Colombia This Week

31/10/2005

Fri 21 – Community leader killed in Meta; Colombian trade union leaders in hunger strike.

·         The Inter-Ecclesiastical Commission of Justice and Peace reports the torture and killing of Diego Gutierrez, a community leader from the Meta department, at the hands of the paramilitary Centauros bloc. The statement denounces that this happened during a military operation in the region by the 21^st Battalion of the armed forces, and local testimonies reflect the close collaboration of the Colombian army with paramilitary groups acting in the area.

·         Colombian trade unionists from the National Oil Workers Union (USO) report on a hunger strike initiated by the regional president of the trade union and three other representatives in the city of Cartagena. Their protest, carried out in the offices of the Ombudsman, hopes to prevent the sale of the refinery in this city.

·         UK-based Colombia Solidarity Campaign (CSC) denounces new death threats against trade union, political, social, and human rights leaders in the Valle de Cauca region. The new threats target those who revealed the extermination plan named 'Operation Dragon', and also includes new names such as the Valle de Cauca people’s defender, Dr Hernan Sandoval.

Sat 22 – Colombian death squads get respectable; Attorney killed in the streets of Medellin 

·         There is widespread and varied reaction from multilateral bodies, politicians, human rights campaigners and the press on the Justice and Peace law passed by Colombia’s parliament. The Colombian congress has given the paramilitaries political status without the approval of the international community or prior national consensus. As the director of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Office in Colombia, Michael Frühling, remarked a week before the law was passed: “it is not a good idea to treat paramilitarism as a mere political misdemeanour”. The paramilitaries claim to control 35% of congress and, according to the Colombian government’s auditor’s office, (Contraloria) they control at least a million hectares of land. As a result there are 3.5 million internally displaced people in the country. Even official figures concede that between 1988 and 2003 paramilitary forces killed 14,476 people, including many community leaders. Since congress approved the law, some 4,000 paramilitaries have already laid down their weapons. But, as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has pointed out, the law has not brought truth, since it does nothing to reveal the official agents behind paramilitary violence. Nor has it done anything to dismantle the structures and economic muscle that could, at any moment, reactivate the demobilised fighters and their surrendered weapons, Le Monde Diplomatique reports.

·         Colombia’s judicial trade union (ASONAL) denounces the killing of Luis Ignacio Aristizabal, a respected attorney from Medellin who was working on cases of narcotrafficking and money laundering. According to reports, he was killed by unknown gunmen in the streets of Medellin. ASONAL denounces the fact that, despite the risk faced by lawyers and members of the judiciary, he had no protection, bodyguard or any security measures. This is the third attorney killed in Medellin this year.

·         El Tiempo reports on the situation in the department of Vichada after inhabitants from El Placer settlement denounced the presence of paramilitaries from the Vichada front of the Central Bolivar Bloc (BCB), a demobilised group that came back to the region weeks after they were reportedly demobilised. Alias Jairo, the former commander of the group, said to El Tiempo that Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo was aware of their return to the area to participate in an oil palm cultivation project. This information was later dismissed by the Colombian government, who denied the existence of such projects in the area.

Sun 23 – President’s friend killed in Rionegro by demobilised gang; IMF approves fund review.

·         Former paramilitaries are behind the killing of Hernando Cadavid, a businessman from the flower industry in Rionegro (Antioquia). He was killed after being kidnapped by a group of delinquents, as a result of operations by the authorities to free him. Seven people have been detained, five of them former members of the ‘Heroes de Granada’ paramilitary group who demobilised earlier this year, El Colombiano reports.

·         The International Monetary Fund approved its first review of Colombia's $583.8 million loan programme, saying the economic outlook for 2006 was favourable for growth and lower inflation, Reuters reports.

·         For months, only one question has mattered in Colombian politics: would the Constitutional Court uphold an amendment to the constitution to allow a president to stand for a second term? On October 19th the court finally said yes. The justices rejected, firmly but not unanimously, 18 different challenges to the re-election amendment approved by Congress last year. Now they will study challenges to the Law of Electoral Guarantees, intended to ensure that opponents are not disadvantaged. If they throw the law out, Mr Uribe would not be able to stand until 2010. If they require amendments, there might not be time to approve these before the election. All the opposition candidates said they accepted the court's ruling. Mr Uribe's lieutenants will now concentrate on winning a majority in the new Congress, to be elected in March, halting a recent exodus of the president's former supporters to other parties, The Economist reports.

Mon 24 – 9 killed in Putumayo combats; mass raid targets ERG’s support network.

·         FARC members launch homemade bombs at a police station and nearby homes in San Miguel, a town near the border with Ecuador, killing seven police officers and two civilians, authorities report. More than a hundred FARC fighters fired at least a dozen bombs at the police station. The bombs, fashioned by packing explosives into empty gas cylinders, are launched from ramps, and are difficult to aim with any degree of accuracy. Six others were injured and several homes near the station were destroyed by the bombs. Colombian National Police chief Gen. Jorge Daniel Castro called the attack "detestable," and urged the international community to denounce the killing of the civilians and the FARC's use of non-conventional weapons, AP reports.

·         900 members of the Colombian police raid three different departments detaining 48 people wanted by authorities for collaboration with the small guerrilla group Guevara’s Revolutionary Army (ERG). The operations took place in Risaralda, Choco and Antioquia. According to General Mario Gutierrez, who commanded the operative, the investigation was carried out  by the Attorney General’s office in response to the killing of ten police officers by this armed group four months ago in Choco, El Colombiano reports.

·         Colombian police report that they have killed a FARC militia commander who was preparing bomb attacks in the city of Bogota. According to the authorities, alias ‘Danilo’ from the urban front Antonio Nariño was gunned down near the municipalities of Pasca and Arbelaez (Cundinamarca), Efe reports.

·         Authorities report the killing of Misael Garcia Rodriguez, an ambulance driver from a Hospital in Fortul (Arauca). According to the reports, he was reportedly killed by members of the FARC group who stopped the car at a roadblock. The region has so far undergone 22 days of paralysis as a result of an armed strike imposed by the FARC, Colprensa reports.

Tues 25 – Afro-descendent leader Orlando Valencia killed; paramilitaries sentenced in Venezuela.

·         The Colombia Project of Peace Brigades International (PBI) reports the forced disappearance and assassination by presumed paramilitaries of Afro-descendent Orlando Valencia, of the Curvarado Community Council in the Choco department. He was a committed defender of the biodiversity of the region and of the rights of Afro-descendents, and was covered by provisional protection measures granted by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

·         A Venezuelan Court has sentenced 27 Colombians to six years in prison on the charge of military rebellion. They were accused of being paramilitaries plotting to overthrow President Hugo Chavez. Three Venezuelan military officers were also sentenced to jail for their involvement in the suspected plot. Over 100 alleged Colombian paramilitaries were arrested at a farm near Caracas last year. Mr Chavez believed the Colombians were sent to try to undermine his government. However, another 73 people were cleared by the Venezuelan court and will be deported. Defence lawyers said the Colombians were nothing more than poor farm workers who were lured to Venezuela with promises of work, but once they arrived they were forced to join the anti-Chavez plot, BBC reports.

Weds 26 – DAS director quits amid allegations of paramilitarism; FARC denies Vargas’s bomb.

·         Colombia's intelligence chief has quit amid allegations that his security agency was infiltrated by the main right-wing paramilitary group. President Uribe accepted the resignation of Jorge Noguera, the head of the Administrative Security Department (DAS). President Uribe also dismissed the agency's deputy director, Jose Narvaez. The daily El Tiempo reported that DAS officers were secretly taped while discussing alleged plans by a close aide to Mr Noguera to sell intelligence information to Colombia's paramilitaries. The newspaper also claimed that Mr Narvaez asked for the recording to be made to ensnare his boss in the scandal, revealing deep divisions within the agency, Reuters reports.

·         In a statement posted on their website, the FARC group denies police accusations that it carried out a recent bomb attack against a top Senate ally of President Alvaro Uribe, saying it was the work of politicians linked to right-wing paramilitary drug smugglers. "Big crimes have big accomplices," said the statement: "In this case it was the result of an immoral marriage of top state officials, politicians and narco-paramilitary bosses," the statement said. Senator Vargas Lleras, who survived the blast, said he suspected it was carried out by political enemies linked to Colombia’s thriving cocaine business. If Uribe is not allowed to run in 2006, Vargas Lleras is likely to run in his place, promising to maintain his policies, Associated Press reports.

·         In a public statement, US-based Colombia Support Network (CSN) deplores the detention of Micoahumado community leaders Isidro Alarcon, Ana Elba Galvis and Laura Cristina Canonico-Pedraza by a battalion of the Colombian army based in Barrancabermeja. The statement denounces that the activities of the paramilitaries in collaboration with Colombian army units have threatened the very democratic process set forth in the Constituent Assembly, and that the Uribe Administration has failed to provide guarantees of safety and protection for the Constituent Assembly proceedings and community leaders. The army's detention of the leaders is the ultimate action in support of paramilitary violence and illegality in the Middle Magdalena region where Micoahumado is located.

Thurs 27 – Scores killed in combats in Choco; FCO raises security advice to Colombia.

·         Dozens of combatants are reportedly dead after combats between the Self-Defence Forces of Colombia and the FARC group near the municipality of San Jose del Palmar in the Choco department. According to the regional Ombudsman Victor Raul Mosquera, both groups are disputing the coca plantations in this area, and dozens of civilians have fled the area, Caracol radio reports.

·         The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office has revised its travel advice for Colombia because of a heightened general threat from ‘local terrorism’. This advice includes a warning against all travel to the southern parts of Meta department and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, which have been added to other parts of the country that people are advised against visiting.  Advice against travel to the Putumayo, Meta, Arauca, Narino, Caqueta and Norte de Santander departments had already been published, along with rural parts of Sucre, Bolivar, Choco, Antioquia, Valle de Cauca and Cauca.