MASSIVE DETENTIONS IN VALLE DEL CAUCA

PERSECUTION AND CRIMINALIZATION OF THE COMMUNITIES
JUNTAS AND CISNEROS, VALLE DEL CAUCA, COLOMBIA

(Translated by Nadya Perez-Reyes, a CSN Translator)

FORMAL PUBLIC COMPLAINT
ABOUT MASSIVE DETENTIONS TO LONG SENTENCING


The Committee in  Solidarity with with the Political Prisoners
Sectional of Valle del Cauca denounce before the national and international
community:

That 23 countrymen, inhabitants of Juntas and Cisneros in the municipality,
Dagua, in Valle del Cauca were subjected by the government to a mass detention
and  prscecusion along with another 29 inhabitants of the region and another
6,300 people throughout the country by the current government.  In this legal action they were accused of supporting guerilla groups.  Although their defense attorneys demonstrated before the Courts that the charges were without merit, the detainees were subjected to an arbitrary detention and a long legal process of two years when they were finally granted their freedom in December 2005, resulting in an acquittal of their first sentence.

It seemed that the nightmare of criminalization by part of the Colombian state had finished, but it turned out that June 1st, 2006, the 23 defendants were sentenced in a second charge to six years for rebellion due to the fact that the District Attorney’s Office was granted an appeal over the decision.  All this occurs when the current government has had to grant freedom to the majority of the 6,300 people detained in massive and arbitrary detentions.  Meanwhile,groups such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Interamerican Commission for Human Rights, the United Nations Arbitary Detention Working Group, and other diverse non-governmental organizations had made vocal to the government of Alvaro Uribe Vélez that the practice of massive detentions goes against the pillars of democracy and the principles of the constitution, in addition to the conventions and treaties about human rights subscribed to by Colombia.

We reiterate that the practice of condemning Colombians without respecting the basic pillars of a Free State such as impartial investigation, objectivity in the analysis of evidence, and respect for the principles of defendant rights when the evidente presents serious doubts against the punishable rights, doesn’t constitute itself into a legitimate practice and adds more so to the deinstitutionalization of the country at the hands of the government.  As a human rights organization we consider this condemnation a political complaint, because part of a persecution and stigmatization directed at an entire community.  This demonstrates the authoritarian mood of the reelected government by using the criminal and jail- system apparatus excessively against men
and women that find themselves permanently subjected to authoritarian controls such as census, photographs, frequent detention without just cause,
threats, and meetings in terrorized environments as actors in the conflict;
violating the principle of present distinction in International Humanitarian
Rights.

Santiago de Cali, Julio 24 de 2006.

Send letters of protest to

Presidential Programs for Human Rights
Dr. Carlos Franco
cefranco@presidencia.gov.co
fibarra@presidencia.gov.co

Procuraduria General de la Nacion
Fr. Eduardo Jose Maya - Villazon
anticorrupcion@presidencia.gov.co

Attorney General
Fr. Mario Iguaran -Arana

contacto@fiscalia.gov.co
denuncie@fiscalia.gov.co

Ombudsman for the People
Dr. Volmar Perez
secretaria_privada@hotmail.com

Presidente Alvaro Uribe Velez
auribe@presidencia.gov.co


United Nations Office for Human Rights in Colombia

oachudh@hchr.org.co

Inter-American Commission of Human Rights
cidhoea@oas.org

Valle del Cauca Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners
csppvalle2@yahoo.es


Colombia Support Network
P.O. Box 1505
Madison, WI  53701-1505
phone:  (608) 257-8753
fax:  (608) 255-6621
e-mail:  csn@igc.org
http://www.colombiasupport.net