe I am a danger because of the charges I have made
against state security forces and against Ecopetrol officials for their
undue interference in the criminal trial." Umana gave a copy of the
document to his closest friends, telling them to make it public if he
were killed. [El Tiempo (Bogota) 4/22/98]
Umana was the main lawyer defending leaders of the union of
workers of the Colombian national telephone company, TELECOM,
who were charged with terrorism for having staged a strike against
the company's privatization. He also successfully defended Patriotic
Union (UP) party leader and former Apartado mayor Jose Antonio
Lopez Bula, falsely charged with planning a massacre in the town of
Apartado in the region of Uraba, in Antioquia department. [Colombia
Support Network 4/19/98]
Some 200 people gathered on Apr. 23 in Brussels, in front of the
Council of Ministers of the European Union (UE), to protest Umana's
murder and to demand that the UE change its policy toward
Colombia. In Spain, a number of nongovernmental organizations
called a protest for Apr. 24 in front of the Colombian embassy in
Madrid to protest the attacks on human rights defenders. [El
Colombiano (Medellin) 4/24/98]
Letters protesting Umana's murder and demanding a full
investigation and protection for all human rights activists in
Colombia can be sent to President Ernesto Samper Pizano at fax
#571-284-2186 or by email to , with
copies to the Association of Relatives of the Detained- Disappeared
(ASFADDES), fax #571-283-2364. For information contact Colombia
Support Network, P.O. Box 1505, Madison, WI 53701; 608-257-8753;
fax 608-255-6621; http://www.igc.apc.org/csn/
On Apr. 17, the day before Umana was killed, human rights activist
and former Communist Party leader Maria Arango Fonnegra was shot
to death at the door of her home in Bogota. At the time of her death,
Arango was working as an adviser to the campaign of Liberal Party
presidential candidate Horacio Serpa on matters of peace and human
rights. [Pulsar 4/21/98; AP 4/19/98]
Mourners for Umana gathered together on Apr. 23 to found the
"Broad Social Front," which seeks to protect the lives of community
and human rights activists, intellectuals, and opposition leaders. A
national day of protest against impunity has been scheduled for May
19, one year after the murders of prominent human rights activists
Mario Calderon and Elsa Alvarado [see Update #382]. The USO has
scheduled another 24-hour strike for that day in which oil,
telecommunications and electricity workers will participate. [El
Colombiano 4/23/98; Pulsar 4/24/98]
*4. COLOMBIAN REBELS FREE US HOSTAGES
The month-long kidnapping by leftist Colombian rebels of a group of
US birdwatchers ended on Apr. 25 with the release of Todd Mark
and Peter Shen, the last two remaining US hostages of a group of
foreigners and Colombians seized by the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC) on Mar. 23 [see Update #427]. US former nun
Louise Augustine was released a day earlier, on Apr. 24. Most, if not
all, of the Colombian and other foreign hostages have already been
released.
As the FARC released Mark and Shen to members of the
International Committee of the Red Cross (CICR) in front of
journalists in the remote village of Los Alpes, 60 miles southeast of
Bogota, the army launched a fierce attack on the area with mortars.
"They're falling very close!" reported television reporter Astrid
Legarda, speaking live from the scene via a cellular phone. "All the
reporters and the gringos are running!" [El Nuevo Herald (Miami)
4/25/98]
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