The Unforgivable!

[Joanne98]

http://www.narconews.com/Issue47/article2884.html

The Unforgivable

As Colombia’s Uribe Lobbies the U.S. Congress for a Free Trade Agreement, Attacks on Human Rights Defenders and Rural Communities Are Increasing

By Laura Del Castillo
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
November 19, 2007

On November 10, Hillary Clinton expressed her opposition to the U.S. signing a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, because, she said, the history of violence against union leaders in that country concerns her.


Yolanda Becerra, director of the Popular Feminine Organization
Poto: D.R. 2007 Caleb Harris
Immediately, President Uribe threw a fit in front of the media, saying that Clinton’s statements represented “an unforgivable lack of understanding toward Colombia.” Uribe was convinced that he had the Democratic party nearly in the palm of his hand after several of its members were so delighted by the latest fantasy tour through Colombia that the president (along with U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutiérrez) had organized for them, to demonstrate the “progress” the government has made on reducing violence.

To Uribe, just as unforgivable as Clinton’s words are the unionists who keep holding their firm position against the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), and the non-governmental organizations and human rights activists who dare to denounce the crimes committed by the military and financed by Plan Colombia, or the farce of the paramilitary “demobilization.”

Of course, a government that seems stuck in the middle ages, led by a president that treats the country as his own personal fiefdom, has the luxury of turning a blind eye when those “unforgivable” people are threatened, attacked or murdered (unless they can somehow be silenced, as in the case of the leaders of the Peasant-Farmer Association of the Cimitarra River Valley, or ACVC, who are currently imprisoned).

The developments described below show that the efforts to show a better image of the country – where “violence has been reduced and human rights are respected” – seem to go hand in hand with impunity.


The Internal Enemies

Just earlier this month, unidentified men entered the offices of the human rights group Reiniciar (Spanish for “starting over”). Once inside, they removed information from the computers, stole money and took a case file for a forced disappearance the organization was working on.

Reiniciar is an organization that works mostly through the legal system, and since 1993 has been working the case of the infamous “genocide” of the Patriotic Union. More than 5,000 members and supports of that left-wing party (which came out of the 1984 peace talks between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the government) were assassinated throughout the country beginning in 1986. Virtually the entire party was wiped out, and during Uribe’s two terms the survivors and families of the victims that Reiniciar and other groups support have been targeted as well.

These crimes – murder, forced disappearance, torture, displacement and threats – were orchestrated from the highest circles of the country’s political elite, and carried out by members of the Colombian Army working with rightwing paramilitary groups. For that reason, Reiniciar has denounced the Colombian state for its responsibility in this massacre to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Since 1997, when the case was heard, the IACHR has demanded that Colombia’s government recognize its responsibility in these crimes, provide reparation to their victims, and, of course, punish their authors.

Because of this work, the organization has been a victim of constant threats and attacks from paramilitary groups, which enjoy support from certain sectors of the army and police, since its founding. Reports of these attacks presented along with overwhelming evidence led the IACHR to demand that the Colombian government provide Reiniciar with heightened levels of protection. But given these latest events, it would seem that this government-provided protection is ineffective and merely a distraction.

In fact, Yolanda Becerra, director of the Popular Feminine Organization (OFP in its Spanish initials
http://www.narconews.com/Issue47/article2884.html