Colombia This Week

01/06/2007

Fri 25 – Colombian Congress votes to dismiss Caramagna from OAS mission;

• Lawmakers called for the dismissal of the head of the Organization of American States' peace mission in Colombia, accusing him of standing by as paramilitary warlords held orgies in the government-granted safe haven set aside for peace talks. Congress' lower house voted overwhelmingly to request President Uribe "immediately remove [Sergio Caramagna] for incompetence",. The resolution referred to media reports that paramilitaries held all-night, whisky-fueled orgies with expensive prostitutes; apparently soccer players and famous Mexican mariachi bands also attended. Revelations made by weekly newsmagazine Semana earlier this month also describe how the warlords, -who are accused of being among Colombia's biggest drug-traffickers- spent their days motocross racing, caring for exotic pet tigers and tending to business with unidentified Mexican partners, Associated Press reports.
• Reporters without Borders releases a report about the 30,000 paramilitaries who were once recruited as auxiliaries in the army’s war on far-left guerrillas and who were supposedly “demobilized” by President Uribe in a three-year process ending in March 2006. In fact, very few of these militiamen have been properly reintegrated into civil society and many of them, now involved in drug trafficking, continue to spread terror, especially in the local media. The so-called “demobilized” paramilitaries were responsible for murdering two journalists last year, including Gustavo “El Gaba” Rojas Gabalo of Radio Panzenú on 4 February 2006 in the city of Montería. Re-formed groups such as the “Black Eagles” have a strong presence in the Caribbean coast departments and their operations designed to intimidate the media have forced 10 journalists into internal exile. Then reports about the paramilitaries in no way exonerate the guerrillas of their responsibility in attacks on the press in Colombia. While the National Liberation Army (ELN) has been removed from the Reporters without Borders list of violators of press freedom, as it is now holding peace talks with the government, both the FARC and the paramilitaries are still on the list.

Sat 26 –Refugees attacked in Panama; Retired Army officers detained Colombian

• In the second pre-dawn arson attack in two months in the neighborhood of Curundú left at least 355 people homeless, many of them Colombians displaced by the on-going conflict in their homeland who had sought refuge in Panama. The residents of the district come mainly from the Chocó region of Colombia, a region largely populated by indigenous and populations of African descent.  The neighborhood has become a target of gangs, now believed to be responsible for the two recent early morning fires.  According to Osiris Ábrego, a member of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Panama, these recent destructive acts highlight the physical insecurity faced by the Colombian refugee population in Panama, insecurity that the Panamanian government seems unable or unwilling to mitigate, JRS reports.
• Members of the Colombian Judicial police (CTI) have captured two retired sergeants, Antonio Jimenez Rubay and Ferney Causalla Peña. They have been accused of kidnapping and of forcibly disappearing civilians by authorities carrying out the investigation of the disappearance of 11 people during the so-called “holocaust” of the Justice palace in Bogota, Cacarol radio reports.
• For the FARC, May 25 marked the 43rd anniversary of the battle of Marquetalia, when 42 peasants held off 16,000 soldiers engaged in a “final offensive.” The insurgents, who see the Colombian government as corrupt and subservient to U.S. corporate interests, are looking toward “a space of convergence and unity of all who seek independence and democracy,” according to a statement posted on their website, People’s World Newspaper reports.

Sun 27 – Human Rights defender prosecuted; Three police officers killed in ambush by the FARC

• Ivan Cepeda, a prominent Colombian human rights leader, has been unjustly charged with slander and libel for exposing information about human rights violations implicating government officials. The charges against Ivan appear designed to discredit him and prevent him from performing his vital work in promoting the rights of victims of Colombia's civil war. Throughout his career as human rights defender, Ivan has endured attacks and threats that stigmatize him and are calculated to deter him from carrying out his essential human rights advocacy, US- based Human Rights First reports.
• A patrol of the National Police has been attacked near the border with Ecuador; 3 soldiers were killed and ten others injured. The ambush took place in the rural area of La Victoria and authorities have blamed the FARC group for the attack, Caracol radio reports.

Mon 28 – Threats against lawyer’s collective in Medellin; government hires PR in Washington.

• Members of Colombian Human rights NGO Corporación Jurídica Libertad (CJL), in Medellín have received death threats. On 24 May, a letter addressed to the CJL was reportedly found by the porter of the building where the CJL offices are housed in Medellín. The letter stated: “Under threat of being declared our military target, (…) do not get your CVs and consciences dirty, and above all do not make us get our consciences and our hands dirty with your blood”. CJL has reported the threat to the authorities. The CJL recently published a report on extrajudicial executions in the Antioquia department allegedly carried out by security forces and is campaigning for an end to impunity in these cases, an urgent action of Amnesty International reports.
• The Colombian government is trying to counter its negative image among Washington Democrats and secure congressional passage of a free trade agreement signed by Uribe and the Bush administration last year, a deal Uribe considers his biggest foreign policy achievement. According to Justice Department files, Colombia agreed this month to pay US $300,000 to public relations firm Burson-Marsteller to help "educate members of the U.S. Congress and other audiences" about the trade deal and secure continued U.S. funding for the $5 billion anti-narcotics program Plan Colombia. The files also show that last month Uribe's government put The Glover Park Group, a Washington D.C.-based lobbying firm that includes former Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart, on a $40,000 a month retainer. Details became known after Uribe’s aides in Bogota announced the president would honour former President Clinton for his efforts to reverse the country’s image for violence and drugs at a gala event in 8^th June in New York City, Associated Press reports.

Tues 29 – Protest closes Colombian campuses; President Uribe “keeps distorting figures”.

• Student protests and blockades of buildings forced the suspension of classes on four campuses of Colombia's National University. The latest closures shut down most of the nation's public-university system last week in a controversy over who will pay for major pension costs. University officials' decided in May to suspend classes for two weeks on the four campuses, in Bogotá, Manizales, Medellín, and Palmira. The students oppose the National Development Plan recently approved by the Colombian Congress. They say the plan would cripple the public universities by shifting responsibility for some pension payments for faculty and staff members from the national government to the institutions, forcing them to raise tuition fees, or even go into bankruptcy, Reuters reports.
• President Uribe has been accused this week of repeatedly distorting the figures on the number of trade unionists killed in 2007. José Luciano Sanin, general director of ENS (National Labour School), said that in order to do this President Uribe presents teachers and peasants organized in unions as a category of victims distinct to that of the union sector, when teachers alone make up 30% of the unionized workers in Colombia. But there is more: at a recent press conference Uribe Vélez asserted that only 25 unionists had been murdered the previous year, and in so doing ignored the other 55 unionists murdered in 2006.. According to the ENS, more unionists were murdered last year than in 2005. Specifically, from January 1, 2006, to November 20, 2006, 72 unionists were murdered in Colombia, which implies a 6% increase compared to the 67 murdered the year before. It should be stressed that most of these homicides are registered as common crimes and often presented as a consequence of personal or romantic disputes, the ENS said.

Weds 30 – Msgr. Castro rejects amnesty for jailed politicians; Indigenous safer in Panama

• The President of Colombian Bishops Conference, Monsignor Castro rejected the recent proposal made by President Uribe to free politicians who acted on behalf of paramilitaries in the Colombian Congress.    ‘It is important to proceed normally through the justice system in these cases, to avoid the perception that there is impunity in judging these practices’. On the decision made by the government to unilaterally free hundreds of guerrilla prisoners from jail next week, Monsignor hoped the decision was related to the hoped-for liberation of 56 kidnapped prisoners by the FARC. He reiterated, the Catholic Church’s willingness to facilitate any humanitarian accord between the parts, El Tiempo reports.

• A year after they fled Colombia, 11 families of the Wounaan indigenous group became the first indigenous to be granted refugee status in Panama. They have found a home in the small Vista Allegre river settlement in the Darien Gap, -a large swath of jungle separating Panama and Colombia. The Wounaan odyssey began in April last year, when they fled their ancestral land in Colombia after an irregular armed group killed two of the community's members. Reachable only by small boats, Vista Allegre consists of a few wooden huts built on stilts, one school and a tiny shop. Home to some 150 people before the Wounaans' arrival, the community is now going through a population boom, the UN agency for Refugees (UNHCR) reports.

Thurs 31 – 3 more Congressmen linked to scandal; Uribe to free FARC prisoners unilaterally

• The Colombian Supreme Court has linked another three Congressmen, (among them, the President of the Ethical Commission of the Colombian Congress) to the investigations it is carrying out on the nexus between legislators and leading paramilitary commanders. The decision affects Oscar Wilches, Hector Alfonso Lopez and Fernando Tafur. At present, 13 Congressmen, -all but one Uribe supporters in Congress- are jailed and one more is fugitive, RCN radio reports.
• President Uribe, who has a well-earned reputation as a hard-liner, says that by next Thursday he is going to free, unilaterally, hundreds of guerrillas held in government prisons. By so doing, he hopes to stimulate an exchange for a much smaller number of hostages held for years in jungle prisons by leftist rebels. Coming from him, the move is a positive gesture, an answer to critics who believe he is not interested in pursuing peace and is partial to right-wing paramilitaries, Agency France Press reports.
• Speaking to the press in Medellin, Senator Piedad Cordoba reported that the FARC was due to liberate Ingrid Betancourt, Clara Rojas and her son during the next few days, ‘as an act of good will’. She also said that the liberation of FARC members from jail announced by President Uribe would be accompanied by the declaration of a state of internal commotion after the FARC liberates the three American soldiers held prisoners, Efe reports.

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